› added 8 years ago

1092

TIL that several months before Russell Crowe won the Oscar for Gladiator, the FBI warned him that the al-Qaeda were planning to kidnap him as part of a “cultural destabilization plot”. For nearly two years, the FBI guarded Crowe in public and refused to give him any details about the threat.

Read more vanityfair.com

via reddit.com

WkG5o TIL about the Victoria Hall disaster where 183 children died in a theater stampede because an exit door was locked. The disaster led to the invention of 'push bar' emergency exits.
mxGxO TIL That the little blob on your toothpaste actually has a name. It's called a nurdle and Colgate and Glaxo had a lawsuit over who would be allowed to show it in their advertising
yV9wV TIL that when Rob Reiner approached Mark Knopfler to do the soundtrack to "The Princess Bride" (1987), Knopfler agreed on one condition; that Reiner would include the hat he wore in "This is Spinal Tap" (1984) somewhere in the film. The cap appears in several shots in Fred Savage's bedroom
GAXOG TIL New Zealand rock band changed their name from Shihad to Pacifer in Jan 2002 to avoid being mistaken for the term Jihad which was a term heard often due to the events of 9/11. 'Shihad' had not long attempted to break into the American market when the attacks took place.
8a4VG TIL: When Lawrence of Arabia was killed in a motorcycle accident in May 1935, his doctor, Hugh Cairns, realized that his life might have been saved had Lawrence been wearing a helmet. Cairns introduced crash helmets for military dispatch riders, thereby reducing fatalities by 50%.