› added 11 years ago

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TIL that as a youth, George R.R Martin wrote stories about a mythical kingdom in which his pet turtles resided; he decided, since the turtles frequently died in their toy castle, that they were the victims of “sinister plots” designed by the others. Game of Turtles, indeed.

4k8Eg TIL of the "Dawson Film Find". 1900s Dawson was a remote gold rush town with a cinema. Film's sent there were never returned, accumulated, buried, covered by a hockey rink and forgotten. Years later diggers unearthed the 533 reels of lost films, and rare footage, including the 1919 World Series.
R0Vj TIL The oft-cited statistic that 50% of marriages fail only applies to marriages before age 20. For older ages, it’s significantly lower, at 34% before age 23 and 14% before age 26.
vPLXx TIL during the French Revolution, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, changed his name to "Citizen Égalité", advocated against absolute monarchy, and in the National Convention, voted to guillotine Louis XVI. Despite this, he still executed in 1793 during Reign of Terror as an enemy of the republic.
v1aK8 TIL that Americans threw $8.5m worth of silver coins into the sea before the fall of the Philippines. American and Filipino POW divers were coerced by the Japanese to recover it but they sabotaged the operation by secretly appropriating some portions of the haul to fund the Philippine Resistance.
VM9A0 TIL that in Bugattis world record video of the Chiron going from 0-400kmph-0, the one-shot scene of the car accelerating was achieved by simply using another Bugatti Chiron as the camera car because nothing else on set was fast enough to record the shot.