› added 12 years ago

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TIL that the death star trench sequence in Star Wars was inspired by the RAF dam busting missions during WW2

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EMvd TIL the line “Ideas are peaceful, history is violent” in Fury was ad-libbed by Brad Pitt.
QR06 TIL George Ferris died from tuberculosis at age 37, just three years after he invented the Ferris Wheel. Since the Chicago World’s Fair staked a claim to most of the proceeds and economic recession crippled his business, the funeral home held onto his ashes because no one paid the balance due.
wopJ TIL - Johnny Carson was an amateur astronomer and was the first person to contact Sagan’s wife with condolences when he died in 1996.
d8GjE TIL: J.R.R Tolkien was rejected for a Nobel Prize, in 1961, on the grounds of his poor storytelling.
O1dR TIL of the last Kauaʻi ʻōʻō bird, who was recorded singing a mating call to a female that would never come. It died in 1987.