› added 9 years ago

157

TIL Buster Keaton (“a master of conveying action through imagery alone”) and Charlie Chaplin had a friendly rivalry over who could use the fewest intertitles in their silent movies. Typical silents averaged 240 intertitles. Chaplin won with a low of 21; Buster got as low as 23.

Read more slate.com

via reddit.com

OoNg6 TIL that in 2020 Sweden discovered that one of their intelligence officers, who had worked at NATO HQ, and was the FSB liaison, had been faking his credentials for 18 years and was not in fact a Major in the Swedish Army.
Y84v TIL approximately 90% of all gunpowder used by the Patriots during the American Revolution was supplied by France.
M7OdB TIL Jeff Bezos' salary as Amazon CEO was always $81,840. His wealth is largely tied to his 11% ownership of Amazon stock which originally cost $18 a share.
QNPQE TIL the rat filmed breathing liquid in The Abyss (1989) was really done, and not an effect. The rat is filmed in an emulsion of oxygenated perfluorocarbon emulsion, aka "breathing liquid"
W7GMN TIL that “bookworms” aren’t just a term for readers—bookworms are actual bugs that used to burrow into ancient books, damaging them by eating the binding glue and paper fibers.