› added 7 years ago

140

TIL that on April 18 1930 the BBC reported that there was no news. They then played out with piano music

6ERPY TIL Ian Fleming took the name for his James Bond character from an ornithologist James Bond. He explained to the real Bond's wife he needed unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name. The real Bond did not learn of the identity theft until the early 1960s when the 007 books became popular.
epyv4 TIL Dealey Plaza in Dallas remains virtually unchanged since 1963. There is a proposal to make Elm Street into a pedestrian promenade since tourists often wander onto the painted X where Kennedy was shot as well as an amphitheater for visitors to contemplate the assassination site
9wwVp TIL about glass sponges, once thought to be extinct for over 100 million years and only recently rediscovered in the last 25 years living on reefs of themselves at depths of 450m to 900m. It's thought they could live up to 40k years, because of changing levels in seas most probably ONLY live 15k yrs
LQ6XZ TIL following the success of the National Lampoon's Animal House, Mad magazine lent its name to the comedy film, Up the Academy but it was such a commercial and critical failure that Mad arranged for all references to the magazine to be removed from future TV and video releases of the film.
7XO7 TIL that Doctors once worried about ‘elevator sickness,’ caused by the sudden movement of one’s organs inside the body when an elevator came to a halting stop