Post * vEJ7 — Curious Curator

› added 10 years ago

154

TIL James Gandolfini bought 450 watches — 40 of which made of gold — for the cast and crew of The Sopranos at the end of the serie. Total retail value: 2 million USD.

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kJ6PW TIL of Harry Hopkins, FDR's closest confidant and right-hand man in World War II. In 1939, he suffered from stomach cancer and lost 75% of his stomach in an operation. Told that he had only four weeks to live, Hopkins suffered through poor health to work throughout World War II, and died in 1946.

WkL7B TIL Brandenn E. Bremmer was a musical prodigy who taught himself to read at 18 months and played the piano at age 3 He completed high school at age 10 and commited suicide at 14.

BrGDK TIL Critics responded negatively to the use of nudity in the pilot episode of Stargate SG1, which was filmed at Showtime's insistence. Those scenes were cut or edited in future releases on DVD and TV.

wLx0Y TIL that while the Romans used concrete extensively in building their structures, the recipe was lost after the Fall of the Roman Empire, partially contributing to the Dark Ages. It wasn't reinvented until the late 19th century.

epAE TIL in 1910, Norman Angell (a future Nobel Price Peace Winner) published a book that propagated the view that Europe had become so economically interlaced that future war was impossible.