› added 4 years ago

214

TIL that leftist mural artist Diego Rivera was commissioned to paint a mural in the lobby of Rockefeller Center. His mural included a portrait of Lenin, leading the Rockefellers to cancel the commission and destroy the unfinished mural. Rivera later recreated the piece in Mexico.

Read more diegorivera.org

via reddit.com

ANmlg TIL that while production of "The Big Sleep" had concluded during World War II, scenes with Lauren Bacall were added in postwar reshoots following her marriage to the film's star Humphrey Bogart, with the hopes of enhancing the movie with their on-screen chemistry.
5YZ9Q TIL that there is a star called "UY Scuti" with a diameter 1,700 times larger than that of the Sun's. It's so big that if placed at the center of our solar system its surface would reach past the the orbit of Jupiter and it would take a commercial airliner over 1,000 years to fly around it.
jJxX TIL a Chechen nationalist group took an entire school hostage in the town of Beslan, which resulted in the death of over 300 people, including children. This group has been increasingly associated with major jihadist/terrorist groups in the Middle East and remains prevalent in the world to this day.
jNPnj TIL Herbert Hoover was so fat that his doctor invented Hooverball, where "On a tennis-like court, two teams of three players throw a 6-pound medicine ball back and forth over an 8-foot net." Hoover lost 21 pounds in his term.
xVnPo Today I learned,that in December of 1963 Pan Am flight 214 was struck by lightning and crashed near Elkton Maryland,killing everyone on board.