› added 6 years ago

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TIL Sacha Baron Cohen left the Freddie Mercury biopic over creative differences with Queen; he was told Mercury died in the middle of the film. Impressed, he thought they meant a non-linear story structure like Pulp Fiction but realized the second half would be how the band “carried on.”

D1GDv TIL about the Bal des Ardents, or the Ball of the Burning Men, a masquerade ball in France in 1393. During the ball, four dancers burned alive when a spectator accidentally brought a torch and set their costumes on fire.
YpV6v TIL that dragonfly-like Meganeuropsis permiana which flew around 300 million years ago was 1.5 feet long with a wingspan of 2.5 feet. The biggest insect that has ever existed. If we cloned one today, it would probably suffocate because it needed the 30% Oxygen atmosphere present then (20% now).
M7A1m TIL about Ruth Harkness, the chain-smoking American heiress who brought the first live panda out of China
dAKQ TIL that during the recording of Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast”, unexplained phenomena occurred. This all climaxed when the producer, Martin Birch, was involved in a car accident with a mini-bus transporting a group of nuns, after which he was presented with a repair bill for £666.
jN55X TIL the Bay of Pigs in Cuba is called "Bahía de Cochinos" in Spanish, cochino being a common fish in the area. Cochino can also be used as an insult in Cuban Spanish very similarly to how "pig" is used as an insult in English, leading to the mistranslation.