Brad Pitt suffered an ironic injury on a film set. In Troy, based on Homer’s Illiad, Pitt plays the brave (and buff) Greek hero Achilles. Legend has it that Achilles could not be defeated unless hit in his heel. (It’s where we get the term “Achilles’ heel,” meaning a vulnerable point.) While filming an epic battle scene, Pitt ironically hurt his Achilles tendon—an injury that set back the film’s production by two months.
100 Mind-Blowing Plays Facts
You can’t move or touch William Shakespeare’s bones. William Shakespeare’s legacy doesn’t stop at his plays and how many words he created – but even in the afterlife, he leaves a lasting display of his wit. Buried in 1616, the playwright was said to have written his tombstone inscription which reads: “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forebearer, To digg the dust enclosed heare; Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.”
The creators of Stranger Things wanted to direct the It remake. The Duffer Brothers wanted to direct the 2017 remake of It, but the film wasn’t given to them because they weren’t established enough. However, they ended up creating Stranger Things (2016), which co-stars Finn Wolfhard (who plays Richie in It).
A Lord of the Rings actor would rather hike up a whole mountain than ride a helicopter. One of the things that makes Lord of the Rings lore so rich is the immersive environment of the story’s settings. While shooting the films, the cast had to fly to remote locations via helicopter. Sean Bean, who plays Boromir (and Ned Stark in Game of Thrones) was afraid of flight, and would only do it if he had no choice. During the shootings for the Fellowship crossing snowy mountains, he’d climb for two hours every morning to get to the set. He would make the climb already dressed as Boromir.
People only clap for theatrical plays and concerts in Germany.
Antarctica is home to the largest ice sheet on Earth. More than six times as large as Greenland, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is the coldest and windiest place on Earth – with temperatures that can drop as low as -89.2°C and winds that can exceed 320 km per hour. Antarctica is home to the largest ice sheet on Earth, containing a staggering 30 million cubic kilometres of ice. This represents an incredible 70% of Earth’s freshwater and 90% of its ice. As a result, changes to the Antarctic ice sheet can have significant implications for global sea levels and ocean currents. Monitoring the Antarctic ice sheet is therefore of paramount importance and satellite data plays a crucial role in this effort. Data from satellites such as CryoSat, ESA’s ice mission, allow scientists to track changes in the thickness and movement of the ice sheet over time, providing insights into how it is responding to a changing climate. ESA has recently teamed up with NASA and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) to carry out an ambitious campaign in Antarctica which involved taking simultaneous measurements of sea ice from ESA’s CryoSat and NASA’s ICESat-2 satellites. This research is essential for informing policy decisions on issues such as climate change and sea level rise, and for developing strategies to mitigate their impact on coastal communities around the world.
Every April Fool’s Day, YouTube plays a prank on its millions of users.