When Disney bought Lucasfilm, they cancelled an upcoming animated Star Wars series which starred, among others, Weird Al Yankovic. They had already made 39 episodes comprising two seasons.

In 1998, elementary students in Aurora, Colorado started buying slaves in Sudan to free them, this gained global attention with schools in other countries starting slave buyback programs until it became clear that the money was just helping slavery grow.

During a heated discussion in the Roman Senate, Julius Caesar received a letter. His fierce opponent Cato, thinking it would incriminate Caesar, had the letter read. It was a love letter from Cato's sister.

In 1915 a three minute, long distance phone call cost the equivalent of $500 in today’s money.

Schools have used infant simulator dolls which are designed to behave like real babies by crying, burping, and requiring 'feeding' and diapering, to try to deter teen pregnancy. A 2016 study found that teen girls in schools that used the dolls were about 36% more likely to get pregnant by age 20.

In September 2020, the last Blockbuster video rental store, which is located in Bend, Oregon, hosted 1990s-themed sleepovers via Airbnb for $4 a night.

Trains have tanks of sand with tubes that shoot sand under each wheel to create friction so the train accelerates more efficiently

American athlete Florence Griffith Joyner is the fastest woman ever recorded. The record is still standing after 35 years. She passed away at the age of 38.

From 1961 to 1993, 6 out of the 7 US Presidents were navy veterans.

When a Manhattan Project scientist was asked to calculate whether a human being could survive exposure to a very high dose of radiation, she only learned later that the person that had received the dose was her husband.

The architect Rafael Viñoly was responsible for not just one, but two different buildings that thanks to their curved facade would turn into death rays when the sun shines on them.

Kiera Knightley was only 17 during filming for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Love Actually.

The Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León was killed after being struck by an arrow poisoned with manchineel sap. A present-day Spanish name is manzanilla de la muerte, "little apple of death". This refers to the fact that manchineel is one of the most toxic trees in the world.

Henry VIII's doctors were too scared to tell him he was dying while he was on his deathbed because of the Treason Act forbidding anyone from speculating about the King's death. The Archbishop was the one who had to break the news.

After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, engineers carried diesel fuel up 17 flights of stairs in buckets to keep the generators running to power a data center.

Campbell Soup considered litigation against Andy Warhol's soup can paintings but instead embraced them.

A man didn't know that he got drafted by the NFL. The Philadelphia Eagles drafted Norm Michael of Syracuse University in 1944, but could not reach him as he had already enlisted in the US Army. Michael only learned what had happened in 1999, when reading about other Syracuse NFL players.

WW2 sunken ships are being "grave robbed" due to their incredibly valuable steel.

Scottish/Canadian man Angus MacAskill is thought to be the tallest "true" giant (not abnormal height due to a pathological condition) in history. He stood 7'9" tall, had an 80" chest (also a record) 44" shoulders and weighed 510lbs.

Original voice actor for Porky Pig was fired due to stuttering.

Neil Armstrong was filmed as he stepped on the moon with a $2.3 million upside-down camera. Westinghouse built for Apollo 11 a special model that the astronaut deployed by pulling a handle near the ladder he climbed down onto the lunar surface. NASA inverted the image for the TV audience.

In 1957 Little Richard enrolled in Oakwood College for the ministry. He told all the students he didn’t want them listening to his “devil” music and wanted buy his records back for more than the original price in order to burn them in a bonfire.

In the early days of Amazon, Jeff Bezos instituted a "two-pizza rule": every internal team should be small enough that it can be fed with two pizzas. The reason was that a smaller team spends less time managing timetables and keeping people up to date, and more time doing what needs to be done.

On the set of Jaws, Spielberg invited George Lucas to see the mechanical shark still in development. Lucas playfully stuck his head in its mouth, and Spielberg clamped it shut, leaving Lucas stuck. They snuck out of the workshop thinking they broke the contraption after eventually freeing him.

The first Japanese person to be sent to space was Toyohiro Akiyama. Known as "The Space Antihero", Akiyama was not a trained astronaut, scientist nor engineer and spent his time in space craving cigarettes.

Capybara are eaten during Lent in Venezuela because they are considered “fish” by the Vatican.

In 2018, a UK school began enforcing a policy that banned all students from carrying backpacks after two students and a staff member were injured by students carrying book bags that were slung over their shoulders. As a protest, a student carried his books to school using a microwave.

About an ancient African tradition where a murderer was punished by an assassin running into him with a spear which had meat on it. The murderer kept his mouth open. The murder victim's family decides if the murderer is killed by the spear or fed the meat (forgiven).

Only the Special Editions of the original Star Wars trilogy were given to the National Film Registry despite the Library of Congress wanting the originals because George Lucas hates those versions. In fact, he had delayed in handing the Registry A New Hope until the Special Edition was made.

How lethal American submarines were during WWII. They destroyed 55% of all Axis power warships lost over the course of the war.