Odd factoids

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Bonefish Blues

Banging donk
Location
52 Festive Road
Leonardo da Vinci invented an anti gravity machine so he could paint the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.
I see that you have swallowed the popular myth there. In fact he had the builders build the chapel upside down so it was easy to paint, and then reassemble it the correct way up. LdV (after whom the vans are named, incidentally) said that next time he would have been better advised to invent said anti-gravity device as it would have been less hassle.
Another avenue he tried was an early predecessor of the Marty McFly hoverboard, but unfortunately the Italian MOT authority of the time weren't keen, so it lay unused for several centuries until Robert Zemeckis found it in his shed.
Funny how things work out.
 

bruce1530

Guru
Location
Ayrshire
Da Vinci designed the Sistine Chapel to be supported on a large axle, precisely at the balance point. It can be rotated through 180 degrees by winding a small brass handle, which is concealed behind Michaelangelo’s portrait of Sofia Loren.

The chapel is traditionally rotated at the start of every Pope’s reign, enabling the Cardinals to give the ceiling a fresh coat of magnolia to welcome the new Pontiff.

Following the unfortunate incident when the chapel was rotated with Pope Kevin III inside, his successor Pope Margaret VII requested that a safety interlock be fitted. The Pope always wears the key to the interlock on his ring finger.
 
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Drago

Legendary Member
Gene Roddenberry wanted to write a romantic drama, so was mightily aggrieved when the studio commissioned him to pen a sci fi series. Needing the money Roddenbery had no choice but to accept, but the named it Star Trek, trek being the word for 'turd' in his native Inuit tongue.
 

classic33

Leg End Member
“Red-shirting” became a Star Trek slang word for an extra who was killed to demonstrate the danger the main characters were in. The extra almost always wore a red uniform. In tribute to the original series’ “red-shirting,” red-shirted Chief Engineer Olsen in Star Trek (2009) meets his death during an orbital skydive onto a drilling platform while Kirk and Sulu survive.
 
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