Did you know ...

• Reverend Mother Superior Dolores Hart is the only nun to be an Academy Award-voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?
• bankers, airline executives, Academy Award-winning directors, Bob Geldof and a representative from Coca-Cola were among delegates who attended the Global Irish Economic Forum in September 2009?
• before Danish director Bille August made his Oscar-winning Pelle the Conqueror, he had great domestic success with the children's television series and movie Busters verden?
• The Silent World, an Academy Award winning documentary film by Jacques Cousteau, was the first film to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color?
• Samson was made by Academy Award winning Polish director Andrzej Wajda and blends the Biblical tale of Samson with his Holocaust coming-of-age story?
• Nancy Olson was nominated for an Oscar for playing the "good" girl in Sunset Boulevard shortly after being considered for the role of the temptress Delilah in the film Samson and Delilah?
• Sewall Pettingill studied the last three Heath Hens, and later assisted in filming four Walt Disney nature films, one of which won an Academy Award?
• Ronald Bass, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Rain Man, taught himself to read by the age of three?
• by the end of its second year in business, Participant Media's films had been nominated for 11 Academy Awards?
• director and writer Juanita Wilson spent time in "the most radioactive place on earth" while working on her debut Academy Award-nominated short film?
• the documentary film Aliens of the Deep by Academy Award winner James Cameron and Steven Quale was made using footage of at least 40 deep sea dives in both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean?
• the Historic-Cultural Monuments in South Los Angeles include Ray Charles' recording studio, a stadium that hosted two Summer Olympics (pictured), and an early home of the Oscar ceremonies?
• the first comprehensive campaign of unionized labor was the subject of the 1979 Academy Award-winning film Norma Rae?
• singer Maureen McGovern was a secretary before she was signed to perform the Academy Award-winning song "The Morning After"?
• producer Daniel Melnick's films won more than 20 Academy Awards out of 80 nominations, while his play Kelly closed after only one night on Broadway?
• every film which actor John Cazale starred in received an Academy Award nomination for best picture?
• for actress KaDee Strickland's role in The Grudge, she was inspired by Jane Fonda's Academy Award-winning performance in the 1971 film Klute?
• Kot Filemon is the hero of a Polish animated TV series by Academy Award-winning studio Se-ma-for?
• Ewelme Cottage was used in the production for the 1993 Oscar-winning film The Piano?
• Academy Award-nominee Tamara Jenkins spent time at Yaddo, the artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, to write her screenplay for The Savages?
• Oscar-winning executive producer Randy Stone co-founded The Trevor Project, which provided the first 24-hour, toll-free suicide prevention hotline aimed at gay and questioning youth in the United States?
• film editor Sam O'Steen collaborated on twelve films by Mike Nichols, earning Academy Award editing nominations for Silkwood and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf??
• Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Nancy Oliver considered leaving show business shortly before being offered her first full-time position writing for Six Feet Under?
• Academy Award-winning film Thirty Seconds over Tokyo was adapted from a book by the pilot of "The Ruptured Duck," one of 16 USAAF bombers in the Doolittle Raid on Japan during World War II?
• Academy Award winner Glen Hansard was a regular visitor to Dublin's Road Records store before its closure in January 2009?
• Academy Award winner Going My Way was filmed at St. Monica's (pictured), and the irascible old Irish priest character was based on its pastor?
• Golden Raspberry Awards founder John Wilson's marketing work has included publicity for the Academy Awards?
• J. D. Chakravarthy's Telugu film Homam drew inspiration from Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning film The Departed?
• Ern Westmore was the only member of the famed Westmore family to be given a special Academy Award for make-up, bestowed for his work on the film Cimarron?
• Henny Moan acted in the Oscar-nominated Ni liv, later named the best film in the history of Norwegian cinema?
• Jimmy McHugh was nominated five times for an Academy Award for Best Song, but never won?
• Arthur Wimperis, after a career as a songwriter and librettist for British musical comedies, became an Academy Award-winning screenwriter in Hollywood, surviving a torpedo attack to get there?
• Alfred Hayes, author of the poem "Joe Hill", was also a novelist and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter whose credits ranged from Italian neorealism to the American TV series Mannix?
• Madeline Kahn made her screen debut in De Düva, an Academy Award-nominated short comedy that parodied the films of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman?
• Irish broadcaster John Creedon is set to learn a musical instrument alongside Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons?
• Academy Award nominated screenwriter Ivan Moffat was the grandson of Victorian actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree?