Born into a poor peasant family in a foreign land, no one had worse odds to become the ruler of the Byzantine Empire than Basil. Yet, through a combination of hard work, scheming, murder and competence, Basil ascended to the Byzantine throne and enjoyed 19 years of relatively peaceful rule. Authorities disagree over when and where Basil was born. Some […]
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Myth: Injecting medicine straight into your heart can be beneficial in some way. Ah, the dramatic scene that ends with an actor stabbing a needle straight into their heart, narrowly escaping death and magically curing whatever ailment just befell them. While very dramatic, it’s also very untrue and an exceptionally bad idea if your goal is to get better. In […]
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Today in History: September 30, 1955 In just over the course of a year and with only a grand total of three films to his credit, James Dean managed to achieve an unparalleled iconic status. He became the personification of the cool, rebellious visionary who made adolescence appear as a hero’s journey rather than an awkward and unwelcome rite of […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. How a Wife Beating, Serial Killer Puppet Gave Us the Expression “Pleased as Punch” As a child you might have wondered how a bowl of punch could be pleased about anything. Turns out, the saying has nothing to do with the drink. […]
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meunierd / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 661: Edgar Allen Poe married his first cousin, Virginia Clemm , when he was 26 and she 13. She died just 11 years later, inspiring some of his more famous poems, such as “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee”. A friend of Poe’s, Charles Burr, wrote, “Many times, after the death of his beloved wife, […]
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So ubiquitous in today’s political discourse, many assume that the red state/blue state distinction has been around as long as we have had Republicans and Democrats. In fact, the opposite is true – the dichotomy is relatively young, having only become settled with the Presidential election of 2000. The Color of Political Parties In order to make political reporting more […]
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Eric asks: Who invented the food pyramid? The very first “food pyramid” was a Swedish invention and it was an invention of necessity more than anything else. Back in 1970s, Sweden saw its country gripped by high food prices. The government then tasked The Socialstyrelsen (National Board of Health and Welfare) with coming up with a way to help the […]
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Today in History: September 27, 1779 For the purpose of negotiating treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War, John Adams was appointed on this day in history by the Continental Congress as minister plenipotentiary, and sent to France to carry out his duties. Adams had traveled to Paris once before; he had tried to […]
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Embed This Infographic [Source: Today I Found Out] For Part 1 of this series go here: 12 Fascinating Food Facts For Part 2 of this series go here: 10 Fascinating Food Facts (Part-2) For Part 3 of this series go here: 10 More Fascinating Food Facts (Part-3) For Part 4 of this series go here: 10 Fascinating Food Facts (Part-4)
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Today I found out about the Olowalu Massacre. In 1789, Captain Simon Metcalfe and his son Thomas set off on a fur trading mission in two ships, the Eleanora and the Fair American. The ships were separated when the Fair American was captured by the Spanish and taken briefly to Mexico, but the two captains had agreed to a rendezvous […]
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After being invaded by Germany in the west and later by Soviet Russia in the east, the Polish government fled Warsaw but continued to fight from abroad. After Germany attacked Russia, the Russians decided to release their Polish prisoners of war, who then began re-forming into an army. In April 1942, several of these Polish units landed in Persia and […]
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Today in History: September 26, 1960 For the very first time, a debate between U.S. presidential candidates was broadcast on television for the consideration of the American people. The two presidential hopefuls were a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts named John. F. Kennedy, and the Vice-President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. Kennedy went into the debate with several disadvantages. […]
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Imagine. There you are, trying to stay in shape. Going to one of your local Pilates classes, and while performing what is known as a Valsalva maneuver, your body suddenly swallows one of your breasts! As fate would have it, we don’t need to just imagine. We can ask a 59 year old from Maryland who had that very thing […]
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Myth: People convicted of witchcraft were burned at the stake during the Salem Witch Trials When you think about people disposing of witches a few hundred years ago, you probably imagine a woman tied to a stake jutting up from a pile of smoking wood. The burning of witches has become so ingrained in witch-hunt canon that it’s a cliché. […]
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Long ago, in the region surrounding Nevsehir and Kayseri, in central Turkey, an ancient people built, or rather dug, over 200 underground cities. The deepest of these, under the present day town of Derinkuyu, delves over 250 feet below the Earth’s surface, and boasts numerous tunnels, halls, meeting rooms, wells and passages. Because the city was carved from existing caves […]
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Today in History: September 25, 1970 On Friday night at 8:30 p.m., after the popular show “The Brady Bunch,” ABC premiered a program that would give the production company Screen Gems its second show that proved to be hit with both TV and music audiences. Screen Gems enjoyed immense success with its first big smash “The Monkees,” and when it […]
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Today I found out about the amazing life of Roy Chapman Andrews. From the picture there on the right, you might mistake Andrews for Indiana Jones. In fact, Roy Chapman Andrews’ life is like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, but without the Nazis. Not surprising, since it has been widely speculated that he was the man who Indiana […]
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Harmony Gerber / Shutterstock.com Chris Harvey / Shutterstock.com miker / Shutterstock.com Photo by flipchip / LasVegasVegas.com Text Version- Fact 651: “Here Comes Dots” is an anagram of “The Morse Code” Fact 652: The film “The Day After Tomorrow” could have been more succinctly titled “Overmorrow”, which is the English word for the day after tomorrow, first popping up in English […]
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