Depending on where you live, you may have noticed that coupons have small print stating they are worth some fraction of a penny, usually something like 1/100th or 1/20th of a penny. In truth, the coupons really are worth this and if you wanted, you could redeem them for their cash value. Of course, you’d need a large quantity of […]
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This isn’t just a popular metaphor, it’s actually true. One bad apple will absolutely quickly spoil an entire box of apples. The obvious way this can happen is simply if one of the apples is infested with some fungi or critters that reproduce and spread throughout all the apples in a box, ruining them as they go. The less obvious, […]
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This is an excerpt from our new book: The Wise Book of Whys, available in: Print | Kindle | Nook | Audiobook The earliest documented reference to New York being referred to as “The Big Apple” comes from a 1909 book by Edward Martin, called The Wayfarer. In it, he uses the moniker in a metaphorical sense, rather than a […]
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Find more “interesting fact” videos on our YouTube Channel here If you liked this video, you might also enjoy: Why Superheroes Wear Their Underwear on the Outside The Origin and Meanings of 9 Pirate Words and Expressions How the Word “Spam” Came to Mean “Junk Message” 10 Interesting Star Trek Facts The Guy Who Played Luke Skywalker Has Played the […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why Buffalo Wings Are Called That Unsurprisingly, neither the origin of the name nor the food item itself have anything to do with actual buffalo, nor American Bison which many people call buffalo even though they are not. Rather, this tasty item […]
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We owe this unit of engine power measurement to Scottish engineer James Watt. In the early 1780s, after making a vastly superior steam engine to the then classic Newcomen steam engine, Watt was looking for a way to market his invention, advertising the fact that his engine used about 75% less fuel than a similarly powered Newcomen, among many other […]
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You might be surprised to learn that this staple of Major League Baseball games is actually something of a modern practice, first starting as a regular part of the seventh inning stretch with the White Sox in the late 1970s, thanks to Hall of Fame broadcaster Harry Carabina, better known as Harry Caray. Before this, the song had occasionally been […]
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This is an excerpt from our new book: The Wise Book of Whys, available in: Print | Kindle | Nook | Audiobook One Moon “day” is approximately 29 1/2 Earth days. This rotation coincides with its orbit around the Earth so that we only see about 59% of the surface of the Moon from Earth. When the Moon first formed, […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Difference Between Brown and White Eggs There are all sorts of rumours surrounding brown eggs and white eggs. Some people say that brown eggs are better for you and contain more nutrients; some people think brown eggs taste better; some think […]
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This term was named after a nineteenth century Englishman, Captain Charles C. Boycott (who originally had the surname “Boycatt,” but the family changed the spelling when he was nine years old). If you guessed that at a certain point Captain Boycott became quite unpopular with the masses, you’re correct. Shortly before Boycott would find himself boycotted, the situation in Ireland […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. When a Tulip Cost More than a House Despite how it sounds, “Tulipmania” does not refer to just a general love of tulips; it was actually one the world’s first recorded major financial bubbles. Long before the dot com frenzy or the […]
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Despite being just 8 weeks old, our new Daily Knowledge Podcast has just passed 500K downloads. These days it’s also pushing over 16K downloads per day and rising every week. Further, it has ranked as high as #13 overall on iTunes among all podcasts. 🙂 If you haven’t given it a listen, check it out here. You can also subscribe […]
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Making copies of architectural drawings hasn’t always been the easiest thing in the world to do. For the majority of human history, the most economical solution was simply to have someone make a tracing of the original plans. In the mid-nineteenth century, the process abruptly became much quicker and easier thanks to famed polymath Sir John Herschel. In 1842, Herschel […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why There Is No E in the A-F Grading Scale Some schools do hand out E letter grades instead of an F, but they are in the minority. A majority of schools in the United States, particularly beyond primary age, give grades […]
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For those interested in nerding up your wardrobe, our good friends over at Neatorama are currently running a “Geeky T-Shirt” sale in the ever popular NeatoShop. You can check it out here.
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Woman Who Survived All Three Disasters Aboard the Sister Ships: the Titanic, Britannic, and Olympic Violet Jessop enjoyed incredible “luck” from a young age. Born in 1887 in Argentina to Irish immigrants, she contracted tuberculosis as a young child and was […]
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I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for reading Today I Found Out, and update you on a few kind of cool things that have happened the last month on the site. First, we published a book, The Wise Book of Whys (available in Print | Kindle | Nook | Audiobook), which has been steadily gaining on the […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. What Causes Red Eyes In Photographs Today I Found Out what makes your eyes red in flash photographs. Simply put, that crazy zombie look people tend to get, as if they are about to use you as a pre-lunch snack, has to […]
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