Author Archives: Emily Upton

Who Invented Braille?

Noah K. asks: Who invented braille? Braille was invented by a nineteenth century man named Louis Braille, who was completely blind. Braille’s story starts when he was three years old. He was playing in his father’s shop in Coupvray, France, and somehow managed to injure his eye. Though he was offered the best medical attention available at the time, it […]

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The Colfax Massacre of 1873

In the early days of the United States, cotton and tobacco crops on the east coast are remembered as big contributors to the ongoing slave trade. Meanwhile, the sugar cane plantations in Louisiana are often forgotten. Because of the back-breaking work of maintaining the sugar cane crops, white settlers started importing African slaves to do the work for them. It […]

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The Man Who Held Off Six Enemy Tanks and Several Waves of Infantry for an Hour By Firing on Them While Standing Atop a Burning Tank

Today I found out about Audie Murphy, the most decorated U.S. World War II veteran. Murphy was born on June 20, 1925 in Texas. His family was extremely poor, partially due to having twelve young mouths to feed. When his father abandoned the family when Audie was fifteen years old, he was forced to pick up some of the slack […]

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Why School Buses Are Yellow and Why They Don’t Typically Have Seatbelts

Today I found out why school buses are yellow. An estimated twenty-six million students in the United States alone are transported to school every school day via bus—over half the student population in the country. While school buses in countries outside of North America usually look like any other buses, North American school buses are distinctive for their yellow colour. […]

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When Michelle Pfeiffer Joined the Breatharians Cult

When actress Michelle Pfeiffer was just starting out in Hollywood, long before her hit movies Batman Returns and Hairspray hit theatres, she admits to being roped into the cult of “breatharianism.” Breatharians believe that humans can survive without food or water—they get all the nutrients they need from air and sunlight. Obviously as even plants can’t survive with only air […]

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While the Roman Colosseum is More Famous Today, Its Predecessor, the Circus Maximus, Could Hold About 3 to 6 Times More People

Today I found out that the Colosseum in Rome wasn’t finished until 80 AD; before that, Romans used the Circus Maximus for games. The Colosseum is one of the most iconic landmarks in Rome and incredibly popular with tourists. Movies would have you think that chariot races, gladiator shows, and battle simulations always took place there, but that isn’t true. […]

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