To many people adding one of the principal ingredients in antifreeze to wine sounds almost cartoonishly stupid and evil, which is probably why that exact scenario is the basis for an entire episode of The Simpsons. Nevertheless, for at least 7 years, many major wine makers in Austria decided to add this highly toxic poison to their wines, with a […]
Read more
PandaGuy5 asks: Were people ever really tortured in Iron Maidens? The people of the Middle Ages have a reputation for wanton brutality and, as supposed evidence of this, countless instruments of torture sit in museums around the world, arguably the most famous of which being the Iron Maiden. This hellish contraption supposedly caused unthinkable pain and anguish for those unlucky […]
Read more
Literally Everyone asks: Why are outhouses traditionally depicted with a crescent moon on the door? In all the years we’ve been answering questions from our abnormally attractive readers, one that has popped up in our inbox and in comment threads more times than any other is some form of the question “What’s the deal with crescent moons on outhouse doors?” […]
Read more
On the scenic Thai island of Koh Sumai, tucked away in the Wat Khunaram temple is the mummified body of one of Thailand’s most famous monks- Luang Pho Daeng. Remarkably well preserved, Luang Pho Daeng’s body was put on display sometime in the 1970s and is still there today, virtually unchanged from the day he passed away, with the notable […]
Read more
The Black Samurai, despite sounding like a name that’d be more at home in a movie or a comic book than the real world, is a genuine nickname given to a mysterious man from feudal Japan, otherwise known only as Yasuke. The rank of samurai was, of course, considered one of great prestige and it came with a number of […]
Read more
Godzilla’s roar has long been considered one of cinema’s most iconic and recognisable sounds. Oft-copied or otherwise homaged, the original and rather unique roar terrified audience goers in the 1950s and has been built upon to dramatic effect in the numerous sequels and remakes since. So how did they actually make the original sound and where did the idea for […]
Read more
LegitMarmalade asks: Is it true medieval jesters could insult the King in any way they wanted without risk of getting executed? Although you might assume that being made to wear a stupid costume, be mocked, and act like an idiot for the entertainment of fatuous rulers would be a job nobody would want- like the position of Groom of the […]
Read more
GatGatCat asks: Is cooking grenades and pulling the pins with your teeth something people really do or just something in games? We’ve all seen it- the protagonist of a film whips out a hand grenade, dashingly yanks the pin with his teeth as his hair flows in the wind, counts one-potato, two-potato, three and hucks it at nearby teeming hoards […]
Read more
Amikkik asks: How do celebrities buy exotic pets like a tiger like Mike Tyson has? How is that legal? As you may or may not know, there are around twice as many tigers in the United States, around 5,000-10,000, as there are in the wild in the rest of the world, with the vast majority of those big cats belonging […]
Read more
Hippiekiyay asks: Do pets care if you leave the radio on when you leave? A survey of about 2000 British dog owners conducted in early 2017 found that around 40% of dog owners admitted to leaving the radio on when they left the house so that their dog wouldn’t be lonely, while another 32% admitted that they did the same […]
Read more
While the entertainment industry has never exactly been a bastion of diversity, fascinatingly, a century ago in fledgling Hollywood, during the so called “Yellow Peril” era no less, one of their most bankable heartthrobs and one of the highest paid actors of the age was a Japanese man- Hayakawa Kintarō, better known by his stage name, Sessue Hayakawa. Born in […]
Read more
In September of 1808 Covent Garden Theatre in London burned to the ground. The exact cause of the fire has never been established but due to the extensive amount of flammable items throughout combined with an amazing number of flaming light fixtures, fires of some sort at theaters were relatively common, even inspiring a London fire code requiring several wet […]
Read more
UrselD: How did the Stan Lee cameo in the Marvel movies thing start? Born Stanley Martin Lieber almost a century ago in 1922, the man who would become far better known by his pen name, Stan Lee, was born into a family of very modest means with Stan, his brother, and Romanian immigrant parents sharing a single room apartment in […]
Read more
Karuika asks: Who was the first person to figure out what dinosaur bones were? From around 250 to 66 million years ago various dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Today the only dinosaurs left are birds, which are coelurosauria theropods- funny enough the same sub-group Tyrannosauruses belong to. (Think about that the next time you’re enjoying a McDinosaur sandwich or scrambling up […]
Read more
Marbleezy asks: How did the ancient Romans manage to build perfectly straight roads hundreds of miles long? The ancient Romans were a people famed for their architectural prowess, something no better demonstrated than by their ability to build almost perfectly straight and incredibly durable roads spanning expansive distances. For example, in Britain alone, the Romans built well over 50,000 miles […]
Read more
We’ve talked before about the bizarre Hollywood phenomenon of Twin Films – essentially films with near identical premises inexplicably released around the same time – and all of the machinations that can lead to them existing. Today, rather than focusing on an industry wide trend, we’re going to discuss a specific example of something similar- the bizarre tale of the […]
Read more
Disney has undeniably made a lot of unusual business decisions over the years, like that time they built a town in Florida in an attempt to create a perfect community that ended up being a haven for old people to have sex with each others’ wives while fake snow falls outside. But the one that keeps us up at night […]
Read more
Randrew asks: Why do people say the human soul weighs 21 grams? It’s often said that it’s impossible to put a price on a human life, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t define it by other metrics, something physician Duncan MacDougall tried to do in the early 20th century by setting up an experiment to discern the weight of […]
Read more