Kathy B. asks: Why do we call white people Caucasian? Throughout history a variety of ways to scientifically classify different groups of humans have popped up, most notable to the story today being a system suggested by pioneering social scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, often considered the “father of scientific anthropology.” Building upon other’s classification schemes, including Carl Linnaeus and Christoph […]
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Calvin Graham was the youngest of seven children of a poor Texas farm family and because of his abusive stepfather, he and one of his older brothers decided to move out. Calvin supported himself by selling newspapers and delivering telegrams on weekends and after school. He was just eleven when he first thought of lying about his age to join the Navy. The […]
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Quick Fact 851: On March 13, 1962, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Lyman Lemnitzer, submitted a proposal to the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, developed by the Joint Chiefs and the Department of Defense outlining plans to, among other things, commit various acts of terrorism on U.S. soil and then frame the Cubans for it […]
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Quick Fact 841: If you’ve ever felt like your friends are more popular, happier, and wealthier than you… well, on average, you’re probably right. This all comes down to something known as the Generalized Friendship Paradox. The Friendship Paradox was first proposed in 1991 by sociologist Scott L. Feld, who demonstrated that your friends, on average, will have more friends […]
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Quick Fact 831: A few years ago a man from Singapore became an Internet sensation thanks to his unique name, “Batman bin Suparman” which in English would translate as “Batman son of Suparman.” So what happened after? He was arrested in 2013 for robbing a store. He also had previously stolen his brother’s (Nurazman Suparman) ATM card, using it to […]
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Quick Fact 821: An Australian man, Don Ritchie, died in 2012 at the age of 86 from cancer. For the final 45 years of his life, he lived across the street from the most famous suicide spot in Australia, known as “The Gap,” an ocean cliff in eastern Sydney. During that time, Ritchie stopped at least 160 people (with the […]
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811) 57 year old Remus “Sonny” Graham received the transplanted heart of a 33 year old man who had killed himself named Terry Cottle. Cottle’s wife, Cheryl, had recently decided to leave him. Her son, Timmy, stated she had said she couldn’t stand being married to someone who made less than herself. With Terry’s heart firmly beating in his chest, […]
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801) Nick Offerman, better known as Ron Swanson from the Parks and Recreation TV series, is a professional boat builder and has a side business as a wood craftsman. In 2008, he even released an instructional DVD- “Fine Woodstrip Canoe Building with Nick Offerman,” offering instructions on how to make your own canoe. He stated in an interview with Wood […]
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Gage A. asks: Was the man in the iron mask a real person? On November 19, 1703, a tomb in the Bastille’s Saint Paul Cemetery welcomed the corpse of a man who had spent almost the last four decades of his life in various prisons of France. He is without a doubt the most famous prisoner in French history, even though […]
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Jeremy D. asks: Who invented the internet? While the World Wide Web was initially invented by one person (see: What was the First Website?), the genesis of the internet itself was a group effort by numerous individuals, sometimes working in concert, and other times independently. Its birth takes us back to the extremely competitive technological contest between the US and […]
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Scott L. asks: Is it true that Michael Jackson bleached his skin to turn himself white? Many scandals marred Michael Jackson’s personal life, overshadowing his otherwise remarkable musical career. One such scandal was the obvious change in his appearance, especially his skin color, which started from the mid-eighties to slowly but surely turn from dark to white. By the mid-nineties […]
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792: In 2011, a 17 year old Chinese man, Xiao Zheng, made headlines when he purchased an iPad and an iPhone. Why was this newsworthy? In order to be able to afford it, he sold one of his kidneys for 20,000 yuan or just a bit over £1,900 or about $3000. As he said, “I wanted to buy an iPad2, […]
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782: At the young age of 15, Jim Carrey began working full time as a janitor to support his family who were living out of a VW van at the time after his father had lost his job. In their free time, Carrey’s father helped his son put together a comedy stage act… which ultimately bombed. Despite this, over the […]
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Very few people and even fewer brands have managed to become synonymous with pop culture in the 20th century. But in the last few decades, Nike has become a Titan of the sporting world, as well as part of the daily lives of millions of people everywhere. But during the 1960s, it was Germany’s Adidas and Puma sneakers that dominated […]
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While just about everybody’s heard of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, there was a lesser known third co-founder of Apple, Ronald Wayne. Among other things, Wayne designed the first Apple logo. Unfortunately for him, starting such a business was a risk given that he’d be liable for any debt accrued by the company at the time. This was less of […]
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Text Version: Quick Fact 761: “Soccer” was once a popular name for Football in Britain in the sport’s earliest days. When the rules for the sport were first being defined, it was named “Association Football” to distinguish it from the other forms of football commonly played. Within a year of its inception, this got slurred down to “Assoccer,” after the […]
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Hammurabi was the oldest son of Sin-Muballit, and he became the sixth king of Babylon upon his father’s abdication around 1729 BC (based on the short chronology timeline). Even though he didn’t inherit much power from his father and at the time he controlled only a small part of Babylonia, the city of Sippar, he later became the first king of […]
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Image via Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com Image via s_bukley / Shutterstock.com 741: Golden Globe winner Richard Harris, today perhaps best known for his role as Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films before his death preceding the release of The Chamber of Secrets, wasn’t just an extremely accomplished actor, but also a successful musician. He even had a […]
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