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The Man Who Died, Came Back to Life and Won the Lotto Twice- the Second Time When Reenacting the First Win for the Media

October 30, 2013 Daven Hiskey

In 1999, 37 year old Bill Morgan was a truck driver living in a travel trailer in Australia. That’s when disaster struck- while working, he got in a pretty bad accident that he nonetheless survived. However, medication he was given during his recovery resulted in him having an extreme allergic reaction that ultimately caused his heart to stop. After being […]

The Invention of the Electric Guitar

October 29, 2013 Theodoros II

For as far back as we are able to look into the prehistory of the human race, music has been a crucial part of the life of humans. Some scholars even speculate that human music may have come before language. From the beginning, people living in little groups sang and danced to self-made music. Drums and pipes were readily developed, […]

The Little Girl Responsible for Lincoln’s Beard

October 29, 2013 Daven Hiskey

In 1860, the clean shaven Abraham Lincoln was running for President of the United States. This clean shaven look was somewhat odd for a man of the age. You see, shortly before Lincoln decided to grow a beard, something of a beard revolution swept the United States and by the mid-19th century the formerly predominately clean-shaven men of America now […]

How the Tradition of Putting a Gnome in Your Garden Started

October 28, 2013 Staci Lehman

Garden gnomes are those statues you see of pint sized chubby human-like creatures usually wearing red hats and blue pants. You can find them in a variety of poses and pursuing various past times such as fishing, napping, or in the case of my personal gnome, smoking a pipe. Garden gnomes are typically male and have beards but you see […]

The Origin of the Legend of Zelda

October 28, 2013 Tegan Jones

The Legend of Zelda is aptly named, as the series has truly become a legend within the gaming industry. Every new generation of gamers have been given the opportunity to fall in love with it through their current Nintendo console. Or if they’re purists, going back to the original NES game. However, the fundamentals have pretty much always remained – […]

Weekly Wrap Volume 10

October 26, 2013 Daven Hiskey

This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Mark Twain Was Born and Died in the Same Years That Halley’s Comet Flew By the Earth This is a somewhat uncommon occurrence given that Halley’s comet only passes by the Earth approximately every 76 years. What makes it even more remarkable […]

The Truth About Julius Caesar and “Caesarean” Sections

October 25, 2013 Emily Upton

Myth: The Caesarean section procedure ultimately derives its name from Julius Caesar, who is often (falsely) claimed to have been the first baby born via Caesarean. It’s hard to pinpoint where exactly this story started, though a 10th century document is the likely culprit. The Suda, a Byzantine-Greek historical encyclopaedia, is one of the earliest records citing Caesar as the […]

Why Can People Live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki Now, But Not Chernobyl?

October 24, 2013 Melissa

Olivia asks: Why is it that Chernobyl is still toxic, but there are millions of people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki without dying? On August 6 and 9, 1945, U.S. airmen dropped the nuclear bombs Little Boy and Fat Man on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On April 26, 1986, the number four reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear […]

Has Anyone Ever Actually Poisoned Or Put Razor Blades or Needles in Halloween Candy?

October 24, 2013 Staci Lehman

Lee asks: How many children have died from people poisoning Halloween candy? Remember your mom sorting through your Halloween candy as a kid, looking for signs of ‘tainted’ candy laced with poison, needles or razor blades? It turns out, unless she was just using it as an excuse to steal the good candy before you got it, she was wasting […]

The Bloody History of the Barber Pole

October 23, 2013 Melissa

Red and white striped, sometimes with a bit of blue, a barber pole twisting next to a small storefront signifies a place where men can get a haircut, a shave and a bit of masculine bonhomie. But this was not always the case. Back in the day, the red and white we associate with good grooming used to represent blood, […]

The Man Who Cheated Death Seven Times, Then Won the Lottery

October 23, 2013 Staci Lehman

Depending on how you look at it, Frane Selak, a now 85 year old retired music teacher from Croatia, is either the luckiest, or unluckiest man in the world, having lived a life that resembles the plot to Final Destination; except after cheating death seven times, rather than be killed by a falling sign, he won £600,000 in the lotto […]

The Explosive History of Fireworks

October 22, 2013 Emily Upton

The Fourth of July, New Year’s Eve, and numerous other celebrations across the globe wouldn’t be what they are today without fireworks. It turns out that we owe our fascination with the pyrotechnic displays to ancient Chinese pyromaniacs. Sometime between 600 and 900 A.D., a few alchemists, hoping to concoct an elixir that would make them live forever, instead found […]

Did Newton Really Have an Apple Fall on His Head, Inspiring Him to Come Up with His Theory on Gravity?

October 22, 2013 Emily Upton

Kerry asks: Did an apple really fall on Newton’s head? In grade school you probably learned Newton’s apple story around the time you learned that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree, that people in Columbus’ time thought that the world was flat, or that the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in America and invited the Native Americans to join […]

Mark Twain Was Born and Died in the Same Years That Halley’s Comet Flew By the Earth

October 21, 2013 Emily Upton

Today I found out that Samuel Clemens was born and died during Halley’s comet years. This is a somewhat uncommon occurrence given that Halley’s comet only passes by the Earth approximately every 76 years. What makes it even more remarkable is that Clemens predicted the year of his death. In 1909, Clemens—known by his pen name, Mark Twain—said, I came […]

Why Buffalo Wings Are Called That

October 21, 2013 Emily Upton

Today I found out 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 originated in Buffalo, New York, with most foodstorians indicating buffalo wings probably were first […]

Weekly Wrap: Volume 9

October 19, 2013 Daven Hiskey

This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Dr. Seuss Wrote “Green Eggs and Ham” on a Bet The bet was made in 1960 with Bennett Cerf, the co-founder of Random House, and was for $50 (about $382 today). Despite Dr. Seuss, a.k.a. Theodore Geisel, winning the bet by producing […]

The Acoustic Shadow and the American Civil War

October 18, 2013 Melissa

Where sound goes to die, acoustic shadows are areas where sounds, from a certain direction and on a given day, will not penetrate; these acoustic phenomena occur either because the sound waves are absorbed, refracted or simply blown in a different direction. Relatively unnoticed in our modern, wired world, the phenomenon played a significant role in some of the most […]

Grape-Nuts Contain Neither Grapes Nor Nuts

October 18, 2013 Emily Upton

Grape-Nuts is a wheat and barley cereal developed by C.W. Post in 1897, and it has actually made some interesting contributions to American food history. A box of Grape-Nuts actually contains “whole grain wheat flour, malted barley flour, isolated soy protein, salt, whole grain barley flour, malt extract, and dried yeast.” It also boasts a number of essential vitamins and […]

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