Today I found out why iodine is added to salt. Iodine first began being added to salt commercially in the United States in 1924 by the Morton Salt Company at the request of the government. This was done as a response to the fact that there were certain regions in the U.S., such as around the Great Lakes and in […]
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Today I found out why black lights make things glow. Black lights are not that different from any other type of light, whether incandescent, fluorescent, or just the age old candle flame. The difference is that black lights emit most of their light waves just outside the range humans can perceive, in the Ultraviolet (UV) part of the spectrum. When […]
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Myth: Proper CPR technique should include frequent use of “mouth to mouth” in between compressions. In fact, the 2010 guidelines set out by the American Heart Association (AHA) do not recommend breathing for someone while performing CPR (and not for your health, as you might think, but for the person experiencing cardiac arrest’s chances of survival). If you’re a person […]
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Today I found out the can opener wasn’t invented until 48 years after the invention of the can. In 1795, Napoleon Bonaparte was having problems with his supply lines. Specifically, they were too long for the food preservation methods at the time, making it difficult to adequately supply his troops with needed food. Thus, he offered a 12,000 franc prize […]
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Today I found out Lyudmila Pavlichenko sniped a confirmed 309 Axis soldiers, including 36 German snipers, during WWII. While most of the world shied away from putting women on the front line, the Soviet Union did not, including recruiting about 2000 women as snipers during WWII, one of which turned out to be one of the most successful snipers in […]
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Today I found out there once was a baseball player traded for baseball bats. “Bat Man”, as he was nicknamed after the trade, was actually named John C. Odom. His life ended tragically just six months after the momentous trade. After being signed by the San Francisco Giants in 2003 out of Tallahassee Community College, Odom was assigned to play […]
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Jonathon T. asks: Why is there an r in Mrs. when it’s pronounced misses? You may have wondered, if you’ve ever thought about it, why there is an “r” in “Mrs.” when it’s generally spoken as “missus” (also sometimes spelled “missis”). “Mrs.” first popped up as an abbreviation for “mistress” in the late 16th century. At the time, “mistress” didn’t […]
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Today I Found Out was started on January 1, 2010 and today reached its 1000 post including: 554 regular articles, 56 This Day In History articles, 324 Quick Facts, 44 Infographics, 13 Answers, and 8 You Should Know articles, the latter two being new sections launched just this month. I thought I’d use this 1000th post to share the most […]
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Myth: Reading in a dimly lit area will damage your eyesight. In fact, the only “damage” reading in a dimly lit setting will do, in comparison to reading in an ample lighted setting, is to cause extra eyestrain, which will go away simply by resting your eyes. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise given the fact that for […]
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Today I found out some ants are used as living food storage vessels by their colony. While honey bees will collect and store their food in combs, certain species of ants take a different route, using the bodies of some of their fellow ants, often the larger bodied ants of the colony called “majors”, to store what they need. Worker […]
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Today I found out how things become petrified, rather than just decaying normally. Petrifaction (also known as petrification) is a type of fossilization which leaves living organisms preserved as a type of stone. In order for this to happen, a specific set of circumstances has to be present when the organisms cease to live. When any living thing dies and […]
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Today I found out that “Avocado” derives from a word meaning “testicle”. The word Avocado comes from a Nahuatl Indian (Aztec) word “ahuácatl” meaning testicle. It is thought that the reference is either due to the avocado’s shape or the fact that it was considered to possess aphrodisiac qualities by the Aztecs. In Spanish, “ahuácatl” became “aguacate” and eventually “avogato” […]
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Today I found out why beans give you gas. Beans contain a sugar molecule called ‘Oligosaccharides’. These types of sugars cannot be digested by the stomach or small intestine. They get passed on to the large intestine where numerous types of bacteria begin to break them down. During the process, the bacteria release several different types of gases, mainly hydrogen, […]
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Today I found out Ben Franklin’s proposal of something like daylight saving time was written as a joke. In a comedic letter he wrote, An Economical Project (published in 1784), “to the authors of the journal of Paris”, Franklin mentions something like daylight saving time. Although, instead of changing clocks, he suggested ringing church bells and firing cannons, among other things, as […]
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E. Bondine asks: Where did the slang “chump change” originate? The phrase “chump change” first popped up in the mid-20th century, initially used primarily by African Americans to mean similar to what it does today, “a small or trivial amount of money”. As to how those two words ended up being joined to form the phrase “chump change”, we have […]
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Myth: Helicopters will drop like a rock when the engine shuts down. In fact, you have a better chance at surviving in a helicopter when the engine fails than you do in an airplane. Helicopters are designed specifically to allow pilots to have a reasonable chance of landing them safely in the case where the engine stops working during flight, […]
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Today I found out what causes hiccups. In medical terms, a hiccup can be called a hiccough, a synchronous diaphragmatic flutter, or singlutus. Hiccups are classified into three categories: normal, protracted or persistent, and intractable. Protracted are those hiccups that last over 48 hours, but not more than one month. Intractable hiccups continue for more than one month. If hiccups […]
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Today I found out a ‘jiffy’ is used as an actual unit of time. The word ‘jiffy’ has been around since at least the late 18th century. What it derived from is unknown, but it first popped up as a “thieves slang for ‘lightning’”. Fast forward about a century and a half later and famed Physical Chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis, […]
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