This Day In History: June 15, 1877 Henry Ossian Flipper was born on March 21, 1856 and, grew up as a slave in Thomasville, Georgia. He was a very intelligent youngster. Another slave secretly taught him to read, putting them both at great peril. After the Civil War ended, he attended schools run by the American Missionary Association and began […]
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In this video from MinuteEarth , they reveal the interesting truth about whether humans are really “99% Chimp.” If you like TodayIFoundOut, odds are you’ll also greatly enjoy their videos. So go check them out and subscribe to their channel here. You can also join us in supporting their efforts to make more videos like this by donating via their […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader One of the secrets of operating a successful family business is figuring out how to pass it along to your heirs without ending up in business-school textbooks as an example of how NOT to pass your business along to your heirs. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Bag Man […]
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On the Samana Range of the Hindu Kush mountains in Pakistan, the British Army built a small communications post at Saragarhi, to be housed by an equally small contingent of soldiers. The region had always been a troubled area, and during the last quarter of the 19th century, British India’s hold on the North West Frontier was tenuous. In fact, […]
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This Day In History: June 12, 1897 Just after 5 pm on the evening of June 12, 1897, ominous rumbling was heard coming from the ground in northern India near Shillong. Then the rumbling ended, and approximately three minutes passed before the shock reached the surface. The earth shook with explosive violence for almost two minutes. Geologists believe that the […]
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In this video from the exceptionally talented crew at Kurz Gesagt, they address the age old question “What is life?” If you like this video, be sure and subscribe to their channel here. You can also join us in supporting their efforts to make more videos like this by donating via their Patreon page here. If you liked this video, […]
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Dan K. asks: Why is it that other people’s farts smell worse than your own? In 2005, two researchers published a series of articles investigating the subject of other people’s smelliness. They examined how much disgust people would feel and show after smelling a variety of odors, including armpits, garbage and farts. Among the stinks examined, farts elicited the strongest […]
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This Day In History: June 11, 1509 On June 11, 1509 the new king, Henry VIII, took as his bride Catherine of Aragon, who had briefly been married to his older brother Arthur, Prince of Wales, several years earlier. Henry waited long to marry his princess, and could have no idea how long he would wait – and how hard […]
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Over the years the city of Singapore has been described by many as one of the cleanest on Earth with roads and toilets being “clean enough to eat off“, which is perhaps to be expected from a city where it’s illegal not to flush a public toilet. The reason why toilets in Singapore are so insanely clean can be traced back […]
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A fixture in entertainment throughout the second half of the 20th century, a commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and Officer of the Legion d’honneur, the recipient of the Médaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris, Emmy Award winner, and a grand officer of the Ordre national du Mérite, among numerous other awards and honors, Marcel Marceau is widely […]
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This Day In History: June 10, 1752 On a stormy June night in Philadelphia, American Renaissance man Benjamin Franklin purportedly decided to test his hypothesis that lightning is a form of electricity. Using a key attached to a silk kite, he found: “When rain has wet the kite twine so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will […]
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Karl M. asks: How did the story start about Niccolo Paganini selling his soul to the devil in exchange for mastering the violin? At the height of his fame and fortune, Niccolò Paganini, arguably the greatest violinist ever to live, was both the toast, and the bane, of Europe. Considered by most a musical genius, by some a musical god and […]
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This Day In History: June 9, 1953 Summer had made an early appearance in central New England. The weather was unseasonably warm, with temperatures hovering near 90 degrees, but on June 8, the temperature dropped over 15 degrees in Worcester, MA. This was due to an unusually cold air mass and cold front arriving from the west. This weather system […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader The Letter Like millions of American children during the Cold War, 10-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, was terrified of getting nuked by the Russians. News reports and TV specials about nuclear bombs, missile defense systems, and “mutually assured destruction” were commonplace, and Smith got more and more frightened about […]
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A running joke, a conspiracy, a challenge, a raspberry to authority and (at least formerly) an exclusive club, the members of the Order of the Occult Hand are those journalists who have successfully snuck the meaningless phrase “occult hand” past their editors and into published newspaper articles. How did this all start? According to two of its founding fathers, Joseph Flanders […]
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This Day In History: June 8, 1949 On June 8, 1949, hugely popular screen idols, including Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield and Frederic March, were called out as Commies by the US Government. They based their conclusion on accusations by “confidential informants” coupled with some imaginative analysis. The first breadcrumb on the trail to Tinseltown was the Communist Party in […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Story Behind the Miranda Warning In 1966, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Miranda v. Arizona, made it clear that the Constitution requires the police to warn criminal suspects in custody that they have the right to remain silent, that […]
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Brett C. asks: How do they decide the cuttoff between partly cloudy and mostly sunny? If you ever thought it was difficult to tell the difference between “partly cloudy” and “mostly sunny,” you’re not alone. Established by the National Weather Service (NWS) according to a loose set of rules, the criteria used to describe different elements of your forecast can […]
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