Today in History: September 26, 1960 For the very first time, a debate between U.S. presidential candidates was broadcast on television for the consideration of the American people. The two presidential hopefuls were a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts named John. F. Kennedy, and the Vice-President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. Kennedy went into the debate with several disadvantages. […]
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Imagine. There you are, trying to stay in shape. Going to one of your local Pilates classes, and while performing what is known as a Valsalva maneuver, your body suddenly swallows one of your breasts! As fate would have it, we don’t need to just imagine. We can ask a 59 year old from Maryland who had that very thing […]
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Myth: People convicted of witchcraft were burned at the stake during the Salem Witch Trials When you think about people disposing of witches a few hundred years ago, you probably imagine a woman tied to a stake jutting up from a pile of smoking wood. The burning of witches has become so ingrained in witch-hunt canon that it’s a cliché. […]
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Long ago, in the region surrounding Nevsehir and Kayseri, in central Turkey, an ancient people built, or rather dug, over 200 underground cities. The deepest of these, under the present day town of Derinkuyu, delves over 250 feet below the Earth’s surface, and boasts numerous tunnels, halls, meeting rooms, wells and passages. Because the city was carved from existing caves […]
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Today in History: September 25, 1970 On Friday night at 8:30 p.m., after the popular show “The Brady Bunch,” ABC premiered a program that would give the production company Screen Gems its second show that proved to be hit with both TV and music audiences. Screen Gems enjoyed immense success with its first big smash “The Monkees,” and when it […]
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Today I found out about the amazing life of Roy Chapman Andrews. From the picture there on the right, you might mistake Andrews for Indiana Jones. In fact, Roy Chapman Andrews’ life is like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, but without the Nazis. Not surprising, since it has been widely speculated that he was the man who Indiana […]
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Harmony Gerber / Shutterstock.com Chris Harvey / Shutterstock.com miker / Shutterstock.com Photo by flipchip / LasVegasVegas.com Text Version- Fact 651: “Here Comes Dots” is an anagram of “The Morse Code” Fact 652: The film “The Day After Tomorrow” could have been more succinctly titled “Overmorrow”, which is the English word for the day after tomorrow, first popping up in English […]
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Myth: Shocking someone who has flat-lined can get their heart started again. It never fails. You’re watching television and someone is circling the drain, in the toilet that is their life. The noise from the heart monitor affirms they’re still alive, with its consistent, rhythmic beeps. All of the sudden, alarms start going off. On the monitor- the dreaded “flat-line”. […]
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This Day In History: September 24th, 1890 In 1890, Mormon leaders were forced to issue the “Mormon Manifesto,” in which they admonish all church members to obey the U.S. anti-polygamy laws. The church leaders had been left with little choice in the matter – their temples would be seized by the government and Mormons risked serious penalties if they did […]
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It was March of 1960. The teenagers of the world were rejoicing. Why? Because Elvis was getting out of the army. Yes, Elvis “The Pelvis” Presley, Rock ‘n’ Roll’s greatest rebel iconoclast, was finally leaving the U.S. Military and taking up his career as the sneering, hip-swiveling Rock ‘n’ Roller. Elvis’ film career was foremost in the minds of his […]
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When the extent of the U.S. government’s domestic spying program was revealed this past summer, many were surprised and outraged: how could a government which so prizes liberty of its citizens covertly collect data on its own people? Yet, sadly, this is not the first time Uncle Sam, without permission or notice, secretly gathered information on its people and wasn’t […]
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Today I found out the origin of the phrase “pleased as punch.” As a child you might have wondered how a bowl of punch could be pleased about anything. Turns out, the saying has nothing to do with the drink. Rather, “punch” refers to the character in Punch and Judy, a puppet show that has its roots in Italy’s 16th-century […]
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This Day In History: September 23, 1949 During a deliberately calm and measured statement to the American people, President Harry S. Truman announced that the Soviets had successfully exploded a nuclear device. They managed to accomplish this much earlier than U.S. officials had estimated, which caused ripples of panic to spread through the government. By the time two bombs were […]
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TodayIFoundOut.com has been hovering for a few months just barely under 2 million page views in a month, but thanks to a traffic surge the last few days has finally broken through the 2 million mark in a 30 day period receiving 2,308,791 page views from 1,557,178 visits in the last 30 days, both of which are new site records. […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Where the Phrase “Close But No Cigar” Came From This popular idiom, which means “to fall short of a successful outcome” or “close call,” was first coined in the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. While it can’t […]
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Believe it or not, the history of Nintendo goes all the way back to 1889. And before you ask- no, they were not selling Mario figures carved from wood. Originally named “Nintendo Koppai”, the small business based in Kyoto started by Fusajiro Yamauchi produced Hanafuda Cards. For those unfamiliar, these are simple playing cards that are used to play multiple […]
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Long ago an advanced civilization sprang up along the shores of Lake Titicaca, in the Andes Mountains in present day Bolivia and Peru, and disappeared just as quickly 500 years later. The sophisticated people that created the fabulous city of Tiahuanaco (Tiwanaku) were the forefathers of the Incas and other South American cultures, and some even believe they were the […]
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Dan asks: How did the running gag of police always eating donuts come about? Members of law enforcement stuffing their faces full of doughnuts is one of the most enduring stereotypes about the boys and girls in blue. In virtually every media representation of the police that isn’t deadly serious, the stereotype is played out in some way- Police Academy, […]
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