On this day in history, September 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam in the American Civil War was fought. In the early morning hours, about 75,000 Union and 38,000 Confederate troops faced off near Maryland’s Antietam Creek in the deadliest single day of battle America had ever seen. The Battle of Antietam was the culmination Confederate Commander Robert E. Lee’s […]
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J. Ramhit asks: Where did the phrase “close, but no cigar” come 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 be proven definitively, it’s likely that the phrase originated at fairgrounds around this time. […]
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Today In History: September 16, 1620 On this day in history, 1620, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England heading for the New World with 102 souls aboard- some religious dissenters, many others adventurous entrepreneurs. The colonists, who were headed for Virginia, had been given official authorization to settle there by royal authority. As fate would have it, rough seas […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Paperclip was Used as a Symbol of Resistance During WWII In April of 1940, just a few months into World War II, Adolf Hitler knew that he needed a way to break past the Allied blockade of Germany if he had […]
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Alicia asks: Why is Friday the 13th unlucky? Being wary of Friday the 13th is much more than a quaint superstition observed by a few uneducated people in distant, unreachable towns and hamlets. In the United States alone, it is estimated that between 17 and 21 million people dread that date to the extent that it can be officially classified […]
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Featureflash / Shutterstock.com Featureflash / Shutterstock.com Leonard Zhukovsky / Shutterstock.com Andy Lidstone / Shutterstock.com s_bukley / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 611: During the filming of the movie Troy where Brad Pitt played Achilles, he tore his Achilles tendon… What did Pitt have to say on the matter, “It’s sad, it’s stupid… It’s so wrong. It’s such a bad headline.” Fact […]
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Today I found out that female seahorses impregnating their male mates, rather than the other way around. The reproductive process of a seahorse begins when a male and a female meet up and “dance”. For several days prior to the actual act of mating, the two fish (yes, they are fish) will meet to intertwine their tails and swim together. […]
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This Day In History: September 13 On this day in history, 1940, the Luftwaffe bombed Buckingham Palace. In World War II during the London Blitz, the Nazi German Air Force made an air strike on Buckingham Palace while King George VI and his consort Queen Elizabeth were both in residence. During the attack, the palace was hit by five explosives, […]
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Running into battle armed with a broadsword, bow, and quiver of arrows was perfectly acceptable if you were fighting in the Hundred Years’ War or fending off some orcs on Middle Earth. But when it comes to World War II, such medieval weaponry looks like child’s play next to the technology of the time. A sword isn’t the most likely […]
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M. Schane asks: When did humans start wearing clothing? Determining exactly when humans began wearing clothes is a challenge, largely because early clothes would have been things like animal hides, which degrade rapidly. Therefore, there’s very little archaeological evidence that can be used to determine the date that clothing started being worn. There have been several different theories based on […]
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Today in History: September 12th On this day in history, 1951, John F. Kennedy wedded Jacqueline Bouvier. The foundation for what would later be fondly remembered as Camelot was laid on a crisp and clear September day at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Newport Rhode Island. The petite and doe-eyed 24-year-old bride possessed a natural elegance and grace that far […]
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Jordan Tan / Shutterstock.com MISHELLA / Shutterstock.com s_bukley / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 601: The “Red Bull” energy drink gets its name from the Thai energy drink that inspired Dietrich Mateschitz to create Red Bull, “Krating Daeng”, with “daeng” meaning “red”, and “krating” being a reddish-brown bovine. Fact 602: “Hack the System” blogger Maneesh Sethi once hired a woman for […]
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There were many heroes who surfaced twelve years ago on September 11, helping people in need as the Twin Towers crumbled around them. Two you probably haven’t heard of were Salty and Roselle, guide dogs who despite the chaos, calmly led their blind owners to safety after the terrorist attacks. Salty, a yellow lab, was born in 1996 and trained […]
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This Day In History: September 11, 1921 On this day in history, 1921, silent film star Fatty Arbuckle was arrested for murder, in Hollywood’s first major scandal. Over Labor Day weekend in 1921, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, the first in a long line of overweight and over-the-top comedians beloved by movie goers, decided to take a break from his hectic filming […]
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Today I found out about Han van Meegeren, the great art forger. Han van Meegeren was born in 1889 and developed an interest in painting at a young age. He wasn’t supported in his dream to become an artist by his father, who forbade van Meegeren’s artistic development, trying to steer his son in the direction of architecture instead. Undeterred, […]
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Perfecting a method of foretelling and predicting the passage of time preoccupied our ancestors from the earliest recorded history. The unending journey of the Sun, Moon and stars across the great expanse of the sky provides clues for numerous methods of marking time, the most obvious to primitive man being the passage of a day (light/dark) and that of a […]
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Today in History: September 10th This Day In History, 1608: John Smith Becomes President of Jamestown The first permanent English settlement of the American colonies, Jamestown, Virginia, elected the larger-than-life John Smith to be their first council president, thanks to his superior organizational abilities and his diplomatic skills when dealing with the indigenous tribes of the area. Around 100 English […]
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