Today in History: September 9th This Day In History, 1513: James IV of Scotland is Slain at Flodden Field In 1513, as King Henry VIII of England was waging one of his many invasions on the kingdom of France, the French King Louis XII asked his fellow Henry-hater James IV of Scotland if he wouldn’t mind heading south and causing […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why Multivitamins Make Your Urine Bright Yellow If you’ve ever taken a daily multivitamin you too might have noticed your urine turning a bright yellow-ish color. Take your vitamins and eat some asparagus and you might just think you’re dying the next […]
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Melissa asks: Was there really a “Craig” who started “Craigslist” or is that just a marketing gimmick? Craig Newmark is the Craig of Craigslist whose estimated net worth as of 2010 was around $400 million. This is in direct contrast to his financial wealth during childhood, where his mother struggled to support Craig and his brother, Jeff, after the death […]
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Even after our most heart breaking failures, parents, teachers and coaches encourage us to get back up and try again. Perhaps this is because they know that rather than being a permanent condition, failure is an opportunity to learn and improve. This was certainly the experience of Manfred von Richthofen. After cracking up his aircraft on his first solo attempt, […]
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This Day In History: September 6, 1997 On this day in history, 1997, Princess Diana’s funeral took place. Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, on July 29, 1981 at the tender age of 20. She immediately captivated not only those living in the UK, but also soon evolved into a global sensation, becoming the most […]
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Kaden asks: What was the first language spoken by humans? It is virtually impossible to know which language developed first, but that doesn’t mean linguists haven’t taken a good whack at it. The main problem is that scientists think language probably developed around 100,000-200,000 years ago. That’s around when modern humans, Homo sapiens, developed with the same skull structure—with the […]
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Today I found out that Marie Curie once had two duels fought over her after she had an affair with a married man. Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre, were no strangers to the press. In 1903, the pair won a Nobel Prize “in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena […]
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This Day In History: September 5, 1774 On this day in history, 1774, the first Continental Congress convened. At Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress met for the first time to address the British Parliament’s enactment of the Coercive Acts, a legislative measure intended to quell rebellion in Massachusetts and teach those Bostonians a lesson for that whole Tea […]
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Myth: George Washington once chopped down his father’s favorite cherry tree. The story goes that a young George Washington was about six years old when he was given a hatchet that he enthusiastically used to chop at just about anything in sight. One morning, he even chopped at a cherry tree, eventually cutting it down. When confronted about it by […]
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Candace asks: What makes a fruit a fruit and a vegetable a vegetable? An apple is a fruit, right? So is a banana. How about a cucumber? A vegetable, right? Not really, from a botanical standpoint. The good news is that, nutritionally speaking in terms of what you should eat daily, fruits and vegetables are typically grouped together, so you can […]
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This Day In History, September 4, 1962: The Beatles’ “Love Me Do” Sessions On an early September day a band from Liverpool, England called the Beatles, provincial and a bit rough around the edges, entered EMI studios at Abbey Road in London for what some consider to be their first official recording session, as it was the first time Ringo […]
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The common wombat (AKA, Vombatus ursinus) is an Australian marsupial with a unique claim to fame. You see, the common wombat and its two cousins, the Northern hairy-nose wombat and the Southern hairy-nose wombat, all poop pellets more or less in the shape of cubes, producing over 100 cubic pellets per day. If your day hasn’t been made by the phrase, […]
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Often considered one of the more difficult languages to master thanks to the incredible amount of inconsistencies in the language, it should come as no surprise that the development of the modern English alphabet involved several languages, hundreds of years and a variety of conquers, missionaries and scholars. Origins of Alphabetic Writing Dating back nearly four thousand years, early alphabetic […]
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Today in History: September 3rd This Day In History, 1189 : Richard the Lionheart Crowned King of England Richard I, an iconic medieval symbol of chivalry, didn’t ascend the English throne until the age of 31, but had been boldly leading armies since his teens and was an indispensable figure during the Crusades. He’s one of the best known rulers […]
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Today I found out about Nellie Bly, the woman who purposefully got herself committed to a notorious insane asylum so that she could report on what actually went on inside. Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864, Nellie Bly was considered the most rebellious of her father’s fifteen children. (Yes, fifteen) Her family was thrown into poverty when her father died […]
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Today in History: September 2nd On this day in history, 1666, a fire that came to be known as the “Great Fire of London” was started. In the wee hours of the morning, what began as a small fire in a humble abode near London Bridge became an uncontrollable inferno that swept through the city for four days. The flames […]
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Andy asks: After I eat vitamins or vitamin enriched cereal, my pee turns bright yellow. What’s going on here? If you’ve ever taken a daily multivitamin you too might have noticed your urine turning a bright yellow-ish color. Take your vitamins and eat some asparagus and you might just think you’re dying the next time you pee! What’s happening is […]
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How Our Galaxy Came to Be Called the “Milky Way” and What It’s Called in Other Languages No, it has nothing to do with the candy bar. Like many words we use today, the English name of our galaxy is derived from its Latin name: Via Lactea. Translated, that means “the road of milk.” The Romans actually got the name […]
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