Today I found out the origin of the Canadian flag. Oh, Canada—a member of the British Commonwealth and the land of maple syrup, lumberjacks, and bagged milk. The country’s flag, a red field with a white square in the centre featuring a red maple leaf, is among Canada’s most well-known emblems. As such, it might surprise some people to learn […]
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Today I found out men wore high heel shoes long before women. The first high heel wearers are believed to have been Persian horseback warriors sometime around the ninth century. The extended heel was reportedly developed specifically for riding, to keep the rider’s foot from slipping out of the stirrups. It also helped to hold the rider steady when standing […]
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He died nearly 800 years ago, and yet we all still know his name. From 1190 to 1227, Genghis Khan ruled an empire that eventually stretched from Russia to China. He is responsible for millions of deaths, but he also unified warring factions and brought peace and security to 5000 miles of trade routes. The complicated legacy of his Mongol […]
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We are all familiar with the colloquialism “gaydar” which refers to a person’s intuitive, and often wildly inaccurate, ability to assess the sexual orientation of another person. In the 1960s, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) attempted to use a slightly more scientific, though equally flawed, approach- a machine to detect if a person was gay or not. This was […]
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If you liked these, check out more free quick-facts here. You might also be interested in QI’s 1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off. Text Version: Fact 449: While often used as the poster woman for “how things were different back in the day” with models and actresses, Marilyn Monroe’s body dimensions according to her tailor were 35 inch […]
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Today I found out the origin of the phrase “once in a blue moon” and what a blue moon actually is. “Once in a blue moon” today means “very rarely,” though it used to mean something that was absurd, right along the lines of “when pigs fly.” The first known recorded use of a form of the phrase is in […]
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Like so many later-comedians, Bill Cosby described himself in school as “the class clown”. Born in 1937, William Henry Cosby worked at several different jobs growing up, including selling produce, stocking shelves in a supermarket, and apprenticing in a shoe repair store. He served four years in the U.S. Navy and later entered Temple University on a track and field […]
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Lions of the culinary world, the inventors of our favorite sandwiches have left a lasting legacy of portability and deliciousness. To honor their contributions to our collective satiety, we’re taking a moment to reflect on some of the sandwich world’s greatest creations… prepare to get hungry. Club A marvel of sandwich construction, the Club Sandwich consists of three slices of […]
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We’ve just launched a new Pinterest page for Today I Found Out, where we’ll be posting various picture quick facts and infographics for your reading pleasure, some from our site and some from elsewhere. So if you’re on Pinterest and are interested, please follow us here. We’ve also just added the ability for you to simply hover the mouse over […]
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Nothing makes you feel older than finding your son watching the very show you watched as a child: Full House. Worse is telling him his mother pined away over John Stamos and plastered my walls with his posters as a teen. His response? ‘That’s creepy, Mom.’ Full House was an American hit TV show that aired on ABC for eight […]
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Tsutomu Yamaguchi died from stomach cancer. The cancer part perhaps isn’t surprising given that Yamaguchi is currently the only person officially recognized by the Japanese government as having lived through the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Note: There were actually well over a 100 or so others as well, perhaps as many as 165; they just have never […]
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