Kim Jong-Il was born Yuri Irsenovich Kim. His official biography states that he was born on a sacred mountain (Baekdu Mountain, the legendary birthplace of Korea’s first kingdom) on February 16, 1942, where his father was serving in a secret military base, attempting to overthrow the Japanese. Further, it states that his birth was marked by a double rainbow over […]
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According to a study done in 2006, most carbonated soft drinks actually do contain a little alcohol. This is due to the fermentation of sugars in the non-sterile environment of the drink. In some types of soda-pop, additional alcohol is also introduced from the fact that alcohol is used in the preparation of some of the flavor extracts. However, before […]
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This Day In History: December 19, 1973 Much like Orson Welles before him, Johnny Carson once accidentally used his public platform to incite a public panic. On this day in history, 1973, Carson started a near month long toilet paper shortage in the United States. In his show, he stated, “You know what’s disappearing from the supermarket shelves? Toilet paper… […]
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“Nephew” at one time was a gender neutral term, but since around the 17th century has referred nearly exclusively to male children of one’s siblings or brother/sister-in-law’s children. The word “nephew” comes from the Old French “neveu” meaning “grandson, descendant”, which in turn comes from the Latin “nepotem”, meaning “sister’s son, grandson, or descendant”. The first documented case of “nephew” […]
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The proper pronunciation of “Seuss”, as in Dr. Suess, is actually “Zoice” (rhymes with “voice”), being a Bavarian name (after Theodore Geisel’s mother’s maiden name). However, due to the fact that most Americans pronounced it incorrectly as “Soose”, Geisel later gave in and stopped correcting people, even quipping the mispronunciation was a good thing because it is “advantageous for an […]
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Today I found out the “57” in “57 Varieties of Heinz” has no real meaning; it’s just a lucky number. By 1892, H.J. Heinz Company had grown from a small company selling horseradish in clear glass jars, to having over 60 products. Despite having more than 57 products, at the behest of the founder of H.J. Heinz Company, the business […]
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This Day In History: December 16, 1916 On this day in history, 1916, the “Mad Monk”, Grigori Rasputin, was murdered by members of the Russian aristocracy. The exact events surrounding his death have given rise to a variety of stories, much of which are probably false. So what actually happened? First, a brief background on Rasputin: Grigori Rasputin was born […]
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Today I found out Rowan Atkinson, the guy who played “Mr. Bean”, has a master’s degree in electrical engineering. Atkinson originally received an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering (EE) at Newcastle University before enrolling in an EE master’s program at The Queen’s College Oxford in 1975. While working towards this degree, he also pursued acting on the side with a […]
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Today I found out Baby Ruth candy bars really were named after Babe Ruth. The rumor that they were not was actually started by the company who made them originally, the Curtiss Candy Company founded by Otto Schnering. They claimed it was named after Ruth Cleveland, the daughter of President Grover Cleveland. Ruth Cleveland supposedly visited their plant and, while […]
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Whew, sorry about that. The intermittent page loading problem the last couple days has been solved now (for real this time) ;-). My apologies for not getting more new articles up the last day or two, I’ve been working on this pretty constantly and didn’t have a chance to put any new ones up other than in the brief respite […]
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Today I found out the origin of the Chinese Fire Drill. In World War I, British soldiers came up with the phrase “Chinese Landing” to describe a clumsy or bad landing. It should be noted that this wasn’t originally meant to imply Chinese citizens couldn’t land a plane well or anything of the sort; rather, it came from the fact […]
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I recently came across a pretty interesting email subscription, which I thought I’d recommend. If you like Today I Found Out, you’ll probably like this: Now I Know It’s sort of similar to Today I Found Out, but through email. Every morning, the author, Dan Lewis, shares something interesting he’s learned over the last few weeks. For example, did you […]
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This Day In History: December 14, 1903 On this day in history, 1903, the Wright brothers took their Wright Flyer out in their first attempt to fly it. The date of their first attempt would have been a day sooner, but they had promised their dad they would not fly on the Sabbath, so waited until Monday the 14th. The […]
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Today I Found Out has been nominated for the “Best Site of 2011 Award” from All My Faves. If you’d care to vote for Today I Found Out in that contest, I’d very much appreciate it. Just go here to vote : Vote 2011 and click “Like” there near the top. Alternatively, if you’d like to see what other sites […]
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Today I found out sushi is not raw fish, that’s sashimi. Sashimi is just sliced raw fish, sometimes dipped in sauces and sometimes served with sushi. Sushi is any food dish consisting of vinegared rice, usually served with some other toppings, but not always. It happens to often be served with various types of sea food, either cooked or raw, […]
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You may notice that sometimes when you click on posts to read, the page only partially loads. I’m working on fixing the issue at the moment, but no solution is currently presenting itself, or rather, I haven’t figured out yet what’s causing the problem, so it may be a little bit before the issue is resolved. For the present, if […]
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This Day In History: December 13, 1809 On this day in history, 1809, the woman who would soon become the first to survive an oophorectomy was diagnosed as not being pregnant past term, as she had thought, but having an extremely large tumor, which isn’t that different than a baby when you think about it, but you know… bigger, in […]
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This Day In History: December 12, 1901 On this day in history, 1901, Nobel Prize winner Guglielmo Marconi’s radio device became the first such device to successfully transmit a signal all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, from Poldhu, Cornwall, UK to Signal Hill in St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada, a span of about 2100 miles. His receiving device used a […]
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