This Day In History: December 1, 1955 On this day in history in 1955, Rosa Parks’ simple act of refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama sparks the Montgomery Bus Boycott which in turn stimulates the Civil Rights Movement. It also vaulted Martin Luther King, Jr. into the national spotlight as […]
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In 1972, a 29 year old Nolan Bushnell and a 35 year old Ted Dabney were fresh off a sort of successful failure in an arcade game known as Computer Space, which was more or less just a very blatant rip-off of a previous game Bushnell had come across called Spacewar! The pair had gotten a company called Nutting Associates […]
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Today I found out Keanu Reeves’ first name is pronounced “Kay-ah-noo”, not “Key-ah-Noo”. That isn’t the only misconception surrounding his name. The name itself means “the coolness”, but is often incorrectly said to mean “cool breeze over the mountains”. Reeves’ was named after his uncle Henry Keanu Reeves. In Keanu Reeves’ early days in Hollywood, his agent thought his name […]
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This Day In History: November 30, 1954 On this date in history in 1954 a meteorite hit 31 year old Ann Elizabeth Hodges who was napping in the living room of her home at the time. This made her the first known human being to be struck by an extraterrestrial object. Somewhat humorously, Hodges lived across the street from the […]
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This Day In History: November 29, 1961 On this day in 1961, Enos the chimpanzee was launched into space, becoming the second chimp to travel to space and the first to orbit the Earth. Enos, along with many other chimps such as “Ham”, the first chimp to be launched into space, were trained as part of Project Mercury, which was […]
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Today I found out the holiday season has the lowest suicide rate of any time of the year, not the highest. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the holiday season actually is the time of the year when there are the least amount of suicides with the lowest point being December 1st and the lowest rate of […]
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Canadians store milk in bags, rather than cartons. Surprisingly, they aren’t alone. You can also find bagged milk in India, Scandinavia, Poland, Israel, Hungary, Argentina, and Uruguay. Source
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This Day In History: November 28, 1907: On this day in 1907, scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer, who was struggling to make ends meet with his scrap-metal business, purchased an old 600 seat burlesque house in Massachusetts and re-opened it as a movie theater he named the “Orpheum”. His first theater was such a success that within a few years, […]
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Today I found out “Brontosauruses” technically never existed. As children, we went through school learning the fascinating facts about dinosaurs that roamed the earth millions of years ago. We studied the Tyrannosaurus rex, the Stegosaurus, and the beloved Brontosaurus. What many of us may have never learned, however, was the controversy of the giant gentle Brontosaurus. Did it really exist? […]
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If you have a computer hard drive that failed, you should try putting it in the freezer inside a plastic bag for about 20 minutes. After that, immediatley put it back into your computer. This may sound ridiculous, but sometimes that will cause it to work long enough for you to copy your data to another drive. Repeat as necessary […]
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Today I found out alcohol does not “cook out” of food in most cases. The myth that alcohol does all cook out stems from the fact that alcohol has a much lower boiling point temperature (173° F / 78.5° C) than water (212° F / 100° C). Thus, if the temperature is above 78.5° C, then the alcohol should boil […]
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Most of the characters and names in Winnie the Pooh were based on creator A.A. Milne’s son’s toys and stuffed animals with the exception of Owl, Rabbit, and Gopher. The character of Christopher Robin himself was based on Milne’s son Christopher Robin Milne. Christopher Robin Milne’s toy teddy bear, who Winnie the Pooh was created after, is currently on display […]
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The type of radiation emitted by microwave ovens is non-ionizing. This means that it doesn’t contribute to your chance of getting cancer like x-rays, ultraviolet light, etc. do. Outside of potential burn risks, experiments done with rodents have yet to show any major adverse effect to prolonged exposure to microwaves at the 2.45 GHz range seen in most microwave ovens, […]
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This Day In History: November 26, 43 BC On this day in 43 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, (also known as Caesar Augustus) the great nephew of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus formed the political alliance that became known as the “Second Triumvirate”, which officially ended the days of Rome as a Republic. Before their alliance, the […]
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Today I found out Al Capone’s brother was a police officer who at one point was also a prohibition enforcement officer. James Vincenzo Capone, born in 1892, was 7 years old when his infamous brother Al was born. Growing up in Brooklyn, he felt the city life didn’t suit him and decided to head out west. As such, he left […]
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In 1896, there was a group called the “Society for the Prevention of People Being Buried Alive” started by Victorian Americans. Among other things they attempted, they tried to get a law established making it so you could only bury someone after strong smell and putrefaction were evident. Source
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In a marketing effort to boost jewelry sales, the American National Retail Jeweler Association in 1937 revised the system by which certain wedding anniversaries are to be marked by giving various jewels, precious metals, and other artifacts on certain anniversaries. Prior to their marketing scheme, it was traditional only to give standardized gifts on the 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, […]
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This Day In History: November 24, 1971 An unidentified man referred to as D.B. Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 airplane between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. Cooper bought a one-way ticket on a Northwest Orient Airlines, Flight 305 to Seattle, Washington leaving Portland, Oregon at 2:50 p.m. He brought with him aboard the plane a black suit-case supposedly containing a […]
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