Myth: Cockroaches would survive an extreme nuclear fallout You’ve probably heard that “the only living things that would survive a nuclear war would be cockroaches and Cher”. The latter may be true, but the former is most definitely not. It has even be suggested that cockroaches can survive the amount of radiation at ground zero of a nuclear explosion, though […]
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Myth: The Pilgrims Celebrated the First Thanksgiving in America. The Pilgrims did not celebrate the first Thanksgiving in America. In fact, the particular Pilgrim event that is often cited as the first Thanksgiving wasn’t even the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving. They had several before then at various times and none of them were an annual thing. These days were simply a […]
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Today I found out Sarah Josepha Hale, author of Mary Had a Little Lamb, was largely responsible for the establishment of the United States’ Thanksgiving Holiday. Hale, one of the great women in American history, campaigned for nearly 20 years to get Thanksgiving made a national holiday. It previously was only celebrated, as we think of it, in New England; […]
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Today I found out how the Black Friday tradition got started. While it wasn’t called “Black Friday” until the 1960s, and then not popularly called such until the last two decades, retailers have been trying to push people to shop the Friday after Thanksgiving since the late 19th /early 20th century. Around this time, it was very popular for various […]
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Myth: Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year. Black Friday is not the biggest shopping day of the year. In fact, it’s typically not even in the top five, though has cracked the ranks a few times in recent years. The real biggest shopping day of the year is nearly always the Saturday before Christmas, excepting a […]
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Today I found out how the tradition of the Detroit Lions playing on Thanksgiving got started. In 1934, radio executive G.A. Richards bought the Portsmouth, Ohio Spartans NFL team, moved them to Detroit, and renamed them the Lions. Unfortunately for him, nobody in Detroit cared much for watching the Lions. Despite winning all their games but one before Thanksgiving, having […]
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Myth: Phil Collins wrote “in the air tonight” after a friend of his drowned and a person on shore could have saved him, but didn’t. Phil Collins did not write the song In the Air Tonight about a guy who could have saved another guy from drowning, but chose not to do so. Twists on this urban legend include stories […]
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Today I found out the actor who played “Scotty” on Star Trek, James Doohan, was shot six times storming Juno beach on D-Day. Doohan, a Canadian, after leading his men through a mine field on Juno beach and personally taking out two German snipers in the process, eventually took four rounds in one of his legs; one in his hand, […]
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Myth: Chameleons change color to match their environment. Chameleons don’t change color to match their environment. Rather, they change color as a response to mood, temperature, health, communication, and light. Now, not all kinds of chameleons have the ability to change color and some only have limited ability for color changing; for instance, many types of chameleons can only turn, […]
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Today I found out Ben & Jerry’s was originally going to be a bagel company. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield ended up changing their minds when they found out how much it would cost to get all the needed equipment for making bagels. Instead, in 1978, they both took a $5 correspondence course from Pennsylvania State University on ice cream […]
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Today I found out why Rice Krispies pop when milk is poured over them. Specifically, the popping is a result of the walls of the Rice Krispies kernels fracturing. There are two prevalent theories as to the exact process that results in this fracturing and it’s entirely possible that both are occurring. Rice Krispies, also known as “Rice Bubbles”, in […]
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Myth: Violin strings were once made out of cat guts. Violin strings were not made out of actual cat guts. Catgut is (and was) made from the walls of various animal intestines though. Generally sheep or goat intestines are preferred, but occasionally other intestines are used, such as intestines from pigs and cows. This practice of making strings and cord […]
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Today I found out domestic cats fall from any height with a remarkable survival rate. This is, of course, assuming they don’t suffocate- say, if you dropped them from 40,000 feet- and that they land on relatively flat ground (nothing pointy or the like). This one seems like it shouldn’t be true. However, it turns out, a typical domestic cat’s […]
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Today I found out where the word “amen” came from. Specifically, “amen” comes from the Hebrew word… *wait for it*… “āmēn” (אָמֵן). More interestingly, amen is one of the rare examples where a word has survived thousands of years and been adopted into a few different languages without any real modification to its meaning across time and those languages, dating […]
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Myth: Handling a baby bird or bird egg will cause the parent birds to reject it. You’ll often hear this myth stated that if you touch a baby bird, the parents will completely abandon it and it will die. In fact, most birds have a very poor sense of smell, so in most cases are unable to even notice human […]
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Today I found out fifty percent of the ownership of Domino’s Pizza was once traded for a used Volkswagen Beetle. The year was 1961, just a little under one year after brothers Tom and James Monaghan had purchased a pizza restaurant, DomiNick’s, for $500. After eight months of running the business as a partnership, James Monaghan got the bright idea […]
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Today I found out why fingers wrinkle in water. For the quick answer, water washes away an oily substance that protects your skin. When that happens, a certain type of dead cell on your skin will absorb the water causing the cells to swell up, but the layer underneath does not. So the swelling, combined with the places the skin […]
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