Weekly Wrap Volume 138

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Origin of Valentines Day While not thought to be directly related to modern Valentine’s Day traditions, the beginnings of celebrating love (of a sort) in February date back to the Romans. The feast of Lupercalia was a pagan fertility and […]

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The Last Laugh- Millionaire Charles Vance Millar and His Practical Jokes from Beyond the Grave

For many people, being dead is a fairly limiting handicap that prevents them from doing most of the things the living take for granted. In the 1930s, a man called Charles Vance Millar challenged that unfair stereotype via various stipulations of his will that allowed him to continue playing jokes on people despite being dead. A lawyer by trade, Millar […]

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Do Athletes Really go to Disneyland After a Big Win, Who was Miranda of the Miranda Warning, Whatever Happened to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and More

In this week’s “best of” our YouTube channel, Do athletes really go to Disneyland after saying they will when winning a big sporting event? Why is the Miranda warning called that? Why we sometimes refer to the toilet as a crapper and much more. Click here to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for many more videos like this. Do Athletes […]

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Weekly Wrap Volume 137

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Origin of Gatorade and How the Tradition of the “Gatorade Shower” Got Started During a typical sticky, unbearable August weekend in 1965 in Gainesville- the home of the University of Florida Gators- football practices were well underway in anticipation for […]

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Couch Potatoes, Why Red Meat Turns Brown When Cooking, Where Lincoln’s Bodyguard was During the Assassination and More

In this week’s “best of” our YouTube channel, we look at why lazy people are sometimes called couch potatoes, why red meat turns brown when cooked, why you can’t tickle yourself, the fascinating story of the King of the Dudes, and why we drive on parkways and park on driveways. Click here to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for many […]

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Weekly Wrap Volume 136

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Can Fish Get Thirsty and Why Can’t Freshwater Fish Live in Saltwater and Vice Versa? For fish, or at least teleost fish (which make up about 96% of all fish), the desire to drink is an urge that originates from the […]

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The Origin of Gatorade and How the Tradition of the “Gatorade Shower” Got Started

chastitydetori. asks: Why do athletes dump Gatorade on their coaches after winning a game? During a typical sticky, unbearable August weekend in 1965 in Gainesville- the home of the University of Florida Gators- football practices were well underway in anticipation for the upcoming season. However, the weather had wreaked havoc on the freshman football team over the weekend. 25 players […]

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From a Hot Dog Stand to Taco Bell, Why Coupons Sometimes Say They Are Worth a Fraction of a Penny, Ahoy hoy, and More

In this week’s “best of” our YouTube channel, we look at how a business that sold hot dogs grew into Taco Bell, how the gun on the original Duck Hunt worked, when we used to say “Ahoy hoy” when answering a phone, what started the cops eating doughnuts stereotype, and how the crop circles phenomenon got started. Click here to […]

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The Origin of Nachos and How Football Helped Popularize Them Surprisingly Recently

Americans eat a lot on Super Bowl Sunday, according to one 2015 study consuming triple the amount of their daily allowance of calories per serving during the Super Bowl. In fact, it’s the second largest food consumption day of the year in the country (behind Thanksgiving). Of the many millions of pounds of snacks eaten in honor of America’s (still) […]

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Why “Yellow” Can Mean “Cowardly”

Becky G. asks: Why are cowardly people called “yellow bellied”? The color of warning signals, smiley faces, rubber duckies and the Sun (at least from our perspective- in fact the Sun is white if viewed from space), for many of us yellow has a favorable connotation; yet, at various points throughout human history, yellow has decidedly been a symbolism of, […]

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Weekly Wrap Volume 135

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Curious Case of the Pillownauts Today we take it for granted that astronauts can function in the weightlessness of spaceflight, but at the dawn of the space age in the early 1960s, scientists weren’t sure that was possible. Some experts […]

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