The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Even if you’ve never heard of Otis Blackwell, you’ve almost certainly heard his music—he was one of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century. Here’s the story of the most famous songwriter most people have never heard of. TIGHT CHRISTMAS In the mid 1950s, Otis Blackwell was a struggling […]
Read more
This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why Doesn’t the United States Use a Popular Vote to Determine the President? On December 13, 2000, Vice President Al Gore conceded the presidential election to Governor Bush. A day earlier, a lengthy and expensive manual vote recount process in Florida […]
Read more
Jeremy R. asks: How did Switzerland manage to stay neutral during WWI and WWII? The tiny mountainous country of Switzerland has been in a state of “perpetual neutrality” since the major European powers of the time declared it as such during the Congress of Vienna after the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. Why did they do this? The […]
Read more
Conceived in early 1990, the MagiCan campaign was supposed to be the spearhead of a massive summer promotion the cola giant dubbed “Magic Summer ’90”. In a nutshell, the promotion involved hiding cash prizes ranging from $5-$500, as well as some other goodies such as coupons for free Coke, inside of 750,000 of the several hundred million cans of Coke […]
Read more
On May 6, 1954, just under one year after New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Nepalese mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first humans to reach the top of Mount Everest, another seemingly insurmountable barrier was crossed- a human being ran the mile in less than four minutes. The man who did it was 25-year-old British medical student Roger Bannister, finishing […]
Read more
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader How did people in ancient times remember things when they had no computers, books, or even paper? The only way they could: in their heads, where they created a special place for information to reside. BACKGROUND Mnemonics is any system of mental touchstones that helps you to retain larger amounts […]
Read more
In this week’s “best of” our YouTube channel, we look at a variety of topics, including, why a final performance is called a Swan Song, the purpose of the dangly thing in the back of your throat, the reason other people’s farts smell worse to you, the story behind why we tell actors to break a leg, what type of […]
Read more
Mike C. asks: Why don’t we use the popular vote to pick the president? On December 13, 2000, Vice President Al Gore conceded the presidential election to Governor Bush. A day earlier, a lengthy and expensive manual vote recount process in Florida was stopped by the United States Supreme Court despite Bush leading by only 537 votes. With Bush winning […]
Read more
This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Is the Ocean Getting Saltier? Most sea salts come from water-caused erosion, whereby rivers ultimately carry the dissolved salts to the oceans. Absent a few key processes, the ocean’s salinity would continuously increase; however, there are several mechanisms, called “salt sinks,” […]
Read more
We know him as the man who penned the Declaration of Independence, President of the United States and advocate for the separation of church and state. But Thomas Jefferson’s impact on America goes far beyond simple politics. He was an inventor, a philosopher, a bookaphile and an architect. He was also a food connoisseur. Drawing from his time as French […]
Read more
Richard Turpin, better known by his nickname, Dick, was a legendary highwayman who stalked the English countryside. A century or so after his death by hanging in 1739, Turpin was idealised as a dashing rogue or gentleman thief type in a multitude of supposedly factual stories purportedly based on his life. In reality, he was not exactly dashing, with a […]
Read more
Gina A. asks: Is the ocean continually getting saltier as salt comes in from the rivers or is there some way that the salt gets moved back onto land? Most sea salts come from water-caused erosion, whereby rivers ultimately carry the dissolved salts to the oceans. Absent a few key processes, the ocean’s salinity would continuously increase; however, there are […]
Read more
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Harley Earl is considered one of the three most important figures in the history of the American auto industry (Henry Ford and GM head Alfred Sloan are the other two). Yet other than car buffs, few people have heard of him. THE HOLLYWOOD KID In 1925 the General Motors Corporation […]
Read more
In this week’s “best of” our YouTube channel, we look at when men started getting circumcised, who invented tea bags, why trains don’t have cabooses, why it’s called an Adam’s apple, where the term “boobs” comes from and why we don’t use bidets in the United States Click here to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for many more videos like […]
Read more
This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. How the Five Day Work Week Became Popular On September 25, 1926, the Ford Motor Company instituted a five-day, 40-hour work week for its factory employees. While Ford wasn’t the first to do this, they were arguably one of the most […]
Read more
It was a beautiful spring day on the banks of the Potomac River in 1826 when Secretary of State Henry Clay and Senator John Randolph of Roanoke counted paces, cocked their guns and prepared to fire at one another. The two notable American politicians were engaged in an illegal duel that, by nearly all accounts, should have never happened. Shots […]
Read more
We British are a famously stoic people and notable figures from our history are often portrayed as being impossibly composed- facing unthinkable hardship and turmoil with a quiet, reserved dignity. Perhaps no man in history has ever typified this stereotype better than Henry Paget, a man who by all accounts reacted to his leg being blown off and then amputated […]
Read more
Product placement is a subtle art and when it’s done well, a few seconds of footage can instantly raise the profile of a given brand. Perhaps the best known example of this is the use of Reece’s Pieces in E.T., which saw a 65% boost in sales almost overnight. This makes it kind of fitting that arguably the worst example […]
Read more