This Day In History: September 8, 1560 When Amy Robsart and Robert Dudley married in 1550, it was a love match, or “a carnal marriage, begun for pleasure” as Baron William Cecil described it. But there had always been another woman in his life, Queen Elizabeth I, who he’d known since childhood. They were both imprisoned in the Tower at […]
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In 1744 at the age of 18, François-André Danican Philidor (1726-1795) enthralled Parisian society after playing two simultaneous games of chess in a public demonstration, all while blindfolded. And even though he lost one game and only drew the other, the display established Philidor as a chess master par excellence, and blew new life into the ancient practice of blindfold […]
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In November of 1557, the Mapuche warrior, Galvarino, led a division of his fellow soldiers in a desperate battle against Spanish colonial forces in the Araucania in central Chile. Remarkably, since he no longer had hands, Galvarino rushed headlong into the fray armed only with his teeth and a knife strapped to each wrist. The Spanish campaign to conquer Chile […]
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This Day In History: September 7, 1813 On September 7, 1813, the Troy Post in New York published an article on the War of 1812 that contained an early reference to “Uncle Sam” as the personification of the United States of America: “Loss upon loss, and no ill luck stir[r]ing but what lights upon Uncle Sam‘s* shoulders, exclaim the Government […]
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Our very good friends over at Neatorama are currently running a big sale offering their ridiculous number of awesome T-shirts for up to 20% off with free worldwide shipping on orders of $75 and up. The sale ends soon (this Monday), so if you’re looking to stock up on some great T-shirts for the school year at a great price, […]
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Alex P. asks: Why are baseball dugouts built below ground? Imagine attending a game with no stadium seating where you have great tickets right near the action on the infield. The pitcher winds up, releases the ball, and as it speeds toward the batter, the runner on third makes an attempt to steal home. When the ball and the runner […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader If you have kids, there’s a good chance that the very first time you laid eyes on them was via a “sonogram” image taken before they were even born. The grainy images are so common that they’ve become a rite of passage for parents all over the world. Here’s the […]
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This Day In History: September 4, 1957 On September 4, 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to block the entry of nine black students from Central High School in Little Rock. Faubus was acting in direct defiance of a Supreme Court order, in what author Taylor Branch calls “the most severe test of the Constitution since the […]
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With irony equal to that of the unsinkable Titanic drowning on her maiden voyage, the Swedish warship, Mars, called “the Matchless,” was set afire, her armament exploded, and she sank during her first major sea battle. Lost for nearly 450 years, Mars has recently been found in the Baltic Sea, and archaeologists are giddy with the discovery. In the 1560s, […]
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On June 26, 1975, professional gambler Barney Curley pulled off one of the most famous betting coups in all of sports. With careful planning and skillful execution, Curley and his compatriots won just over IR£300,000 (or about $2.6 million today) on the “slow but steady” mostly unknown horse named Yellow Sam. Curley’s father, Charlie, had been a grocer before sinking […]
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This Day In History: September 3, 1752 “It is pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14.” – Ben Franklin Over six million people living in Britain and the American colonies went to sleep on September 2, 1752, but awoke on September 14. This […]
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One of only two highwaymen sufficiently dashing to have earned a place in Lord Macaulay’s famous History of England, in the summer of 1676, John “Swift Nick” Nevison famously galloped from Kent to York, a journey of about 200 miles, in a single, very long day- all to create an alibi. Like much of his life, little is definitively known […]
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Today, Casual Friday is a day when the conventional dress codes of most offices are cast aside in favour of denim jeans, comfortable t-shirts with movie slogans on them and shirts with the sleeves rolled up. But few people realise that this time-honored tradition of “sticking it to the man” forcing you to wear a noose around your neck four […]
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This Day In History: September 2, 1973 Author, poet, philologist, scholar, and professor, J. R. R. Tolkien is often lauded as the father of the modern fantasy novel. Ranked sixth on a list of top post-WWII British writers, he was also the fifth top-earning dead celebrity in 2009 according to Forbes magazine. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January […]
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In this video from Anglophenia, Kate Arnell explains the interesting origin of Cockney and the meanings and origins behind various Cockney slang. For more videos like this, be sure to subscribe to their channel. If you liked this video, you might also enjoy: How Dick Came to be Short for Richard What is the Origin of the Word “Tip”, as […]
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Zack D asks: Is it true that the terracotta army soldiers are all unique? More than two thousand years ago, the man who unified China, established a single system of writing and currency, and began construction of the Great Wall, ordered that a 20 square mile underground city, to be later filled with the finest treasures and protected by thousands […]
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Over a 20-year career in post-Civil War New York, Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum is estimated to have fenced as much as $10 million in stolen property (around a quarter of a billion dollars when adjusted for inflation). Sitting at the center of a vast crime web the spanned large areas of the United States, Ma Mandelbaum was then known as “the […]
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This Day In History: September 1, 1836 Americans Narcissa Whitman and her husband, Marcus (a physician) in 1836 headed west with another couple, missionaries Henry and Eliza Spalding, on their way to Oregon. The foursome made the grueling trip with a caravan of fur traders for most of the journey for protection. Along the way, Narcissa and Eliza became the […]
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