This Day In History: July 31, 1703 Daniel Defoe, who later went on to author the novel Robinson Crusoe, was put in the pillory on July 31, 1703. His crime was seditious libel related to a satirical pamphlet he wrote defending freedom of religion. The problem was that Defoe did too good of a job of mimicking those he was […]
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At the turn of the 20th century in the isolated little town of Boonville, California, local residents became so enamored with creating and using their unique slang that they essentially developed an entire language. Called Boontling after the town, due to the way the language was formed, it is relatively incomprehensible to all except the initiated. About 50 miles southeast […]
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Thomas Fitzpatrick, known to his friends as Tommy Fitz, was a native of Washington Heights, Manhattan, who, although he had moved to New Jersey, still hung out with his old friends from the neighborhood. A “wild bunch,” Tommy’s crew were adventurous and enjoyed frequenting area bars. Late in evening (or rather early in the morning) of September 30, 1956, as […]
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This Day In History: July 30, 1976 The road to Bruce Jenner’s record-breaking gold medal in 1976 began at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, where he placed tenth in the decathlon. After the event, he reportedly approached the champion Nikolay Avilov of the Soviet Union, looked him straight in the eye and told him, “Next time, I’m going to […]
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This is a video from CGP Grey in which he explains what countries comprise “Scandinavia.” If you like this video, please subscribe to Grey’s awesome YouTube channel here. You can also join us in supporting his videos on Patreon here. If you liked this video, you might also enjoy: The Truth About Vikings and Their Helmets Where Do the Gypsies […]
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For a couple of months in the fall of 1969, a persistent rumor that Paul McCartney had been killed two years earlier and replaced with a look-alike captured the imaginations of Beatles fans and the general public. The rumor began in the winter of 1967 when, after a particularly icy night, reports were flying among Britain’s national press that Paul […]
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This Day In History: July 29, 1862 Confederate spy Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd, often called the “Cleopatra of the Secession”, was arrested by Union troops on July 29, 1862, and incarcerated in Old Capital Prison in Washington D.C. It was the first of three arrests for this teenage espionage agent from Martinsburg, Virginia. Belle’s town was one of the first […]
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In the third decade of the third century CE, climate issues, civil war, economic depression and plague combined to seriously destabilize the Roman Empire. Beginning a fifty-year period where leadership of the empire passed between at least 26 men was the short reign of perhaps the largest emperor of Rome, Maximinus Thrax. Born Gaius Julius Verus in about 173 CE […]
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Captain Robert Campbell began his British Army career in 1903 at the age of 18. Shortly after WWI started, in July of 1914 Campbell and the soldiers he was leading, the First Battalion East Surrey Regiment, were sent to Mons-Condé canal in the north west of France. One week later, after an attack by German forces, Captain Campbell was seriously […]
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This Day In History: July 28, 1750 Regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach was from a family of seven generations of musicians. Beethoven considered Bach the “original father of harmony.” His influence was so encompassing that his death on July 28, 1750 marks the end of the Baroque period in music. Born in […]
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On March 3, 1876, one Mrs. Crouch was working in her yard in Bath County, Kentucky, making soap, when suddenly “meat which looked like beef began to fall all around her. The sky was perfectly clear at the time.” Falling like large snowflakes and settling all around the 5000 square foot yard, pieces of flesh ranging in size from about […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader American history might have been written in French or Spanish. Here’s part of the reason it wasn’t. PLUNDERERS FOR HIRE In 1562 some French Protestants known as Huguenots landed on what is now Parris Island, near Beaufort, South Carolina. Like the English Pilgrims who would arrive a half century later, […]
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This Day In History: July 27, 1940 On July 27, 1940, a legendary, world-renowned rabbit was born in Brooklyn, New York. (Actually, he was born in Hollywood, but you’d never know it from the accent.) He’s the wise-cracking, street-smart, self-assured star of the screen, Bugs Bunny. But he didn’t just appear out of nowhere. The bunny that became Bugs was […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Bonsai! Long before the bonsai art form of creating miniature trees came to Japan, the wealthy in China were perfecting their craft known as “penzai” and “penjing.” The former means “tray plant” and the latter “tray scenery.” It is from the […]
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In this video from our new YouTube channel (click here to subscribe), we answer the questions of who Craig is from Craigslist, and how and why he ended up starting that site.
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In this week’s “best of” our YouTube channel, we discuss who invented the QWERTY keyboard and how it became the defacto configuration for keyboards, the truth about who really invented the Fortune Cookie, the interesting story behind the song “A Boy Named Sue” and what famous children’s poet wrote it, and a bunch of fascinating Harry Potter facts. Be sure […]
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This Day In History: July 24, 1911 On the drizzly, damp morning of July 24, 1911, Yale professor Hiram Bingham was leading an expedition through the jungles of the Andes Mountains in Peru. He was searching for the last two capitals of the Inca Empire, Vitcos and Vilcabamba. Instead, with a young local boy leading the way, Bingham happened upon […]
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According to the only book I currently have on my desk, everyone poops and that’s okay. What’s less okay though is when there’s nowhere for that poop to go- something people in Victorian era London found out first hand when all of the sewage they’d pumped into the Thames dried up and caused a stench that spurred London’s City Press […]
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