Today I found out why men’s bikes have a horizontal crossbar and women’s bikes typically don’t. It would seem that having a slanted crossbar like on women’s bikes would make much more sense for men’s bikes, decreasing the chance of racking the guy if he slips off the pedals or the like. However, there is actually a really good reason […]
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Today I found out that the moon isn’t as old as the Earth and was formed approximately 30–50 million years after the Solar System based on what is called ‘the giant impact theory’. Although no one can say for sure exactly how our moon came to be, there a few hypothesis and theories of which the ‘the giant impact theory’ is […]
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Today I Found Out the “Hip Hip” in “Hip Hip, Hooray” was once anti-Semitic. This phrase is thought to have its origins in the middle-age Latin battle-cry “Hieroslyma est perdita’, which means “Jerusalem is fallen” or “Jerusalem is lost”. This was later shortened by Germanic tribes fighting Jews to “Hep Hep Hu-raj”, meaning loosely “Jerusalem is fallen and we are […]
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Daniel G asks: Why is a baker’s dozen 13 and not 12? There are three main theories for why a baker’s dozen is 13 instead of 12, but most think it has its origins in the fact that many societies throughout history have had extremely strict laws concerning baker’s wares, due to the fact that it is fairly easy for bakers to […]
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Today I found out the origin of the name of the sport Cricket. The name is originally thought to either have been derived from the Old French “criquet”, meaning “goal, post, or stick” or from the Middle Dutch “kricke”, meaning “stick” or “staff”. The latter Middle Dutch derivation from “kricke” is generally considered more likely due to the strong medieval trade connections […]
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Today I found out, contrary to popular belief, George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter. The earliest reference to peanut butter being made goes all the way back to the Ancient Incas and the Aztecs, though whether they were the first or not isn’t known (peanuts themselves are known to have been cultivated as far back as 7000-8000 years […]
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Today I found out the biblical expression “40 days and 40 nights” just means a really long time. At the time among the Jews, the number forty wasn’t generally used to signify a specific number, per se, but rather more used as a general term for a large figure. When it was used in terms of time, it simply […]
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Today I found out about Sullivan Ballou’s letter to his wife written just a few days before the first major land battle of the American Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run, fought this day (July 21) in 1861 in Manassas, Virginia. Ballou was a major in the U.S. Army and a member of the Rhode Island Volunteers. Before […]
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Today I found out why the Adam’s Apple is called the Adam’s Apple. The origins of this term go all the way back to the Biblical event where Eve gave Adam a forbidden fruit, which is commonly misrepresented as an apple. The term then basically comes from the legend that when he ate of the “apple”, the piece got stuck […]
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Today I found out UPS was started by two teenagers with one bicycle and $100 borrowed from a friend. The date was August 28, 1907 and the two kids were 18 year old Claude Ryan and 19 year old Jim Casey. The two had one bike between them and $100 (about $2400 today) borrowed from a friend to found the […]
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Today I found out why some countries drive on the right and some countries drive on the left. The origin of this varies based on the time period and country, but primarily throughout history people used the “keep-left” rule. It has only been very recently that the world has predominately switched to the “keep-right” rule. The first real archaeological evidence […]
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Today I found out Jesus wasn’t really a carpenter, at least not as we understand the profession. Now obviously, eventually Jesus’s chosen profession was of a “Rabbi” or teacher; so in that sense he wasn’t a carpenter regardless of translation. However, in his early years, it is supposed from Mark 6:2-3 that he was, like his step-father, a “carpenter” as […]
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Today I found out where the dollar sign ($) comes from. This symbol first showed up in the 1770s, appearing in documents of English-Americans who had business dealings with Spanish-Americans. However, it wasn’t until the very early 1800s that it became popularized, around the same time as the first official U.S. dollars were being minted. Previous to this, the symbol […]
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Today I found out what the first website ever made was. Simply put, it was a website made by the World Wide Web’s creator Tim Berners-Lee, who was working for CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). The first ever website was published on August 6, 1991 and served up a page explaining the World Wide Web project and giving information […]
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Today I found out there was once a woman who had immortal cells. These immortal cells have multiplied to the point that if you were to weigh all of them that live today, they’d weigh about 50 million metric tons, which is about as much as 100 Empire State Buildings. So who was this woman and why are scientists keeping […]
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Today I found out a “Third World” country is not a country that simply is primitive, underdeveloped, or poor, as most people think. In fact, a third world country is actually just a country that is not considered a capitalist country (first world) and not considered a communist country (2nd world). This terminology was originally coined just after WWII with […]
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Today I found out Moon dust smells like spent gunpowder. This is according to the astronauts that have had the opportunity to smell fresh Moon dust that had been tracked into the lunar module after excursions out on the surface of the Moon. The astronauts didn’t just smell the dust though, they also touched and tasted it. They say it […]
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Today I found out that the Swastika in Buddhism represents universal harmony, dharma, the balance of opposites, and, originally, eternity and good luck or “all is well”. Now of course in the western world the Swastika has a pretty bad reputation thanks to a certain German tree hugging vegetarian and his political party. However, Hitler and his crazy gang weren’t […]
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