{"id":28786,"date":"2013-12-28T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2013-12-28T08:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=28786"},"modified":"2013-12-24T03:40:26","modified_gmt":"2013-12-24T11:40:26","slug":"weekly-wrap-volume-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2013\/12\/weekly-wrap-volume-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Wrap Volume 19"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here<\/a>.<\/div>\n

\"John-Lennon\"<\/a>John Lennon and the Making of His Last Album<\/a><\/p>\n

When John Lennon and Yoko Ono stepped into New York\u2019s \u201cThe Hit Factory\u201d on August 7, 1980, it was quite the occasion. John was returning to the music-making game after a five year absence. After being \u201cunder contract\u201d since he was 21, John had walked away from making music in 1975 to become a \u201chousehusband\u201d- instead of being a musician, for five years, John was busy taking care of, feeding, shopping for, and raising his newborn son, Sean. John had chosen to record at The Hit Factory because it was \u201cout of the way\u201d, and he wanted the entire project to be as hush-hush as possible. Before they were hired, the musicians,… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Christmas-truce-340x239\"<\/a>The Amazing Christmas Truce<\/a><\/p>\n

On the whole, people don\u2019t generally like to kill one another.\u00a0 Most wars throughout history are often more about the agendas of the state\u2019s leaders than the soldiers on the field actually inherently feeling any real malice towards those they are asked to try to kill or otherwise defeat.\u00a0 Few events in history illustrate this as well as a remarkable episode that took place during WWI when, despite the orders of their commanding officers and leaders, the soldiers threw aside their weapons, got out of the trenches and had a make-shift Christmas party with those that just hours before they\u2019d been trying to kill.\u00a0 This momentous event has become known as The Christmas Truce<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/em>Leading up to this impromptu truce in 1914, Pope Benedict XV… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"ice-ship-340x227\"<\/a>England’s Proposed WWII Secret Weapon: A Massive Ship Made of Ice<\/a><\/p>\n

Britain was taking a beating from the German ships and submarines and were looking for something to build a ship out of that couldn\u2019t be destroyed by torpedoes, or at least could take a major pounding without incurring a fatal amount of damage. With steel and aluminum in short supply, Allied scientists and engineers were encouraged to come up with alternative materials and weapons. A scientist named Geoffrey Pyke was the king of alternative ideas (as you\u2019ll see in the Bonus<\/span> Facts below). One of his ideas was to build a 2,000 foot long, 300 foot wide and two million ton carrier. Pyke… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"basketball\"<\/a>The Lowest Scoring Game in NBA History and the Fix That Saved Professional Basketball<\/a><\/p>\n

On a cold, late November Wednesday in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crowd of 7,021 arrived to the Minneapolis Auditorium to watch an NBA game between the Fort Wayne Pistons and the Minneapolis Lakers. This was a new experience for many of the fans in the stands. The NBA had formed due to a merger between rival leagues, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL), less than 16 months before. The new league was still trying to find its footing. Each game represented a chance to win \u2013 and lose \u2013 fans. \u00a0This matchup boasted some of the brightest basketball stars of the day \u2013 most prominent of all, the great George Mikan. A basketball prodigy since his college days at DePaul in Chicago, he joined the Lakers in 1947 and dominated games right… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"fly-e1299577128887\"<\/a>How Flies Land on the Ceiling<\/a><\/p>\n

A popular notion of how they accomplished this used to be that the flies would do a half barrel roll sideways just before landing on the ceiling and then let their momentum carry them the rest of the way up.\u00a0 This was shown to be incorrect when, in 1958, Natural History Magazine took and published photos of flies landing on the ceiling.\u00a0 What is actually happening here is that as the fly approaches the ceiling, flying normally, it extends its forelegs… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Bonus<\/span> Quick Facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n