{"id":29641,"date":"2014-02-01T00:00:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-01T08:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=29641"},"modified":"2014-02-02T02:24:58","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T10:24:58","slug":"weekly-wrap-volume-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2014\/02\/weekly-wrap-volume-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Wrap Volume 24"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here<\/a>.<\/div>\n

\"violet-jessop\"<\/a>The Woman Who Survived All Three Disasters Aboard the Sister Ships: the Titanic, Britannic, and Olympic<\/a><\/p>\n

Violet Jessop enjoyed incredible \u201cluck\u201d from a young age. Born in 1887 in Argentina to Irish immigrants, she contracted tuberculosis as a young child and was given just a few months to live. Somehow, she managed to fight the disease and went on to live a long, healthy life.\u00a0 When her father passed away, her mother moved the family to Britain, where she took a job as a stewardess on a ship. While her mother was working, Violet attended a convent school. Unfortunately, her mother became ill, and to provide for her siblings Violet… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"coffee3\"<\/a>The World’s Most Expensive Cup of Coffee<\/a><\/p>\n

According to a 2013 survey, over eighty three percent of Americans drink coffee in the morning and the average citizen drinks multiple cups per day. Between the dark brew, the flavored lattes, the frozen caffeinated treats, and the whirling gadgets, coffee is now a thirty billion dollar industry. Coffee is big business and companies like Starbucks, Peets, and Folgers have spent gobs of money to get people to drink more of it. Despite all of that, the most expensive coffee probably can\u2019t be found in your downtown coffee shop. No, the most expensive coffee in the world lives alongside feces in the intestinal gut of an Asian palm civet. Kopi Luwak is the Indonesian pronunciation for what is called \u201ccivet coffee,\u201d a beverage made from the beans of coffee berries that are eaten and, then, defecated by the Asian palm civet…(more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"metre\"<\/a>The Evolution of the Metre<\/a><\/p>\n

Though you\u2019ve likely never given it much thought, a universally accepted unit of measurement like the humble metre is an amazing thing. It lets scientists separated by culture, language, race and even thousands of miles of geography work together on equations and problems like they were sitting next to each other. So how did this unit of measurement come to be? Well, before we discuss the metre, it\u2019s important to understand what came first. Prior to the metre, Europe\u2019s standard-ish unit of measurement was yards and… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"newyears\"<\/a>Why Does the New Year Begin on January First in Many Countries?<\/a><\/p>\n

Because Julius Caesar said so.\u00a0 Since long before Caesar\u2019s time, date keeping was dicey. In fact, the 355-day Roman calendar that immediately preceded Caesar\u2019s Julian, worked on a four year cycle where every other year, an additional month<\/i> was inserted between February (Februarius<\/i>), the last month of that calendar year, and March (Martius<\/i>), the first month of the year; this was done in order to catch the calendar up with the Earth\u2019s orbit of the Sun. That additional month, called the Mensis intercalaris<\/a><\/i>, brought in the missing 22 or 23 days, and to even things up, took another five days from February in the years it was present. Since the calendar had been designed to ensure the proper observance of religious dates, priests,… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"pigskin\"<\/a>Were Football Ever Really Made of Pigskin?<\/a><\/p>\n

These days, footballs are typically made from cowhide or vulcanized rubber, making their nickname \u201cpigskins\u201d somewhat ironic. Football fans often perpetuate the idea that footballs used to be made of pigskin, which is how they got their nickname, but it turns out this isn\u2019t the case. In fact, \u201cpigskins\u201d were originally made out of animal bladders\u2014sometimes the bladder of a pig, which is thought to be how the moniker \u201cpigskin\u201d came about. Animal bladders were much more accessible to the average team than more expensive… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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