{"id":36182,"date":"2014-10-11T00:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T07:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=36182"},"modified":"2014-10-10T20:22:47","modified_gmt":"2014-10-11T03:22:47","slug":"weekly-wrap-volume-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/weekly-wrap-volume-59\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Wrap Volume 59"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here<\/a>.<\/div>\n

\"snoring\"<\/a>Why Do Men Snore More Than Women?<\/a><\/p>\n

When humans sleep, the muscles around our throats relax and cause the airways to narrow. Snoring occurs when certain soft tissues\u2014such as the soft palate (or roof of the mouth), the uvula (the dangling piece of tissue at the top of the throat), elements in the nasal passages, or the base of the tongue\u2014relax too much and partially block a person\u2019s airway. As the body tries to breathe normally, the increased pressure in a person\u2019s throat causes the soft tissues near the airway to vibrate. The amount of the airway that is blocked can determine the severity of the snoring, so the smaller the airway, generally the louder the snoring. Certain factors can increase the likelihood that a person, man or woman, might snore. For instance, snoring can worsen with… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"tetris-e1296803801742\"<\/a>The Rights to Tetris Were Originally Owned by the Soviet Union<\/a><\/p>\n

The game was created by Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov, with the assistance of Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov who ported it to an IBM PC, and was released on June 6, 1984.\u00a0 At the time, Pajitnov was working at the Dorodnicyn Computing Center, which was a part of a Soviet government funded research center in Moscow, called the Soviet Academy of Sciences.\u00a0 Because Pajitnov was working for the government and was using their equipment when he created Tetris, they retained the rights to the game in the beginning with no royalties being paid to Pajitnov. The game was a huge hit within the USSR almost immediately, being given away freely by the Soviet Union throughout Eastern Europe and the USSR.\u00a0 Within a year of its launch… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"pledge-of-allegiance-340x445\"<\/a>The Origin of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance<\/a><\/p>\n

The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy in 1892. It was published in a popular children\u2019s magazine of the time called\u00a0The Youth\u2019s Companion<\/em> as part of the 400th anniversary celebration of Christopher Columbus arriving in the New World<\/a>. The celebration itself was the brainchild of James B. Upham, a marketer for the magazine who made it his business to foster a sense of patriotism in the youth of America. Upham\u2019s goal was to, \u201cinstill into the minds of our American youth a love for their country and the principles on which it was founded, and create in them an ambition to carry on with the ideals which the early founders wrote into the Constitution\u2026\u201d Francis Bellamy intended for the Pledge… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Al_Jolson\"<\/a>Al Jolson- Misunderstood Hero or Villain?<\/a><\/p>\n

Ask most movie fans, \u201cWhat was the first \u2018talkie\u2019?\u201d The most frequent reply tends to be \u201cThe Jazz Singer\u201d starring Al Jolson. This is a \u201csort of\u201d correct answer, but not really. The earliest \u201csound\u201d movies were made by synchronizing motion pictures to phonograph records. In 1926, (a year before \u201cThe Jazz Singer\u201d) Warner Brothers re-released the previously silent film \u201cDon Juan\u201d with a soundtrack recording done by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Warner Brothers also released the first actual all-talking, feature-length motion picture in 1928. It was called \u201cLights of New York.\u201d The following year, Twentieth Century Fox released \u201cIn Old Arizona,\u201d the first all-talkie feature with sound directly recorded on the film. \u201cThe Jazz Singer\u201d was actually a silent movie with poorly synchronized musical numbers and a few sentences of spoken words. One of the main reasons \u201cThe Jazz Singer\u201d is such a legendary film is because of its star- the immortal Al Jolson. Jolson was, by all accounts, the \u201cElvis Presley\u201d… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"jeans\"<\/a>When and How Jeans Became Popular<\/a><\/p>\n

Jeans are easily one of the most ubiquitous pieces of clothing on Earth with millions of pairs being made, sold and wrapped around the butts of style conscious individuals every single day. But why are jeans so popular and for what purpose were they first made? Before we answer that it\u2019s important for us to first define exactly what we mean when we say \u201cjeans\u201d because the word has changed in context over the last few hundred years. As detailed by the Fashion Enyclopedia<\/em><\/a>, the term \u201cjeans\u201d has existed since the 1600s, where it was used as a catch-all term to describe the \u201crough clothing worn by working men<\/em>\u201d. Since the fabric used to make these clothes often came from the Genoa region in Italy, it was commonly referred to as \u201cjean\u201d. Weavers from the Nimes area of France tried to replicate this fabric and it eventually came to be known as \u201cdenim\u201d… (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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