The “Dr.” in “Dr. Seuss” was in homage to Theodore Geisel’s father’s hope that his son would get his PhD. Geisel instead dropped out of the PhD program at Oxford where he was pursuing a PhD in English. “Seuss” was his mother’s maiden name as well as his own middle name. Interestingly, he did eventually receive several honorary doctorates, more […]
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Today I found out that Conan O’Brien spent two years as a writer and producer of The Simpsons before replacing Letterman as the host of Late Night. After becoming burnt out working at Saturday Night Live, Conan quit and decided to do something else, though he had no idea what. When Mike Reiss and Al Jean from The Simpsons heard […]
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This Day In History: December 21, 1898 On this day in history, 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie discovered the radioactive element radium (in the form of radium chloride), extracting it from uraninite. They first removed the uranium from the uraninite sample and then found that the remaining matter was still radioactive, so investigated further. Along with the barium in the […]
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Researchers in Israel have successfully trained mice to be used as bomb and drug detectors. The mice are kept in containers and if the mice detect any explosives or drugs, they will trigger an alarm by pressing a button. Each mouse can work in four hour shifts and have proven to be more accurate than x-ray machines and dogs at […]
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Myth: “Xmas” is a non-religious name / spelling for “Christmas”. It turns out, “Xmas” is not a non-religious version of “Christmas”. The “X” is actually indicating the Greek letter “Chi”, which is short for the Greek, meaning “Christ”. So “Xmas” and “Christmas” are equivalent in every way except their lettering. In fact, although writing guides such as those issued by […]
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Misconception Junction will be merged with Today I Found Out over the next couple weeks. What this means is that all Misconception Junction’s articles will now be here on Today I Found Out and future “myths and misconception” articles will be posted on Today I Found Out, along with the normal “interesting fact”, This Day In History, etc. types of […]
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Donald Fauntleroy Duck was created in 1934. He was first thought up after Walt Disney overheard Clarence Nash doing his now famous duck voice for the first time. At the time, Nash was demonstrating a variety of voices he could do. Walt Disney decided to hire Nash to do the voice of a duck character that would take over the […]
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Kim Jong-Il was born Yuri Irsenovich Kim. His official biography states that he was born on a sacred mountain (Baekdu Mountain, the legendary birthplace of Korea’s first kingdom) on February 16, 1942, where his father was serving in a secret military base, attempting to overthrow the Japanese. Further, it states that his birth was marked by a double rainbow over […]
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According to a study done in 2006, most carbonated soft drinks actually do contain a little alcohol. This is due to the fermentation of sugars in the non-sterile environment of the drink. In some types of soda-pop, additional alcohol is also introduced from the fact that alcohol is used in the preparation of some of the flavor extracts. However, before […]
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This Day In History: December 19, 1973 Much like Orson Welles before him, Johnny Carson once accidentally used his public platform to incite a public panic. On this day in history, 1973, Carson started a near month long toilet paper shortage in the United States. In his show, he stated, “You know what’s disappearing from the supermarket shelves? Toilet paper… […]
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“Nephew” at one time was a gender neutral term, but since around the 17th century has referred nearly exclusively to male children of one’s siblings or brother/sister-in-law’s children. The word “nephew” comes from the Old French “neveu” meaning “grandson, descendant”, which in turn comes from the Latin “nepotem”, meaning “sister’s son, grandson, or descendant”. The first documented case of “nephew” […]
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The proper pronunciation of “Seuss”, as in Dr. Suess, is actually “Zoice” (rhymes with “voice”), being a Bavarian name (after Theodore Geisel’s mother’s maiden name). However, due to the fact that most Americans pronounced it incorrectly as “Soose”, Geisel later gave in and stopped correcting people, even quipping the mispronunciation was a good thing because it is “advantageous for an […]
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Today I found out the “57” in “57 Varieties of Heinz” has no real meaning; it’s just a lucky number. By 1892, H.J. Heinz Company had grown from a small company selling horseradish in clear glass jars, to having over 60 products. Despite having more than 57 products, at the behest of the founder of H.J. Heinz Company, the business […]
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This Day In History: December 16, 1916 On this day in history, 1916, the “Mad Monk”, Grigori Rasputin, was murdered by members of the Russian aristocracy. The exact events surrounding his death have given rise to a variety of stories, much of which are probably false. So what actually happened? First, a brief background on Rasputin: Grigori Rasputin was born […]
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Today I found out Rowan Atkinson, the guy who played “Mr. Bean”, has a master’s degree in electrical engineering. Atkinson originally received an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering (EE) at Newcastle University before enrolling in an EE master’s program at The Queen’s College Oxford in 1975. While working towards this degree, he also pursued acting on the side with a […]
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Today I found out Baby Ruth candy bars really were named after Babe Ruth. The rumor that they were not was actually started by the company who made them originally, the Curtiss Candy Company founded by Otto Schnering. They claimed it was named after Ruth Cleveland, the daughter of President Grover Cleveland. Ruth Cleveland supposedly visited their plant and, while […]
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Whew, sorry about that. The intermittent page loading problem the last couple days has been solved now (for real this time) ;-). My apologies for not getting more new articles up the last day or two, I’ve been working on this pretty constantly and didn’t have a chance to put any new ones up other than in the brief respite […]
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Today I found out the origin of the Chinese Fire Drill. In World War I, British soldiers came up with the phrase “Chinese Landing” to describe a clumsy or bad landing. It should be noted that this wasn’t originally meant to imply Chinese citizens couldn’t land a plane well or anything of the sort; rather, it came from the fact […]
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