Author Archives: Melissa

That Time the U.S. Military Launched a Half a Billion Needles to Space for Reasons…

In the early 1960s, international communications were limited to transmissions through undersea cables or occasionally unreliable radio signals bounced off of the ionosphere. As you might imagine from this, many in the Western world weren’t too keen on the state of the situation given that were to someone, say, the Soviet Union, cut those cables before launching an attack, international […]

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Do People Really Have Repressed Memories or Is It Just Things They’ve Forgotten?

Astryx_x asks: Do suppressed memories actually exist? We’ve all seen it in movies- a character will be going along in their lives blissfully unaware of some extremely traumatic event in their long distant past… that is, until a bit of syrup dribbles onto their cheek and they are transported back in their mind to that time they were abducted by […]

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Math or Maths?

Travis T. asks: Why do Americans say “math” and other English speaking countries say “maths”? Aluminium or aluminum, zee or zed, and removing u’s from certain words or not- among the many discrepancies between American and British English, perhaps none conjures as much religious fervor as math vs. maths. So which one is correct? Well, really neither is technically more […]

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The Bizarre Story of the Sex.com Heist

In 1983, Paul Mockapetris proposed a distributed database of internet name and address pairs, now known as the Domain Name System (DNS).  This is essentially a distributed “phone book” linking a domain’s name to its address, allowing you to type in something like todayifoundout.com instead of the IP address of the website.  The distributed version of this system allowed for […]

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The Curious Case of the Campden Wonder

On the 16th of August, 1660, an approximately 70 year old William Harrison walked toward the village of Charingworth, about two miles from Chipping Campden, with the intention of collecting rent for his employer, the Lady Viscountess Campden. When he failed to return home, Harrison’s wife sent out their servant, John Perry, to find him, but neither man returned that […]

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Why is Ham Traditionally Eaten on Easter?

Rita H. asks: Why do we serve ham on Easter? Under Jewish dietary laws (called kashrut), eating pork in any form is strictly forbidden. Jesus Christ was Jewish. So why, on the anniversary of his resurrection, do people traditionally serve ham? You’ll often read it’s because ham is supposedly a “Christian” meat, able to be consumed by Christians but not […]

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That Time Parisians Ate the Zoo

For four months from September 19, 1870 to January 28, 1871, the Prussian Army laid siege to the city of Paris, as part of the Franco-Prussian War. Prior to having all supply lines cut off, the French Ministry of Agriculture furiously worked to gather as much food and fuel as it could, and at the beginning, “livestock blanket[ed] the Bois […]

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Sogen Kato and Deceased Payee Fraud

For several years up until July 2010, it was widely believed that Sogen Kato (born July 22, 1899) was Tokyo’s oldest living man. This story quickly unraveled at the beginning of 2010, however, as welfare officials’ attempts to schedule a visit with the older gentlemen were rebuffed by the man’s relatives, who told them Kato “doesn’t want to see anybody.” […]

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What Ever Happened to Miss Cleo the TV Psychic?

Felix H. asks: Where did Miss Cleo disappear to? For those unfamiliar, around the turn of the century no psychic was more famous than the purportedly Jamaican-born Miss Cleo (née Youree Dell Harris) representing the Psychic Readers Network (PRN). Appearing on late-night infomercials, Miss Cleo hooked her audience with a combination of charisma, Tarot card readings, concerned looks, and imperatives […]

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Why Does the New Year Begin on January First in Many Countries?

Jamie asks: Why is New Year’s day January 1st? Because Julius Caesar said so. Early Roman Calendar Since long before Caesar’s time, date keeping was dicey. In fact, the 355-day Roman calendar that immediately preceded Caesar’s Julian, worked on a four year cycle where every other year, an additional month was inserted between February (Februarius), the last month of that […]

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