Today in History May 23, 1533 Exactly when King Henry VIII first began contemplating having his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled isn’t clear, though court gossip from the time suggests that the thought possibly entered the King’s mind as early as 1520. More concrete sources suggest that the king began to seriously consider giving his first wife the old […]

Today in History May 17, 1977 If you’ve never had the pleasure of dining in a Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant before, imagine for a moment an unending assault on every single one of your senses at once while a giant robotic rat mocks your existence with a dead, lifeless stare and you’ve basically got it. Conceived by Atari co-founder Nolan […]

Today in History: May 14, 2005 To many climbers, mountaineers, and general fans of low oxygen environments, summiting Mount Everest represent the literal peak of physical achievement. But while an impressive feat for a human, it turns out vultures can happily survive exposed to altitudes of 40,000 ft or 12,200 meters above sea level and, indeed, have been seen flying […]

Today In History: May 11, 1889 The story behind what came to be known as the Wham Paymaster robbery began on the morning of May 11, 1889 when a U.S. Army paymaster called Major Joseph Washington Wham was charged with transporting a lockbox containing the salaries of several hundred soldiers across the Arizona desert from Fort Grant to Fort Thomas […]

Today in History: May 10, 2018 Most moms are pretty great, so great in fact that in the early 20th century a woman called Anna Jarvis campaigned tirelessly to recognise them on a national scale- a decision Jarvis would later come to regret culminating in her more or less dedicating her life and life’s savings to destroy the Frankenstein’s monster […]

Today in History: May 9, 1671 The crown jewels are a collection of historic and obscenely valuable relics closely associated with the British monarchy. For centuries these golden, jewel-encrusted trinkets have been kept under the watchful eye of burly guards in the Tower of London. And to doubly deter thieves, historically the punishment for attempting to steal them was death… […]

Today in History: May 8, 1886 The sickly sweet sugar water known as Coca-Cola was initially marketed as a magical cure-all tonic for every kind of “nervous affliction” imaginable from headaches to hysteria- a condition that, fun fact, used to be treated in women through medically administered orgasms. This ultimately led to the creation of vibrators to help out the […]

Today in History: May 7, 1824 The result of years of work and representing the absolute pinnacle of Beethoven’s skill as both a composer and musician, Symphony No. 9 is widely considered one of the single finest pieces of music ever created- a fact made all the more impressive when you consider Beethoven himself was completely deaf when he finished […]

This Day In History: January 14, 1967 The Human Be-In, or the Gathering of the Tribes, on January 14, 1967 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park brought hippies, LSD and psychedelia to national attention. It was the harbinger of the celebrated Summer of Love, and made Haight-Ashbury the epicenter of a growing movement of young people ready to follow acid-dropping Harvard […]

This Day In History: January 12, 1943 On January 12, 1943, the U.S. Office of Price Administration let it be known that for the duration of the war the popular hot dog, also known by the German inspired moniker “frankfurter”, would be supplanted by the “Victory Sausage.” It was also announced that the Victory Sausage would be even lighter on […]

This Day In History: January 6, 1975 By the mid-70s, the Beatles had long since broken up and the Rolling Stones were part of the jet-set, cavorting with the likes of Truman Capote and Andy Warhol. The biggest band attracting rock’s main demographic at the time – young, working class males – was indisputably Led Zeppelin. Their legions of fans […]

This Day In History: January 5, 1957 Partly because of the “Better Dead than Red” paranoia that pervaded American politics in the 1950s, Arab nationalism in the Middle East ended up getting lumped in with Communism as something the U.S. was dead set on stamping out. Things came to a head with the Suez Canal Crisis. In 1956, the U.S. […]

This Day In History: January 1, 1660 The fifth of eleven children (and the first child of his parents to survive to adulthood) born to a London tailor, Samuel Pepys ultimately became a senior Naval officer, Member of Parliament, and President of the Royal Society. On the side, he wrote a rather famous diary that would become arguably the most […]

This Day In History: December 28, 1958 The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late), a holiday ditty that people seem to either love or hate with an unbridled passion, went to number one on the Billboard charts on December 28, 1958, and stayed there for three weeks. It was also the only Christmas song to reach the top spot on […]