M. Kirkpatrick asks: Why did men used to stick one of their hands in their jackets in old photographs? Conveying calm assurance, the practice of placing one hand inside of a top garment is ancient, dating back to before people even wore jackets, at least as we think of them. In the 6th century B.C., it was considered rude in […]
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How many of you science fiction buffs have fantasized about zipping around town in your very own flying car? Sure, a trip in a helicopter or airplane has now become the standard or even mundane mode of long distance travel, but imagine taking your very own flying machine on a trip across town, presumably with The Jetsons’ theme song blasting […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Start with a New Jersey businessman who has questionable ethics, add soybean oil, and let it stew in a broth of fraud and greed. Pretty soon you’ve got yourself a nice little scandal. YELLOW GOLD In the late 1940s, a combination of several factors led to an enormous increase in […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Aristotle didn’t have it. Neither did Pythagoras or Euclid or other ancient mathematicians. We’re talking about zero, which may sound like nothing, but, as it turns out, is a really big something. Here’s the story. COUNT LIKE A HINDU Sometime in the early 9th century, a Persian mathematician named Muhammad […]
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In 1744 at the age of 18, François-André Danican Philidor (1726-1795) enthralled Parisian society after playing two simultaneous games of chess in a public demonstration, all while blindfolded. And even though he lost one game and only drew the other, the display established Philidor as a chess master par excellence, and blew new life into the ancient practice of blindfold […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader If you have kids, there’s a good chance that the very first time you laid eyes on them was via a “sonogram” image taken before they were even born. The grainy images are so common that they’ve become a rite of passage for parents all over the world. Here’s the […]
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With irony equal to that of the unsinkable Titanic drowning on her maiden voyage, the Swedish warship, Mars, called “the Matchless,” was set afire, her armament exploded, and she sank during her first major sea battle. Lost for nearly 450 years, Mars has recently been found in the Baltic Sea, and archaeologists are giddy with the discovery. In the 1560s, […]
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Today, Casual Friday is a day when the conventional dress codes of most offices are cast aside in favour of denim jeans, comfortable t-shirts with movie slogans on them and shirts with the sleeves rolled up. But few people realise that this time-honored tradition of “sticking it to the man” forcing you to wear a noose around your neck four […]
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Zack D asks: Is it true that the terracotta army soldiers are all unique? More than two thousand years ago, the man who unified China, established a single system of writing and currency, and began construction of the Great Wall, ordered that a 20 square mile underground city, to be later filled with the finest treasures and protected by thousands […]
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During World War II, Nazi engineers designed and built a number of revolutionary super or “wonder weapons” (wunderwaffe), including a wide array of aircraft, guns and ships. Among these weapons is a mysterious small, round tank named the Kugelpanzer (literally meaning “spherical tank”). This odd little tank was never seen in the European theater, and very little is definitively known […]
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In 1968, a group of 31 highly trained North Korean special forces commandos culled from the country’s most elite and secretive unit, Unit 124, crossed the Korean DMZ with a singular mission- kill the South Korean leader, Park Chung Hee. The unit supposedly trained for 2 years prior to the mission, with their initial selection being conducted soon after what is […]
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Sitting in the heart of London since long before anyone can remember, theories regarding the London Stone range from Roman ruin, to Druidic icon to a talisman of good fortune. Although many point to John Stow’s Survey of London (1598), where he sets the 10th century as the first mention of the stone in print (he claims he found a […]
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In the third decade of the third century CE, climate issues, civil war, economic depression and plague combined to seriously destabilize the Roman Empire. Beginning a fifty-year period where leadership of the empire passed between at least 26 men was the short reign of perhaps the largest emperor of Rome, Maximinus Thrax. Born Gaius Julius Verus in about 173 CE […]
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According to the only book I currently have on my desk, everyone poops and that’s okay. What’s less okay though is when there’s nowhere for that poop to go- something people in Victorian era London found out first hand when all of the sewage they’d pumped into the Thames dried up and caused a stench that spurred London’s City Press […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Imagine that you lived in ancient times and wanted to answer some of life’s big questions: How did we get here? What are those lights in the sky at night? Why do I poop? And, for our purposes here: How the heck do plants grow out of the ground!? Well, […]
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Long before the bonsai art form of creating miniature trees came to Japan, the wealthy in China were perfecting their craft known as “penzai” and “penjing.” The former means “tray plant” and the latter “tray scenery.” It is from the Japanese pronunciation of “penzai” that the word “bonzai” ultimately derives- “bon” meaning “tray-like” and “sai” meaning “planting.” (The Japanese equivalent […]
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Depending on who you want to believe, Peter Stumpf was either a severely deranged individual with an undiagnosed mental illness, a victim of the fight between Catholics and Protestants, or a werewolf acting under the command of Satan himself. Little is known about Peter Stumpf’s early life prior to his eventual confession to well over a dozen brutal murders. What […]
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White, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple and black, the colors of martial arts belts denote student development, skills and experience. However, contrary to popular belief, using colored belts to denote rank or ability in martial arts is a relatively recent invention in the otherwise ancient arts- one that was only introduced around the turn of the 20th century. Much of […]
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