For most of us, a trip to the shoe store is a thoroughly mundane experience. You browse the shelves for a style you like, check the rows of boxes below to see if it’s available in your size, and ring the box through at the front counter. If the store is a more full-service establishment, an employee might first measure […]

Artists often come to resent their greatest hits, and while inventor Alexander Graham Bell didn’t hate his most famous creation, the telephone, it was far from his only priority and passion. An inveterate tinkerer, throughout his long life Bell pursued hundreds of projects across dozens of fields, inventing early versions of the metal detector and iron lung, improving Thomas Edison’s […]

Slavery in some form or other has seemingly been a thing for as long as humans have been humaning, and accepted across most civilizations throughout history. But perhaps no other period in human history has the issue been more highlighted than during the colonization period of the Americas- most ironically in one of the nations which was founded on the […]

In 1789, French General – and later Emperor – Napoleon Bonaparte led a military expedition to capture Egypt from the Ottoman Empire. According to legend, shortly before leading his troops to victory in the Battle of Embabeh, Napoleon decided to spend a night alone inside the Great Pyramid of Giza. The next morning, the General emerged pale and shaken, refusing […]

One of the lasting legacies of Rome in modern society is the concept of a Senate, though it wasn’t really what we think of as a Senate today. In many countries today, you can find a similar governing body of elected or appointed representatives. If you dive a little deeper, you can see different countries have very different ideas of […]

Ask people to note conspiracy theories they’ve heard of, and inevitably you’ll hear the name Freemasons brought up. Our conceptions of them are influenced by arcane symbols on the American greenback and older government buildings, vague conjectures of their involvement in revolutions, wacky fringe radio hosts rambling about conspiracy theories, and popular culture. Freemasonry is featured in high school standards […]

Films, books, TV series and even video games have narrated, and often celebrated, the story of the Italo-American Mafia. A story of violence, oppression, corruption at all levels of society, which swings between the two extremes of turning Mafia dons into folk heroes, and painting the entire Italo-American community as a criminal minority. Both extremes are, of course, far from […]

History is littered with choices, dichotomies, antagonisms. Nomads and settlers, Romans vs Carthage, Capitalism vs. Communism, Cat people or Dog people, Team Jess vs Team Dean. When it comes to personal hygiene, the big debate is: shower or bath? We here at TodayIFoundOut don’t judge. It is completely up to you whether you like to cleanse your skin and massage […]

It has a light side, it has a dark side, and it binds the universe together. No, I am not talking about the Force from Star Wars, but the handyman’s ultimate secret weapon: duct tape. Essentially a self-contained repair kit, this humble grey tape has seemingly endless applications. It can be used to bind wounds and cure warts; make clothing, […]

Modern entertainment such as movies, fictional books, and TV shows aren’t exactly known for accurately depicting how things may or may not go or have gone in the real life scenarios that they depict. From injecting substances directly into your heart a-la Pulp Fiction or The Rock, to Yarr’ing pirates, let’s just say there’s a lot they get wrong. On […]