Category Archives: Misc.

The History of Pac-Man

To call Pac-Man a mere game would be an injustice.  It’s a cultural icon, a symbol of an entire decade, as well as an entity that redefined gaming itself. Evidence of this can be found not only in its initial success, but also by the fact that it continues to be loved and valued by every new generation of gamers. […]

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“One Small Step for Man” or “One Small Step for a Man”- What Did Neil Armstrong Really Say

When Neil Armstrong set his left boot on the surface of the moon on July 21, 1969, becoming the first person to ever walk on the moon. He then spoke some of the most famous words in the history of mankind, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” So true, so brilliant, so inspirational yet…so contradicting? The word […]

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Pirates Rarely Made People Walk the Plank

John asks: Did pirates really make people walk the plank? For thousands of years, pirates of various sorts have preyed on innocent ships at sea. Their exploits have been documented by the likes of Cicero and Homer in ancient Rome and Greece, and Vikings were once the scourge of the sea, plaguing seaside towns throughout the middle ages. However, the […]

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When the U.S. Sent Several Hundred Million Needles Into Space (Project West Ford)

In the midst of the Cold War, forward-thinking military planners realized just how much they had come to rely on international communications. Fearing interference from the Soviet Union, in 1958, the U.S. Air Force commissioned scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory to create a space-based international system for communications by sending up several hundred million needles into […]

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WWII Horror Files: Unit 731

At the dawn of World War II, although biological and chemical weapons had been used previously in warfare, little was known of precisely how they worked on the human body. Curious, certain Japanese researchers in its army unit 731 conducted a series of indescribably cruel experiments testing the limits of the human body when subjected to harsh conditions, poisonous substances […]

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Why There Are Bibles in Hotel Rooms

Rhamit asks: Why are there Bibles in hotel rooms? When did this tradition start? “Hotel Bibles” are also called “Gideon Bibles” after Gideon International, a group of male missionaries and Christian businessmen who took it upon themselves to provide this work to hotels across the nation. Here’s how it all started. In 1898, John H. Nicholson stayed at the crowded […]

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The Voynich Manuscript

So mysterious, no one even knows exactly which century it was written in, the Voynich Manuscript has stumped medieval scholars, linguists, cryptologists and the curious for hundreds of years. The Manuscript Approximately 6″ x 9″ x 2″, this octavo contains 240 pages of indecipherable text and a host of illustrations drawn with iron gall ink on vellum. Many of the […]

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The U.S. Plan to Invade Canada: War Plan Red

A time-honored tradition in the U.S. military, contingency plans have been drawn up for the defense against, and invasion of, most major military powers. In fact, in response to recent events on the Korean peninsula, the U.S. and South Korea recently signed on to such a plan. One of the most interesting episodes in this rich history of preparing for […]

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The Mystery of Gobekli Tepe

About eleven thousand years ago, in a remote corner of the cradle of civilization, Stone Age people who lacked cities, agriculture and metal tools built an enormous complex of multi-ton stone pillars called Gobekli Tepe (Potbelly Hill) in a region in modern day Turkey. The high degree of artistic skill and organizational wherewithal discovered at the site has caused the […]

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The Creator of the Nike “Swoosh” Logo was Originally Paid Only $35 for the Design

Today I found out the creator of the Nike “swoosh” logo was originally only paid $35 for it. The woman is Carolyn Davidson. At the time she created the now world famous logo, Davidson was a student at Portland State University where one of the co-founders of Nike,  Phil Knight, was teaching as an assistant professor in accounting.  On the […]

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Ben Franklin’s Interest

Dan Lewis runs the wildly popular daily newsletter Now I Know (“Learn Something New Every Day, By Email”). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.. Google the phrase “magic of compound interest” and you’ll come up with about 4 million or so results. Compound interest — which Albert Einstein may have called ”the most powerful force in the universe” — is the […]

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