Note: This is a guest article contributed by frequent TIFO visitor and owner of DumpADay, Jon. Today I found the Slinky was originally intended to be used as a tension spring in a battleship engine horsepower meter. In 1943, Richard James, a marine engineer in a Philadelphia shipyard, was working at his desk, developing a special meter designed to monitor […]
Read more
Today I found out Super Glue was invented by accident, twice. Super Glue, also known as cyanoacrylate, was originally discovered in 1942 by Dr. Harry Coover, who by the way died last month on March 26th, 2011. Coover was attempting to make clear plastic gun sights to be put on guns used by Allied soldiers in WWII. One particular formulation […]
Read more
Today I found out AstroTurf was originally named “ChemGrass” before being used by the Houston Astros Major League Baseball team in the Astrodome. Contrary to popular belief, AstroTurf was not first used or invented for the Houston Astros. For instance, before being used by the Astros, it was used at such sporting venues as Moses Brown School in Rhode Island, […]
Read more
Today I found out that some Tibetan monks can control the temperature of their skin through meditation. Specifically, they have been shown to be able to raise their skin temperature, measured from their toes and fingers, as much as 17 degrees Fahrenheit, while their core temperature stays normal. Scientists from Harvard University, lead by Herbert Benson, were first able to […]
Read more
Today I found out the founder of FedEx once saved the company by taking its last $5,000 and turning it into $32,000 by gambling in Las Vegas. The man is Frederick W. Smith who is the founder and current CEO of FedEx. In 1971, Smith took his personal fortune of around $4 million and raised around an additional $90 million […]
Read more
Today I found out there once was a Major League Baseball player that was traded for himself. That player was Harry Chiti. Chiti was a catcher who played in the major leagues from 1950-1962, taking two years off in that span to fight in the Korean War. The momentous event of getting traded for himself happened in 1962 when Chiti […]
Read more
Today I found out that 165 University Avenue, Palo Alto, California is generally considered the “luckiest” building in Silicon Valley to rent as a startup company. Located near Stanford University, 165 University Avenue has seen a surprising number of highly successful startups come through its doors in very recent history. The first famous tenant was Logitech, a now world famous […]
Read more
Today I found out that babies are able to remember melodies they hear while inside the womb for up to a year. Recent research at the University of Leicester demonstrated that babies showed a significant preference for melodies played for them frequently during the last few months they were in the womb. Preferences for a familiar melody were shown by […]
Read more
Today I found out that the largest item on a menu in the world is whole camel which is often stuffed with a lamb which has been stuffed with chickens which has been stuffed with fish or eggs; the whole lot also tends to have rice and other fixings mixed in at each stuffing stage. As you might expect, cooking […]
Read more
Today I found out newborn babies cry without tears until they are several weeks old. Newborn babies are incapable of producing actual tears because their tear ducts haven’t fully formed yet. In many cases, their underdeveloped tear ducts can also be clogged with amniotic fluid for a time after birth. Every baby is born with basal tearing, which means that […]
Read more
Today I found out that Benjamin Franklin, through extensive study of the world’s major religions and various moral codes, came up with a list of thirteen main virtues that he felt every person should strive to live their life by. As such, he himself attempted to always live by this code and developed charts with which he charted his progress […]
Read more
Today I found how caffeine is removed from coffee to produce the decaffeinated version of the world’s most popular drink. There are several different methods used that can make coffee relatively decaffeinated. The drawback (or advantage, depending on your preference) of all of these methods is that they generally make the coffee flavor milder due to caffeine being one of […]
Read more
Today I found out the first fully professional baseball team was the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, ten men on salary for eight months from March 15th to November 15th. The team was organized by Harry Wright, who also played center field for the team and managed the defensive positioning, which was something that typically wasn’t done at that time. The […]
Read more
Today I found tofu was popularly eaten as far back as the 2nd century BC in China. Tofu’s flavor is not the same as cheese but it is processed in a similar way by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft blocks. Often called ‘bean curd’, ‘bean cheese’, or ‘soy bean cheese’, tofu contains a low […]
Read more
Today I found out that the earthquake in Japan on March, 11, moved the Earth on its axis by about 4 to 6 inches, which resulted in shortening of a day by around 1.8 microseconds. Massive earthquakes typically affect the Earth’s rotation with the impact of every individual earthquake depending on its magnitude, location, and the details of how the […]
Read more
Today I found out the baseball box score was first developed and introduced by Henry Chadwick, “The Father of Baseball”. Chadwick also authored Baseball’s first rule book; devised the batting average and earned run average; compiled the game’s first instructional guides and player and statistical reference books, among a variety of other contributions to the game. He is also the […]
Read more
Today I found out why we are supposed to take our hats off for the national anthem. The origins of this tradition happen to be the same as the origins of the tradition of saluting. Knights, wearing helmets that covered their heads, would typically lift their visors to show their faces to their monarchs and others as a sign of […]
Read more
Today I found out what the “PEZ” in “PEZ Dispenser” stands for. PEZ started out as a peppermint breath mint company in Vienna, Austria in 1927. The name PEZ derives from this fact. Specifically, “PEZ” comes from the German word for peppermint, “pfefferminz”, with the “p” coming from the first letter of the word; the “e” is from the sixth […]
Read more