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 […]
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While Ben Franklin was remarkably successful in keeping elements of his private life very private to the point that historians can only speculate about much of it, despite having a common law marriage, he was, shall we say, noted for his overt and unabashed love of women and their company, particularly if they were educated- something he even used in […]
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In the pantheon of figures that dominated American History around the the time the traitors to the British crown cast off their Kingly shackles, Thomas Jefferson is perhaps one of the most prominent names remembered today, only equalled by the likes of scientist, philosopher, and statesman Ben Franklin and revolutionary General and later first President George Washington. Slightly more forgotten, […]
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On October 4, 1957, an R7 rocket lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, carrying Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite. This historic feat stunned the West and pushed the Cold War into a terrifying new phase, for if the R7 could launch a satellite into orbit, it could also place a nuclear warhead anywhere on the globe. But while […]
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Ah, the joys of vehicle ownership! Traffic jams! Construction! Costly insurance! Speed traps! Searching endlessly for parking! Having the check engine light come on just as you were about to buy that new game system and having the mechanic charge you thousands of dollars for parts and labour… and, of course, the greatest joy of all: that weekly soul-crushing, wallet-emptying […]
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Ah, immortality, previously only for the gods and individuals with a fetish for chopping each other’s heads off. In more modern times, science is coming closer and closer to both identifying the tapestry of things that cause humans to grow old, and slowly but surely taking the first steps into finding ways to delay and even reverse this process for […]
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While many think of the so-called “Dark Ages” as a time of profound ignorance and superstition, in reality, medieval people knew far more about the world than popular history typically gives them credit for. But did any medieval map ever have the classic phrase “Here be Dragons”? Let’s find out as we delve into the weird and wonderful world of […]
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When the sun scorches the earth, when incandescent air burns your lungs, and especially when that glucose curve dips at 10, 2 and 4 in the afternoon … well, there is nothing better than grabbing an ice cold bottle of a very special soft drink- its purple-ish label covered in beads of cooling moisture. I am, of course, talking about […]
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Living with the Animals While modern humans have existed for at least a few hundred thousands years, we didn’t really start massively progressing from our earliest ancestors until we began forming large and very complex societies after transitioning away from small hunter-gather groups for various reasons. Critical to all this being able to happen was creating sets of rules which […]
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As humans continue to rapidly accelerate to replacing ourselves with robot overlords or otherwise see if we can’t make Wall-E into a prophetic mocumentary, one group of homosapiens refuses to go quietly into the night. And, while it may come as a surprise to you, this group is seemingly set to inherit the Earth, given their population is exploding, whilst […]
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Countless films produced in the United States feature use of rather expensive military equipment, and often also real world military personnel. Given the extreme expense of all of this using things paid for by the U.S. taxpayer to benefit for profit companies, how is this allowed? Further, how are projects that the military will support selected? Can just any U.S. […]
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In March of 2004, fast-food giant McDonald’s announced the end of an era. By the end of the year, customers at the chain’s more than 13,000 U.S. restaurants would no longer be hearing those iconic words: “Would you like to super-size that?” Since its introduction in the summer of 1987, super-sizing has become an iconic part of the McDonald’s brand […]
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Nazi Germany officially surrendered on May 7, 1945. With the war still raging in the Pacific against Japan and sporting a popularity rate at around 83%, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill seemed a shoe-in to maintain his position as Prime Minister of the British Empire. Just before the announcement of the results of the election, Churchill had been at the […]
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If you happen to be one of those individuals who continues to have a pulse and intake and exhale air, you no doubt occasionally have to deal with the fact that basically every service, organization, or company out there you may use or be a part of will inevitably require you to have some form of account, and then some […]
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Humans being horrible to other humans is nothing new. Think of the most brutal thing you can possibly imagine, and it’s almost certain not only has some human done that to another human, but probably some nation did it as a general policy to other humans. Possibly even for the amusement of the masses. And as ever, one of the […]
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On June 28, 1839, a ship departed Havana, Cuba en route to Puerto Principe. Along with a crew of 7, including two slaves serving as a cabin boy and ship’s cook, the vessel was also packed with cargo worth approximately $60,000, or about $1.7 million today. This included items ranging from wine, saddles, iron castings, mill rollers, fabrics, soap, leather […]
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For starters, we don’t mean to alarm you, but it turns out, despite how much we all fight it like a toddler who’s just been told it’s bedtime, sleeping is a basic, and critical human need. All animals known to man sleep. Humans, however, are seemingly the only ones who voluntarily forgo it, outside of cases like if an animal […]
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“Helicopter’s don’t fly – they just beat the air into submission.” and “Helicopters aren’t aircraft – they’re just ten thousand parts flying in close formation.” are just two of the many tongue-in-cheek sayings which have been levelled at rotorcraft. Yet despite their often ungainly and precarious appearance, it cannot be denied that helicopters are remarkable pieces of engineering, capable of […]
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