Imagine for a moment that it’s 40,000 years in the future in a solar system far, far, away on a planet thriving with intelligent life. Extraterrestrial beings inhabit this place. Perhaps they look like the cuddly ET, the blob, ALF, or maybe even like the dreadlocked beings from Predator; but either way, they are not human. An approaching speck in […]
Read more
David vs. Goliath. Burr vs. Hamilton. Ali vs. Frazier. These fights have captured the public’s imagination like few others. On March 20, 1992, another battle entered this conversation. Herwald vs. Kelleher. Okay, so most likely, you probably don’t have any clue who Kurt Herwald and Herb Kelleher are and why they decided to match up against one another, but you […]
Read more
This article is from our friends over at The Medicine Journal– the TodayIFoundOut of medical related sites. Also, don’t forget to check out their awesome videos on YouTube. Anyone retiring from the coal-mines of life, might have noticed an ever growing defacement. Their noses and ears appear to be bigger. In fact, they are. There is a common misconception this […]
Read more
Goldman was born in 1869 in Lithuania, the first child from her mother’s second marriage to a man who desperately wanted a son. Her father was abusive, using a whip on Goldman who he believed was the “most rebellious” of the children, and her mother didn’t stop him. Goldman found comfort in her older half-sister at home, but she was […]
Read more
This term was named after a nineteenth century Englishman, Captain Charles C. Boycott (who originally had the surname “Boycatt,” but the family changed the spelling when he was nine years old). If you guessed that at a certain point Captain Boycott became quite unpopular with the masses, you’re correct. Shortly before Boycott would find himself boycotted, the situation in Ireland […]
Read more
Meghan asks: In “The bane of my existence” what is a bane? The phrase “the bane of my existence” is extremely popular, and you’ve probably said it once or twice yourself, perhaps about a difficult exam during finals week, or the cat who woke you up at 3 a.m. for breakfast, or the gym teacher who made you run an […]
Read more
BR522 asks: Why aren’t commercial airplanes have parachutes? Seatbelts and airbags in cars save passengers lives. Parachutes save people who, for a variety of reasons, exit a plane in mid-flight. So why aren’t parachutes provided to passengers on commercial airline flights, in case of emergencies? Because they almost certainly would not save anyone’s life. Parachuting Basics When your average daredevil […]
Read more
When it comes to war, innovation is key and WWII saw more insane ideas and weapons of war developed than perhaps any before it. One of the more surreal was the Antonov A-40, colloquially known as the tank that could fly! Known in Russia as the, крылья танка (literally, “Winged Tank”), the Antonov A-40 was the end result of one, […]
Read more
Jamie M asks: When did having young teenage girls marry stop being so widespread? A long, long time ago. Marriage in the Ancient World In the Western world (and generally speaking) before imperial Rome, girls were deemed sufficiently mature for marriage and sex when they first started menstruation (and boys, by the way, when they developed pubic hair). Marriage was […]
Read more
Martha was a very lonely bird. She had once been part of a pair, with her male counterpart George, but he had died several years before. So, for the final years of her life, Martha sat in her one-bird cage alone. The Cincinnati Zoo offered a thousand dollar reward (about $23,000 today) to anyone who could track down a mate […]
Read more
Harriet W. asks: What is the difference between brown and white eggs? There are all sorts of rumours surrounding brown eggs and white eggs. Some people say that brown eggs are better for you and contain more nutrients; some people think brown eggs taste better; some think that brown eggs are better for cooking things like quiches, while white eggs […]
Read more
This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. When a Tulip Cost More than a House Despite how it sounds, “Tulipmania” does not refer to just a general love of tulips; it was actually one the world’s first recorded major financial bubbles. Long before the dot com frenzy or the […]
Read more
Find more from this author at All That is Interesting a part of the PBH Network. Subscribe to their newsletter here. Sam Patch: Before Evel Knievel was a twinkle in his father’s eye, Sam Patch was thrilling audiences across America. As a child laborer in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Patch would entertain his friends by jumping off the mill dam. By […]
Read more
Laury asks: What causes morning sickness? Most mothers will tell you that “morning sickness” is a misnomer, and that it should really be called “all day sickness.” In fact, it’s sometimes called “nausea and vomiting during pregnancy” or NVP. Pregnant women have been experiencing this unfortunate side effect of growing a parasite… err human inside them seemingly for as long […]
Read more
Jamie M. asks: When did people stop thinking it was OK to marry your cousin? In modern western society, marrying your cousin is not well accepted, particularly in the United States. Through a combination of old prejudices and present-day conventional wisdom about inherited birth defects, first cousin marriage is seen by many as a little too close for comfort, as […]
Read more
For Part I of this two part series, go here. Today I found out about the last three wives of King Henry VIII: Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Howard, and Katherine Parr. We last left off with King Henry finally receiving the heir to the throne he so badly wanted. However, Henry knew well enough that heirs could die, and after […]
Read more
Today I found out about the first three wives of King Henry VIII: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour. “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived,” as the old rhyme goes. King Henry VIII is known for having a huge number of wives and getting rid of nearly all of them in some way or another. As most people […]
Read more
This is something a little different, which I nevertheless thought was an entertaining, and more than a little humorous, story. (Although, to be fair, I have a bit of a twisted sense of humor. ;-)) So I asked if my brother, Jon, wouldn’t mind writing it up and letting me publish it. So here’s a guest post by Jon, the […]
Read more