In this episode of The Brain Food Show podcast, we discuss that time a man managed to successfully sell the Eiffel Tower… even though he didn’t own it. We also lament the lack of awesome World’s Fairs in modern times only to subsequently discover they are actually still a thing… 😉 And finally we wrap up discussing the fascinating list […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show podcast, we interview prolific online writer and researcher Karl Smallwood. Karl’s written for TodayIFoundOut for over five years now, producing hundreds of articles, including many of the most popular on the website and channel. Beyond that, he’s also written for such sites as Cracked, Mental_Floss, TopTenz, Biographics, and many others. In his […]
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In this episode of The BrainFood Show, we look at the fascinating and sometimes hilarious origins of four of the biggest companies in the world. We also discuss our new podcast format and wrap up the show discussing the Curse of the Colonel and other related bonus facts. If you could do us a huge favor and rate and review […]
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The myth that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday has been widely spread since 1907 and even today is sometimes stated by such people as former Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig. For instance, in 2010 he stated: “As a student of history, I know there is a great debate whether Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright really founded the game […]
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In episode 5 of The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss the shady, but clever, business dealings of famed enlightenment thinker Voltaire that ultimately allowed him to write with the impunity he is so famous for, where most others of his time and region of the world could not. Next up we talk to famed YouTuber Craig Benzine (better known online […]
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In episode 4 of The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss the fascinating origin of Atari and the game that more or less gave birth to an industry- Pong. Next up, we talk with award winning computer game designers Lori and Corey Cole, most notably creators of one of the greatest game series in history, the groundbreaking Quest for Glory (which […]
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In episode 3 of The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss the fascinating origins of the Food Pyramid and why that is a horribly unhealthy way to eat (and why the USDA made it that way even though they knew well it wasn’t a healthy recommendation at the time). We also discuss whether eating too much salt is actually bad for […]
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In episode 2 of The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss what actually started WWI, with the motivations there not quite what most people think, some rather interesting things the soldiers on both sides got up to in the early days of the war, and the absolutely bizarre, but effective, Order of the White Feather. We wrap up this section discussing […]
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The Daily Knowledge podcast still gets a pretty shocking amount of downloads for having not been updated for so long, so we just thought for those of you still around we’d do a little update announcing our new podcast: The BrainFood Show, which you can find here: iTunes | Google Play | RSS/XML Let us know what you think, and […]
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In this debut episode of our new The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss the surprising similarities between online commenters and audiences throughout history, as well as how the practice of throwing tomatoes at performers got started. We’ll also be looking at the various ways to monetize on youtube and websites and just generally explaining how all that works. Finally, we […]
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With the Super Bowl this weekend, we thought we’d do a “Football facts” roundup to help you impress your buddies with amazingly interesting Football knowledge. 891) Buffalo wings were invented sometime around the 1960s by either John Young or Frank and Teressa Bellissimo in Buffalo, New York. The spreading of this tasty appetizer was relatively slow until Football stepped in. […]
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1026: Bed bugs reproduce via the male bed bug literally stabbing the female in the abdomen with his hypodermic genitalia rather than using the female’s reproductive tract. Once he’s stabbed the female, he then releases his sperm insider her body cavity. The sperm ultimately travel via the female’s blood to sperm storage structures in her body. The males also are […]
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A commonly held folk etymology for “doohickey” is that it derives from the mark left on a leaf after dew has evaporated, with said mark essentially being akin to a the skin-blemish definition of the word “hickey.” Thus, lacking a commonly known word for such, people referred to this dew mark as a “dew hickey,” with this later evolving to […]
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This is an excerpt from our book, The Wise Book of Whys, available on Kindle | Nook and in Print | Audiobook This tradition is mostly thanks to Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadian Band. While their work is largely unknown to those born in the last few decades, the band has sold over 300 million records to date. Guy […]
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On the whole, people don’t generally like to kill one another. Most wars throughout history are often more about the agendas of the state’s leaders than the soldiers on the field actually inherently feeling any real malice towards those they are asked to try to kill or otherwise defeat. Few events in history illustrate this as well as a remarkable […]
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1016: Mistletoe tends to spring from bird droppings that have fallen on trees, with the seeds having passed through the digestive tract of birds. From this, it should come as no surprise that the name “mistle” or “missel” meant “dung” and “toe,” which came from the Anglo-Saxon “tan,” meant “twig.” Thus, mistletoe is another way to essentially say “poop twig.” […]
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Myth: Pilgrims wore black and white clothing with buckled top hats. The myth that they dressed like this stems from a popular clothing style in England in the late 17th century, which carried over to 18th and 19th century artist depictions of Pilgrims. In fact, historical records of Pilgrims’ clothing, such as the passenger list of the Mayflower, wills, which […]
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Today I found out why turkeys are called turkeys. In the 16th century, when North American turkeys were first introduced en masse to Europe, there was another bird that was popularly imported throughout Europe and, most relevant to this article, England, called a guinea fowl. This guinea fowl was imported from Madagascar via the Ottoman Empire. The merchants who did […]
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