Sword swallowing was first introduced in India in 2000 BC where it was a demonstration of divinity and power. From there, it spread to China and Japan for theatrical performance. Today, in order to become an approved member of the Sword Swallowers Association International (yes there is one), they require you to swallow a blade between 15 and 20 inches […]
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Large enough quantities of capsaicin may cause your skin to turn blue-ish, severely inhibit your breathing, cause convulsions, and possible eventual death. However, the relatively small amount of capsaicin in peppers makes it unlikely you’d ever come in contact with enough of this to have this actually happen, unless someone sprayed a significant amount of law enforcement grade pepper spray […]
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It wouldn’t be until the late 1800s when toilet paper would be first introduced in America and England and it wasn’t until the 1900s, around the same time the indoor toilet became common, that toilet paper would catch on with the masses. So what did people use before toilet paper? This depended greatly on region, personal preference, and wealth. Rich […]
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The term “latrine” comes from the Latin “lavare”, which means “to wash”. The earliest references to this word being used in English goes all the way back to the mid-17th century. As an aside, the term “toilet” comes from the French “toilette”, meaning “dressing room”. “Toilette” in turn derives from the French “toile”, meaning “cloth”. During the 17th century, the […]
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The Ancient Romans favorite wiping item, including in public restrooms, was a sponge on a stick that would sit in salt water and be placed back in the salt water when done… waiting for the next person to use it… Ancient Greeks were a little more sanitary, using stones and pieces of clay.
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Myth: The instant you’re exposed to the near vacuum of space, you’ll lose consciousness, your blood will start to boil, and you’ll explode. (Other variations on this myth include you freezing near instantly from the extreme “cold” of space.) In fact, so long as you don’t try to hold your breath, which would result in your lungs rupturing and thus […]
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According to the Geneva-based Aircraft Crashes Record Office, between 1940 and 2008 there were 157 people who fell out of planes during a crash and without a parachute and lived to tell about it. A full 42 of those falls occurred at heights over 10,000 feet! One such incident involved a British Tail-gunner whose plane was shot down in 1944 […]
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Today I found out Caryn Elaine Johnson, better known as Whoopi Goldberg, was once a phone sex operator. On the December 16, 2011 episode of “The View”, which Goldberg is a co-host of (since 2007), Elisabeth Hasselbeck was doing a segment on stay at home moms working as phone sex operators. Specifically, she was covering the fact that the number […]
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Myth: A “heart attack” and “cardiac arrest” are the same thing. The terms “heart attack” and “cardiac arrest” are often used by lay people interchangeably. However, the fact is that they are not equivalent. “Cardiac arrest” simply implies the heart has stopped pumping blood. On the other hand, a heart attack is a lack of blood flow to a specific […]
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Today I found out about the prostitute that rose to command a huge armada that controlled the South Chinese Sea and the Guangdong province. While female pirates weren’t uncommon off the coast of Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries, one woman stood above them all. Her birth name isn’t known, but this Cantonese pirate went by the name Ching […]
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The book “The Woman and the Car, A Chatty Little Handbook for All Women Who Motor or Who Want to Motor” (presumably extremely chatty, given the title), by Dorothy Levitt written in 1906, recommended that women carry a hand-mirror while driving as it is convenient to be able to see behind you during traffic by holding the hand mirror up. […]
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Chelsea asks: Why are potatoes called “spuds”? Among other definitions, a “spud” is a “sharp, narrow spade” used to dig up large rooted plants. Around the mid-19th century (first documented reference in 1845 in New Zealand), this implement of destruction began lending its name to one of the things it was often used to dig up, namely potatoes. This caught […]
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There are some words that change their meaning based on whether the first letter is capitalized or not. These words are collectively known as “capitonyms”. These capitonyms are particularly troublesome when they appear at the beginning of a sentence, as there is no way, based on the single word alone, to tell which meaning is being referred to. Examples of […]
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The difference between bacon and salted pork or ham is primarily just the composition of the brine that is used to cure it. Brine for bacon often includes sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate, and saltpeter (for curing the meat); sodium ascorbate (for setting the color, as well as speeding up the curing process); and brown or maple sugar (for flavor), among […]
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Today I found out why iodine is added to salt. Iodine first began being added to salt commercially in the United States in 1924 by the Morton Salt Company at the request of the government. This was done as a response to the fact that there were certain regions in the U.S., such as around the Great Lakes and in […]
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Sirius-A is the brightest extrasolar star visible to the naked eye from Earth, being almost twice as bright as the second brightest, Canopus. Sirius-A and Sirius-B combine to form a binary system and appear as one star to the naked eye, though the vast majority of luminosity to the naked eye comes from Sirius-A, Sirius-B being a white dwarf which […]
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Leaves are the food processing factories for trees. The plants use their roots to take in water and other essential nutrients. The leaves then use the water and carbon dioxide from the air, in combination with sunlight, to turn the water and carbon dioxide into glucose, also giving off the byproduct oxygen in the process. It then uses the glucose […]
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The now common “Fish and Chips” combo originated in Britain around 1860. For nearly 200 years before that, fish vendors had been serving fried fish on the streets of Britain. Sometime around the mid-19th century, one of them got the bright idea to serve thick cut French fries with the fried fish, with the first known “Fish and Chip” eatery […]
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