This Day In History: February 4, 2004 On this day in history, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched a site called TheFacebook, that eventually became just “Facebook” after the company acquired the domain rights to facebook.com for $200,000 in 2005. The site was originally inspired by a project done by one of Mark Zuckerberg’s high school friends, Adam D’Angelo. D’Angelo had developed […]
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Myth: the term “scot free” has its origins from the Dred Scott v. Sandford U.S. Supreme Court Case. “Scot free”, also sometimes written “scotfree”, “scot-free” or, incorrectly, as “Scott free” actually pre-dates the Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling in 1857 by a very large margin (having been around since at least the 11th century). Another common misconception is that the […]
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This Day In History: February 1, 1709 On this day in history, 1709, Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was finally rescued from a deserted island he inhabited for over four years. The island he found himself on was Más a Tierra, the largest island of the Juan Fernández group of islands, around 400 miles west of South America. Today the island […]
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This Day In History: January 30, 1835 On this day in history, 1835, Richard Lawrence became the first known person to attempt to assassinate a U.S. President, attempting to fire two guns at Andrew Jackson at close range. His assassination attempt failed only because the guns he pointed at Jackson jammed when he pulled the trigger. Interestingly, when the guns […]
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Today I found out why cats like catnip. Catnip, which is a perennial herb in the mint family, contains a chemical called “nepetalactone” that is released when catnip is crushed. When cats get a whiff of nepetalactone, most will start rubbing themselves against it, playing around with it, sometimes eating it, and generally will act quite bizarrely. It is thought, […]
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Today I found out Mark Wahlberg was a drug dealer and was tried for attempted murder before forming Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Wahlberg, born the youngest of nine children all living in a three bedroom apartment, dropped out of school around the age of fourteen and joined a gang. During this time, he was reportedly in trouble with […]
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This Day In History: January 24, 1848 On this day in history, 1848, James W. Marshall was checking on the progress made the night before in expanding a drainage channel at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California (which at the time was part of the Mexican territory, but just 9 days later would be ceded to the U.S.). Marshall was using […]
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This Day In History: January 23, 1897 On this day in history, 1897, Elva Zona Heaster was found dead in her home, apparently from natural causes. Her body was discovered by a boy who had been sent to the home by her husband of only a few months, Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue (also called “Edward”). Shue had sent the boy […]
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Today I found out the origin of the sport basketball. Surprisingly, unlike most sports whose origins are somewhat obscure, often being the combination of other sports and developed gradually through time, basketball has a very precise and fully known origin (the inventor himself wrote an account of it, published after his death; see the “Sources and Further Reading” below). Even […]
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This Day In History: January 19, 1661 On this day in history, 1661, Thomas Venner was hanged, drawn, and quartered. Venner was originally a wine-cooper (someone who makes casks) before taking over leadership of the radical group, The Fifth Monarchy Men, after General Thomas Harrison, the previous leader of the group, was hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason himself in […]
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This Day In History: January 18, 2012 This day in history thousands of websites, including Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing, TheOatmeal (which gives the most amusing of all the protests, though slightly inappropriate for younger audiences), WordPress, Makezine, Mozilla, and the entire O’Reilly Media network went black (complete list of confirmed websites that are participating), their owners voluntarily taking the sites […]
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This Day In History: January 17, 1966 On this day in history, 1966, at around 10:30 a.m. a B-52G Bomber collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker, accidentally scattering its payload of four nuclear bombs, 70-kilotons each. Three of the bombs fell near the fishing village of Palomares, Spain, and the fourth landed in the Mediterranean Sea, taking a full 80 days […]
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Today I found out Julius Caesar was once kidnapped by pirates and convinced them to up their ransom demand. A 25 year old Julius Caesar was sailing the Aegean Sea when he was kidnapped by Sicilian pirates. The pirates who captured him initially asked for a ransom of 20 talents of silver (which is about 620 kg of silver or […]
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This Day In History: January 13, 1842 On this day in history, 1842, Dr. William Brydon, who had part of his skull sheared off at the time, rode an exhausted horse into the British garrison at Jalalabad, Afghanistan. When asked where the rest of the army was, he replied “I am the army”. In fact, he wasn’t actually the sole […]
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Myth: Cats and dogs can only see in black and white The myth that cats and dogs are fully colorblind has been around for quite some time, despite the fact that it has been proven false for nearly half a century. Before this time, though, many thought that cats and dogs could only see in black and white. This myth […]
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Embed This Infographic: [Source: Today I Found Out] For Part I and Part II: Part 1 Part 2
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This Day In History: January 10, 49 BC On this day in history, 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with a legion of his soldiers, which was against Roman law. Specifically, Governors of Roman provinces (promagistrates) were not allowed to bring any part of their army within Italy itself and, if they tried, they automatically forfeited their right to […]
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Embed This Infographic: [Source: Today I Found Out]
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