In the 1993 movie Tombstone, Doc Holliday (portrayed by actor Val Kilmer) is depicted as a good guy at heart, helping Wyatt Earp to keep order and law in the dangerous old west town of Tombstone, Arizona. As is the case with Earp, there is a mound of evidence that the real Doc Holliday wasn’t nearly so squeaky clean. Here […]
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Santa Claus has long been the symbol of Christmas, bringing joy and presents to all the good girls and boys. But if you are child in Germany, Austria, and other parts of the Alps region, there may be something much more dark, mischievous, and grumpy hidden in the shadows next to dear old St. Nick. That something is Krampus, the […]
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The history books (and Hollywood) often describe the famous lawman, Wyatt Earp, as many things: brave, courageous, moral, law-abiding, and honorable. In the story of the “Gunfight at the OK Corral,” Earp is often portrayed as the hero, the good guy we all should be rooting for. In truth, Wyatt Earp was a much more complicated individual who, among other […]
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John A. asks: When did people start smoking tobacco? While who exactly was the first to smoke tobacco has been lost to history, Jordan Goodman, in his book Tobacco in History, theorizes that tobacco was first cultivated thousands of years ago in the Americas, around the regions that have become known as Mexico and Brazil. The populations grew the plant […]
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Jill A. asks: Why does the panama canal have locks? Isn’t the ocean the same level on both sides? Rising 85 feet above the surface of one ocean, and then descending again to be gently floated on another one, ships that traverse the Panama Canal shave nearly 8,000 miles off of their voyage to the other side by investing a […]
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Today, we mostly think of the fax machine as an outdated piece of technology. While there are still some uses for it in an office-setting, technological advances are sending the fax machines to the same pasture as pagers, land-line telephones, and disposable cameras. Even if this is the last we hear of the beeps and bops that echo as an […]
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Pat A. asks: Were Kamikaze pilots all just volunteers or how exactly did they get selected? During WWII, thousands of Japanese pilots made the ultimate sacrifice for their country by becoming, essentially, flying suicide bombers. But what was it that made these men so willing to lay down their lives in such a way? Were they really bright eyed volunteers […]
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In central Missouri, about hundred miles from St. Louis and right off of Route 66, sits the small town of St. James. Despite this town having only about four thousand people, it is proudly the location for the Tacony Corporation’s vacuum cleaner factory, a giant facility that produces cleaners for 13 different lines and brands, including for Maytag, Riccar, and […]
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The Little Albert Experiment was a study conducted back in 1920 by famed psychologist, “the father of behaviorism”, John B. Watson. It essentially involved conditioning a baby, identified only as “Albert. B” to experience fear at the sight of anything fluffy. Putting aside the egregious methodology problems and questionable ethics exhibited during the experiment, the reported results of the study, […]
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Developed from game theory and a key tactic of his early administration, President Richard Nixon came into office with a clear plan – scare the hell out of other world leaders to get them to do what he wanted. Called the “madman theory,” it depended on possessing a massive nuclear arsenal, then simply acting sufficiently erratic and unbalanced to convince […]
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In 1893, Dr. Robert Buchanan was convicted of killing his wife with a lethal amount of morphine. Without any clear physical evidence tying him to her death, the prosecution relied on eyewitness and expert witness testimony, as well as a courtroom demonstration involving a cat, a needle, eye drops and a deadly dose of opiate, to show how Buchanan could […]
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Michael T. asks: Is it true that the thumbs up and thumbs down hand gesture came from crowds in ancient Rome voting on whether a gladiator should live or die? There are few hand gestures out there as well known or ubiquitous as the humble thumbs up. But why is this seemingly innocuous gesture so widespread; how did it come […]
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Emily A. asks: Why do witches fly on broomsticks? We’ve heard this one. To get high, of course! But seriously, it’s thought the idea of witches flying around on broomsticks came from the practice of concocting “witches flying ointment” (read hallucinogens) and then using a broomstick to administer the drug to certain sensitive regions, thereby bypassing some of the negative […]
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In the 1st century AD, while his flock was suffering from the sadistic persecutions of the Roman Emperor Nero, the second pope, Linus, put as his top priority, at least as far as we have records of, ladies’ hair. Little is known of Linus, and in fact some accounts dispute that he was even the second pope. Tertullian claimed in […]
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The Greenwood suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma disappeared overnight during the summer of 1921. Known as the “Black Wall Street,” due to being one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States at the time, Greenwood thrived as the home of Tulsa’s large African American community. But the arrest of a young African American man accused of attempting to rape […]
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John E. asks: Who invented the T-shirt? The t-shirt is arguably the most popular outer garment in the entire world. Coming in a range of styles, colors and sizes there is quite literally a t-shirt for everyone. But where did this iconic garment come from and how did it become so popular? Relatively speaking, the t-shirt is a fairly new […]
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M. Seager asks: Why do Americans write dates Month/Day/Year and most others Day/Month/Year? In the United States, the date format begins with the month and ends with the year (MM/DD/YYYY), and this arrangement is relatively unique. In most of the rest of the world, the day is written first and the year last (DD/MM/YYYY), although in some places like China, […]
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The Egyptians built massive pyramids, and the Babylonians instituted the first known written system of laws. The Chinese began a fortified wall that eventually spanned (depending on whom you ask) as much as 13,000 miles, and the people of the Indus Valley? Well, they had an excellent sanitation system. Apparently peaceful, well organized, clean and with a high standard of […]
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