Today I found out how the French flag came to be as it is today. As with several other countries, the original flag of France was that of a saint—in this case, the oriflamme, the flag of St. Denis. The original banner had three to five pointed ends, more like our idea of a pennant than a flag, and was […]
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May 19, 1780 began like any other day. Then, between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m., the sky above most of New England grew dark and eventually pitch black. The darkness was witnessed from Maine to New Jersey, plunging what was then almost half of America into fear and chaos. The event was reported to last well into the evening in […]
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The Tsar Bomba, or “Big Ivan” as the Soviets nicknamed it, is the single most powerful man-made explosive device in human history. But why was such a device even made? Well, for similar reasons as to why the U.S. once thought it would be fun to nuke the moon– basically, the bomb was little more than Russia demonstrating its military […]
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Today I found out about the secret life of Jean Baret, the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Born Jeanne Baret to a farming family in 1740, not a lot is known about her childhood and early life. It’s speculated that she likely had an interest in plants from a young age and later became an herb woman with a […]
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Katie asks: Why is the Newbery Award called that? The Newbery Award is named after a man, John Newbery, who is considered more or less the “Father of Children’s Literature”. Newbery was born in 1713 in England. He was apprenticed at the age of sixteen to a printer named William Ayers and later to William Carnan. When Carnan died, he […]
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Kathy asks: Why do people think Area 51 contains alien bodies? Area 51 is now so ingrained into popular culture that it’s virtually synonymous with Aliens; it’s impossible to mention one without the other somehow creeping into the conversation, but why are the two so intrinsically linked? Why do we automatically picture little green men any time someone so much […]
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On a relatively mild January day in 1919, Boston was the setting for one of the more bizarre disasters to ever happen on American soil. The incident was also the impetus behind the longest court battle in the city’s history. 21 people lost their lives that day, while another 150 were seriously injured. The price tag to address the damage […]
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Mark asks: When did people first start cutting the foreskins off penises? Having served variously as a mark of virility, servility and gentility, circumcision has throughout the centuries worn many symbolic hats. While anthropologists disagree as to the definitive origins of circumcision, the earliest hard evidence comes from the first ancient Egyptian mummies of considerable vintage, around 2300 BC. That […]
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Dan Lewis runs the wildly popular daily newsletter Now I Know (“Learn Something New Every Day, By Email”). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.. For a few centuries ending in the late 1800s, stocks were common in town centers in the United States and Europe. The device, used as a way to humiliate those who violated cultural norms […]
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Myth: Nero played music while Rome burned to the ground. The infamous phrase—“Nero fiddled while Rome burned”—has come to mean a person who is neglecting their duties, probably by doing something frivolous. Nero is painted as an emperor who didn’t care about his people, but it’s likely that he didn’t deserve such a bad reputation. This is extremely similar to […]
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Today I found out the origin of pretzels. A common origin story of pretzels is that they were created by a monk around 610 in Italy. According to The History of Science and Technology, the monk baked strips of dough that he folded into a shape resembling a child crossing its arms in prayer. He would give these treats, which […]
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Today I found out about the history of the Rosetta Stone and how hieroglyphics were first translated. Hieroglyphics were elaborate, elegant symbols used prolifically in Ancient Egypt. The symbols decorated temples and tombs of pharaohs. However, being quite ornate, other scripts were usually used in day-to-day life, such as demotic, a precursor to Coptic, which was used in Egypt until […]
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Jamie K. asks: What ever happened to the ancient library in Alexandria? Great question! For those not familiar, I’ll start with a little background on the subject. The Library of Alexandria was founded by either Ptolemy I or his son, Ptolemy II, sometime in the third century B.C. Libraries were nothing new to ancient civilizations, though places to keep etched […]
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Ryan asks: Who invented ice cream? No specific person has officially been credited with inventing ice cream. Its origins date back as far as 200 B.C., when people in China created a dish of rice mixed with milk that was then frozen by being packed in snow. The Chinese King Tang of Shang is thought to have had over ninety […]
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If you’ve ever been to London, or even seen a picture of London, you’ve probably seen the giant clock tower at the corner of the Palace of Westminster. This tower is one of London’s major icons, ranking right up there with red double-decker buses, the London Eye, and Platform 9 ¾. Contrary to popular belief, the clock tower itself is […]
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Today I found out the origin of the Canadian flag. Oh, Canada—a member of the British Commonwealth and the land of maple syrup, lumberjacks, and bagged milk. The country’s flag, a red field with a white square in the centre featuring a red maple leaf, is among Canada’s most well-known emblems. As such, it might surprise some people to learn […]
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Today I found out men wore high heel shoes long before women. The first high heel wearers are believed to have been Persian horseback warriors sometime around the ninth century. The extended heel was reportedly developed specifically for riding, to keep the rider’s foot from slipping out of the stirrups. It also helped to hold the rider steady when standing […]
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We are all familiar with the colloquialism “gaydar” which refers to a person’s intuitive, and often wildly inaccurate, ability to assess the sexual orientation of another person. In the 1960s, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) attempted to use a slightly more scientific, though equally flawed, approach- a machine to detect if a person was gay or not. This was […]
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