As a general rule, historical anecdotes that seem a little “too perfect,” like “John Wilkes Booth’s brother saved the life of Abraham Lincoln’s son shortly before Lincoln was assassinated,” when researched thoroughly almost never turn out to be true. This, however, is one of the exceptions to that rule and it was no less than Robert Todd Lincoln himself who, in […]
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Today I found out the first known robot was created around 400-350 BC by the mathematician Archytas and was an artificial bird. Archytas, who is known as the “father of mechanical engineering,” constructed his bird out of wood and used steam to power the movements of the robot. This bird was then suspended from a pivot bar. In its best […]
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Today I found out the Snickers candy bar was named after one of Frank Mars’ favorite horses. Frank Mars was the creator of the Snickers candy bar and founder of Mars, Inc, originally called Mar-O-Bar Co., which is currently the 6th largest privately held company in the world with annual sales of around 21 billion dollars. The company is still […]
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Today I found out the United States once planned on shooting a nuclear bomb at the moon. If you presumed that the reasoning behind such an act was “because we can”, you are absolutely correct. That is exactly why the U.S. wanted to do it, in order to one-up the Soviet Union, who were perceived as leading the space race […]
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This post is sponsored by DanforthDiamond.com, providing discount engagement rings and wedding rings online for up to 40% off of retail. Today I found out the history and symbolism behind the tradition of wearing a wedding ring and why, in most western cultures, it’s worn on the fourth finger of the left hand, otherwise known as the ring finger. Wedding […]
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Today I found out about the history of French fries. Exactly who introduced these golden strips of goodness to the world isn’t entirely known. Among the various theories, it’s generally accepted that the French fry was invented by either the Belgians or the French. Potatoes were first introduced to Europe not through the French or Belgians, but through the Spanish. […]
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Today I found out why a hamburger is called hamburger. In the early 18th century some Germans noticed during their travels to Asia, that the locals would stuff their beef between their saddles while they would ride, to help soften it for later consumption. The Germans loved the idea of soft seasoned meat, and so they brought the idea back […]
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Today I found out how the word “spam” came to mean “junk message” or “junk mail”. While some have suggested that this was because SPAM (as in the Hormel meat product) is sometimes satirized as “fake meat”, thus spam messages are “fake messages”, this potential origin, while plausible enough on the surface, turns out to be not correct at all. […]
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Today I found out the origin of superstitions surrounding black cats including why a black cat crossing your path is considered bad luck. Black Cats weren’t always the butt of superstitions, feared, or even considered bad luck. In fact, in early Egyptian times, dating back as far as 3000 BC, cats (including black ones) were the rock stars of the […]
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Daniel G asks: Why is a baker’s dozen 13 and not 12? There are three main theories for why a baker’s dozen is 13 instead of 12, but most think it has its origins in the fact that many societies throughout history have had extremely strict laws concerning baker’s wares, due to the fact that it is fairly easy for bakers to […]
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Today I found out why the toilet is sometimes called a “John”. The term is thought to derive from Sir John Harrington or, at the least, to have been popularized due to Harrington. (There are a few references of the toilet being called “Cousin John”, as well as many references to it being called “Jake” and other such generic names, […]
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Today I found out that in an effort to scare people away from drinking alcohol, the American government once poisoned certain alcohol supplies; this resulted in the death of over 10,000 American Citizens. This, of course, was during Prohibition. The government became frustrated with the fact that despite the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol being banned, the number of […]
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Today I found out about Sullivan Ballou’s letter to his wife written just a few days before the first major land battle of the American Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run, fought this day (July 21) in 1861 in Manassas, Virginia. Ballou was a major in the U.S. Army and a member of the Rhode Island Volunteers. Before […]
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Today I found out UPS was started by two teenagers with one bicycle and $100 borrowed from a friend. The date was August 28, 1907 and the two kids were 18 year old Claude Ryan and 19 year old Jim Casey. The two had one bike between them and $100 (about $2400 today) borrowed from a friend to found the […]
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Today I found out why some countries drive on the right and some countries drive on the left. The origin of this varies based on the time period and country, but primarily throughout history people used the “keep-left” rule. It has only been very recently that the world has predominately switched to the “keep-right” rule. The first real archaeological evidence […]
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Today I found out where the dollar sign ($) comes from. This symbol first showed up in the 1770s, appearing in documents of English-Americans who had business dealings with Spanish-Americans. However, it wasn’t until the very early 1800s that it became popularized, around the same time as the first official U.S. dollars were being minted. Previous to this, the symbol […]
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Today I found out what the first website ever made was. Simply put, it was a website made by the World Wide Web’s creator Tim Berners-Lee, who was working for CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). The first ever website was published on August 6, 1991 and served up a page explaining the World Wide Web project and giving information […]
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Today I found out what the M’s stand for in “M&Ms”. In 1941, Forrest Mars Sr., of the Mars candy company, struck a deal with Bruce Murrie, son of famed Hershey president William Murrie, to develop a hard shelled candy with chocolate at the center. Mars needed Hershey’s chocolate because he anticipated there would be a chocolate shortage in the […]
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