Tristan N. asks: What are the longest odds on a sporting event that ended up having to be paid out? Given the nature of sports gambling and so little publicly available documented evidence in the field throughout history, it’s impossible to know for sure what the longest odds were on a sports bet that ended up having to be paid […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Historians tell many stories about heroes who are so beloved that everyone wants a piece of them. In the case of this man, they mean it literally. WHAT’S IN A NAME Great generals frequently earn descriptive nicknames: “Blood and Guts” Patton, “Black Jack” Pershing, and “Stonewall” Jackson, to name a […]
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While there are many birds that have naturally evolved to be flightless, there’s only one kind of bird humans have selectively bred until it no longer possesses an ability shared by most of its kin- the parlor roller. A member of the pigeon family, the parlor roller is unique amongst birds in that instead of flying, it travels not only […]
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It was a weak ground ball to third base that ended over a century’s worth of baseball futility. On November 3, 2016, the Chicago Cubs won their first World Series in 108 years. Much like the Red Sox win in 2004 that also put the brakes on a similar streak, it propelled the Cubs into another stratosphere in terms of […]
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When it comes to Olympic level track and field events, history tends to only remember those who ran the fastest, jumped the farthest and pushed themselves further than their peers. Shizo Kanakuri is an apparent exception to that rule because he’s fondly remembered for having the worst official time of any Olympic marathon runner in history, taking over 54 years […]
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On September 4th, 1927, a jolly goofy animated bunny named “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” made his silver screen debut. In the five minute and forty-six second short entitled “Trolley Troubles,” the earnest conductor drives his trolley full of rabbits through (and under) a variety of obstacles – including a stubborn cow, a seemingly insurmountable hill and a panic-inducing brake failure. […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader This submarine may never be as famous as the Titanic, but the uncanny story of how—and why—it sank has earned it a place in Uncle John’s Stall of Fame. GOING TO SEA On April 6, 1945, a German navy submarine named the U-1206 departed from the port city of Kristiansand, […]
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James P. asks: Who invented the slurpee? The Slurpee was invented as a commercial product more or less by accident by a Dairy Queen franchisee Omar Knedlik in Kansas City in the late 1950s. Born in 1915 and having grown up relatively poor, after WWII Knedlik used his pay from his time serving in the war to open a small […]
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It was approximately four thousand years ago in Finland when people first strapped on skates to glide across the ice. This wasn’t for entertainment purposes, though. Finland is full of lakes and cutting across the ice saved time on daily journeys. By 1 AD, ice skating existed across Northern Europe. Metal skates were first created by the Dutch in 1250 […]
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Michael W. asks: Why is splitting the tab and paying for yourself called Dutch? The idea of paying for yourself when out with friends being referred to as some expression including the word “Dutch,” seemingly incorrectly is often connected to the fact that for several centuries beginning in the 17th, the word Dutch had a negative connotation in English, variously […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader The Society of Saint Tammany, founded in 1789 in New York City, is named for Tamanend, a chief of the Delaware tribe. It started out as a patriotic and charitable organization, created by tradesmen who weren’t allowed to join the more exclusive clubs that the wealthy belonged to. As wave […]
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In 1987, then president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Dr. Don Harper Mills, went on stage at a banquet for members of that organization and told a story about a recent case in which a medical examiner had investigated a suspicious death and concluded that a man was guilty of his own murder. Here’s a cliffnotes version of […]
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It was supposed to be a glorious and fun-filled summer day at the circus in Hartford, Connecticut. It was July 6th, 1944 and this was the final day that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s “Greatest Show On Earth” was in town. Over 7,000 spectators – most of whom were women and children due to it being a matinee, weekday […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader August 21, 1911. Louis Beroud, a painter, busily set up his easel in the Salon Carré, one of the Louvre’s more than 200 rooms, directly facing the spot where the Mona Lisa usually smiled out at her admirers. Beroud had painted copies of La Gioconda plenty of times before. But […]
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George asks: Weird question, but do trees poop? A wise man once said, “Everybody poops.” Well that should probably be changed to everything poops, because all living things excrete waste. This brings us to a brilliant question posed by a reader whose head we’d love to crack open and see what’s going on inside- do trees poop? As it so […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like growing up in Stalin’s shadow or whatever happened to Napoleon’s son, here are their (almost always) tragic stories. RICHARD THE FOURTH? (Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell) Back in the 1640s, jolly old England was caught up in a messy civil war between […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Chanel No. 1 You’ve heard that clothes make the man? Meet the suit that made the woman. Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was born in Samur, France, in 1883. Her life got off to a rocky start. Her mother died shortly after Gabrielle’s […]
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Ana D. asks: Do mounted police officers have to clean up their horse’s poop? Mounted police are a common sight in many cities across the world; a reasonable sized draft horse, which is usually what such officers use, produces about 40 pounds (18 kg) of feces per day or about 14,000 pounds (roughly 7,000 kg) per year (not to mention […]
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