In this episode, you’re going to learn about a man who managed to survive three consecutive hangings and what happened to him after. Don’t miss future episodes of this podcast, subscribe here: iTunes | RSS/XML You can also find more episodes by going here: Daily Knowledge Podcast
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John asks: Why are vitamins named via the alphabet? Easily identifiable by simple terms, the vitamins we recognize today were only recently isolated, identified and named. Roots of Vitamins Scientists studying why animals failed to thrive (deficiency diseases) were the first to discover vitamins. One of these early researchers, Cornelius Adrianus Pekelharing, opined in 1905 that milk had “some unrecognized […]
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Burritos are one of the most popular Tex-Mex items on the menu. Anyone who knows a little Spanish has probably raised their eyebrows at the name, however. In Spanish, a “burro” is a donkey, and “burrito,” the diminutive form, means “little donkey.” As far as we know, donkey was never a popular ingredient in the famous dish, so how exactly […]
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Today I found out about the Union Army Balloon Corps. If you thought that air warfare was reserved for a time after airplanes were invented, you thought wrong. During the American Civil War, the Union troops used hot air balloons to spy on Confederate troops. The idea to use balloons was the brainchild of Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of […]
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Today in History: April 1, 1621 On April 1, 1621, the first peace treaty between the American colonists and the Native Americans was made in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The process began when Samoset, Squanto, and three companions paid a visit to the colonists’ tiny colony. They informed the newcomers that the great Sachem Massasoit, his brother Quadequina and about 60 men […]
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In this episode, you’re going to learn about how the idea that there is a monster in Loch Ness got its start. [TRANSCRIPT] Don’t miss future episodes of this podcast, subscribe here: iTunes | RSS/XML You can also find more episodes by going here: Daily Knowledge Podcast
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A new baseball season is upon us and, to kick it off, we thought we’d do a roundup of all the interesting baseball facts we’ve covered on TodayIFoundOut to date to give you some interesting things to talk about as you while away the hours watching the games. Without further ado: Abner Doubleday Did Not Invent Baseball This myth has […]
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Over two days in April 1975, as the forces of the North Vietnamese Army were poised to take the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, members of the U.S. armed forces, its embassy in South Vietnam and its Defense Attaché Office evacuated over 7,000 people using only helicopters. The End of the War Although the United States had withdrawn its combat […]
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Why There is an Area of New York Called “The Bronx” This is thanks to a seventeenth century Scandinavian man by the name of Jonas Bronck, originally from Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands. In 1639, Bronck immigrated to New Amsterdam in New Netherland, which was right next to what is today called Bronx River, named after Jonas Bronck. Why? In […]
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Today in History: March 31, 1492 In 1492, Spain was home to the largest and most distinguished Jewish population in all of Europe. Jews had been living in the area at least since Roman times, and had existed peacefully under Muslim rule – but things changed when the Christians rose to power in the 14th and 15th centuries. The hyper-Catholic […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why Cashews are Not Sold to Consumers in Their Shells and Why Pistachios Used to Be Dyed Red Cashews are a member of the same family as poison ivy, Anacardiaceae. Like poison ivy and many other members of the family, part of […]
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In this episode, you’re going to learn about “Mitochondrial Eve,” a woman who lived about 75,000 years ago that all humans alive today are thought to be related to. [TRANSCRIPT] Don’t miss future episodes of this podcast, subscribe here: iTunes | RSS/XML You can also find more episodes by going here: Daily Knowledge Podcast
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It was lunch time on a muggy late September day in 2013 when an explosion shook downtown Orlando, Florida. A warehouse on west Jefferson street was the casualty. Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks were already on their way by the time Tim Roth, a good Samaritan, was on the scene. As he searched through the rubble and debris for […]
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M. Havens asks: Where did the Taps song come from that is played during military funerals? Since 1862, “Taps” has played at military funerals to honor the sacrifice of fallen service members. Originally, however, it was intended to send soldiers off to a less permanent sleep. During the Civil War, Union buglers signaled “lights out” to their comrades with a […]
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By necessity, this one contains a bit of profanity. So you may or may not want to read through it first if you normally share these articles with humans of the particularly youthful persuasion. 🙂 In its various incarnations, the F-word can be a noun, verb, adjective, and even an infix. The Crescent wrench of the English language, the F-bomb […]
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Today in History: March 28, 1979 At 4 a.m. on the morning of March 28, 1979, a combination of human and mechanical error led to the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, that in truth wasn’t all that bad. It happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant just outside Harrisburg, PA, and would drastically escalate public distrust toward […]
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After just about three and a half months since launching, our Daily Knowledge Podcast has reached 1 million downloads. Thanks for listening! If you have any feedback for us on it, we’re always interested. If you haven’t checked it out, you can listen to the podcast episodes here online, or subscriber via iTunes here, or simply use this xml link […]
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In this episode, you’re going to learn about the silly reason why split infinitives were for a time considered incorrect grammatically. Don’t miss future episodes of this podcast, subscribe here: iTunes | RSS/XML You can also find more episodes by going here: Daily Knowledge Podcast
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