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 The End of the War Although the United States had withdrawn its combat […]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 […]
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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Karla asks: Why do we need sleep? It left Hamlet’s father vulnerable to fratricide, sent Alice down the rabbit-hole, enabled Delilah’s betrayal of Samson and facilitated Gregor’s transformation into a giant beetle. Yet without sleep, we can become dull, slow and irritable in the short-term, and chronic insomnia can cause migraines, seizures and even, in extreme cases, death. Although we […]
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Our resident medical expert, Scott, and a buddy of his recently started The Medicine Journal, where you can learn all sorts of interesting facts about all things medical related. Below is a sample article from their site. Every summer we slather layers of sunscreen with the highest SPF we can find, and bravely venture outside hoping our slimy cloak will […]
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It turns out this has nothing to do with the mammaries of the fairer sex, but rather has its origins in the Spanish word “bobo,” meaning “stupid,” “fool,” or “naïve.” This Spanish word in turn comes from the Latin “balbus” meaning “stammering”, which to the Romans was thought to be a sign of stupidity. So, essentially, a “booby trap” is […]
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Today in History: March 27, 1309 As the result of a war with the Doge of Venice Pietro Gradeningo over control of the city of Ferrara in northern Italy, Pope Clement V punished Venice by excommunicating the entire city on March 27, 1309. Clement’s decree not only denied all Venetians access to the sacraments, but declared them entirely outside of […]
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In this episode, you’re going to learn about the story that “Sleeping Beauty” was based on, which was *slightly* less family friendly than the Disney version. [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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Why Police Officers are Sometimes Called “Pigs” Unlike so many other nicknames for the police, such as cops and the fuzz, this particular term has a relatively well known origin. You see, starting around the sixteenth century “pig” began being used in English as a derogatory term for people, whether police or not, as it still sometimes is used today. […]
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In the connected 21st century, it can be hard to imagine how, for most of history, different cultures existed in relative isolation from each other. Even as late as the 19th century, those living in self-sustaining and remote rural communities had little commerce with the outside world, and scant news made it in or out. In a handful of these […]
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