Today I found out about the Battle of Matewan, also known as the Matewan Massacre. Matewan is a small town in West Virginia located on the Tug River which serves as the dividing line between West Virginia and Kentucky. At the time, the area was dominated by the mining and coal industries, which were leading players in the West Virginian […]
Read more
Byron asks: Where does “the whole 9 yards” come from? For those outside of North America who aren’t familiar, “the whole nine yards” is an American phrase which loosely means “everything” or “the full extent of something.” As to the exact origin, it’s a slight mystery. One linguist called it “the bigfoot of word origins” because there are so many […]
Read more
Mark J. asks: Can people actually cash those big novelty checks? The giant novelty check (cheque to our readers of the non-American persuasion) is a comedy staple, even if you’ve never been lucky enough to handle one in real life, you’ve likely drawn a cartoonishsly huge moustache on a picture of someone holding one in a newspaper. (Just me?) You’ve […]
Read more
Today in History: December 5, 2008 Using DNA extracted from blood stains on the emperor’s clothing and bone fragments, on this day in history, 2008, it was confirmed that human remains found in the Urals in 1991 were those of Czar Nicholas II. The findings of this research also proved bone fragments found near Yekaterinburg in 2007 could be conclusively […]
Read more
Today I found out how the Himalayas formed. The Himalayas, which stretch some 2,900 kilometres between India, Pakistan, China, and Nepal, is the world’s tallest mountain range. In addition to Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain by peak elevation standing at 8,848 meters tall, the range also features several other mountain peaks over 8,000 meters. It is the only mountain […]
Read more
TJ asks: Why do people in Asia use chopsticks? Created roughly 4,000-5,000 years ago in China, the earliest versions of something like chopsticks were used for cooking (they’re perfect for reaching into pots full of hot water or oil) and were most likely made from twigs. While it’s difficult to nail down a firm date, it would seem it wasn’t […]
Read more
Today I found out about Project Pigeon and Project X-Ray, WWII plans to use pigeons to guide missiles and (literal) bat bombers. The man behind Project Pigeon was famed American behaviorist and Harvard professor B.F. Skinner, who teamed with the U.S. Army to develop such a system. Pigeons were trained using operant conditioning, a type of learning pioneered by Skinner […]
Read more
Today in History: December 4, 1942 After the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the Jews were forced into ghettos, taken away to forced labor or concentration camps, or killed. Homes and businesses belonging to Jews were confiscated, and synagogues were ransacked for valuables and burned to the ground. Many non-Jewish Poles felt sympathy for their Jewish neighbors, and they themselves […]
Read more
Move over Mr. Ed, Clever Hans was the original horse who could communicate with humans in complex ways. Well, at least it seemed that way at the time. This phenomenon began in the late 19th century with a German mathematics teacher by the name of Wilhelm Von Osten. He was a student of phrenology, which meant that he adhered to […]
Read more
On July 8, 1945, two months to the day after the Allies declared victory in Europe, 29 German POWs were shot while peacefully residing in a prison camp in Salina, Utah. The Shooter Private Clarence V. Bertucci was 23 years old at the time of the shooting. Stationed at the Salina camp, Bertucci had been born and raised in New […]
Read more
Today I found out about John Billington, the first convicted murderer in America. John Billington was around 40 years old when he disembarked the Mayflower in New England in November, 1620. Like most of the other adult males on the ship, he had signed the Mayflower Compact prior to setting foot on American soil. The Compact had been drawn up […]
Read more
Today in History: December 3, 1979 The British rock band The Who hadn’t played Cincinnati since 1975, so the excitement level was high among the fans standing outside the Riverfront Coliseum on December 3,1979. For the majority of the fans attending the concert – 14,000 out of the over 18,000 in attendance – tickets were either for festival seating (standing […]
Read more
In May 1972 in a uranium enrichment plant in France, scientists examining ore from a mine in Gabon, West Africa, discovered that a natural nuclear reactor had spontaneously manifested in that region in the Earth’s primordial past, churning out approximately 100 Kw worth of energy continuously for a few hundred thousand years about 1.7 billion years ago. In order to […]
Read more
Today I found out why barbecues are called that. The word “barbecue” comes from the Caribbean word “barbacoa.” Originally, a barbacoa wasn’t a way of cooking food, but the name of a wooden structure used by Taino Indians to smoke their food. Due to the known diets of the Indians in question, it’s likely that the first barbecue consisted of […]
Read more
Today I found out about the use of exploding anti-tank dogs during World War II. These dogs, usually Alsatians, were also called “Hundminen” or “dog mines.” They were trained to carry explosives on their bodies to enemy tanks, where they would then be detonated. No, it did not end very well for the dogs in question. This type of animal […]
Read more
Today in History: December 2, 1777 On this day in history, 1777, Lydia Darragh thwarted a surprise British attack on General Washington and the Continental Army, helping turn the tide of the war. By September 1777, the outlook wasn’t so rosy for the Continental Army. The British emerged victorious in every recent battle and then marched triumphantly into Philadelphia. General […]
Read more
Today in History: December 1, 1982 When Michael Jackson began work on what would become the best selling album of all time (by far), “Thriller,” released on this day in history, he did so with a huge chip on his shoulder. He felt strongly that his previous effort, “Off the Wall,” which ended up selling a “measly” 20 million copies […]
Read more
This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why a Turkey is Called a Turkey In the sixteenth century, when North American turkeys were first introduced en masse to Europe, there was another bird that was popularly imported throughout Europe and, most relevant to this article, England, called a guinea […]
Read more