This Day In History: September 5, 1774 On this day in history, 1774, the first Continental Congress convened. At Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress met for the first time to address the British Parliament’s enactment of the Coercive Acts, a legislative measure intended to quell rebellion in Massachusetts and teach those Bostonians a lesson for that whole Tea […]
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Myth: George Washington once chopped down his father’s favorite cherry tree. The story goes that a young George Washington was about six years old when he was given a hatchet that he enthusiastically used to chop at just about anything in sight. One morning, he even chopped at a cherry tree, eventually cutting it down. When confronted about it by […]
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Candace asks: What makes a fruit a fruit and a vegetable a vegetable? An apple is a fruit, right? So is a banana. How about a cucumber? A vegetable, right? Not really, from a botanical standpoint. The good news is that, nutritionally speaking in terms of what you should eat daily, fruits and vegetables are typically grouped together, so you can […]
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This Day In History, September 4, 1962: The Beatles’ “Love Me Do” Sessions On an early September day a band from Liverpool, England called the Beatles, provincial and a bit rough around the edges, entered EMI studios at Abbey Road in London for what some consider to be their first official recording session, as it was the first time Ringo […]
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The common wombat (AKA, Vombatus ursinus) is an Australian marsupial with a unique claim to fame. You see, the common wombat and its two cousins, the Northern hairy-nose wombat and the Southern hairy-nose wombat, all poop pellets more or less in the shape of cubes, producing over 100 cubic pellets per day. If your day hasn’t been made by the phrase, […]
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Often considered one of the more difficult languages to master thanks to the incredible amount of inconsistencies in the language, it should come as no surprise that the development of the modern English alphabet involved several languages, hundreds of years and a variety of conquers, missionaries and scholars. Origins of Alphabetic Writing Dating back nearly four thousand years, early alphabetic […]
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Today in History: September 3rd This Day In History, 1189 : Richard the Lionheart Crowned King of England Richard I, an iconic medieval symbol of chivalry, didn’t ascend the English throne until the age of 31, but had been boldly leading armies since his teens and was an indispensable figure during the Crusades. He’s one of the best known rulers […]
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Today I found out about Nellie Bly, the woman who purposefully got herself committed to a notorious insane asylum so that she could report on what actually went on inside. Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864, Nellie Bly was considered the most rebellious of her father’s fifteen children. (Yes, fifteen) Her family was thrown into poverty when her father died […]
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Today in History: September 2nd On this day in history, 1666, a fire that came to be known as the “Great Fire of London” was started. In the wee hours of the morning, what began as a small fire in a humble abode near London Bridge became an uncontrollable inferno that swept through the city for four days. The flames […]
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Andy asks: After I eat vitamins or vitamin enriched cereal, my pee turns bright yellow. What’s going on here? If you’ve ever taken a daily multivitamin you too might have noticed your urine turning a bright yellow-ish color. Take your vitamins and eat some asparagus and you might just think you’re dying the next time you pee! What’s happening is […]
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How Our Galaxy Came to Be Called the “Milky Way” and What It’s Called in Other Languages No, it has nothing to do with the candy bar. Like many words we use today, the English name of our galaxy is derived from its Latin name: Via Lactea. Translated, that means “the road of milk.” The Romans actually got the name […]
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Today I found out about the history of Where’s Wally (known in the US and Canada as Where’s Waldo). The iconic, elusive man in the red-and-white striped shirt was first hidden away in 1987 by British illustrator Martin Handford. Handford had been drawing since he was a boy, and was particularly fond of viewing and drawing crowd scenes. He felt […]
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Today in History: August 30 On this day in history, 30 B.C., Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, the iconic seductress and lover of both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, commits suicide after her forces are crushed by Octavian, who shortly became the first emperor of the Rome. Cleopatra was born in 69 B.C., and was made queen of Egypt as Queen […]
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Anyone who’s been chased around the yard by a pissed off chicken knows these birds are neither purposeless nor fearful. Descended from some of the fiercest creatures ever to roam the planet, the blood of today’s Gallus domesticus carries all of the pride, courage, fury and viciousness of its ancestors. Harnessing these qualities by the simple expedient of sticking two […]
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Today I found out that Milton S. Hershey bought a VIP ticket for the Titanic but ended up not boarding. The Titanic, the unsinkable ship, launched on April 10, 1912, carrying some 2,200 passengers and crew en route to the United States. On the night of April 14, 1912, the ship hit an iceberg and sunk, resulting in around just […]
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Edgar Allan Poe is probably best known for his raven that squawks “Nevermore,” but he’s also one of the first American short story writers and is often credited with being the “inventor” of detective fiction. He also contributed heavily to the genre of science fiction. Not only that, but he was one of the first American writers to earn a […]
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Today in History: August 29 This Day In History, 2005: Hurricane Katrina Pounds Gulf Coast Hurricane Katrina was the most devastating, and costliest, natural disaster to ever occur in the United States, though unbelievably it was only the third most powerful storm in the 2005 hurricane season. Over 1,800 people lost their lives during the storm and the subsequent flooding, […]
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