This Day In History: April 12, 1994 On this day in history, 1994, the world’s first mass commercial internet spam campaign was launched when husband and wife immigration lawyer team, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, who had previously been subject to disciplinary action for unscrupulous practices (see Bonus Facts Below) and had been thrown out of the American Immigration Lawyers […]
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Mr. Rogers famously didn’t mind if people recorded his show with a VCR, arguing for people’s right to do so in a 1979 case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. At the time, it was being argued by the opposition that this constituted a copyright infringement. Mr. Rogers was one of the few involved in television that […]
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Today I found out that a 17 year old girl survived a 2 mile fall from a plane without a parachute, then trekked alone 10 days through the Peruvian rainforest. On Christmas Eve, 1971, just a few hours after attending her high school graduation, 17 year old Juliane Koepcke and her mother, Maria, got on a flight from Lima, Peru […]
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According to a survey done by Crayola in the year 2000 that over 25,000 people voted in, the world’s favorite Crayola crayon color is blue. Crayola Facts
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Today I found out how a smoke alarm works. At their core, smoke alarms are very simple devices that need only two functions: a way of detecting smoke and a way of alerting people to the problem. From new technology involving lasers to old world technology that relies on a lonely individual sitting in a tower on the side of […]
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Tom Cruise’ real name is Thomas Mapother IV. Tom Cruise certainly has a little better ring to it. Interestingly, Cruise actually wanted to be a priest (and not for Scientology). Mapother seems to fit better in that line of work. When he was 14, he even enrolled in seminary. His switch to acting after leaving seminar seems to have worked […]
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Today I found out most streets in Japan don’t have names. In Japan, they use a very different addressing system than is used in most Western countries. Rather than streets having names (the space in between blocks), they give blocks numbers and leave the space in between the blocks, streets, nameless. (There are some exceptions to this where certain streets […]
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Cirroc Lofton, who played Jake Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, is the nephew of six time All Star in the Major Leagues Kenny Lofton. Cirroc starred in Deep Space Nine from 14 years to 20 years old. Outside of Deep Space Nine, he has appeared in The Hoop Life, on Showtime, and Soul Food, also on Showtime. […]
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There is an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, about 840 miles from the South Pole. Not surprisingly, this ATM is the most southern ATM in the world. The most northern ATM in the world is in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway, which is about half way between Norway and the North Pole (about 800 miles from the North Pole). The world’s […]
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Japan is located along the Pacific “ring of fire”, on the edges of several continental and oceanic tectonic plates. This is an area of high seismic and volcanic activity from New Zealand, up through Japan, across to Alaska, and down the west coasts of North and South America. Japan’s specific location in this “ring”, causes frequent earthquakes as well as […]
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Today I found out that the inventor of the Pringles can was buried in one (part of him, anyway). Upon his death in 2008, just 20 days shy of his 90th birthday, the inventor of the Pringles can, Fredric J. Baur, was cremated. In keeping with his wishes, his family placed some of his ashes in a Pringles can (not all […]
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The word “spell” comes from the Proto-Germanic “spellan”, meaning “to tell”, which in turn gave rise to the Old English “spellian” and then “spell”. The first recorded instance of spell, being used to indicate writing or reciting the individual letters of a word, was in the early 15th century. It would later be given the meanings “incantation” (late 16th century) […]
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Along with Eric Clapton and Jack Nicholson, Ted Bundy was another famous person to have grown up thinking his mother was his sister. His father is unknown. His mother claims that it was a sailor she met named Jack Worthington, but his family suspected that was a cover up story and his real father is his grandfather, Samuel Cowell, who […]
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This Day In History: April 3, 1973 On this day in history, 1973, a Motorola employee, Martin Cooper, publicly demonstrated the world’s first handheld mobile phone by placing a call to Joel Engel, the head of research at AT&T’s Bell Labs using the phone. Engel and his team were Cooper’s chief rival and had also been attempting to make the […]
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Due to an injury in college, Mantle almost didn’t have the chance to play professional baseball. During a football game, Mantle was kicked hard in the shin, which, aside from being really painful, resulted in the leg becoming severally infected and doctors initially thought they were going to have to amputate it. Mickey Mantle Facts
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Today I found out Chuck Norris’ first name is actually Carlos. “Chuck” Norris was born Carlos Ray Norris all the way back in 1940 (yes, he’s 72 years old now and even recently had to have a hip replaced). Carlos Norris was named after Carlos Berry, a minister who was close to Norris’ father. He didn’t acquire the nickname “Chuck” […]
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Katy Perry’s real name is Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, but she created the stage name “Katy Perry” so as not to be confused with Kate Hudson. Before she did this, she did release an album under her real name, with the album called “Katy Hudson”. The album flopped. It wasn’t until she signed with Capitol Music Group in 2007 that she […]
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Today I found out there is a parody set of Nobel Prizes given out annually for trivial scientific achievements. These prizes (10 per year in a variety of categories) are called the IG Nobel Prizes (play on words: “Ignoble Prize”) and are given to those whose work “first makes people laugh, and then makes them think”. Essentially, they are given […]
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