Today I found out the founder of FedEx once saved the company by taking its last $5,000 and turning it into $32,000 by gambling in Las Vegas. The man is Frederick W. Smith who is the founder and current CEO of FedEx. In 1971, Smith took his personal fortune of around $4 million and raised around an additional $90 million […]
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Myth: You lose body heat faster through your head than the rest of your body. It is very common for parents to advise their children to wear a hat or to cover their head when its cold outside, with the reasoning behind this advice often cited as “most of your body heat escapes through your head” or “you lose heat […]
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Today I found out New Mexico Whiptail lizards are all females. While this isn’t completely unheard of among various life forms on Earth, such as with certain plants, insects, and sea life, among others, what is particularly interesting is how the New Mexico Whiptail lizards go about reproducing. To do this, they will generally perform a type of pseudocopulation where […]
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During the Industrial Revolution, companies attempted to maximize the output of their factories by keeping them running as many hours as possible, typically implementing a “sun up to sun down” work day. Wages were also extremely low, so workers themselves often needed to work these long shifts just to get by, including often sending their children to work in the […]
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Myth: Your body uses more calories to digest certain types of foods, called “negative calorie” foods, than the actual calories contained in them. The concept of negative calorie food has recently been popularized by the media, around on Internet discussion boards, and from publications, such as “Foods that Cause You to Lose Weight: The Negative Calorie Effect“, by Neal D. […]
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##EMBED## Animals such as dogs, rabbits, rodents, gorillas, etc. often eat their poop to maintain proper health. For animals like rabbits, who eat a lot of plants, their poop contains quite a bit of undigested plant matter; so eating their poop is a nice easy way to get more out of the food they have available. For other animals, like […]
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Today I found out Dr. Seuss wrote “Green Eggs and Ham” on a bet that he couldn’t write a book with fifty or fewer distinct words. The bet was made in 1960 with Bennett Cerf, the co-founder of Random House, and was for $50 (about $382 today). Despite Dr. Seuss, a.k.a. Theodore Geisel, winning the bet by producing one of […]
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Today I found out the first speeding infraction in the U.S. was committed by a New York City taxi driver in an electric car on May 20, 1899. The driver was Jacob German who drove for the Electric Vehicle Company, which leased its electric taxicabs to be used around New York. German was driving his taxi at a blistering 12 […]
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##EMBED## John Wayne’s real name was Marion Robert Morrison. His middle name was later changed to “Mitchell” because his parents wanted to use “Robert” as the name of Marion’s little brother. He later acquired the nickname “Duke” (which was used in the credits of one of his filmes “Duke Morrison”) after his dog, who was named Duke. He generally didn’t […]
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Today I found out there once was a Major League Baseball player that was traded for himself. That player was Harry Chiti. Chiti was a catcher who played in the major leagues from 1950-1962, taking two years off in that span to fight in the Korean War. The momentous event of getting traded for himself happened in 1962 when Chiti […]
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This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Flat World Knowledge for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine. That source is Flat World Knowledge which is the first major provider of college textbooks that are released under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share-Alike open license. These textbooks can be read through their free online reader that works in […]
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##EMBED## Apples weren’t typically eaten previous to the 20th century. Before then, apples were generally used to make alcoholic drinks. It wasn’t until around the early 1900s, thanks to groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, that people popularly stopped using apples for drink and decided they should eat them. At this time, the WCTU was campaigning against the evils […]
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##EMBED## Cisco Systems, in 2009, released the following numbers for the origins of spam by country in descending order: Brazil at 7.7%; USA at 6.6%; India at 3.6%; South Korea at 3.1%; Turkey at 2.6%; Vietnam at 2.5%; China at 2.4%; Poland at 2.4%; Russia at 2.3%; Argentina at 1.5%. Surprisingly, you have to go all the way down to […]
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##EMBED## The name Montgomery Scott, for “Scotty” on Star Trek, was chosen because Montgomery was James Doohan’s middle name and the character was portrayed as Scottish. Interestingly though, Doohan himself was Canadian. Doohan, who was a famed voice actor at the time, presented several different accents for the character to Gene Roddenberry, but ultimately convinced Roddenberry that the character should […]
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##EMBED## The Wonder Bread logo of colored balloons was inspired by an International Balloon Race at the Indianapolis Speedway witnessed by Elmer Cline, the Vice President for merchandizing for Taggart Baking Company who manufactured Wonder Bread at the time, before Continental Baking bought them out. The final version of the logo itself was designed by Drew Miller, who was a […]
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