The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Inside that textured green skin, it’s ripe with mystery. It’s an “evolutionary anachronism.” It’s not a vegetable, and not exactly your typical fruit. It’s an acquired taste that most Americans still resist. Meet the avocado. HAVING A BALL The avocado came from South America, so it’s not too surprising that […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader If you think the streets of Paris are enchanting, wait till you discover what lurks below. THEY DUG PARIS Most visitors to Paris have no idea that beneath the City of Light is a dark labyrinth of branching tunnels and abandoned quarries. Paris sits atop massive limestone and gypsum formations […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Here’s the strange story of a family-owned business so dysfunctional that business schools teach it as a lesson in how not to run a company. FOOT SOLDIER Not long after the end of World War I in 1918, an 18-year-old German soldier named Adolf Dassler returned to his hometown of […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Today the word Tupperware is a generic term for any plastic food container with a sealable lid. That’s thanks to two people: Earl Tupper, inventor of the product that bears his name, and Brownie Wise, who has been all but erased from the company’s history. BLACK GOLD In the fall […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Bad news: We have no control over who our parents are. Good news: Most of us did a lot better than Benito Mussolini Jr. did. OUT OF WORK In 1912, a 20-year-old political activist named Benito Mussolini became the editor of Avanti! (“Forward!”), the Italian Socialist Party’s newspaper. He held […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader (For more in this series, see: A Scheme to Sell More Radios, the Founding of NBC; Network Origins: CBS; and Network Origins: ABC) In 1987 Fox became the first broadcast network that really gave ABC, CBS, and NBC a run for their money. YOUNG FOX In 1935 two Hollywood movie […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader (For more in this series, see: A Scheme to Sell More Radios, the Founding of NBC and Network Origins: CBS) When NBC was forced to break up its radio broadcasting monopoly and spin off one of its two networks, it decided to get rid of the least profitable one. The […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader (For more in this series, see: A Scheme to Sell Radios, the Founding of NBC) CBS trailed NBC through most of its radio years but zoomed ahead—and stayed there—when the TV era began. Here’s the story of the “Eye Network.” ARTHUR’S THEME In the 1920s, talent agency Columbia Concerts Corporation […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader The broadcast TV networks no longer monopolize the airwaves, but they still wield tremendous influence. And the grandfather of them all is NBC. RADIO DAYS For radio producer American Marconi Wireless (AMW), selling radios during World War I was easy. Most radios at the time were two-way and direct, and […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Since 1879, residents of a quaint town in upstate New York have mediated conversations between loved ones—parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. What’s so special about that? These mediators connect the living…with the dead. TRAPPED IN TIME Pastel-painted Victorian homes line the streets of Lily Dale, New […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader A while back we told you the story of the WWII submarine that was lost due to a malfunctioning toilet. It turns out that a similar incident threatened the space shuttle Discovery in 1989… TOP SECRET On November 22, 1989, the space shuttle Discovery blasted off from the launchpad at […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader THE SCENE One Saturday in 1974, two young men affiliated with Southern Arizona Grotto, a spelunking, or “caving,” group based in Tuscon, Arizona, were out exploring, looking for new caves near the Whetsone Mountains. Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen traveled about an hour outside of Tucson, where they were roommates […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Historians tell many stories about heroes who are so beloved that everyone wants a piece of them. In the case of this man, they mean it literally. WHAT’S IN A NAME Great generals frequently earn descriptive nicknames: “Blood and Guts” Patton, “Black Jack” Pershing, and “Stonewall” Jackson, to name a […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader This submarine may never be as famous as the Titanic, but the uncanny story of how—and why—it sank has earned it a place in Uncle John’s Stall of Fame. GOING TO SEA On April 6, 1945, a German navy submarine named the U-1206 departed from the port city of Kristiansand, […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader The Society of Saint Tammany, founded in 1789 in New York City, is named for Tamanend, a chief of the Delaware tribe. It started out as a patriotic and charitable organization, created by tradesmen who weren’t allowed to join the more exclusive clubs that the wealthy belonged to. As wave […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader August 21, 1911. Louis Beroud, a painter, busily set up his easel in the Salon Carré, one of the Louvre’s more than 200 rooms, directly facing the spot where the Mona Lisa usually smiled out at her admirers. Beroud had painted copies of La Gioconda plenty of times before. But […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like growing up in Stalin’s shadow or whatever happened to Napoleon’s son, here are their (almost always) tragic stories. RICHARD THE FOURTH? (Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell) Back in the 1640s, jolly old England was caught up in a messy civil war between […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader You’ve heard that clothes make the man? Meet the suit that made the woman. Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was born in Samur, France, in 1883. Her life got off to a rocky start. Her mother died shortly after Gabrielle’s birth, and her father took off, abandoning the five Chanel children. Gabrielle […]
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