Lynda D. asks: Who first came up with BCE, CE, BC and AD and what is the difference between them? BCE (Before Common Era) and BC (Before Christ) mean the same thing- previous to year 1 CE (Common Era). This is the same as the year AD 1 (Anno Domini); the latter means “in the year of the lord,” often […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Audiences cheered when the hero of the 1999 movie Office Space unscrewed the walls of his cubicle and watched them come crashing down. Yet 30 years earlier, when the very first cubicle walls went up, employers and workers alike cheered them as the “workplace of the future.” SEA OF DESKS […]
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Erica H. asks: How do we pee in terms of the nuts and bolts of it? Why can we only pee sometimes and not just anytime there is liquid in our bladders? What’s the trigger and how exactly is the pee expelled once the floodgates do open? Is it just gravity or do our stomach muscles squeeze our bladders? Inquiring […]
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The commonly held notion that WW1 was started out of outrage over the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie at the hands of the Serbian nationalist secret society known as the “Black Hand” isn’t entirely correct. In fact, the Emperor Franz Josef himself expressed relief over the assassination because it rid him of an heir […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Modern shopping malls are so common that we forget they’ve only been around for about a half century. Here’s the story of how they came to be…and the story of the man who invented them, Victor Gruen—the most famous architect you’ve never heard of. FATEFUL LAYOVER In the winter of […]
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On February 9, 1964, The Beatles made what is often incorrectly considered their American television debut when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. (For you of the younger persuasion, The Ed Sullivan Show was a legendary variety show which ran in the U.S. from 1948 to 1973.) In truth, The Beatles had been seen in film clips and recorded […]
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Lance H. asks: Who currently receives the royalties for Mein Kampf? Mein Kampf, the autobiographical, anti-Semitic hate-manifesto written by Adolf Hitler in the 1920s is one of the most controversial and infamous books of all time. As you might imagine, this has resulted in millions of copies of the book being sold since Hitler did the world a major favour and heroically […]
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In this video from our YouTube channel (click here to subscribe), we take a look at the origin of 7-UP, the real reason it was named that, and what lithium has to do with it. To make sure you don’t miss out on many more videos like this, be sure and subscribe to our new daily channel! If you liked […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, remains one of the most infamous events in U.S. history. Yet the spy who played a key role in the sneak attack is a forgotten man, unknown even to many World War II buffs. UNDER COVER On March 27, 1941, […]
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In this video from our YouTube channel (click here to subscribe), we take a look at how exactly the practice of Halloween and Trick or Treating really got started. To make sure you don’t miss out on many more videos like this, be sure and subscribe to our new daily channel! If you liked this video, you might also enjoy: […]
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Back in 1981, in an effort to raise some quick funds, American Airlines introduced a $250,000 pass (about $641,000 today) that would allow customers to fly on its airlines for free for the rest of their lives. In 1990, they bumped the price to $600,000 (about $1.07 million today), and then in 1993 to $1.01 million (about 1.7 million today). Despite […]
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This Day In History: October 26, 1977 For many millennia, smallpox was one of the most easily transmitted and deadly diseases in the world for humans. In the 20th century alone, when a successful vaccine was already being widely administered in many countries, it is estimated that smallpox still caused somewhere between 300 and 500 million deaths worldwide. Approximately one-third […]
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Nazi troops invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, despite the best efforts of Captain Witold Pilecki and his fellow Polish soldiers. On November 9th of that same year, Witold and Major Wlodarkiewicz founded the Tajna Armia Polska (TAP or Polish Secret Army), an underground organization that eventually became consolidated with other resistance forces into The Home Army. Not long after […]
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This Day In History: October 21, 1555 In July of 1554, Queen Mary I married Philip of Spain. The Queen was quite in love with her hunky new hubby. Unfortunately, many of her subjects didn’t share her affection, including Parliament who refused to recognize Philip as King on October 21, 1555. And this wasn’t the first or last time. Mary […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader The beeeep! beeeep! of someone’s pager going off used to be everywhere… but when was the last time you heard one? Let’s take one last look before they’re gone forever. THE DOCTOR IS OUT In 1924, a New York City businessman named Sherman Amsden started a company called the Doctors’ […]
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This Day In History: October 15, 1946 Hermann Göring was second only to Hitler in the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Commander of the Luftwaffe, acting Prime Minister of Prussia, President of the Reichstag, and Hitler’s designated successor – Göring’s Nazi resume was almost unparalleled. Born in Bavaria in 1893, Göring was the son of a professional soldier and governor in West […]
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Women’s clothes come in a baffling range of (often inconsistent) sizes which can make finding clothes that fit just right an unreasonably difficult task for many women. To help combat this, the clothing industry has a number of tricks up its immaculately tailored sleeves; in regards to jeans, one of those tricks is Natasha Wagner’s butt. Born in 1981, Natasha Wagner took […]
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Maria D. asks: Why do fluorescent lights buzz? Comprised of a sealed tube coated on the inside with a phosphor powder and filled with (usually) argon and a tiny bit of mercury, the way in which fluorescent bulbs produce light is extremely fascinating. While the underlying physical mechanisms in the fixture and bulb can vary a bit in design, in […]
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