The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Eureka Moment On September 10, 1984, geneticist Alec Jeffreys, 34, was working in his lab at the University of Leicester, in central England. More precisely, he was in the lab’s darkroom, studying an X-ray that had been soaking in a developing tank over the weekend. The X-ray was the result […]
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Ubiquitous in many classrooms since the 19th century, chalk and chalkboards are familiar to most of us. White, powdery and prone to sticking to those surfaces where it is put (and just as easy to wipe away), chalk and its accompanying board are excellent instructional aids. Notably, however, most chalk today isn’t technically chalk at all, but gypsum. Chalk and […]
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The town of Celebration was first loosely imagined by Walt Disney himself, though the current town differs wildly from Disney’s original idea. Whereas Disney pictured a “perfect” futuristic city where technology blended seamlessly with real life and all possible needs were taken care of, an idea that served as the basis for the Epcot theme park in Disney Land, Michael Eisner (the CEO of Disney at […]
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Calvin Graham was the youngest of seven children of a poor Texas farm family and because of his abusive stepfather, he and one of his older brothers decided to move out. Calvin supported himself by selling newspapers and delivering telegrams on weekends and after school. He was just eleven when he first thought of lying about his age to join the Navy. The […]
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Kelly C asks: What happens to a person when they are tarred and feathered? Do they die? In times gone by, tarring and feathering was a go-to method used by mobs to punish or otherwise humiliate criminals or people believed to have wronged the community in some way. While it’s mostly recognised as being a punishment handed down in colonial […]
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Mark A. asks: Who invented tea bags? Legend says that brewing tea dates back to around 2737 BC, when tea leaves fell into water being boiled for Emperor Shennong of China. There does not appear to be any hard evidence of tea being discovered this way, but evidence we do have suggests that brewing tea did indeed likely start in […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader It involved only a half-dozen cars and 17 men, but this was one race that not only made history- it changed it. Get a Horse In 1908 the promise of the automobile was just that- a promise. The industry was in its infancy, and most people still relied on horses […]
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The term crowdfunding, a process by which a person raises money by asking others for small donations, has become popular online during the past few years. Websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer individuals a platform from which to make their cases to an international community. Mike Hayes of Illinois used crowdfunding to pay for all four years of his college […]
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The word “claque” is derived from the 16th century French term “claquer”, which roughly meant “to clap”, and is largely used to refer to a group of individuals hired to give a pre-determined response to a performance, be it positive, negative or anything in between. Individual members of a claque are generally referred to as “claquers” or “claqueurs” and for a […]
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Saburō Sakai is perhaps one of the most famous Japanese air aces to emerge from WWII, credited with at least 28 aerial victories and shooting down or severely damaging well over 60 Allied aircraft, despite later in the war flying a plane that was vastly inferior to his opponents’ planes. Saburō Sakai was born one of seven children in a poor farming […]
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Quick Fact #917: Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett, better known as Mr. and Mrs. Bueller on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, first met on the set of that film and subsequently got married in 1986. Like in the movie, they had two children, a boy and a girl; unfortunately, they did not name them Ferris and Jeanie, but rather Shane and […]
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Alex P. asks: What’s the difference between green and black tea? Isn’t it all just tea from the same plant? Both black and green tea is harvested from an evergreen, tree-like shrub known as camellia sinensis. Most likely originating in China, the camellia sinensis is thought to have first been used to brew a medicinal elixir during the Shang Dynasty […]
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J. Emerson asks: Is it really possible to learn to speed read and if it is what are the best methods? 95% of college educated individuals read at a rate between 200-400 words per minute according to extensive research done by University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Dr. Keith Rayner. However, there exists a small, but rather vocal subset of people […]
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When it comes to nations with a long and rich history of space travel and exploration, Britain isn’t normally a country that comes to most people’s minds. However, they were the third country in the world to operate a satellite in orbit. It’s just a shame America ended up accidentally killing it just a few months later… The satellite in […]
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Julia G. asks: Why do gas stations get to set their prices ending at 9/10ths of a cent, but nothing else is priced that way? The practice of pricing fuel with a fraction of a penny is thought to have started around the 1930s. While we can’t be sure who was the first to price fuel this way, it seems […]
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Nancy P. asks: How were raisins made before seedless grapes? Leaving fruit to dry out in the sun is one of the oldest and easiest ways of preserving this variety of food- our ancestors being the type to never waste anything edible, even if it is sometimes past its prime (see: The History of French Toast). Not only did dried […]
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Mark S. asks: Why does brown sugar form lumps but regular sugar doesn’t? When we say the word “sugar”, it’s highly likely that the first image to pop into your head is that of the ultra-fine, pure white granulated kind you can buy in most supermarkets. But how does this kind of sugar differ from the less popular brown kind, […]
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Paul H. asks: Why doesn’t the moon have a cool name like the moons of other planets in our solar system? Almost every planet in our solar system and their respective orbiting moons have names taken directly from Greek and Roman mythology. For example, Mars is named for the Greek and Roman god of War, also known as Ares, while […]
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