John asks: Why do people tell actors to “break a leg” before a performance? The term, of course, means “do well” or “have a great show” and is typically used before a stage performance, a show, or an audition. (I have never heard it used before filming a movie on any of the movies I’ve been involved with, but I […]
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Today I found out the origin of the term “jackpot”. Jackpot originally popped up around the 1870s and was from the poker game “Jacks or Better”. This is much like traditional five card draw, except in this case, if a player does not have a pair of “jacks or better” in the first round of betting, he has to pass. […]
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You might think the temporary insanity defense was a relatively new thing. I mean, maybe it began in the 1940s or possibly the ’30s. What with all the psychobabble around in those times. But, no. It was actually much earlier. It all started with a guy named Daniel Sickles. Sickles (1819-1914) was a U.S. Senator and later a Congressman, as […]
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It’s pretty obvious that no Major League Baseball player would be caught dead wearing a dress to the plate. But one batter wore one, and turned the at-bat into an outrageous incident that left fans hooting and hollering. Nightclub singer Kitty Burke hit a ball thrown by St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Paul “Daffy” Dean, becoming the only woman to ever […]
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This is a continuation of the four part “Interesting U.S. President Facts” series. If you’re interested in the other parts, you can find them here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. 33) Harry S. Truman Facts: The “S” in Truman’s middle name doesn’t stand for anything. His parents picked it to honor both of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman […]
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This is a continuation of the four part “Interesting U.S. President Facts” series. If you’re interested in the other parts, you can find them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 4. 25) William McKinley Facts: McKinley worked jobs as a postal clerk and as a teacher before the Civil War. He joined the army as a Private and rose to the […]
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This is a continuation of the four part “Interesting U.S. President Facts” series. If you’re interested in the other parts, you can find them here: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4. 13) Millard Fillmore Facts: Fillmore was the first President to have running water in the White House. While touring Europe later in life, the University of Oxford offered him […]
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There have to date been 43 people who’ve held the highest political position in the United States since the founding of this republic under the current constitution. (And quite a few more Presidents under the old system, but we’ll ignore them in this piece.) Here now is a variety of interesting “President Facts” you may not know about every […]
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Today I found out the “ye” as in “Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe” should be pronounced “the”. The “Ye” here is not the “ye” as in “Judge not, that ye (you) be not judged”, but is rather a remnant of the letter “thorn” or “þorn” (Þ, þ). The letter thorn was used in Old Norse, Old English-Middle English, Gothic, and Icelandic […]
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Today I found out that all humans can be traced back to a single female known as Mitochondrial Eve. This woman is thought to be the “mother” of all humans alive today. Seems like a big claim for scientists to make. So how do they know this? The simple explanation is that when an egg is fertilized by a sperm, the […]
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This is a fantastic educational video by Henry Reich from MinutePhysics (with Bonus Sun Facts below written by me). MinutePhysics also sells a few t-shirts here, if you’re interested. If you’ve got an educational video you’d like featured on Today I Found Out, you can contact me here. Bonus Sun Facts: The energy required to stop the Earth orbiting the […]
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Jack asks: Why do the British pronounce “Z” as “Zed”? It’s not just the British that pronounce “z” as “zed”. The vast majority of the English speaking world does this. The primary exception, of course, is in the United States where “z” is pronounced “zee”. The British and others pronounce “z”, “zed”, owing to the origin of the letter “z”, […]
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Today I found out Sleeping Beauty is based on a story where a married king finds a girl asleep and can’t wake her, so rapes her instead. The story is called The Sun, the Moon, and Talia, written, or at the least collected and composed, by the Italian poet Giambattista Basile. It was published in 1634 in his “Pentamerone” collection […]
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Today I Found Out has teamed up with Jeremiah Warren to show his awesome “trivia” related videos here, along with Bonus Facts included after the video by me. I hope you enjoy his videos as much as I have. “Of all the public men that I have known, on both sides of the Atlantic (and there are few that I […]
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Today I found out the Colossal Squid, which is the largest known squid in terms of mass on Earth, has a doughnut shaped brain with their esophagus running through the hole in the center. This hole through their brain isn’t very large at all with their esophagus diameter at just around 10 mm (.39 inches). Their brain itself isn’t that […]
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Today I found out the only victim of the Tacoma Narrows, “Galloping Gertie”, bridge collapse was a three legged dog. The three legged dog in question was a black Cocker Spaniel left in the back seat of the lone car abandoned on the galloping bridge. The dog was owned by reporter Leonard Coatsworth, though his wife stated in an interview […]
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Stevo asks: Is “racking your brain” or “wracking your brain” the correct way to write that expression? There are some language guides, generally the ones that pay a lot of attention to the etymology of “rack” and “wrack”, that will still say it is “racking your brain” not “wracking your brain”, but these are becoming few and far between. In […]
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