Category Archives: Featured Facts

10 Strange Major League Baseball Feats That Have Only Been Accomplished Once

One of the great things about baseball is that it’s amazing with how many games there are per season, even lifelong fans frequently see things during games that they’ve never seen happen before. With that in mind, here are a few of the stranger feats in Major League Baseball history that have only happened once to date: Pitching a no-hitter […]

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How the Tradition of Trick or Treating Got Started

Amit Bhatnagar asks: Where did the American tradition of trick or treating come from? The vast majority of the traditions commonly associated with Halloween today are borrowed or adapted from four different festivals, namely: The Roman Feralia festival, commemorating the dead The Roman Pomona festival, honoring the goddess of fruit and trees The Celtic festival Samuin, meaning “summer’s end”, (also […]

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The Mass Murdering Warlord Turned Christian Evangelist Who Was Known as General Butt Naked

This is a guest post by Dan Lewis. Dan runs the wildly popular daily newsletter Now I Know (“Learn Something New Every Day, By Email”). To subscribe to his daily email, click here. Today I found out about the mass murdering warlord turned christian evangelist who was once known as General Butt Naked. Joshua Milton Blahyi, pictured above, is a […]

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How Candy Pumpkins and Halloween Helped Change Daylight Saving Time

This is a guest post by Dan Lewis. Dan runs the wildly popular daily newsletter Now I Know (“Learn Something New Every Day, By Email”). To subscribe to his daily email, click here. Today I found Out how candy pumpkins and Halloween helped change Daylight Saving Time. Before 1966, Daylight Saving Time in the United States was set via a […]

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Alcohol Does Not Help Prevent Hypothermia, It Actually Makes It More Likely

Myth: drinking alcohol warms your body and can be used to prevent hypothermia. In fact, drinking alcohol helps lower the core temperature of your body.  This myth likely got its start thanks to the fact that drinking alcoholic beverages will make you feel warmer as your blood/alcohol level rises. As the Director of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Iowa, […]

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Who Invented the Emoticon?

This is a guest post contributed by Nissi Unger “Emoticons,” short for “emotive Icons,” (emotive meaning “appealing to or expression emotion” hence “icons that express emotions”) have been around in vertical form for some time. However, sideways emoticons seem to be a surprisingly recent invention, going back just about three decades. “B4” the days of LOL and apps to aid […]

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Steve Jobs’ First Business was Selling Blue Boxes that Allowed Users to Get Free Phone Service Illegally

Today I found out Steve Jobs’ first business was selling “blue boxes” that allowed users to get free phone service illegally. These boxes were designed in 1972 by Jobs’ close friend and future co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak.  The idea to sell them was supposedly Jobs’.  The two learned about blue boxes from famed “phreaker” (phone freak/hacker) John “Cap’n Crunch” […]

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