This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Curious Case of the Pillownauts Today we take it for granted that astronauts can function in the weightlessness of spaceflight, but at the dawn of the space age in the early 1960s, scientists weren’t sure that was possible. Some experts […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The U.S. Navy and Their Hilariously Inept Search for Dorothy and Her Friends While the Ancient Greeks had their celebrated Sacred Band of Thebes, a legendarily successful fighting force made up of all male lovers, in more modern times the various […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. That Time Mozart Pirated a Forbidden Piece of Music from the Catholic Church from Memory Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is known for many things, few of which we care to cover on this site because you probably already know all about them. […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Transfermium WarsIf the Transfermium Wars raged from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, how is it that so few people have ever heard of them? Because they were fought by rival groups of scientists over who would get to […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. That Time Hoover Acciedentally Cost Itself Almost 50,000,000 by Giving Away Free Flights with the Purchase of a Vacuum Cleaner Giving away free stuff with a purchase is a good way to bolster sales and can result in a tidy increase […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Very Real Reindeer and How They Became Associated With Christmas Unlike Santa, elves or even clean coal, reindeer are real. They may not fly, but there’s a good deal of truth around the many myths of Christmas’s favorite animal. Yes, […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. A Cow on a Yacht – The Fascinating Life of Gordon Bennett Jr. As the old adage goes, money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure takes the sting out of being poor. Gordon Bennett Jr. was a man for whom money […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why Are Some Pages “Intentionally Left Blank” and Why Do They Say This It’s easy to dismiss the phrase, “This page is intentionally left blank” and its usage as an example of bureaucracy gone mad, but it and the blank pages […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Where Did the Saying “I’ll Eat My Hat” Come From? “I’ll eat my hat” is an utterance commonly used when a person is absolutely certain that something will not happen. But where did this unusual phrase first originate and have there […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why Gnats Swarm A common sight in the spring and summer, the seemingly unprofitable and pointless habit of gnats to hover in a cloud is, in fact, the single most productive thing they’ll ever do with their short lives. Although there […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Secret Race to the Moon Not too long after 9:00 p.m. on the evening of April 11, 1961, a United States government listening post off Alaska picked up the sound of human voices speaking in Russian. That wasn’t unusual; in […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. How the Weird British Tradition of Putting Topless Women on the Third Page of the Newspaper Got Started We British are often stereotyped as being prudish and stoically reserved in all aspects of intimacy. As such, it may surprise non-natives to […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Truth About the Legend of Pelorus Jack Cook Strait, located between the north and south islands of New Zealand, is within the zone of the Roaring Forties which consists of strong winds that sweep across the southern hemisphere from the […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why We Drive on Parkways and Park on Driveways To most people the fact that we drive on parkways and park on driveways is rarely pondered upon. This only comes to mind when pointed out by particularly cringe-worthy comedians, who no […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Hit Man Even if you’ve never heard of Otis Blackwell, you’ve almost certainly heard his music—he was one of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century. Here’s the story of the most famous songwriter most people have never heard […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why Doesn’t the United States Use a Popular Vote to Determine the President? On December 13, 2000, Vice President Al Gore conceded the presidential election to Governor Bush. A day earlier, a lengthy and expensive manual vote recount process in Florida […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Is the Ocean Getting Saltier? Most sea salts come from water-caused erosion, whereby rivers ultimately carry the dissolved salts to the oceans. Absent a few key processes, the ocean’s salinity would continuously increase; however, there are several mechanisms, called “salt sinks,” […]

This is a weekly wrap of our popular Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. How the Five Day Work Week Became Popular On September 25, 1926, the Ford Motor Company instituted a five-day, 40-hour work week for its factory employees. While Ford wasn’t the first to do this, they were arguably one of the most […]