Gloria N. asks: Why is the stereotype to give apples to teachers? Widespread publicly funded, mandatory education has only been around since about the 19th century. Before then, the responsibility of providing schooling to children fell primarily on their families. Upper- and middle-class families tended to hire tutors or send their children to a private school run by a schoolmaster. […]
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Jared L. asks: Why aren’t there apostrophes in the Don’t Walk signs by street intersections when it’s spelled out rather than using pictures? No one is sure when exactly the first WALK/DONT WALK style signs were installed. Even the Federal Highway Administration isn’t sure, though it is thought that the first such sign was likely installed sometime in the early to […]
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Cailin asks: What happened to Jefferson Davis after the Civil War? Jefferson Davis was attending a Sunday church service in the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, when he heard the news. Union General Ulysses S. Grant had broken General Robert E. Lee’s defenses in Petersburg, less than twenty five miles from Richmond. By nightfall, the evacuation of Richmond needed […]
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Today I found out about a man who saved over two million lives just by donating his somewhat unique blood plasma. Australian James Harrison is called “the man with the golden arm” due to the unusual composition of his blood. Harrison’s blood contains an antibody called Rho(D) Immune Globulin that is used to treat Rhesus disease, a severe form of […]
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On July 20th, 1969, with “one small step,” Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. Since that date forty five years ago, the moon landing has been the subject of intense study and historical analysis. From what Armstrong actually said with his first step to if the American flags the astronauts planted are still there, mankind’s […]
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Karla asks: Who invented the Mexican wave? The wave, also generally known as the “Mexican wave” outside of the United States, was the brain-child of the longest continuously active professional cheerleader (41 years and counting), Krazy George Henderson, in the late 1970s. It made its national debut on October 15, 1981 in a playoff game between the Oakland Athletics and […]
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Long before the likes of Warren Buffet, Hetty Green dominated Wall Street through extremely shrewd investing, frugality, and exploiting the lax investment rules of her age, managing to amass one of the greatest fortunes in history. Hetty, born Henrietta Howland Robinson in 1834, was the daughter of Edward and Abby Robinson. The family first made their fortune thanks to Hetty’s […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why There is Braille on Drive-Thru ATM Machines Mainly, it is because it is required by law, thanks to the ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities. There are certain exceptions, in terms of these requirements, when it comes to drive-up ATMs […]
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Marleen asks: Did Amazon women really ever exist? They are mentioned time and again by the ancient Greeks in both their history and mythology, going all the way back to around the 8th century B.C. They were described as formidable warriors who cut off one breast to be better archers and lived in female-only communities- taking male lovers only once […]
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Tapping into people’s insatiable appetite for new ways to screw around and waste time, recently some Ivy League researchers made a key element of their work into an online game. In order to solve the riddle of how the eye perceives motion and direction, the neuroscientists first needed to create a map of the retina’s neural pathways – out of […]
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Sarah T. asks: Why do you never see commercial airline pilots that are women? When it comes to gender disparity, the world of commercial airline piloting is one of the most skewed with a whopping 97% of all commercial pilots being male (4000 female commercial pilots vs. 130,000 male worldwide according to The International Society of Women Airline Pilots). Those […]
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Drew asks: Why are some ice cubes clear and others cloudy? Unless you happen to have a specialized ice machine in your home, it is practically guaranteed that the ice your freezer makes is of the cloudy variety. A popular and well known trick to making clear(er) ice is to either boil the water first or use distilled water. However, […]
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On Sunday, December 17, 1967, the Prime Minister of what was then the 9th wealthiest nation on Earth disappeared off of the coast of Cheviot Beach, Portsea, Victoria in the southeast of Australia. Harold Holt’s body was never found. Weekend Vacation On Friday, December 15, Holt travelled from the country’s capital of Canberra to his beach house at Portsea. He […]
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Kaiden asks: Why is 9-1-1 the emergency call number? Before the 1960s, the United States didn’t have one universal phone number for Americans to call if they needed help from the police or fire department. Callers simply had to know the phone number for each department in the area they were currently in. In the case of large cities, there […]
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Guy H. asks: Who invented bowling? Bowling has a rather vague history, with a form of it possibly dating back as far as 5000 years to the ancient Egyptians. This story starts with the turn of the century archeologist William Matthews Flinders Petrie, or simply Flinders Petrie. By 1895, he had already established himself as, perhaps, the world’s leading Egyptologist. 18 […]
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For those in the United States celebrating Independence Day and looking to have something interesting to talk to your friends and relatives about at your respective barbeques, here is some conversation fodder to both make yourself look smarter and avoid having to discuss once again how your cousin’s three year old daughter is already showing every sign of being the […]
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For thousands of years, Mohave tribes dotted the land in and around what is now the modern-day city of Las Vegas. Sometime in the 1770s, Spanish missionary Francisco Gracias became the first foreigner to encounter the tribes. As he detailed in his travel notes, their meeting was quite friendly. In 1826, the first English-speaking explorer, Jedediah Smith, came upon this […]
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Brandon asks: Who invented Scotch? Scotch has been referred to as “the water of life,” and to many who know its allure today, they can understand why. Yet the chronicle of this sometimes, smoky, often nutty, occasionally fruity elixir is poorly known, and in fact, its precise origin is lost to the mists of time (or more likely, drinking Scotch). […]
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