In the 4th century B.C., for a period of 50 years a small force of 300 elite Theban soldiers dominated Grecian battlefields. What makes this band of brothers unique in history is that it was comprised entirely of male lovers. The Elephant in the Room – Pederasty in Ancient Greece The classical Greeks tolerated a wide range of sexual appetites. […]
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Kyle asks: Why do we get old? Gray hair, memory loss, wrinkles and brittle bones, sooner or later, each of us gets old (if we’re lucky). Yet scientists tell us that there is no evolutionary reason for us to age. So, why do we? The Aging Process Researchers do not agree as to the causes of aging. Some claim our […]
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Ezekiel Proctor was a 19th century Cherokee man who had walked the Trail of Tears from Georgia to the Indian Territory when he was just seven years old. He was proud of his heritage, and he still spoke the language and basked in the customs of the Cherokee people. When he grew up, he became a lawman. Jim Keterson was […]
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WWII saw the development of some zany designs for weapons, such as when the U.S. developed pigeon guided missiles and (literal) bat bombs (the latter of which were a little too effective, accidentally destroying the testing base when they escaped), or when the Soviets trained exploding anti-tank dogs. Not to be left out of the fun, the Japanese developed their own oddball […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. That Time 26-Year-Old Edgar Allan Poe Married His 13-Year-Old Cousin As if his stories weren’t occasionally disturbing enough, it turns out Edgar Allan Poe’s love life was more than a little creepy as well. Poe met his bride-to-be, Virginia Clemm, when she […]
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On May 16, 1960, Theodore Maiman shined a high-powered light at a ruby partially coated with silver and the result was the world’s first laser. This groundbreaking device, however, was not created by a single genius in isolation. Rather, it was the result of many brilliant minds sharing ideas . . . at least until it was time to divvy […]
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Kansas had been swept up in the debate over whether or not it should allow slavery for some time. When it was finally decided that Kansas would be a free state, the South was sore. There were many clashes at the border between northern and southern states during the Civil War, and Lawrence was almost always ready to defend its […]
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Chellie asks: Do people really only have the right to one phone call when put in jail in the United States? Being arrested is a terrifying and frightening thing with all the horror stories about police abuses of power and other prisoners being absolutely dead-set on making your life miserable in a variety of horrifying ways… at least that’s what […]
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Today I found out about Roger Ebert’s somewhat lesser known movie-related job, making X-rated films. Ebert got his start in the public sector at the age of 15 reporting on high school sports for Champaign-Urbana’s News-Gazette. He held that job all the way through college, even while serving as a reporter and editor of the Daily Illini at the University […]
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Carmen asks: Was Beethoven really deaf when he wrote all his music? If there is one Ludvig van Beethoven fact everyone knows it’s that he was deaf. But just saying “he was deaf” leaves a lot of pertinent questions unanswered, such as how deaf was he? How did he communicate with people? Of course, the biggest question is how did he […]
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It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that the oldest district of Athens, Plaka, might be one of the most unique, beautiful and historic neighborhoods on earth. Also known as the “Neighborhood of the Gods,” Plaka lies right under the cradle of Western civilization, the Acropolis. Plaka is filled with many archaeological monuments and sites spanning millennia. It’s […]
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Karla asks: Why does aspirin prevent heart attacks? The wonder drug once gleaned from the bark of a willow tree is today used to help prevent heart attacks and strokes. But not everyone benefits from daily aspirin therapy. What is Aspirin? As early as Hippocrates (400 BC), people were harvesting willow to treat pain. Today, aspirin is: “Acetyl salicylic acid […]
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Overshadowed by the coverage of the Kent State Massacre that occurred not two weeks prior, when two people were killed and 11 injured while protesting at Jackson State College in the spring of 1970, the nation barely noticed – and today few remember. The Protest About 4,300 black (and only five white) students were enrolled at the historically black college […]
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Masa C asks: Why do fingernails on a chalkboard make us cringe? Listen to this. Irritated? Angry? Just glad it’s over? Here’s why. Your Ear After examining the results of a 2011 study, researchers have theorized that the human ear is specifically built so that: Sounds in [a certain] range are amplified due to the anatomy of the ear canal; […]
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Andrew M. asks: Why do we say “You just earned some brownie points.” What were brownie points originally for? There are many, many origin theories for this one. One of the most often repeated and widely accepted theories is that “brownie points”—imaginary points earned by someone for doing a good deed, and lost by doing something unfavourable—stem from the Brownies, […]
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Our resident medical expert, Scott, and a buddy of his recently started The Medicine Journal, where you can learn all sorts of interesting facts about all things medical related. Below is a sample article from their site. Have you ever seen the toenails of your grandfather and thought he might be a troll? Those yellow, misshapen and brittle nails tend […]
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An idiom that is often used when something is new and fantastic is that, “It’s the best thing since sliced bread!” But how did this saying come to be? And what makes sliced bread so darn great? Our story begins about thirty thousand years ago, takes us through the town of Chillicothe, Missouri, and, then, to a futuristic ‘wonder’ful bread […]
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As if his stories weren’t occasionally disturbing enough, it turns out Edgar Allan Poe’s love life was more than a little creepy as well. Creepy Courtship Poe met his bride-to-be, Virginia Clemm, when she was 7 years old, and he was 20, shortly after his mother’s death in 1829. Their parents, his natural father (David Poe) and her mother (Maria […]
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