Goldman was born in 1869 in Lithuania, the first child from her mother’s second marriage to a man who desperately wanted a son. Her father was abusive, using a whip on Goldman who he believed was the “most rebellious” of the children, and her mother didn’t stop him. Goldman found comfort in her older half-sister at home, but she was […]
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This term was named after a nineteenth century Englishman, Captain Charles C. Boycott (who originally had the surname “Boycatt,” but the family changed the spelling when he was nine years old). If you guessed that at a certain point Captain Boycott became quite unpopular with the masses, you’re correct. Shortly before Boycott would find himself boycotted, the situation in Ireland […]
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Meghan asks: In “The bane of my existence” what is a bane? The phrase “the bane of my existence” is extremely popular, and you’ve probably said it once or twice yourself, perhaps about a difficult exam during finals week, or the cat who woke you up at 3 a.m. for breakfast, or the gym teacher who made you run an […]
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BR522 asks: Why aren’t commercial airplanes have parachutes? Seatbelts and airbags in cars save passengers lives. Parachutes save people who, for a variety of reasons, exit a plane in mid-flight. So why aren’t parachutes provided to passengers on commercial airline flights, in case of emergencies? Because they almost certainly would not save anyone’s life. Parachuting Basics When your average daredevil […]
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When it comes to war, innovation is key and WWII saw more insane ideas and weapons of war developed than perhaps any before it. One of the more surreal was the Antonov A-40, colloquially known as the tank that could fly! Known in Russia as the, крылья танка (literally, “Winged Tank”), the Antonov A-40 was the end result of one, […]
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Jamie M asks: When did having young teenage girls marry stop being so widespread? A long, long time ago. Marriage in the Ancient World In the Western world (and generally speaking) before imperial Rome, girls were deemed sufficiently mature for marriage and sex when they first started menstruation (and boys, by the way, when they developed pubic hair). Marriage was […]
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Martha was a very lonely bird. She had once been part of a pair, with her male counterpart George, but he had died several years before. So, for the final years of her life, Martha sat in her one-bird cage alone. The Cincinnati Zoo offered a thousand dollar reward (about $23,000 today) to anyone who could track down a mate […]
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Harriet W. asks: What is the difference between brown and white eggs? There are all sorts of rumours surrounding brown eggs and white eggs. Some people say that brown eggs are better for you and contain more nutrients; some people think brown eggs taste better; some think that brown eggs are better for cooking things like quiches, while white eggs […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. When a Tulip Cost More than a House Despite how it sounds, “Tulipmania” does not refer to just a general love of tulips; it was actually one the world’s first recorded major financial bubbles. Long before the dot com frenzy or the […]
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Find more from this author at All That is Interesting a part of the PBH Network. Subscribe to their newsletter here. Sam Patch: Before Evel Knievel was a twinkle in his father’s eye, Sam Patch was thrilling audiences across America. As a child laborer in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Patch would entertain his friends by jumping off the mill dam. By […]
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Laury asks: What causes morning sickness? Most mothers will tell you that “morning sickness” is a misnomer, and that it should really be called “all day sickness.” In fact, it’s sometimes called “nausea and vomiting during pregnancy” or NVP. Pregnant women have been experiencing this unfortunate side effect of growing a parasite… err human inside them seemingly for as long […]
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Jamie M. asks: When did people stop thinking it was OK to marry your cousin? In modern western society, marrying your cousin is not well accepted, particularly in the United States. Through a combination of old prejudices and present-day conventional wisdom about inherited birth defects, first cousin marriage is seen by many as a little too close for comfort, as […]
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For Part I of this two part series, go here. Today I found out about the last three wives of King Henry VIII: Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Howard, and Katherine Parr. We last left off with King Henry finally receiving the heir to the throne he so badly wanted. However, Henry knew well enough that heirs could die, and after […]
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Today I found out about the first three wives of King Henry VIII: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour. “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived,” as the old rhyme goes. King Henry VIII is known for having a huge number of wives and getting rid of nearly all of them in some way or another. As most people […]
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This is something a little different, which I nevertheless thought was an entertaining, and more than a little humorous, story. (Although, to be fair, I have a bit of a twisted sense of humor. ;-)) So I asked if my brother, Jon, wouldn’t mind writing it up and letting me publish it. So here’s a guest post by Jon, the […]
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The name deriving from the Greek “eugenes,” meaning “well-born,” it should be no surprise that “eugenics” seeks to engineer a better human race by purposefully selecting good traits, and eliminating bad ones, as is common when breeding animals. Over the years, eugenics has had a number of proponents, from some of the greatest and most admires thinkers in western civilization […]
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Despite being just 8 weeks old, our new Daily Knowledge Podcast has just passed 500K downloads. These days it’s also pushing over 16K downloads per day and rising every week. Further, it has ranked as high as #13 overall on iTunes among all podcasts. 
If you haven’t given it a listen, check it out here. You can also subscribe […]
Fourteen cm in height and eight around, the world’s first battery looked more like primitive pre-Columbian art than an amazing piece of ancient technology. Although most experts agree that the device produced electricity, there is little consensus on what that power was intended to do. Discovery Archaeologists searching for “evidence of Biblical tales like the Tree of knowledge and Noah’s […]
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