Today I found out why school buses are yellow. An estimated twenty-six million students in the United States alone are transported to school every school day via bus—over half the student population in the country. While school buses in countries outside of North America usually look like any other buses, North American school buses are distinctive for their yellow colour. […]
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In 1975, George Lucas was casting for his upcoming sci-fi film The Star Wars (name later changed to simply Star Wars). After a joint casting session with Brian De Palma, who was looking to hire actors for his new horror movie Carrie, Lucas was able to cast many of his principal actors. He decided on two young no-names, Carrie Fisher […]
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Today I found out about the origin of the phrase “in the limelight.” Today it means “at the centre of attention,” but back in the day “in the limelight” meant, well, being in the limelight. “Limelight,” which is also known as “calcium light,” was used as stage lighting for years after being discovered by Goldsworth Gurney in the 1820s. Gurney […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Fascinating Origin of the Word “Abracadabra” These days you might hear this word before some stage magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat, but hundreds of years ago people actually believed that “abracadabra” was a magical spell. The exact origin […]
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Today I found out about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, the wife of famous writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and who the video game character of “Zelda” was named after. Zelda Sayre was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1900. She was named for characters in two different books, Zelda: A Tale of the Massachusetts Colony and Zelda’s Fortune, both of […]
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While there are a million plotlines and hundreds of explanations of how various superheroes got their special powers, there was one superhero in the 1960s who maintained his powers to fight evil by lighting up. “8-Man” originally ran as a weekly comic strip in Japan from 1960 to 1963, then a half-hour cartoon from 1963 to 1964. The show eventually moved […]
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Despite her future successes, Nancy Wake had humble beginnings. She was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1912, but her family moved to Sydney, Australia when she was almost two and she grew up there. A Maori midwife delivered her and, at the time of her birth, allegedly pointed at a fold of skin on her head and said, “’This […]
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When actress Michelle Pfeiffer was just starting out in Hollywood, long before her hit movies Batman Returns and Hairspray hit theatres, she admits to being roped into the cult of “breatharianism.” Breatharians believe that humans can survive without food or water—they get all the nutrients they need from air and sunlight. Obviously as even plants can’t survive with only air […]
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With the possible exception of boozy, reckless ingénues, there is no animal more bent on its own ruin than the giant panda. With its low population (only 1600 remain in the wild and 300 in captivity) and self-destructive lifestyle, giant pandas are in danger of extinction. Luckily, scientists and conservationists are hard at work unlocking the secrets of panda behavior […]
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Today I found out why your palms get sweaty when you’re nervous. Ever been on the edge of a cliff or looking out the window at the top of a skyscraper and your hands start to sweat? Or maybe it’s when you’re about to speak in front of an audience? The individual who introduced you might shake your hand and […]
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Gracen asks: Do moths really eat clothes? The common “clothes moth”, “clothing moth” or to give its street name, Tineola bisselliella, doesn’t actually eat clothes. In fact, clothing moths don’t even possess the ability to eat- they don’t have a mouth. Once they become a moth, rather than waste their time eating, they simply mate, the female lays her eggs, […]
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Just over a century ago in the Mediterranean Sea in between Greece’s Peloponnese and the Isle of Crete, a sponge diver came across an amazing discovery: an ancient shipwreck from classical times, filled with pottery, jewels, wine and so many marble and bronze statutes that, upon surfacing, he “gabbled that he had found a heap of dead, naked women“. The […]
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Ken Laha asks: How long would someone’s heart have to be stopped before you’d stop trying to revive them? The question of how long someone’s heart would have to be stopped for before you can safely say that regardless of what you do, you’re not going to be able to revive them is a very tricky question. It’s not as […]
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Today I found out the origin of the word “abracadabra.” These days you might hear this word before some stage magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat, but hundreds of years ago people actually believed that “abracadabra” was a magical spell. The exact origin of the word is up for debate, but perhaps one of the oldest records we […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. The Origin of the Legend of Zelda The Legend of Zelda is aptly named, as the series has truly become a legend within the gaming industry. Every new generation of gamers have been given the opportunity to fall in love with it […]
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From King Arthur’s Avalon to Plato’s Atlantis, Jonathan Swift’s Laputa to Pi’s carnivorous Eden, people have long dreamed of magical islands where the miraculous happens and the lost find sanctuary. The Celts of Ireland were no different, and in their tradition, the mythical island was known as Hy-Brasil. The Myth of Brasil Also called O’Breasail, Hi-Brasil, O’Brazil, Hy Breasail, Hy […]
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Today I found out that James Barry, the first British surgeon to perform a C-section in which both the mother and baby survived, was born a woman. It is believed that “James Barry” started out in life as Margaret Ann Bulkley. She was born around 1789 in Ireland. Not much is known about her childhood, except that when it came […]
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In 2010, architect and PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in London, Julijonas Urbonas, from Lithuania, decided to attempt to design a method of euthanizing people that they might even enjoy. His solution- the Euthanasia Coaster, which he designed and built at a precise 1:500 scale. It’s a roller coaster that could seat up to 24 passengers and […]
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