This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. How a Wife Beating, Serial Killer Puppet Gave Us the Expression “Pleased as Punch” As a child you might have wondered how a bowl of punch could be pleased about anything. Turns out, the saying has nothing to do with the drink. […]
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So ubiquitous in today’s political discourse, many assume that the red state/blue state distinction has been around as long as we have had Republicans and Democrats. In fact, the opposite is true – the dichotomy is relatively young, having only become settled with the Presidential election of 2000. The Color of Political Parties In order to make political reporting more […]
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Eric asks: Who invented the food pyramid? The very first “food pyramid” was a Swedish invention and it was an invention of necessity more than anything else. Back in 1970s, Sweden saw its country gripped by high food prices. The government then tasked The Socialstyrelsen (National Board of Health and Welfare) with coming up with a way to help the […]
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Today I found out about the Olowalu Massacre. In 1789, Captain Simon Metcalfe and his son Thomas set off on a fur trading mission in two ships, the Eleanora and the Fair American. The ships were separated when the Fair American was captured by the Spanish and taken briefly to Mexico, but the two captains had agreed to a rendezvous […]
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After being invaded by Germany in the west and later by Soviet Russia in the east, the Polish government fled Warsaw but continued to fight from abroad. After Germany attacked Russia, the Russians decided to release their Polish prisoners of war, who then began re-forming into an army. In April 1942, several of these Polish units landed in Persia and […]
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Imagine. There you are, trying to stay in shape. Going to one of your local Pilates classes, and while performing what is known as a Valsalva maneuver, your body suddenly swallows one of your breasts! As fate would have it, we don’t need to just imagine. We can ask a 59 year old from Maryland who had that very thing […]
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Myth: People convicted of witchcraft were burned at the stake during the Salem Witch Trials When you think about people disposing of witches a few hundred years ago, you probably imagine a woman tied to a stake jutting up from a pile of smoking wood. The burning of witches has become so ingrained in witch-hunt canon that it’s a cliché. […]
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Long ago, in the region surrounding Nevsehir and Kayseri, in central Turkey, an ancient people built, or rather dug, over 200 underground cities. The deepest of these, under the present day town of Derinkuyu, delves over 250 feet below the Earth’s surface, and boasts numerous tunnels, halls, meeting rooms, wells and passages. Because the city was carved from existing caves […]
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Today I found out about the amazing life of Roy Chapman Andrews. From the picture there on the right, you might mistake Andrews for Indiana Jones. In fact, Roy Chapman Andrews’ life is like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, but without the Nazis. Not surprising, since it has been widely speculated that he was the man who Indiana […]
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Myth: Shocking someone who has flat-lined can get their heart started again. It never fails. You’re watching television and someone is circling the drain, in the toilet that is their life. The noise from the heart monitor affirms they’re still alive, with its consistent, rhythmic beeps. All of the sudden, alarms start going off. On the monitor- the dreaded “flat-line”. […]
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It was March of 1960. The teenagers of the world were rejoicing. Why? Because Elvis was getting out of the army. Yes, Elvis “The Pelvis” Presley, Rock ‘n’ Roll’s greatest rebel iconoclast, was finally leaving the U.S. Military and taking up his career as the sneering, hip-swiveling Rock ‘n’ Roller. Elvis’ film career was foremost in the minds of his […]
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When the extent of the U.S. government’s domestic spying program was revealed this past summer, many were surprised and outraged: how could a government which so prizes liberty of its citizens covertly collect data on its own people? Yet, sadly, this is not the first time Uncle Sam, without permission or notice, secretly gathered information on its people and wasn’t […]
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Today I found out the origin of the phrase “pleased as punch.” As a child you might have wondered how a bowl of punch could be pleased about anything. Turns out, the saying has nothing to do with the drink. Rather, “punch” refers to the character in Punch and Judy, a puppet show that has its roots in Italy’s 16th-century […]
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TodayIFoundOut.com has been hovering for a few months just barely under 2 million page views in a month, but thanks to a traffic surge the last few days has finally broken through the 2 million mark in a 30 day period receiving 2,308,791 page views from 1,557,178 visits in the last 30 days, both of which are new site records. […]
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This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Where the Phrase “Close But No Cigar” Came From This popular idiom, which means “to fall short of a successful outcome” or “close call,” was first coined in the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. While it can’t […]
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Believe it or not, the history of Nintendo goes all the way back to 1889. And before you ask- no, they were not selling Mario figures carved from wood. Originally named “Nintendo Koppai”, the small business based in Kyoto started by Fusajiro Yamauchi produced Hanafuda Cards. For those unfamiliar, these are simple playing cards that are used to play multiple […]
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Long ago an advanced civilization sprang up along the shores of Lake Titicaca, in the Andes Mountains in present day Bolivia and Peru, and disappeared just as quickly 500 years later. The sophisticated people that created the fabulous city of Tiahuanaco (Tiwanaku) were the forefathers of the Incas and other South American cultures, and some even believe they were the […]
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Dan asks: How did the running gag of police always eating donuts come about? Members of law enforcement stuffing their faces full of doughnuts is one of the most enduring stereotypes about the boys and girls in blue. In virtually every media representation of the police that isn’t deadly serious, the stereotype is played out in some way- Police Academy, […]
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