Today I found out that the paperclip was used as a symbol of resistance during World War II. In April of 1940, just a few months into World War II, Adolf Hitler knew that he needed a way to break past the Allied blockade of Germany if he had a hope of winning the war. He set his sights on […]
Read more
This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why Multivitamins Make Your Urine Bright Yellow If you’ve ever taken a daily multivitamin you too might have noticed your urine turning a bright yellow-ish color. Take your vitamins and eat some asparagus and you might just think you’re dying the next […]
Read more
Melissa asks: Was there really a “Craig” who started “Craigslist” or is that just a marketing gimmick? Craig Newmark is the Craig of Craigslist whose estimated net worth as of 2010 was around $400 million. This is in direct contrast to his financial wealth during childhood, where his mother struggled to support Craig and his brother, Jeff, after the death […]
Read more
Even after our most heart breaking failures, parents, teachers and coaches encourage us to get back up and try again. Perhaps this is because they know that rather than being a permanent condition, failure is an opportunity to learn and improve. This was certainly the experience of Manfred von Richthofen. After cracking up his aircraft on his first solo attempt, […]
Read more
Kaden asks: What was the first language spoken by humans? It is virtually impossible to know which language developed first, but that doesn’t mean linguists haven’t taken a good whack at it. The main problem is that scientists think language probably developed around 100,000-200,000 years ago. That’s around when modern humans, Homo sapiens, developed with the same skull structure—with the […]
Read more
Today I found out that Marie Curie once had two duels fought over her after she had an affair with a married man. Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre, were no strangers to the press. In 1903, the pair won a Nobel Prize “in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena […]
Read more
Myth: George Washington once chopped down his father’s favorite cherry tree. The story goes that a young George Washington was about six years old when he was given a hatchet that he enthusiastically used to chop at just about anything in sight. One morning, he even chopped at a cherry tree, eventually cutting it down. When confronted about it by […]
Read more
Candace asks: What makes a fruit a fruit and a vegetable a vegetable? An apple is a fruit, right? So is a banana. How about a cucumber? A vegetable, right? Not really, from a botanical standpoint. The good news is that, nutritionally speaking in terms of what you should eat daily, fruits and vegetables are typically grouped together, so you can […]
Read more
The common wombat (AKA, Vombatus ursinus) is an Australian marsupial with a unique claim to fame. You see, the common wombat and its two cousins, the Northern hairy-nose wombat and the Southern hairy-nose wombat, all poop pellets more or less in the shape of cubes, producing over 100 cubic pellets per day. If your day hasn’t been made by the phrase, […]
Read more
Often considered one of the more difficult languages to master thanks to the incredible amount of inconsistencies in the language, it should come as no surprise that the development of the modern English alphabet involved several languages, hundreds of years and a variety of conquers, missionaries and scholars. Origins of Alphabetic Writing Dating back nearly four thousand years, early alphabetic […]
Read more
Today I found out about Nellie Bly, the woman who purposefully got herself committed to a notorious insane asylum so that she could report on what actually went on inside. Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864, Nellie Bly was considered the most rebellious of her father’s fifteen children. (Yes, fifteen) Her family was thrown into poverty when her father died […]
Read more
Andy asks: After I eat vitamins or vitamin enriched cereal, my pee turns bright yellow. What’s going on here? If you’ve ever taken a daily multivitamin you too might have noticed your urine turning a bright yellow-ish color. Take your vitamins and eat some asparagus and you might just think you’re dying the next time you pee! What’s happening is […]
Read more
How Our Galaxy Came to Be Called the “Milky Way” and What It’s Called in Other Languages No, it has nothing to do with the candy bar. Like many words we use today, the English name of our galaxy is derived from its Latin name: Via Lactea. Translated, that means “the road of milk.” The Romans actually got the name […]
Read more
Today I found out about the history of Where’s Wally (known in the US and Canada as Where’s Waldo). The iconic, elusive man in the red-and-white striped shirt was first hidden away in 1987 by British illustrator Martin Handford. Handford had been drawing since he was a boy, and was particularly fond of viewing and drawing crowd scenes. He felt […]
Read more
Anyone who’s been chased around the yard by a pissed off chicken knows these birds are neither purposeless nor fearful. Descended from some of the fiercest creatures ever to roam the planet, the blood of today’s Gallus domesticus carries all of the pride, courage, fury and viciousness of its ancestors. Harnessing these qualities by the simple expedient of sticking two […]
Read more
Today I found out that Milton S. Hershey bought a VIP ticket for the Titanic but ended up not boarding. The Titanic, the unsinkable ship, launched on April 10, 1912, carrying some 2,200 passengers and crew en route to the United States. On the night of April 14, 1912, the ship hit an iceberg and sunk, resulting in around just […]
Read more
Edgar Allan Poe is probably best known for his raven that squawks “Nevermore,” but he’s also one of the first American short story writers and is often credited with being the “inventor” of detective fiction. He also contributed heavily to the genre of science fiction. Not only that, but he was one of the first American writers to earn a […]
Read more
Today I found out about the first woman to officially run in the Boston Marathon, Kathrine Switzer. “No woman can run the Boston Marathon,” said Arnie Briggs, Kathrine Switzer’s running coach. This coming from a man who had been excited to see a woman start running with the all-male cross country team at Syracuse University. He insisted that women were […]
Read more