Sue T. asks: Why do people say “say cheese” when taking pictures? Also, why did people not smile in old pictures and when did they start? “Say cheese!” This simple command is meant to elicit a smile from potential photography subjects no matter what their age. It has become so commonplace that the word “say” is often no longer uttered. […]
Read more
Mike T. asks: Why were the Viet Cong called “Charlie” during the Vietnam War? First, because I suspect there are at least a few people curious and it pertains to how the name “Charlie” ultimately came about, let’s discuss how the term “Viet Cong” came about at all. It comes from “Việt Nam Cộng-sản”, which just means “Vietnamese Communists”. This, […]
Read more
Although yoga is something of a recent fad in the West, you’re probably aware that this system of gentle exercise and meditation has very ancient roots. What you might not know is just how ancient some aspects of yoga are, or how much yoga has changed on down through the millennia, with some of the most significant changes coming in […]
Read more
Kelly asks: When did women and men start shaving different parts of their body? Both sexes have a love-hate relationship with removing body hair. We’ve been pulling, plucking, burning, tweezing and ripping out undesirable hair since the dawn of time. It’s believed that as far back as 4,000 B.C., women were using dangerous substances like arsenic and quicklime to get […]
Read more
Although the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States currently seem extremely polarized, they did not start out that way. In fact, these two parties originated as one, single party. This party was called the Democratic-Republican Party, and it was organized by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in 1791. The purpose of the Democratic-Republican Party was to stand in […]
Read more
Between 1820 and 1830, America was in the midst of a health craze. Sylvester Graham, the creator of the graham cracker, was on scene with a diet plan he thought ought to increase physical wellness, sexual purity, and spiritual health. The Presbyterian minister from New Jersey was an avid vegetarian, and on a mission to rid the world of sexual […]
Read more
Of the nearly 10,000 species of birds, about 19% (1,850 species) are considered to be migratory. While there are a few species that traverse long distances, the 13-15 inch, 3.5 ounce Arctic Tern takes the prize for the longest migration. Just how far do they fly? Try an astounding 44,000 miles (71,000 km) annually on average. Thanks to recent technological […]
Read more
Jp23 asks: When and why did men start wearing ties? The neck tie has its roots in military history. For starters, a collection of terracotta sculptures discovered in 1974 in Xian, China gives insight into the style worn by Chinese soldiers over a thousand years ago. China’s first emperor, Qin Shih Huang, wanted his army to be buried with him […]
Read more
Google is practically synonymous with “search” today. But back in 1999, Excite (better known today as Ask.com) was a bigger force in the online world. It was one of the most recognized brands of the 90s. In today’s digital environment, it’s almost unfathomable to think a company would pass up the chance to acquire Google. But to fully understand this […]
Read more
For those of you who didn’t spend your childhood with your eyes glued to the TV screen watching Saturday morning cartoons, “ACME” is the name of the fictional company that appeared in almost every Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon. This company supplied Wile E. Coyote with a never-ending range of ridiculous products that would inevitably fail, generally with […]
Read more
One of our authors (pictured on the right), Firefighter/Paramedic Scott Hiskey (who writes most of the medical-related articles you read on Today I Found Out), every year participates in the coincidentally named Scott Firefighter Stairclimb, where more than 1500 firefighters race up Seattle’s tallest building in full firefighter gear (including their heavily thermally insulated suits and air masks that due […]
Read more
Today I found out about Vasili Blokhin, the “Most Prolific Executioner” of all time, according to the Guinness World Records. Born to a Russian peasant family in 1895, as a young man he quickly earned a reputation for “chernaya rabota”, or “black work”, while serving in the Tsarist army during World War I- gaining recognition from Stalin himself for his […]
Read more
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Oh… it’s, a blimp… 1925 marked the year when the first Goodyear airships ascended to the skies. More than 85 years later, the iconic Goodyear blimps can still be spotted drifting through the clouds during football games, basketball tournaments, and even over the 2012 London Olympics. While today the Goodyear blimps are invariable associated […]
Read more
Do women’s menstrual cycles sync up over time if they are in close proximity to each other? Being someone who lives with 4 girls and 1 other boy, this knowledge would be very beneficial. I feel like I should know if the estrogen ocean I’m swimming in will have very stormy seas every 28 days. The belief that this occurs […]
Read more
In 1964, a new avant-garde artist was introduced to the art scene in the Swedish city of Gōteborg. The fresh new artist was Pierre Brassau and his work received rave reviews from critics and art fans alike. Brassau featured four paintings in the 1964 exhibition at Gallerie Christinae, and even sold one “masterpiece” to a collector named Bertil Eklöt for […]
Read more
Today I found out that for something that’s supposed to be clean and pure, soap has a murky past. No one knows for sure when soap was first invented, although it appears to have been around since the dawn of civilization. One of the reasons it’s so hard to pin down soap’s first appearance is that it can be made […]
Read more
Perhaps one of the most iconic images to come out of the Vietnam War (see photo here), this photo depicts a uniformed South Vietnamese officer shooting a prisoner in the head. When you look into it, however, there is much more to this photograph than first meets the eye. There is an undeniable brutality to this photo, but even Eddie […]
Read more
“The war began in my front yard and ended in my parlor.” This statement about the start and the end of the U.S. Civil War was spoken by Wilmer McLean and is surprisingly almost perfectly true. A little background- Wilmer McLean was born on May 3, 1814 in Alexandria, Virginia, one of fourteen children. When his parents passed away at […]
Read more