During the Cold War, the U.S. government was hell-bent on one upping the commies in any way possible. In the process, they came up with a number of outlandish plans, such as that time they proposed nuking the moon, interestingly enough a project a young Carl Sagan worked on. There were also many more down to Earth projects like the […]
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The Queen is likely one of the single best protected people on the entire planet. But on June 13, 1981 a 17 year old young man who held a marksman’s badge from the Air Training Corps somehow managed to circumvent the endless layers of security put in place to protect the Queen and fired a revolver at her from about […]
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Amanda D. asks: I was just wondering what would happen if you attached money instead of a stamp to a letter and tried to mail it? As we’ve covered before in our article on What Happens to Undeliverable Mail with No Return Address? the individuals tasked with processing mail often go above and beyond what is expected of them in their […]
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Luke T. asks: How many times can you shoot a bulletproof vest before it stops working? To begin with, it should probably be noted that the name “bulletproof vest” is a misnomer with “bullet resistant vest” being more apt. Or to quote John Geshay, marketing director for body armor company Safariland, “…nothing can be bulletproof, not even a manhole cover. […]
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Kieran L. asks: Who started the conspiracy theory about the moon landing being fake? Since the early 1970s conspiracy theorists have created ever more elaborate stories about how NASA faked the moon landings, much to the annoyance of the literal hundreds of thousands of people who worked in some capacity to make these missions a reality, and even more so […]
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Killimimes asks: Why do they have the “speak now or forever hold your peace” part of a wedding and what happens when someone objects? While it may come as a surprise to many, it turns out the whole, “If anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever […]
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Labyrinth900 asks: Were “Wanted Dead or Alive” bounties a real thing? In other words, if you found someone that is wanted dead, could you legally shoot and kill them and collect a bounty, and not be charged for murder? A classic Hollywood trope is the idea of a poster with the photo of a given criminal along with very large […]
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In the 1950s U.S. forces were stretched dangerously thin. U.S. President Dwight D Eisenhower stated of this, “My feeling…remains, that it would be impossible for the United States to maintain the military commitments which it now sustains around the world (without turning into a garrison state) did we not possess atomic weapons and the will to use them when necessary.” […]
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Unless there is a lead-lined refrigerator lying around, we’re guessing none of you reading this would be too keen on standing at ground zero of a nuclear blast. But it turns out this is exactly what six men chose to do with their afternoon in July of 1957- five of them even volunteered, with the sixth not told what he’d […]
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Finkbonner14 asks: Why doesn’t the United States stop using idiot units and go metric? In 1793, noted French scientist Joseph Dombey departed Le Havre, France bound for Philadelphia. His mission was to meet with Thomas Jefferson and give him two of the rarest items on Earth. Unfortunately for Dombey, fate had other intentions and storms pushed the ship he was […]
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Peter R. Asks: If I had to, what parts of my body are healthiest to eat and offer the most caloric benefit? Essentially, what parts of me should I eat first to maximize my survival chances in some extreme situation? Would eating feces be of any benefit? While of course how long one could survive without food and water varies […]
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Jen K. asks: Odd question, but what does being shot feel like? While there are certainly exceptions, as we’ll get into shortly, according to the majority of firsthand accounts from people who’ve been shot we could find, having a hunk of searing hot metal traveling around Mach 1 tear through part of your body doesn’t really hurt much… at first. […]
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Jeremy A. asks: How did flipping the bird come to mean fu? While some common gestures, such as the high five, have pretty well known and surprisingly modern origins, it turns out one of the most popular of all has been around for well over two thousand years, including having various similar connotations as it has today. Unsurprisingly once you […]
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Michael F. asks: Are executions really held at midnight like shown in the movies? If so, why? By the time Rainey Bethea was executed on August 14, 1936, most of the United States had ceased executing people publicly. However, in Kentucky in 1936 an execution could still be held publicly and, according to the jury at his trial, Bethea deserved […]
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Contrary to popular belief, space isn’t actually “cold” per se, at least not in the way often depicted in movies. Space is just mostly empty and all that nothing doesn’t have a temperature. For example, if you were in space without a space suit, the two ways you’d lose heat are just via evaporation of moisture on your skin, in […]
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William K. asks: What’s it like being an extra in a movie? Becoming a Background Actor, or “extra” as they are more widely known, is a fairly simple process that usually involves little more than responding to an ad. Depending on the scope of the project and the kind of extras needed, this ad could appear anywhere from a dedicated […]
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In late 2001 an economist called Edward Castronova made tsunami sized waves in the world of economics when he published a paper claiming that an isolated place called Norrath had a currency stronger than that of the Japanese Yen- an especially bold claim considering Norrath had less than a million inhabitants, had only existed for about two years and didn’t […]
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Developed over the course of decades, GPS has become far more ubiquitous than most people realize. Not just for navigation, its extreme accuracy in time keeping (+/- 10 billionths of a second) has been used by countless businesses the world over for everything from aiding in power grid management to helping manage stock market and other banking transactions. The GPS […]
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