Study the history of science and technology long enough, and you will discover that – contrary to what popular culture would have you believe – few inventions are the product of a single brilliant mind. Instead, technological progress is the result of incremental discoveries and refinements made by multiple people. But once in a while, a person comes along whose […]
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On January 23, 1943 at the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army captured a Luftwaffe Lieutenant, one Leo Raubal. That name did not ring any particular bell amongst the Soviet interrogators, just another POW. Except he wasn’t. Lieutenant Raubal himself revealed to his captors the identity of his infamous uncle: Adolf Hitler. Now, Hitler could hardly be described as a […]
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Ah, the Super Soaker. Combining the range and accuracy needed to act out your wildest action movie fantasies with safety and bonus cooling action, it is the ultimate toy for hot summer days. As far as toys go, the Super Soaker is fairly basic: a hand pump, a reservoir for water and compressed air, a trigger valve, and a nozzle. […]
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For most of history between the point Nikola Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison were respectively doing their things to the present day, if you asked just about anyone which of these men were greater, you’d likely have gotten a response akin to “Nikola who? …I mean, Edison of course? He and God gave us light!” That said, if you asked […]
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Throughout history humans have many stories discussing various supposed humans and other beings that we dismiss as legend as a matter of course. Perhaps no source of such legendary figures is more robust than figures related to various religions, with basically no one today, for example, thinking that Hercules ever actually existed, despite the countless and sometimes rather detailed tales […]
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In the mid-19th century, the Austrian Empire, which stretched for over a thousand miles (1600 km) from Italy to Ukraine, was a place of contradictions. The ruling patriarch, Minister of the Interior Baron Alexander von Bach, was on the one hand something of a despot, abolishing public trials, reducing the freedom of the press and imprisoning political opponents. Conversely, his rule […]
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According to research conducted by Professor of Psychology at UC Davis Dean Simonton, a rather interesting facet of early U.S. Presidents was their propensity to be insanely intelligent compared to their contemporaries. This is perhaps no better illustrated than with the subject of our video today. A man who is generally considered the most intelligent of all U.S. Presidents. Despite […]
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On January 23, 1943 at the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army captured a Luftwaffe Lieutenant, one Leo Raubal. That name did not ring any particular bell amongst the Soviet interrogators, just another POW. Except he wasn’t. Lieutenant Raubal himself revealed to his captors the identity of his infamous uncle: Adolf Hitler. Now, Hitler could hardly be described as a […]
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In the pantheon of worst humans to ever human you will find no shortage of bastions of awful. Hitler probably has the most collective conscious panache, but at least he had the decency to bravely, and with no regard for his personal safety, infiltrate the Hitler bunker and then put a bullet through the cranium of Hitler. But individuals like […]
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While Ben Franklin was remarkably successful in keeping elements of his private life very private to the point that historians can only speculate about much of it, despite having a common law marriage, he was, shall we say, noted for his overt and unabashed love of women and their company, particularly if they were educated- something he even used in […]
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In the pantheon of figures that dominated American History around the the time the traitors to the British crown cast off their Kingly shackles, Thomas Jefferson is perhaps one of the most prominent names remembered today, only equalled by the likes of scientist, philosopher, and statesman Ben Franklin and revolutionary General and later first President George Washington. Slightly more forgotten, […]
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Nazi Germany officially surrendered on May 7, 1945. With the war still raging in the Pacific against Japan and sporting a popularity rate at around 83%, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill seemed a shoe-in to maintain his position as Prime Minister of the British Empire. Just before the announcement of the results of the election, Churchill had been at the […]
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If you’ve spent any time on the interwebs there are three almost universal facts you’re going to come across. Nikola Tesla was a God among mortals, Thomas Edison was a patent thief charlatan who we only remember today because of how he stole other people’s ideas, including Tesla’s. And, third, X is a horrible renaming of Twitter and Elon Musk […]
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While just about everyone is abundantly familiar with Adolf Hitler’s exploits in the latter half of his life, an often missed part of the once proclaimed “German Messiah’s” history is that of his childhood. So just how did this “boy like any other” grow into arguably one of the most reviled individuals in the history of humanity? Well, put on […]
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Erik Weiss, better known by his stage name Harry Houdini, was one of the greatest entertainers in history, and among the first modern mega-celebrities. Over a 35-year career spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Houdini thrilled audiences the world over with his headline-grabbing feats of stage magic and death-defying escapology, making entire elephants disappear and wriggling his way […]
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Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, is one of the most important and celebrated American writers and wits in history. His keen observations and biting satires of 19th Century America remain beloved classics to this day, while his pithy quips will likely continue to infest our social media feeds for decades more to come. Yet despite Twain’s legendary intelligence and […]
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In modern boxing, unless your name happens to be Rocky Balboa, it is generally advised that you not try to block punches with your face and chin. Back in the early days of the sport in the 18th and 19th centuries, however, the idea of slipping or dodging a punch was so alien that most pugilists didn’t even consider it […]
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The game of soccer (henceforth referred to as football to satisfy my English sensibilities, though to be fair, it was the English who originally named the sport Soccer in its earliest days under somewhat codified rules and only abandoned that original moniker about a half century ago in favor of the more generic “Football”) is full of players who have […]
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