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… Read More »
On November 28, 1787, His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty set sail from England with 46 men aboard, bound for the island of Tahiti in the South Pacific. Commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh, her mission was to collect and deliver breadfruit plants to the West Indies, where they would serve as cheap food for slaves on… Read More »
There’s an old engineer’s adage that goes: “If it moves but shouldn’t, use duct tape. If it doesn’t move but should, use WD-40.” For nearly 60 years, WD-40, the iconic “toolkit in a can,” has been helping amateurs and professionals alike out of all sorts of sticky mechanical jams. In addition to its intended purpose… Read More »
The line between serial killer and, say, a prolific executioner such as 17th century German executioner, Frantz Schmidt, who killed 394 people and disfigured and otherwise tortured about the same number elsewise (more on him in the Bonus Facts at the end of this video), is that one murdered and mutilated people deemed by local… Read More »
On September 13th, 2004 media powerhouse Oprah, who by the way’s real name was originally Orpah after the sister of the biblical character of Ruth, made television history when she announced that she was flexing the fact that she is, by definition, “Oprah Rich”, via giving every single member of her audience that day a… Read More »
On Christmas Eve, 1968, nearly a billion people sat glued to their radios and television sets as the crew of Apollo 8 entered orbit around the moon. For three days the world had followed the pioneering mission three live television broadcasts, and they now waited eagerly to hear the historic words of the first humans… Read More »
Football is undoubtedly the most beloved sport around the world. And for American viewers – who associate football with big shoulder pads and helmets – we mean soccer, where the ball is… a ball and the main medium with which is used to play with it are feet. For more on how soccer got that… Read More »
On the first of September, 1939, nearly 1.5 million troops, 2,750 tanks, and 2,300 aircraft of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich stormed over the border into Poland. That same day, Britain and France, bound by treaty to defend Polish sovereignty, issued an ultimatum calling for the immediate withdrawal of German forces. The ultimatum was ignored, and… Read More »
Paul A. asks: Is there really such a thing as human pheromones? Insects, such as the male silk worm using the pheromone Bombykol have long been known to attract mates through pheromones. Moving over to the one humped camel, also known as the Arabian camel and dromedary, of all their adaptations, the grossest is probably… Read More »
On February 14, 1960, Geraldyn “Jerrie” Cobb arrived at the sprawling Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and prepared to make history. At age 30, Cobb was already one of the world’s most accomplished female pilots, having been the first woman to fly the Paris Air Show and holding three world records for speed, distance,… Read More »
Every morning around 7 o’clock, a small army descends upon the Indian port city of Mumbai. Dressed in distinctive white uniforms and topi or Gandhi caps, they fan out across the city’s sprawling suburbs to collect their wares before regrouping at local train stations and streaming down a network of rail lines into Mumbai’s commercial… Read More »