July 2011
61 posts
Where Are These Thousand Islands?
Is the delicious dressing that gives a Reuben its tanginess named after an actual chain of islands? You bet it is. The Thousand Islands are an archipelago that sits in the Saint Lawrence River on the U.S.-Canada border, and there are actually 1,793 of them, some of which are so small that they contain nothing more than a single home. So why is the dressing named after an archipelago? No...
Name All the Things the Lead Singer of Right Said...
Take the Quiz
Message in a Bottle
When Josh Baker was 10 years old, he dumped an entire bottle of his mother’s vanilla extract down the sink. He then wrote a quick note that said, “My name is Josh Baker. I’m 10. If you find this, put it on the news. The date is April 16, 1995.” He stuffed the note inside the empty extract bottle and threw it into Wisconsin’s White Lake. Life went on and, after high school, Josh signed up...
When Asked if He Watched Bob Barker's Last 'Price...
“I was doing some electrical work in an attic today.”
[Via IMDb]
When the U.S. Government Defaulted in 1979, the...
Here’s the story of the last time the U.S. Government defaulted.
New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath—who said he voted for Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972—showed up on Nixon’s enemies list as “QB for the New York Giants.”
GPS for Baby Jesus
I’m not sure what kind of person would steal a Baby Jesus from a nativity scene, but if this problem has plagued your community, a company called BrickHouse Security has a solution. They’re providing free GPS trackers to help recover Jesus should your local crèche be robbed next Christmas.
Churches and other religious institutions or nonprofits can sign up for a free GPS tracker to...
Japanese Word of the Day: Bakku-shan
Bakku-shan The experience of seeing a woman who appears pretty from behind, but not from the front.
Slow and Steady, With a Break for Wine
While planning the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, French historian Michel Breal wanted to come up with an event that linked the competition to its ancient roots. He suggested a footrace that was the distance from Athens to Marathon, because a messenger had once supposedly sprinted between the two cities to spread news of a Greek military victory. The Greek people were...
Fabio has a last name—Lanzoni. His brother’s name is Walter.
Word of the Day
Kummerspeck (German) Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.
[See Also: 15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent]
On Comic Sans
— Microsoft designer Vincent Connare, creator of Comic Sans, in a 2009 Wall Street Journal article
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo...
Believe it or not, this sentence is grammatically correct and has meaning: “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”
First devised by professor William J. Rapaport in 1972, the sentence uses various meanings and parts of speech for the term “buffalo” (and its related proper noun “Buffalo”) to make an extremely hard-to-parse sentence.
Although most people know...
Z Word of the Day
When every move you can make in chess is to your disadvantage, it’s called a zugzwang.
Hawaiian Punch was originally developed in 1934 as a tropical flavored ice cream topping.
Venti No Foam With a Kidney
For three years, Annamarie Ausnes was just another Sharpie-scrawled name on a paper cup. She would stop by the same Tacoma, Washington, Starbucks a few times a week for a morning lift and make small talk with barista Sandie Andersen. No one would have called them friends. And no one could have guessed what would happen next.
Ausnes had suffered from polycystic kidney disease for 20 years, a...
A 'Saved By The Bell' Pop Quiz →
Store Your Underwear in the Freezer
Cooling homes was not the intended purpose when Willis Carrier invented modern air conditioning in 1902. The earliest air conditioners were for industrial quality control; the comfort of the workers was incidental. So what did people do to stay cool before AC?
More: Life Before Air Conditioning
Inside a Barrel with Harry Houdini
Magic tricks may not require supernatural abilities, but they are difficult to pull off. Harry Houdini, for instance, used a unique combination of strength, stealth, and carpentry to perform his signature trick—escaping from a sealed barrel. In Houdini on Magic, the magician revealed that before he was locked inside a barrel, he would sneak in a tiny lamp and several small saws. Once the...
More kids age 2-to-5 can operate a smartphone application (19%) than tie their shoelaces (9%).
[Via The Week]
Dallas: The Show That Overthrew a Dictator (Well,...
Dallas was one of the most popular TV shows in history—and nowhere was it more talked about than in Nicolae Ceausescu’s communist Romania. How did the soap opera get past Romanian censors? With help from Dallas leading man, J.R. Ewing, of course.
Because J.R. was portrayed as a despicable oil baron, Ceausescu’s government presumably decided the show must be anti-capitalist. Whatever the ...
Oh, the Places Your Ashes Will Go!
When longtime Marvel Comics editor Mark Gruenwald died in 1996, he left an interesting final wish: he wanted to have his ashes mixed into the ink used in one of Marvel’s titles. The company obliged by reprinting a 1985 collection of the Gruenwald-penned Squadron Supreme with the specially prepared ink in 1997. Gruenwald’s widow, Catherine, wrote in the book’s foreword, “He has truly...
Bing Crosby as Columbo?
When television fans think of Columbo, they probably envision Peter Falk starring as the title character. However, the job could have been Crosby’s. The Columbo character made his debut in 1960 on The Chevy Mystery Show with Bert Freed portraying the detective. Thomas Mitchell also spent some time in the role, but the character really exploded when NBC decided to make a television movie in...
How Margherita Pizza Got Its Name
This deliciously simple pizza is named after Margherita of Savoy, who was Queen consort of Italy from 1878 until 1900 during the reign of her husband, King Umberto I.
In 1889, Umberto and Margherita took a vacation to Naples and visited renowned pizza chef Raffaele Esposito, who cooked the royal couple three special pizzas. Margherita particularly enjoyed one that had used mozzarella, tomato,...
10 Other People Who've Been Pied
News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch took a shaving cream pie to the face today during his phone-hacking hearing. Good thing we had this list handy.
The George Costanza Candy Identification Quiz
While George Costanza was unable to fool anyone with his rigged candy bar lineup at David Puddy’s car dealership, maybe you’ll have better luck identifying your favorite unwrapped confections.
Take the Quiz: Name That Candy Bar
This Sounds Made Up But It's Not Made Up
As unbelievable as it sounds, a bill that would have redefined pi as 3.2 came up before the Indiana legislature in 1897. Here’s the story.
He Had a Strange Knack for Being Near Presidential...
As he arrived back in Washington in April 1865, Robert Todd Lincoln’s parents invited him to go see Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater with them. The young officer was so exhausted after his journey that he begged off so he could get a good night’s sleep. That night, of course, John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln’s father, and Robert Todd was with the celebrated president when he passed away the...
Meet 555 95472
One of the most bizarre characters in the Peanuts universe was “555 95472,” or “5” for short. Introduced in September 1963, 5 explained that his father was so upset about people being seen as “just a number,” he renamed the entire family as a series of digits. The family’s last name is taken from their ZIP Code, though when spoken, 5 insists there’s an accent on the 4. The ZIP Code,...
Hermione’s Name Was Almost “Hermione Puckle”
It has a sour tone to it, doesn’t it? J.K. Rowling thought so, too, and changed to something that suited the character better. Rowling has said that Hermione has a healthy dose of herself in there, as she was quite the know-it-all herself as a child. Hermione was originally going to have a younger sister, but Rowling never found the right moment to stick her into the books.
[More: 10...
Beating the System
In 1992, an accountant named Stefan Klincewicz put together a 28-person syndicate to buy up all 1.94 million potential combinations for the Irish lottery. Although lottery officials sniffed out the scheme and put a halt on ticket sales the day before the drawing, Klincewicz and his associates managed to snap up 80 percent of the available tickets. They walked away with roughly $1.8 million...
Nike’s “Just Do It” was inspired by murderer Gary Gilmore’s last words before his 1977 execution: “Let’s Do It.”
Garth Brooks’ first name is Troyal.
“Don’t Hit Me With That Electroshock Weapon, Bro!”
You might think you’re riding around on a Jet Ski, but if it’s not made by Kawasaki Heavy Industries, it’s just a personal watercraft.
Fluffernutter is a registered trademark of the makers of Marshmallow Fluff, Durkee-Mower, Inc.
TASER is a trademark of TASER International, and shouldn’t technically be used as a verb. Bonus fact: TASER is an acronym. It stands for “Thomas A. Swift’s ...
Bob Ross Was a Military Man
Bob Ross’ quiet voice and gentle demeanor made him the perfect host for The Joy of Painting, but those traits might have kept him from being the perfect soldier. Before Ross became a TV painter, he spent 20 years in the United States Air Force and retired with the rank of master sergeant. In fact, an early assignment to Alaska helped expose the Florida native to the snowy mountains and...
Stephen Hawking on His Voice
“I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it.”
Mao Zedong Offered Henry Kissinger 10 Million...
In 1973, Henry Kissinger was engaged in a discussion of trade with Mao Zedong when the chairman abruptly changed the subject by saying, “We (China) don’t have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands.”
Kissinger sidestepped this bizarre offer and changed the subject, but Mao later returned to the subject by jokingly...
There Is Such a Thing as a Stupid Question
When Sally Ride made her first space flight in 1983, she was both the first American woman and the youngest American to make the journey to the final frontier. Both of those distinctions show just how qualified and devoted Ride was, but they also opened her up to a slew of absurd questions from the media. Journalist Michael Ryan recounted some of the sillier questions that had been posed to...
The Massive Bank Robbery That Lasted a Week
One of the biggest bank heists in history was carried out in January 1976 by bitter enemies: Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization in alliance with Lebanon’s Christian Phalange — plus a whole assortment of shady international criminals. Bank heists bring people together!
The odd-couple team wasn’t the only unusual aspect of the robbery, which targeted the international...
From 1999
From the Inside Flap:
Get ready to enter Cybearspace. When wealthy Squire Grizzly gives each member of Teacher Bob’s class a computer to do with as they will, all rules fly out the window—and the cubs’ grades go south. Will the cubs get whiplash as they zoom along the information superhighway? Bear Country fans will love finding out.
Vitamin Donuts!
During World War II, the Nutrition Division of the War Food Administration wouldn’t endorse the term “Vitamin Donuts,” which had been proposed by the Doughnut Corporation.
More posters here.
What Is UHF?
Long before it was a Weird Al movie, UHF meant ultra-high frequency and operated channels between 300 MHz and 3.0 GHz. But to pre-cable-era couch potatoes, UHF meant “anything higher than 13.”
UHF stations had been popping up sporadically across the U.S. since 1949, but not that many people were able to watch them. Televisions weren’t equipped to receive the frequency, and...
The Forgotten High School of Goldfield, Nevada
Goldfield High School was built in 1907, during the boom years. It graduated its last class in 1952, and has stood proud but shuttered ever since, impressive on the outside, decaying within.
Take Ransom Riggs’ photo tour.
Antarctica's First Son
The first human born on the continent of Antarctica was Emilio Marcos Palma, who was born at Argentina’s Esperanza Base near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula on January 7, 1978.
His birth was not happenstance, however. At that time Britain, Chile and Argentina (all signatories to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty) were competing to affirm sovereignty of the icy island. One way for a...
A Big Day for Science
Both Nikola Tesla and Mr. Wizard were born on this date. As one of our readers put it, “That’s half of the Science Mount Rushmore.”
In the original Oregon Trail (1971), players hunted by quickly and accurately typing the word BANG.
Gamers Make Better Surgeons
The next time you go under the knife, make sure to vet your surgeon’s video game skills first. In 2007, researchers at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City reported that people who played video games for at least three hours a week made better surgeons. In a series of hands-on tests that mimicked laparoscopic surgery, gamers made 37 percent fewer errors and were 27 percent faster...
How 8 Famous Acquitted Defendants Spent The Rest...
Casey Anthony will be a free woman next week. Here’s how life shook out for a few other acquitted defendants in high-profile trials.
A Mustache Wax Allowance
Former Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley never thought of a gimmick he wouldn’t try, including a mechanical rabbit that delivered fresh balls to the umpire and hiring a 13-year-old MC Hammer as his “Executive V.P.”
In 1972, Finley offered his players cash for growing a mustache by Father’s Day, thereby giving birth to relief pitcher Rollie Fingers’ trademark handlebar ‘stache. The A’s went...
Sorry, Kids
According to NASA’s FAQ page, “There are no plans at this time to send children into space.”
