Month: February 2018
French and German babies have French and German accents. Researchers studied the cries of 60 healthy babies born to families speaking German and French. Babies are listening to their mother’s voice in the …
Harry Houdini concocted a secret code to prove that the living couldn’t communicate with the dead. If contacted, Houdini’s ghost would reveal a code only his wife would know. Amazingly, the …
Tug of War was an event in every Olympics between 1900 and 1920. At the time, Olympic sports included Archery, Croquet, Hopscotch, Jackstraws, Mumblety-peg, Diablo and Ring Toss. Many Tug …
Soldiers called the military chocolate bar “Hitler’s Secret Weapon”. War makes even chocolate taste bad The D ration was the first military chocolate ration bar commissioned by the United States …
In the mid-1980s, Joe Davis decided to do something about censorship of extraterrestrial messages. Wait … censorship of extraterrestrial messages? The Pioneer probes were emblazoned with the nude figures …
The giant tortoise wasn’t named by scientists for so long because they were too delicious. No specimens ever made it back to Europe without being eaten on the voyage. …
Fancy a standing ‘pye’ or ‘cof fyn’ of tough flour paste, containing meat or fish, fat and dried fruit? Today’s sweet plum pudding started as a much meatier dish. They …
In 1954, a man committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. His suicide note simply read “Absolutely no reason except I have a toothache.” In a …
Hydropathy, or the water cure, was all the rage in the 19th century. But visiting a water cure was expensive. A week’s stay could cost $10 when the average …
The word of that day is Tsundoku – the practice of buying a pile of books and then not getting around to reading them. “Tsun-doku” 「積ん読」 came from 「積んでおく」 …
This opera features a giant papier-mâché Tabasco bottle and the verse “Turn out the town, boys drink it down, hail to the Peer of Tabasco”. It’s about an Irishman, …
The Word of the day is Snudge – To stride around looking busy, when in fact you are doing nothing. To master the sitting Smudge, see below. The old …
