See the 1961 patent that would change playtime forever. | Continue reading
The town conned insurance companies out of millions in the 1950s. It only cost an arm and a leg (or dozens). | Continue reading
The singular form of 'they' has been endorsed by writers like Jane Austen and William Shakespeare. | Continue reading
When Benjamin Franklin died in 1790, he left a small sum of money to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia with one condition: That they not spend it in full for 200 years. | Continue reading
Rare succulents native to California and South Africa are being poached to meet soaring demand from houseplant collectors. | Continue reading
Despite the frigid temperatures, ornery elephant seals, and months of perpetual darkness, Antarctica is still a place where money matters. | Continue reading
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The original reason electrical plugs had holes isn’t the same reason they have holes these days. | Continue reading
Drive the lower 48 states 4,000 times faster than real time. | Continue reading
From ancient Mesopotamia to New York deli counters, pickles have played a vital role in the global culinary scene. But where do pickles come from, and how did the cucumber become the standard-issue pickling vegetable in the States? | Continue reading
A round cylinder of cheese can influence its taste and overall quality, but old-school grocers just wanted something they could roll on the ground. | Continue reading
We asked a physics professor to explain how the loaded duck can swim in a pile of gold. After he was done laughing, he enlightened us. | Continue reading
Do they historically mean the same thing? Yes. Do they have separate definitions in modern usage? Also yes. | Continue reading
These vintage playground devices were so perilous, kids of yesteryear were lucky to live through recess. | Continue reading
For anyone living in the New York metropolitan area throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Crazy Eddie was inescapable. | Continue reading
A new study suggests that reading information and hearing yourself speak it aloud is a more effective memory technique than reading silently or listening to someone else read. | Continue reading
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here. | Continue reading
Lawn darts, or Jarts, were all the rage in the 1980s. With a few Jarts, a few friends, and a few beers, American backyard-barbecue-goers would lay down small plastic hoops as targets and play a game not entirely unlike horseshoes. Each player would toss the darts into the air, at … | Continue reading
People have come up with a range of ingenious, harebrained, and sometimes grim but often remarkable ways to stay cool during a summer scorcher. | Continue reading
From research labs to 'body farms' used by forensics students, here's where your donated cadaver might end up. | Continue reading
It's amazing that we ever got along without "OK." But we did. Until 1839. | Continue reading
One kid's snow globe is the key to connecting 'I Love Lucy' with 'The Wire.' | Continue reading
In 1793, the French smashed the old clock in favor of French Revolutionary Time: a 10-hour day, with 100 minutes per hour, and 100 seconds per minute. | Continue reading
In 1973, a geography professor suggested that the U.S. redraw its antiquated state boundaries. | Continue reading
Daven Hiskey runs the wildly popular interesting fact website Today I Found Out. To subscribe to his “Daily Knowledge” newsletter, click | Continue reading
Futurist leaders considered pasta an “absurd Italian gastronomic religion” that went against the grain of fascism (literally). | Continue reading
It’s called Witzelsucht, and it can make coming up with puns pathological. | Continue reading
They've been discovered at Roman-era sites, but no one knows what they're for. | Continue reading
When Nicholas Yung wouldn't sell his land to railroad baron Charles Crocker, Crocker built a 40-foot fence around his house and blotted out the sun. | Continue reading
The Duck Hunt gun, officially called the NES Zapper, seems downright primitive next to today's technology. But in the late '80s, it filled plenty of young heads with wonder. | Continue reading
ctrl+alt+delete started as a trade secret. Then it became an icon. | Continue reading
Greyhound has been busing Americans around for a century. It's hard to believe that after all these years, the company is still riding high. | Continue reading
There's no magic involved in keeping the Most Magical Place on Earth bug-free. | Continue reading
Bermuda's red soil and the Bahamas's white-sand beaches might have come from the same place: the Sahara Desert. | Continue reading
Despite his manners, Gallant gets most of the hate mail. | Continue reading
The price hasn't changed in nearly 35 years. What kind of sorcery is this? | Continue reading
Clair Patterson determined the age of the Earth—and then he saved it. | Continue reading
The horror reality show gave contestants their own cameras and set them loose in purportedly haunted locations. The crew still can't explain what happened next. | Continue reading
The pioneers of fake news reflect on nearly 30 years of Elvis, aliens, and a half-human, half-bat child that earned them a very angry phone call from the very real FBI. | Continue reading
The tiny photo processing kiosks could be found everywhere in the 1970s and 1980s. And that was the problem. | Continue reading
Though much has been written about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the most entertaining look at the master composer's life might very well be Amadeus, Milos Forman's 1984 film about the artist's life (and rivalries). | Continue reading
From 1978 to 1996, New Jersey hosted a ride-at-your-own-risk water park that earned it the nickname “Class Action Park.” | Continue reading
Lots of Taser guns don't just fire out electrical probes, they fire out dozens of confetti-like pieces of paper. Why? | Continue reading
During World War II, even America's "greatest thing" wasn't safe. | Continue reading
It's 18 miles long. | Continue reading
Sister Mary Kenneth Keller's dissertation, written in CDC FORTRAN 63, was titled "Inductive Inference on Computer Generated Patterns." | Continue reading
Dame Sibyl Hathaway protected her people with the unlikeliest of weapons: Feudal etiquette, old-world manners, and a dollop of classic snobbery. | Continue reading
William Edgar Smith earned himself an extraneous college degree for committing (admirably) to a joke. | Continue reading