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The Bankrupt Irishman Who Created the Dollar Sign by Accident
The only known depiction of Oliver Pollock, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo: Richard Cummins/Alamy)Wars cost money. So when the Revolutionary War broke out, the Colonies turned to a number of sources...
View ArticleThe Story Behind This Mystifying Photo of KKK Members at a Colorado Fair
(Photo: Courtesy of the Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center)This is the first of an occasional series called Camera Obscura, a deep dive into a photograph that is seemingly inexplicable....
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How Turducken Went From Food Of Kings To Poultry of the Populace
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie–the blue-blood ancestor of the turducken. (Image: Mother Goose's Melodies/WikiCommons Public Domain)Once upon a time, you had to be royalty to be surprised by...
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Fleeting Wonders: This Japanese Island Ate Another Island
An eruption at Nishinoshima in October. (Photo: Japan Coast Guard)In a rough real estate market, some geological formations have all the luck. Since it first surfaced in 2013, one volcano in Japan has...
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FOUND: 10,000-Year-Old Fava Beans
Modern fava beans—still kind of tricksy (Photo: Hohum/Wikimedia)Long before Hannibal Lecter was enjoying his human liver with fava beans and Chianti, early farmers in Galilee were cultivating the same...
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More Severe Storms Are Throwing off Bird Migration
Ominous skies don't bode well for migrating birds. (Photo: Unsplash/pixabay)If it wasn’t already enough to fly thousands of miles—44,000 round trip, if you’re the Arctic tern—birds of all shapes,...
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Fleeting Wonders: A Sisyphean Snow Plow Ballet
Kinnick Stadium Snow Removal TimeLapseTime lapse of the snow removal in Kinnick Stadium from 6pm to 9:15 am Posted by Iowa Hawkeyes on Saturday, 21 November 2015When there’s a serious football game to...
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The Telharmonium Was the Spotify of 1906
Detail from the cover of Scientific American's March 9, 1907 issue, which had a glowing article about the telharmonium. (Image: archive.org)It's a tumultuous time for streaming music services. One of...
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How Americans Changed the Meaning of 'Dream'
Albert Joseph Moore's Dreamers, 1884. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons) This is part two of a five-part series on sleep and dreams, sponsored by Oso mattresses. Read the first one here. There was a...
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The World War II Tool That Changed How We Listen To Birdsong
A bird shows off his mysterious linguistic chops. (Photo: Kenny Louie/Flickr)In past centuries, birdsong experts tried to distinguish mockingbirds from thrashers by keeping their ears peeled. These...
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FOUND: A Fake Historical Plaque on Trump Golf Course
Trump, in 2013 (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)At the Trump National Golf Club, in Sterling, Virginia, not far from D.C., the New York Times reports that there is a plaque on a stone pedestal right after...
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How to Trap Gators and Influence People
Christy Kroboth kissing her Prince Charming. (All photos: Christy Kroboth)Late one November night in Fort Bend County, Texas, Christy Kroboth was called in to catch an alligator. Three cops stood by,...
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The Beloved Pioneer Bread that Smells Like Feet and Breaks Food Safety Rules
A loaf of salt-rising bread. (Photo: Wonderland Kitchen/flickr)Its flavor is often described as 'cheese-like', its crumb dense, and its odor memorable. Salt-rising bread is special to those who...
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Fleeting Wonders: Japan's World Record Baby-Racing Competition
More than 600 Japanese kids just earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records before they even learned to walk.A 610-baby crawling competition, held on November 23 in the Yokohama shopping mall,...
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FOUND: A Silly Joke Stinking Up the Periodic Table of Elements
Plutonium (Photo: Department of Energy/Wikimedia)After World War II ended, chemist and Manhattan Project member Glenn Seaborg finally got to add Plutonium, the element he had discovered during the...
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Inside the Brooklyn Building that Held the Subway's Secrets
Rendering from the Board of Transportation Annual Report, 1949. (Courtesy of the New York Transit Museum)If there were a contest for New York City’s least favorite building, 370 Jay Street in downtown...
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FOUND: A Pet-Sized Dinosaur
An artist's conception of the dinosaur (Image: University of Bath)One hundred million years ago, the continent that is now North America was made up of two ancient continents separated by an inland...
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Fleeting Wonders: A Cheese Heist in Canada
Would you ever steal cheese? (Photo: Pixabay/Public Domain)Thirty thousand pounds of cheese hijacked? That’s not gouda.Last week in Ontario, Canada, police arrested three men for stealing a tractor...
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Ill-Gotten Treasures of Ancient Crimea Are Flooding eBay
Ruins of ancient Greek colony of Chersonesos, in Crimea. (Photo: Burliai /WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, shells dropped, bullets flew, and international borders were...
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How The Hidden Track Faded From Recorded Music
(Photo: AngeloDeVal/shutterstock.com)A version of this post originally appeared on the Tedium newsletter. The music industry’s transition to digital everything has made for great gains in convenience...
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