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The Politics Behind Presidential Candidates Eating Pizza With a Fork

Kasich hints he may have ate pizza with a fork in NY for attention: https://t.co/Bw691ISiaApic.twitter.com/XzApwALON6— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 15, 2016Ahead of Tuesday's presidential...

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Places You Can No Longer Go: The Bamiyan Buddhas

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A 2,000-Year History of Alarm Clocks

A vintage alarm clock. (Photo: Public Domain)Yi Xing was a bit of an overachiever. A mathematician, engineer, Buddhist monk and astronomer, Xing was asked to improve calendars in China. He took it one...

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Found: A 1902 Motorcycle That May Be the First to Make It Across the U.S.

The 1902 California motorbike that may be Wyman's. (Image: George A. Wyman Memorial Project)In 1903, George Wyman rode a 1902 California motorcycle all the way from San Francisco to New York and became...

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For Sale: A Massively Anti-Semitic Letter Sent By William Howard Taft

Taft's official White House portrait. (Photo: Anders Zorn/Public Domain)“Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in free America.” - William Howard Taft, 1920A noble...

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Missouri's Great Escaped Snake Scare of 1953

A police office holding one of the cobras caught in Springfield, Missouri, in 1953. (Photo: Courtesy History Museum on the Square)In 1953, Springfield, Missouri, was a city of about 65,000 people and...

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For Hours, A Glitch in Britain Sent Everyone's Outgoing Emails To Some Guy

This is not Steve Webb. (Photo: Gale Sherry/Public Domain)This Tuesday afternoon in Britain, millions of internet users emailed dinner plans, business deals, and/or life-changing secrets to their...

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The Rise of Pirate Libraries

Only a tiny fraction of the world's knowledge. (Photo: David Iliff/CC-BY-SA-3.0)All around the world, shadow libraries keep growing, filled with banned materials. But no actual papers trade hands:...

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Watch a Japanese Man Play 'Amazing Grace' on a Cabbage

You're probably heard "Amazing Grace" a bunch of times. But have you heard it played on a cabbage, by an endlessly cheery Japanese man, to the accompaniment of a synth backing track?Junji Koyama makes...

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This is the Oldest Message in a Bottle Ever Found

#GuinnessWorldRecords confirms discovery of world's oldest message in a bottle https://t.co/UN7xAYthUOpic.twitter.com/hFV6MywoGl— dna (@dna) April 21, 2016Over 108 years ago, George P. Bidder III cast...

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Susan B. Anthony's Grave Covered in 'I Voted' Stickers After Primary

Susan B. Anthony gravesite, Rochester NY, photographed yesterday. (Photo credit: Greta Paige-Mann.) pic.twitter.com/X6GmmOactM— KStreetHipster (@KStreetHipster) April 20, 2016This Tuesday,...

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Why 19th-Century Naturalists Didn't Believe in the Platypus

George Shaw's depiction of a duck-billed platypus from 1809. (Photo: New York Public Library)In his laboratory study in 1799, biologist George Shaw stared down at his new specimen in disbelief. The...

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How Prince Took Over Minnesota

Prince performing in 1982. (Photo: Yves Lorson/CC BY 2.0)Today the world mourns a musical genius.Prince was a beloved singularity, whose career stretched across nearly four decades, with tours spanning...

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The DEA's Training Manuals Reveal a Hazy Stance on Marijuana

(Photo: Brett Levin/CC BY-SA 2.0)A version of this story originally appeared on Muckrock.com.Last week, MuckRock reviewed the Drug Enforcement Administration's training documents on techniques to...

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The Ornate Charm of American Currency from the 1700s

A $55 note from 1779. (Photo: Beyond My Ken/CC BY-SA 3.0)With Harriet Tubman coming to the American $20 bill, and other changes being made to the look of money in the United States, the design of...

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Gloriously Melodramatic Portraits of 19th-Century Shakespearean Actors

From left, E.H. Sothern as Macbeth, Lillie Langtry as Lady Macbeth, and Kyrle Bellew as Hamlet. (Photos, L-R: Folger Shakespeare Library/ CC BY-SA 4.0; Library of Congress/LC-USZ62-54508; New York...

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You're Missing Shakespeare's Best, Most Sophisticated Boner Jokes

An early 19th-century depiction of Queen Elizabeth I at the Globe, watching The Merry Wives of Windsor. (Photo: Folger Shakespeare Library/CC BY-SA 4.0)It’s no secret to anyone who’s taken freshman...

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Found: A Giant Coral Reef at the Mouth of the Amazon River

The mouth of the Amazon River. (Photo: NASA/Public domain)In their most iconic form, coral reefs are found in crystal-clear tropical waters, not the muddy mouth of a river. In fact, Patricia Yager, a...

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Why is Shakespeare Still So Popular? For the Same Reason Tolstoy Hated Him

Richard Burton as Henry V. (Photo: Maurice Ambler/Getty Images)Among the First Folios and rare quartos and historic theatre costumes at the British Library’s recently opened exhibition, Shakespeare in...

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Workplace Safety Videos Got Pretty Horrific in the '80s

Workplace safety in the '80s was no joke—in fact, it was more like a horror movie. At least that's how the above video makes it seem. The short film was made to show factory workers that unsafe working...

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