According to the insurance company Lloyd’s of London, most messages found in bottles are fakes. These, however, are not. Last Words On April 11, 1912, 19-year-old Jeremiah Burke and his cousin Nora Hegarty boarded the RMS Titanic in Ireland. Two of Burke’s sisters had already immigrated to the U.S., and he and Nora were planning […]
Sure, the title tells you to have a “merry little Christmas.” But it’s a complicated message. The actual, original lyrics of the song make the vaguely depressing song undoubtedly one of the darkest tunes ever, not to mention Christmas carol. The song first gained widespread popularity in 1944 with an appearance in the big-screen musical […]
You hear them on the radio, and you sing along, year after year. Now, you can finally know who “Parson Brown” is supposed to be. Who is Parson Brown? (“Winter Wonderland”) If you grew up in a cold area where it snowed a lot in the winter, you probably made a snowman at some point. […]
Each December, the Downtown Athletic Club awards the Heisman Trophy to the year’s top college football player. Many have gone on to huge success in the NFL, such as Cam Newton, Barry Sanders, Bo Jackson, Marcus Allen, and, uh, O.J. Simpson. Some of the other 80-odd guys to win the prize have taken a different […]
Part man, part machine—and all real stories of people with robot parts. Finger Finnish computer programmer Jerry Jalava lost his ring finger in a motorcycle accident. He replaced it with a prosthetic finger of his own design—it’s also a computer flash drive. It looks like a normal finger (a shiny plastic one), but Jalava can […]
Christmas crackers are a classic holiday tradition in the U.K., but in recent years a wide variety of the party favor have begun to show up in American stores. Not familiar? They resembled a piece of wrapped candy, but it’s a paper tube inside of fancy paper. You then pull both ends until it makes […]
Good news for last-minute gift-givers: our eBooks make fantastic last-minute gifts for anyone on your list! Whether you’re shopping for a fan of sports, history, the military, or nature, we’ve got an edition that’s sure to please. More good news: Uncle John’s out-of-print titles have been resurrected as eBooks. It’s the magic of the season! If […]
To Uncle John, the idea of running 26.2 all at once is quite absurd in and of itself. But there are some marathons out there that are truly running away from normal as fast as they can. The Great Wall Marathon Seeing the Great Wall of China is on many people’s “bucket list” of the […]
From Uncle John’s “dustbin of history” files, here’s the story of Garrett Morgan, a man who nearly a century ago invented a lot of stuff that’s still used today. The son of former slaves, Morgan was born in Kentucky but moved to Ohio while a teenager in the 1890s. He found work as a handyman, […]
Every year, the city of Boston gets its official municipal Christmas tree from the Canadian coastal city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Why? Because Boston helped when Halifax needed it the most. On Dec. 6, 1917, the Mont-Blanc, a cargo ship out of France was heading out from a stop in Halifax en route to Bordeaux, […]
In the days when smoking was a bigger part of American culture, matches were everywhere. Hotels and restaurants gave matchbooks away; people carried them in their pockets and purses. Well, you’ll never believe where the stuff in the match head came from. Blue Genie Ever heard of alchemy? It was a medieval “science” and philosophy, […]
It’s December, which means the holiday season, which means Bing Crosby on the radio, festive decorations in store windows, and jokes about fruitcake, the Christmas treat that’s simultaneously ubiquitous and that nobody seems to like. Here’s a slice of trivia about the much-maligned yuletide treat. The standard fruitcake, as it is today: a hard-as-a-rock, bread-like […]
Hobos were American migratory workers from a century ago. Some experts think the word hobo comes from “hoe boys,” what farmers in the 1880s called their seasonal migrant workers. It may also be shorthand for the phrase “homeward bound,” used to describe destitute Civil War veterans who took years to work their way home. If […]
Fact: Astronauts are the coolest. Proof: They’re trained pilots…and they’ve been to space. Amazing! Sadly, we’ve lost one of the first astronauts (he was one of the “Mercury 7”) and a true American hero in John Glenn. Astronaut Glenn Glenn is best known as the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, and fifth person […]
Since 1997, millions have tuned in weekly to the PBS series Antiques Roadshow to see what treasures lie hidden in America’s attics, pawn shops, and yard sales. Here are some of the most valuable items the show has ever discovered. A Navajo Blanket A man walked into a 2001 Antiques Roadshow taping in Tucson, Arizona, […]
December 8th is “Take it in the Ear Day,” one of those weird, silly “holidays” that float around the Internet. We don’t really know what this one is supposed to mean…so here are just some interesting facts about the ear and hearing. Your ear isn’t really your ear. Well, not totally. Medically speaking, your ear, […]
Three Things Named for Caesar Some namesakes of the Roman general Julius Caesar (100–44 B.C.)—or GAIVS IVLIVS CÆSAR, as it was spelled in his day. July Before Caesar, the Roman calendar year was too short and no longer synced with the seasons, so the Roman leader implemented the Julian calendar: For the first time, every […]
In 2016, Fox debuted a show called Pitch, a drama about the first female Major League Baseball player. It’s really not so far-fetched.
