In December 1984, a National Geographic photographer named Steve McCurry visited the Nasir Bagh refugee camp on the Afghan/Pakistan border while covering the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. While there he snapped a photograph of a 12-year-old girl with haunting blue-green eyes. The girl had been living in the camp ever since Soviet helicopters had bombed her village five years earlier, killing both her parents.
McCurry didn’t have a translator with him that day, so he never got the girl’s name. But the photograph, which appeared on the cover of the June 1985 issue, went on to become the single most recognized photograph in National Geographic’s 125-year history and one of the most reproduced images in the world.
It seems that anything you do online has the word Google attached to it today. Our online lives are filled with Gmail, Google Docs, Google Plus, Google Maps, Google Earth, Youtube, Piacasa, and most importantly, Google Search! So, how did Google get its name? Here is an piece from Uncle John’s Top Secret Bathroom Reader for Kids Only!
In 1998 Sergey Brin and Larry Page were looking for money to help start their company, so they boasted to investors that their new search engine could find a googol pieces of information, which is the word for the numeral “1” followed by 100 zeroes. One investor liked them, and immediately wrote a check made out to “Google.” The name stuck.
First restaurant to note GMOs: In 2013, the Mexican fast-food chain Chipotle became the first chain to adopt a policy to note on its menu what of its ingredients were of “genetically modified origin.” The only ingredient, so far: soybean oil, used to cook meat.
First green salad: The prime rib restaurant Lawry’s opened in Beverly Hills in 1938. One of the their hallmarks was, and still is, tableside service—an employee wheels a cart to your table and carves off a slab of prime rib (as that was once the only entrée offered). But before the meal, another employee wheels another cart around, table to table, and tosses fresh green salads for guests. Included in the price of the meal, this was the first time an American restaurant offered a salad course.
First restaurant to accept bitcoin: “Bitcoin” is an electronic currency, invented in 2010 by Satoshi Nakamoto, used exclusively over the Internet. And now, at least one place in the “real world.” In 2013, Bubba’s Firehouse Barbecue in Salt Lake City, Utah, started accepting bitcoin as a form of payment. (The owner is a big fan and online user of bitcoin.)
LOSING STREAK: This team is a perpetual cellar-dweller. The Lions have made the playoffs just twice in the last 15 years. In 2008, they set a dubious record with a record of 0-16, the first NFL team to have a perfect imperfect season. (And the next season they went 2-14.)
ALMOST: Before the NFL and AFL merged into one league in the 1960s, the Lions won four NFL championships. But post-merger, the farthest they’ve ever got was the 1991 NFC conference title game. They were steamrolled by the Washington Redskins 41 to 10.
TEAM: Cleveland Browns
LOSING STREAK: Like the Lions, the Browns were very successful in the pre-merger days, with four NFL titles in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Ever since, the Browns have made the playoffs 11 times in 41 seasons.
ALMOST: Of those 11 postseason appearances, the Browns made it to the conference finals three times, in 1986, 1987, and 1989. All three times they were defeated by the Denver Broncos.
WAYNE GRETZKY. In 1991, NBC TV briefly aired ProStars, a Saturday morning cartoon starring three big sports stars of the era: Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, and Gretzky. The cartoon versions of the sports stars had superpowers and a distinct personality, and in every episode the trio would defeat a supervillain, mad scientist, or as they did in one case, recover the stolen Stanley Cup. Gretzky, for some reason, was the jokester of the group and was obsessed with eating. The real Gretzky appeared in live-action bumpers at the beginning and end of the show—voice actor Townsend Coleman performed Gretzky’s voice in the animated sequences.
GUY LAFLEUER. At the height of Lafleuer’s career and popularity in 1979—he’d just won four straight Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens—Lafleuer recorded an album called Lafleuer. It’s where Lafleuer’s strengths and the trappings of the era collide. It’s an album of hockey-themed songs by anonymous studio musicians, as well as monologues of hockey instructional tips from LaFleuer…set to a thumping disco beat. Side one contains six songs: “Skating,” “Checking,” “Power Play,” an extended dance version of “Power Play,” “Shooting,” and “Scoring. Side two: all of the same songs, but in French.
Do Germans love David Hasselhoff? Uncle John investigates.
David Hasselhoff is a TV actor, best known for starring in two huge hit shows in the 1980s, Knight Rider and Baywatch. But while he was lighting up American TV screens, Hasselhoff had a second career—as a pop singer…in Europe. Most Americans probably first found out about Hasselhoff’s musical career during the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in Germany in 1989. Hasselhoff was present in Berlin for some reason, performing a song appropriate for the event called “Looking For Freedom.”
The reason, which quickly became clear: David Hasselhoff was hugely popular in Germany. (It was sort of like how American comedian and director Jerry Lewis isn’t highly respected at home but it is beloved in France.)
• Crème Brulee. There are dessert wines, and how there’s a dessert beer. Southern Tier Brewing in New York makes their stout with lots of vanilla, so much that they think it tastes like the classic dessert, crème brulee. The brewery suggests serving it with another classic dessert, Bananas Foster, or pouring it directly on top of ice cream.
• Oysters. “Hog Island Sweetwater” are a particularly tasty type of oyster caught in the waters around San Francisco. Local beermaker 21st Amendement Brewery (named for the piece of legislation that repealed Prohibition) makes a stout with water that’s been used to soak the shells from those Hog Island Sweetwaters.
• Rocky Mountain Oysters. Another oyster stout? Not exactly. Wynkoop Brewing in Denver makes this one-of-a-kind beer with “Rocky Mountain oysters,” otherwise known as bull testicles.
Back in 1981, Atari was the world leader in video games. In 1983 Nintendo offered to sell Atari the licenses to their Famicom game system, but they couldn’t come to an agreement, so Nintendo decided to go it alone.
They renamed the American version the Advanced Video System (AVS) and in January 1985, introduced it at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, one of the largest such trade shows in the world.
They didn’t get a single order.
Nintendo’s problem wasn’t so much that the AVS was a bad system, but more that the American home video game industry was struggling. After several years of impressive growth, in 1983 sales of video game consoles and cartridges suddenly collapsed without warning. Video game manufacturers, caught completely off guard, lost hundreds of millions of dollars as inventory piled up in warehouses, never to find a buyer. Atari’s loss of $536 million prompted Warner Communications to sell the company in 1984.
Mattel sold off its version, Intellivision, the same year and shut down their entire video game division. Many other companies went out of business.
The original Johnny Canuck appeared in newspaper editorial cartoons in the 1860s. A working-class, tall-tale hero in the mold of Paul Bunyan, he sometimes appeared as a lumberjack, at other times as a farmer or a rancher. In 1942, in answer to the war and to the comics ban, the character received a reboot and was resurrected as a Nazi-fighting aviator and secret agent by 16-year-old Leo Bulche, who got the job after a chance encounter with the owner of Dime Comics. Later still, the lumberjack version of Johnny Canuck was adopted as the logo for the Vancouver Canucks, and he occasionally makes appearances on their uniforms on “retro nights.”
CAPTAIN CANUCK
Over the years, Captain Canuck has been the secret identity of three different Canadian secret agents: Tom Evans, Darren Oak, and David Semple. He wears a red-and-white costume based on the Canadian Flag, with a red Maple leaf on his forehead.
WOLVERINE
Wolverine was born in Alberta in the 1880s to the wife of a wealthy farmer and a groundskeeper named Logan, with whom she had an affair. Wolverine is a mutant who has retractable claws and regenerative powers that keep him from aging. In the late-20th century, Wolverine was a part of Canada’s Weapon X program, where his memories were wiped out and he had adamantium fused onto his bones, making him even stronger. A member of Marvel’s X-Men, Wolverine is regularly voted one of the most popular superheroes in the world.
If you were thinking of visiting the ancestral homeland of Starbucks, grunge music, and Fremont Troll on September 16, you’re going to have to change your plans. That’s because that day is Stay Away From Seattle Day.
Believe it or don’t, this strange “holiday” is real, and actually celebrated by many residents in Seattle, America’s rainiest big city. Much like the citizens of its almost-as-rainy and insular rival city of Portland, Seattleites love sharing their city and economy with visitors…but they love them even more when they leave.
Snow Cone Snowstorm Mask. Invented in Montreal in 1939. Picture a transparent plastic cone—sort of like a small traffic cone—on your face (the point sticking straight out from your face), with a strap that goes around the back of your head to hold it on. This, the inventor believed, would protect your face during especially bad Quebec snowstorms.
Mechanical Skirt Lifter. Invented by a woman (name unknown), in Calgary in 1890, this device was meant to aid women who wore the big poofy skirts popular in the Victorian era. The device, which was made of metal, consisted of two clips on either end of a chain. One clip attached to the skirt’s waist, the other to the hem. When a woman had to cross a muddy road, or climb some steps, or found herself in some similar situation in which her skirt hem might become dirty or be in the way, she could pull the chain and put one of its links on a hook hear the waist, thus holding up the hem of her skirt.
Have you heard of one James McIntyre? His unusual verses set the world afire. Think of this while eating your Cheerios: In the 1800s, he was the bard of southwestern Ontario. His work is published this day still, If you read his poems, they’ll make you ill.
ABARD IS BORN
James McIntyre (1827–1906), known to his admirers as the “Chaucer of Cheese,” was born in the Scottish village of Forres. He moved to Canada when he was 14 and lived most of his life in Ingersoll, a small town in Ontario, where he worked as a furniture and coffin maker. But what earned him his reputation was his hobby—writing poetry. McIntyre wrote poems on a variety of topics: He described Ontario towns, saluted his favorite authors, and sang the praises of farming and country life. He even composed tributes to his furniture.
Another possible use: in the big hunt for bigfoot. Jeffrey Meldrum, an anthropology professor at Idaho State University, along with entrepreneur William Barnes, are spearheading a project that will use an innovative new type of drone to search for evidence that Bigfoot actually exists. They call their undertaking “The Falcon Project.” Barnes and Meldrum hope to find enough funding to build the Aurora Mk II, an unmanned, 45-foot-long airship equipped with thermal-imaging equipment and high-resolution cameras. It should be just the tool to scour the forests of the Pacific Northwest day and night, tracking Bigfoot, and, should it find one, take a picture. Unlike more conventional drones, their ship will be quieter and stealthier so as not to scare away their targets. The Aurora Mk II will also be able to travel at speeds of up to 45 mph. The team hopes to launch the ship next year and start sending it on nighttime runs over reputed Bigfoot hotspots around the United States. Over the years, there have been dozens of amateur films that claim to contain footage of real-deal sasquatches—but nothing has ever been confirmed. Earlier this year, however, a couple hiking in British Columbia captured a fairly convincing video of what may (or may not) be one.
Toilets were developed around the world, independently, thousands of years ago, but archaeologists keep finding older and older prototypes in Scotland. One of the oldest was found by archaeologists in the 1850s at Skara Brae, an ancient settlement on Mainland, the largest of the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland. Several stone huts among the ruins contained drains that extended outside their walls. Historians believe that the huts, which date back to 3,000 BC, were one of the first, if not the first, indoor bathrooms on Earth.
Meet the new team, same as the old team—just with a different name.
New York Titans
The Tennessee Titans weren’t the first Titans in pro football. the first were the New York Titans, a charter member of the American Football League (later absorbed by the NFL) in 1960. The name was a wry reference to the New York Giants of the NFL—in mythology, titans are bigger, stronger, and tougher than giants. the name only lasted for three years. By then the team was playing in brand-new Shea Stadium, located directly beneath the flight paths of two major airports, LaGuardia and JFK, hence the new Jets. (It also rhymed with the name of Shea Stadium’s other team, baseball’s New York Mets.)
How much do you know about California’s highest, lowest, oldest, largest, and smallest stuff?
TALLEST LIVING THING: Hyperion, a 379-foot Sequoia (California redwood) tree located in the Redwood National Park near Eureka. Hyperion’s location in the park is kept secret to prevent it from being damaged by tourists.
SMALLEST MOUNTAIN RANGE: The Sutter Butte Mountain Range near Yuba City. The buttes are a circular volcanic outcropping just 10 miles in diameter.
OLDEST LIVING TREE IN NORTH AMERICA: A 4,842- year-old bristlecone pine in Inyo National Forest outside Bishop.
Named Methuselah (after the oldest person whose age is referenced in the Bible), this pine was a seedling during the Bronze Age, when the Pyramids were going up in Egypt.
LARGEST LIVING TREE: General Sherman, a giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park, east of Visalia. Named for Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, this tree weighs more than 2 million pounds, is 275 feet tall, and is the largest tree on earth when measured by its estimated volume of 52,513 cubic feet.
BIGGEST SOLITARY BOULDER: Giant Rock in Landers in the Mojave Desert. At about seven stories high, it weighs more than 23,000 tons.
LONGEST RUNWAY: At Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. It’s 7.5 miles long, and the first space shuttle landed there.
WORLD’S TALLEST ONE-PIECE TOTEM POLE: Built in 1962, the brightly painted 160-foot-tall pole in the McKinleyville Shopping Center was designed by Ernest Pierson, who carved it from a single 500-year-old redwood.
OLDEST CONCRETE BRIDGE STILL IN USE: Fernbridge in Humboldt County. Built in 1911 of reinforced concrete, it crosses the Eel River and is 1,450 feet long.
HIGHEST LANDING PAD ON A BUILDING: The U.S. Bank Tower in downtown L.A. is 1,018 feet high, making it the world’s tallest building with a helipad on the roof. It’s also America’s tallest building west of Chicago.
NORTH AMERICA’S BEST VIEW OF THE WORLD: The 3,849-foot summit of Mt. Diablo in Contra Costa County. It reveals more of the earth’s surface than any other peak in the world, except Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa. Mt. Diablo looks west to the Farallon Islands in the Pacific, east to the Sierra Nevada mountain range, south to the Santa Cruz Mountains, and north to the Cascades.
NORTH AMERICA’S HIGHEST CONCENTRATION OF LAVA TUBE CAVES: Lava Beds National Monument near Tulelake.
According to a recent study, the average American worker spends around two hours a day at work on activities not-related to work—in other words, goofing off, messing around, or procrastinating. This ends up costing employers millions in lost productivity annually. (Shame on you if you’re reading this at work.) This national “epidemic” spreads beyond work. Other studies show that putting off things you have to do anyway, such as paying bills or filing taxes, can drain hundreds of dollars from your bank account.
SNAPSHOT
