It’s the holiday with the silly name…and an extremely serious message. There are a lot of silly holidays out there—Plush Animal Lovers Day or International Bacon Day, for example. They mainly exist as fun, viral marketing. That’s not the case with World Toilet Day. November 19th was officially established as the day of action in […]
Warning: This article full of nut trivia may contain nuts. Until the mid-20th century, hazelnuts were called filberts. That name is likely a corruption of the name of St. Philibert, whose feast day of August 20 coincides with the day filberts (okay, hazelnuts) start to ripen in western Europe. Five states have an official […]
November 18, 1928, is the birth date of the most famous cartoon ever: Mickey Mouse. Read on for the story of how he got his name, as well as the surprising origins of other famous characters. This article was first published in Uncle John’s Great Big Bathroom Reader. Mickey Mouse The most famous cartoon character […]
Uncle John knows pretty much everything—and if he doesn’t, he heads his massive research library, or puts one of his many associates on the case. So go ahead: In the comments below, ask Uncle John anything. (And if we answer your question sometime, we’ll send you a free book!) Pants are a singular object. Then […]
Perhaps the breakout character on Netflix’s Queen Elizabeth II series The Crown is the one who isn’t a royal: Winston Churchill. His slow, post-World War II fade from prominence is depicted in the show by a heavily made-up John Lithgow (one of the few non-British actors in the cast). Here are a few things you may not have known about “The British Bulldog.”
Teddy Roosevelt: President, soldier namesake of the Teddy bear…and architect of modern football. In 1905, football was even more rough and violent than it is today. Between 1900 and 1905, 45 people actually died from injuries sustained while being kicked, punched, or tackled while playing the sport—primarily internal injuries, broken necks, and severe concussions. (Football […]
Not every B&J release can be a Cherry Garcia or Chunky Monkey. The company’s website maintains a Flavor Graveyard, where it lists all the flavors that flopped. But which of the following are real ice creams that melted…and which did we make up? Wavy Gravy In addition to the success of the Jerry Garcia-inspired Cherry […]
Some things in life go without saying…but there’s always the occasional genius who has to be told not to hold the moving end of a chain saw. On Cadbury Whole Nut Milk Chocolate bar: “Contains nuts, milk.” On a massager: “Do not use while unconscious.” On shin guards: “Cannot protect any part of the body […]
With the holidays comes cocktail party season, and with cocktail parties come these drinks with pretty clever names. Jon Daly The recently deceased golfer Arnold Palmer also lent his name to a drink he reportedly invented: the alcohol-free country club staple of half lemonade/half iced tea. But if you saddle up to the bar and […]
After a movie is filmed, a Foley artist is tasked with making the sounds of the movie come across as realistically as possible. And they have a lot of weird and amazing tools at their disposal. Here are some real techniques used by real movie Foley artists. When somebody in a horror movie gets stabbed: […]
Here’s how surfers do it, dude. Catch a Wave When a surfer rides a wave toward shore, it may look as though the board and rider are being propelled by the rushing water. But they’re not. In fact, the act of surfing is more like riding a skateboard down a hill. The difference is that […]
Conspiracy theories question everything: Did Lee Harvey Oswald really assassinate JFK? Did man really land on the moon? Did the guy who wrote Alice in Wonderland secretly murder a bunch of people? J.K. Rowling didn’t write Harry Potter Having never published a novel before, British author J.K. Rowling emerged in the late ’90s as the […]
Every state has a motto, a nickname, and even a traditional dish. But many states also have a few more “official” items. The official neckware of Arizona is the bolo tie. The official possum of Georgia is Pogo, the possum from Walt Kelly’s long-running comic strip of the same name. The official state beverage of […]
History that’s good enough to eat (or drink). Latte If you ordered a caffe latte in Italy, you’d get a cup of coffee with some milk in it. (In Italian, it literally means “coffee with milk.”) You wouldn’t get espresso combined with steamed milk. That’s an American latte, a variation on cappuccino that was created […]
Lots of states have placed their capital city in their largest metropolitan area (Denver, Colorado) or in a place of strategic importance (Juneau, Alaska, is closest to the U.S. mainland). Others are a little more mystifying. Here’s why a lot of the less logically-placed state capitals are where they are. Sacramento Sacramento is one of […]
Since 1986 there have been 11 helicopter-assisted jailbreaks from French prisons. Three of them involved the same man. Background Pascal Payet, a.k.a. “Kalashnikov Pat,” is one of France’s most notorious criminals. In 1997 he was arrested for armed robbery and murder after an attack on an armored truck, during which he shot a guard 14 […]
It’s arguably the world’s top prize for writers. But for every Nobel Prize for Literature that understandably went to a luminary like Toni Morrison or Samuel Beckett, the award has a few head-scratchers in its history. The 2016 recipient, iconic folk-rocker Bob Dylan came as a surprise to many—in part because he’s the first musician […]
After more than a century of being “cursed,” the Chicago Cubs won the World Series over Cleveland. Who could have ever seen in coming? Only a few people. Parks and Recreation In 2014, the long-running NBC sitcom “flashed forward” to the year 2017. In one episode, Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) goes to Chicago to try […]
