Until the day the robots rise up and take us over, stay alert by keeping aware of what they’re up to now. HER Hong Kong-based robotics designer Ricky Ma just unveiled his latest creation: Mark 1, a life-size, humanoid robot. Oh, and it looks exactly like actress Scarlett Johansson. It took Ma 18 months and […]
The 1986 Boston Red Sox were one out away from winning the World Series …until a ball rolled through first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs. The NY Mets won the game, forcing a decisive game 7, which they also won. Buckner became a sports pariah, but he’s not the only athlete ever to screw up. Nice […]
The answer: basic math. Since its introduction in 1972, McDonald’s Quarter Pounder sandwich had been one of its most popular menu items. The name comes from how the meat patty weighs a quarter of a pound (or four ounces) before cooking, much larger than the two-to-three ounce patty used on the chain’s regular hamburgers. In […]
On a trip to Ireland, Uncle John spent many an evening going from pub to pub collecting traditional toasts (and many a morning after, begging for aspirin). Here are some favorites. May you have food and clothing, a soft pillow for your head; May you be forty years in heaven, before the devil knows you’re […]
At the BRI we’re always asking ourselves, “Where does all this stuff come from?” So we searched through our vast sports library and came up with the following answers. CHEERLEADING In the late 1870s, the Princeton University football team (the Tigers) had a male pep squad that supported them from the stands with chants of […]
Stephen Curry is one of the biggest sports stars in recent memory. Last year he led the Golden State Warriors to its first NBA championship in 40 years and was named league MVP. This year, he just might be even better. Curry led the Warriors to a 73-9 regular season record. That’s the best in […]
Who invented the Hokey Pokey? It depends on who you ask, or where and when you lived. DO “THE HOKEY COKEY” In 1942 Irish songwriter and publisher Jimmy Kennedy, best known for “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic,” created a dance, and an instructional song to go along with it, called “The Hokey Cokey.” Written to entertain […]
The late Prince was a prolific singer-songwriter, writing and performing dozens of hit songs for himself. But he wrote so much material that he couldn’t record it all himself (or he didn’t feel it was right for him). Here are some Prince songs best known for not being “Prince” songs. The Bangles, “Manic Monday” Prince […]
Here are some of the strangest game shows ever to air on American television. ACROSS THE BOARD (1959) Concept: Two contestants competed to see who could finish a crossword puzzle first. (Have you ever watched somebody else fill out a crossword puzzle? It’s pretty boring.) LUCKY PARTNERS (1958) Host Carl Cordell read part of the […]
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. Here is the answer to a recent question we received. Why is the Golden Gate Bridge red? Shouldn’t it be gold? Or have a different name? First of all, the […]
Who needs a groundhog or looking outside to see the sunshine and flowers? In Switzerland, they know it’s Spring when the snowman explodes. Since the 16th century, the city of Zurich, Switzerland, was welcomed Spring with Sechselauten, a festival whose name means “the six o’clock ringing of the bells.” The seasonal shift was noticed by […]
Here’s what we dug up about pro basketball team names and their origins. Los Angeles Lakers There are no lakes in L.A. The team was originally the Minneapolis Lakers; Minnesota is the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.” Seattle SuperSonics Named after a supersonic jet proposed by Seattle-based Boeing in the late ’60s. (The jet was never built, […]
This week, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction went to Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer. But some years, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama or Fiction isn’t awarded at all. Here’s a look at those years when the judges just couldn’t agree. In 2006, […]
Here are 11 random facts about America’s longest-running game show. (1) The Price is Right debuted on American television in 1956 on NBC, in both prime-time and daytime versions. Both were hosted by former radio announcer Bill Cullen, and they were huge hits—in the top 10 from 1959 to 1961, making it the most popular […]
The Bathroom Readers’ Institute was born in 1987. Here’s what was going on in the rest of the world in 1987. The Tracey Ullman Show, a variety program on the new Fox Network, airs a short cartoon called “The Simpsons.” Sen. Gary Hart, the likely 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, drops out of the race after reports […]
Ever wonder how rock bands get their names? So do we. After some digging around, we found these origins. CHICAGO They originally called themselves Chicago Transit Authority, but had to shorten it after the city of Chicago sued. ALICE COOPER Lead singer Vincent Furnier claims to have gotten his stage name from a Ouija board, […]
There are only so many notes, so occasionally one hit song sounds a lot like another hit song. In 1982, the Australian rock band Men at Work hit #1 in the U.S. with “Down Under” a song about a proud Australian man traveling the world. It’s also notable for being one of few major hit […]
In the trade-crazy world of professional sports, some trades still stand out as being…unusually unusual. BEER FOR A PITCHER: Pitcher Nigel Thatch of the Schaumburg Flyers of the Northern League, a professional baseball league in the northern United States and Canada, was traded in May 2006. The Flyers, according to the official league announcement, “assigned […]
