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Month: August 2021

By The Generalist Posted on August 31, 2021August 31, 2021

Unseen regalia

The Imperial Regalia of Japan consists of a legendary sword, mirror, and jewel. They are brought out at every imperial enthronement, but only a few priests and the emperor himself are ever allowed to see them.

Categories: Ancient history, East Asia, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on August 30, 2021August 29, 2021

Hedgehog flavour

In 1981 Phillip Lewis released potato chips flavoured like roasted hedgehog. In 1982 the UK government prosecuted him for false advertising because the chips did not contain real hedgehog.

Categories: 20th century history, Animals, Europe, Food & agriculture, Medieval history, Politics & law
By The Generalist Posted on August 29, 2021January 25, 2023

Featured category: Art

How Monet captured colour and weather in his haystacks; the proto-Escher engravings of Piranesi; the extraction of Goya’s famous Black Paintings; and the ancient artistic motif spread across Europe, the Middle East, and India.

Categories: Featured category
By The Generalist Posted on August 28, 2021January 25, 2023

From the archives: Radio radio

Radio announcers’ tongue twister tests, the pirate radio station that broadcast while it sank, the radio play hoax attack twelve years before The War of the Worlds, and the broadcaster who was the last person in the UK executed for treason.

Categories: From the archives
By The Generalist Posted on August 27, 2021August 26, 2021

Ghost leg

Ghost leg is a technique to randomly match up two groups – assigning a list of chores to a list of people, for example. And all you need is a drawing of a ladder.

Categories: East Asia, Mathematics & statistics
By The Generalist Posted on August 26, 2021February 7, 2022

Jet vs. airport terminal

The new terminal building of Ottawa’s international airport was supposed to open in 1959. After one pass by a US air force jet the day before the opening ceremony, it could not open until 1960.

Categories: 20th century history, Military, North & Central America, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on August 25, 2021August 25, 2021

Personal carbon footprint

The “personal carbon footprint” concept was popularised by an oil company advertising campaign to divert attention away from their own climate-unfriendly practices.

Categories: 21st century history, Earth science, Economics & business
By The Generalist Posted on August 24, 2021August 22, 2021

November 22, 1963

John F. Kennedy, Aldous Huxley, and C. S. Lewis all died the same day. The following day, Doctor Who premiered.

Categories: 20th century history, Europe, Film & television, Literature, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on August 23, 2021August 22, 2021

Fart battle

The He-Gassen scroll of Edo period Japan depicts an epic battle… of farts.

Categories: 19th century history, Art, East Asia, Military
By The Generalist Posted on August 22, 2021January 25, 2023

Featured category: Earth science

The mysterious origins of black diamonds, the natural nuclear reactor in Gabon, the singing sand dunes, and blood rain from intercontinental cloud algae.

Categories: Featured category
Mexican Repatriation
By The Generalist Posted on August 21, 2021January 25, 2023

From the archives: Exile

When United States deported thousands of US citizens to Mexico, when an Arizona town exiled 1,300 striking miners, when Bulgaria exiled the world’s last tsar, and the Soviet Union’s 101 kilometre exile.

Categories: From the archives
By The Generalist Posted on August 20, 2021August 19, 2021

Battle queen bee

Queen bees emerge from their cells with a war cry and proceed to murder competing queens. But when she’s old, she’ll either leave the hive or be killed by her own workers.

Categories: Animals
By The Generalist Posted on August 19, 2021August 19, 2021

The horseback kissing game

The Turkic sport kyz kuu involves a man, a woman, two horses, a kiss, and a whip.

Categories: Animals, Games & sport, North & Central Asia
By The Generalist Posted on August 18, 2021August 17, 2021

Walls within walls within walls

Julius Caesar won the Siege of Alesia with a military tactic known as investment: build walls around the besieged settlement’s own walls, and and then build another layer of walls around those ones.

Categories: Ancient history, Europe, Military
By The Generalist Posted on August 17, 2021August 14, 2021

Death Valley swindler

Walter E. Scott performed in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, scammed thousands of dollars with a fake gold mine, set a cross-country train speed record, and claimed to be building a castle in the midst of Death Valley.

Categories: 20th century history, Architecture, Economics & business, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on August 16, 2021January 25, 2023

Science wars: Non-periodic crystals

Up until 1982, all crystals were believed to be, by definition, periodic. But then an Israeli materials scientist discovered something strange…

Categories: 20th century history, Middle East, North & Central America, Physics & chemistry

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