First closed captioning
Emerson Romero was a deaf Cuban-American silent film star who lost his job when sound came to cinema – so he invented closed captioning.
Category: History
Testing the katana
When a samurai received a new katana, the sharpness of the sword could be tested by attacking a random civilian or (after that was banned) by slicing a criminal or corpse.
Dictator’s purgatory
António de Oliveira Salazar served as prime minister and dictator of Portugal for 36 years. Following a head injury he was removed from office, but no-one told him and he died two years later still believing himself in charge.
Parents vs. Frank Zappa
The Parents Music Resource Center was formed to fight obscenity in popular music. The parental warning labels were their doing. Musician and notorious non-conformist Frank Zappa fought back the only way he could: with music.
The election of the doge
The ruler of Medieval Venice was chosen by an exceptionally complex ten-step process of alternating random lots and elections.
Leaderless orchestra
In 1922 violinist Lev Tseitlin founded an orchestra according to Soviet principles of collective responsibility: it had no conductor.
The unpopular president
Five US presidential elections (so far) have elected presidents who received fewer votes than one of their opponents.
The death of Tycho Brahe
The body of famed astronomer Tycho Brahe was dug up twice (in 1901 and 2010) to find out what killed him. The conclusion: he died of excessive politeness.
Winston Churchill, fashion icon
Winston Churchill invented an adult romper suit and then wore it everywhere during World War II.
Lunar garbage collection
The second mission to land on the Moon had garbage collection duty: they picked up the remains of a probe that had crashed there two years earlier.
Rousseau’s children
Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote a seminal text on education and raising children. He also abandoned five of his own children soon after their births.
The rise and fall and rise of British canals
The national canal network of Britain powered its Industrial Revolution, then fell into disuse, and then rose again in the late 20th century.
Death at the South Pole
In May 2000, astrophysicist Dr. Rodney Marks fell ill and died at the geographic South Pole. His cause of death is known, but the reason for his death remains a mystery.
Regicide at the masquerade
King Gustav III of Sweden was warned of assassins at his masquerade ball. He went anyway.
Chain across the Baltic
In 1989 two million people formed a human chain stretching 675km from Tallinn to Riga to Vilnius.
Firing the anvils
On the day that Texas joined the Confederacy, a dissenting Texas Ranger was forced to fire anvils into the air with gunpowder. He was not the first to do this.
The Generalist Academy 