First joker
Although playing cards in Europe date back to the 14th century, Samuel Hart printed the first joker in 1863.
Category: North & Central America
Cosmic ladder (Part 2)
To measure distances in deep space, you need to look for candles in the darkness. [2 of 2]
Multilingual tautologies
What do the River Avon, the Gobi Desert, and the La Brea Tar Pits have in common? Redundancy.
Jet vs. airport terminal
The new terminal building of Ottowa’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.
November 22, 1963
John F. Kennedy, Aldous Huxley, and C. S. Lewis all died the same day. The following day, Doctor Who premiered.
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.
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…
Schools vs. Satan
Some of the first public schools in North America were founded explicitly to counteract “that old deluder, Satan.”
Chimeric parents
During a child support dispute in 2002, a DNA test seemed to show that a mother was not the parent of her own biological children. The truth was stranger than anyone expected.
Boycotting New Zealand
In 1976 most African countries boycotted the Olympics because the games would not ban New Zealand.
Vegetarian spider
Bagheera kiplingi is unique amongst spiders: it’s a vegetarian.
The Yellowstone loophole
Thanks to a loophole in United States law, it may be possible to murder someone in a small section of Yellowstone National Park and get away with it.
The sound of hell
An urban legend from the late 1980s claimed that Soviet scientists had drilled so far down they hit hell – and brought back an audio recording of the suffering souls. But it was actually Baron Blood.
Feminist utopias
The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw many feminist utopias that portrayed a society run by women: by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Irene Clyde, former New Zealand prime minister Julius Vogel, and the influential Bangladeshi author Begum Rokeya.
McDonald’s vs. H. R. Pufnstuf
The creators of the cult children’s TV show H. R. Pufnstuf once sued McDonald’s for plagiarism – and won big.
Football war
In 1969, Honduras and El Salvador went to war while their football teams faced off in a World Cup qualifier.