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Category: Sciences

By The Generalist Posted on July 10, 2022July 9, 2022

War hailstones

More than a thousand English soldiers were killed by hailstones during the Siege of Chartres in 1360.

Categories: Earth science, Europe, Medieval history, Military
By The Generalist Posted on July 5, 2022July 4, 2022

Broken arrow

In 1959, the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was one of the most sophisticated aircraft prototypes in the world. When the project was cancelled, the Canadian government ordered all Arrows, parts, production equipment, and technical data destroyed.

Categories: 20th century history, Military, North & Central America, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on June 26, 2022June 25, 2022

Lava planets

Earth-like planets that orbit too close to their stars are probably completely covered in lava.

Categories: Astronomy
By The Generalist Posted on June 17, 2022June 16, 2022

Small island alliance

For the last thirty-one years, an alliance of nearly forty small island states have campaigned against global warming – because if it is not checked, some of them will be underwater.

Categories: 20th century history, 21st century history, Earth science, Oceania, Politics & law, The oceans
By The Generalist Posted on June 15, 2022June 14, 2022

Lava balloons

Imagine glowing, hissing, steaming balls of floating rock up to three metres across emerging from the depths of the ocean – these are lava balloons.

Categories: Earth science, The oceans
By The Generalist Posted on June 2, 2022January 25, 2023

Happiest meal

McDonald’s iconic Happy Meal came to us via a Chilean-Guatemalan restauranteur, a Missouri advertising agent, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Categories: 20th century history, Economics & business, Film & television, Food & agriculture, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on May 24, 2022May 23, 2022

Impostor cells

Biomedical research uses immortal cell lines such as HeLa to test treatments and examine biological mechanisms. But sometimes those cell lines are not what everyone thought: they have been invaded.

Categories: Health & medicine
By The Generalist Posted on May 17, 2022May 16, 2022

Return of the space dogs

Laika, the first space dog, died in orbit. But the next two – Belka and Strelka – survived. One of Strelka’s puppies was gifted to John F. Kennedy… but not before it was fully scanned for secret listening devices.

Categories: 20th century history, Animals, Astronomy, Europe, North & Central America, North & Central Asia
By The Generalist Posted on May 15, 2022May 14, 2022

The demo

On December 9, 1968, a team led by computer scientist Douglas Engelbart ran a 90 minute tech demo at a San Francisco conference. This “mother of all demos” introduced the world to the computer mouse, windows, hypertext, and collaborative document editors.

Categories: 20th century history, Computer science, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on May 9, 2022May 8, 2022

Man-lifting war kites

A large enough kite can lift someone off the ground. So, of course, several inventors and aeronauts tried to find a military application for such man-lifting kites.

Categories: 19th century history, 20th century history, Europe, Military, North & Central America, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on May 4, 2022January 25, 2023

Hibernating bird

Several mammals, including rodents and bears, hibernate over the cold winters. But at least one bird does so as well.

Categories: 19th century history, Animals, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on April 29, 2022April 27, 2022

Peaceful nukes

In the 1960s and 1970s, both the United States and the Soviet Union explored “peaceful” applications of nuclear weapons: excavating earth for lakes and canals, geological research, and extinguishing gas well fires.

Categories: 20th century history, Military, North & Central America, North & Central Asia, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on April 25, 2022April 24, 2022

First free-falling skydiver

Tiny Broadwick was the first person to intentionally jump out of a flying airplane without being tethered to something.

Categories: 20th century history, North & Central America, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on April 21, 2022April 21, 2022

February 30th

The calendar date February 30th has happened just once in history: in Sweden in 1712.

Categories: Astronomy, Early modern history, Europe, Weights & measures
By The Generalist Posted on April 17, 2022April 17, 2022

Blanket heater table

The Japanese kotatsu combines a table, a heater, and a layer of comfortable blankets.

Categories: East Asia, Fashion & design, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on April 6, 2022January 25, 2023

The doomsday algorithm

Want to work out what day of the week for any date? Just use the doomsday algorithm.

Categories: Mathematics & statistics, Weights & measures

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