The world is more interesting than you think.
Unexpected facts, big ideas, and little discoveries. Find something that sparks your curiosity today.
A little more wonder
How wine harvests revealed the Little Ice Age
Leave it to a French historian to figure out global climate patterns by analyzing when people were picking grapes. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie pioneered climate…
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The candy mistake that poisoned 200 people
Cutting corners in 1858 Bradford meant using powdered limestone to stretch out expensive sugar in candies. But because Victorian supply chains were a literal…
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Daredevils once parachuted from moving trains
Early 20th-century daredevils looked at perfectly safe train rides and found them unbearably boring. Their solution was to climb atop the roof of a speeding…
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The bitter feud behind Looney Tunes
Behind the slapstick, anvil-dropping violence of Looney Tunes was a very real, incredibly petty feud between animation legends Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones.…
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The historian who studied gossip and fought Nazis
Marc Bloch didn't just write about badasses; he was one. He co-founded the Annales School, totally disrupting the academic echo chamber by arguing that the…
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The 1910 search engine built from 12 million cards
Imagine trying to build a search engine, but your only technology is dead trees and sheer neuroticism. In 1910, the Mundaneum was launched as a massive…
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The secret deal that pushed down the dollar
Central bankers literally locked themselves in a New York hotel to orchestrate a global currency crash. By 1985, the US dollar was so overwhelmingly strong…
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The hostel movement began as a moral boot camp
Your gap-year bunk bed has roots in a rigid German scheme to aggressively domesticate city kids. When the Youth Hostel Association gained traction in 1930,…
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How storytelling could save a murder suspect's life
Getting out of a murder charge in 16th-century France required less legal prowess and more creative writing skills. Historian Natalie Zemon Davis uncovered…
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The underground cable built to tow cyclists uphill
After the original Trampe bike elevator proved successful, engineers upgraded it to the CycloCable. It's an entire underground mechanical wire-rope system…
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How a Bobo doll taught children to imitate aggression
Before Albert Bandura came along, people thought watching violence was cathartic and would actually reduce aggression. Bandura destroyed this theory with an…
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Why every Zune 30 froze on the same day
On December 31, 2008, Microsoft's answer to the iPod universally committed mass suicide. Every single Zune 30 device on the planet froze at exactly the same…
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The secret loan that helped trigger Australia's crisis
The Australian government tried to secretly bypass Wall Street by taking out a multi-billion-dollar payday loan from a shady Pakistani peanut trader. In 1975,…
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When owning gold became a crime in America
In 1933, the land of the free decided that owning a yellow rock was suddenly a federal crime punishable by up to ten years in prison. Under Executive Order…
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Sima Qian chose castration to finish his history
Talk about missing a deadline. Sima Qian, the granddaddy of Chinese history, managed to piss off Emperor Wu of Han by defending a disgraced general. Given the…
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Rhine realized most poltergeists were just angry teenagers
When a Bridgeport home exploded with flying pans and smashing plates in the 1930s, the world thought it was a demonic infestation. But when parapsychologist…
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Lamb Chop's creator wrote a Star Trek episode
Most people remember Shari Lewis as the terrifyingly cheerful woman who subjected an entire generation of children to "The Song That Doesn't End" via a sock…
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The Bayeux Tapestry is stitched propaganda
The Middle Ages’ most famous infographic is built on a throne of lies. The Bayeux Tapestry isn't even a tapestry—it's technically an embroidery—and it serves…
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The steam boats that destroyed their own canals
Before railways ruined their monopoly, British canal operators fought back with 'steam packet boats.' These aggressively fast steamships ripped through the…
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When passenger planes landed on frozen lakes
Norway's post-war infrastructure was so rugged they briefly abandoned the concept of runways. In 1948, Fagernes Airport decided it was perfectly normal to…
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How live TV made child stars replaceable
Early live television was an unregulated meat grinder, and nobody learned that faster than pioneering child hosts like Myrta Zobel. Plucked from obscurity to…
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The mouse utopia that turned into a nightmare
John B. Calhoun wanted to know what happens when society gets too crowded, so he built Universe 25, a literal utopia for mice with infinite food and zero…
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Norway’s uphill bike lift carries cyclists
Trondheim realized that absolutely nobody wants to pedal up a steep incline in the freezing cold, so they installed a street-level conveyor belt. Cyclists…
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An Alaskan ghost town lies on the route of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
Knik, Alaska was once the bustling 'Dog Mushing Center of the World' and home to the Last Chance Saloon, a spot where gold prospectors blew their life savings…
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