The world is more interesting than you think.
Unexpected facts, big ideas, and little discoveries. Find something that sparks your curiosity today.
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Changing the meaning of 'principally' widened a banking loophole
In 1996, the Federal Reserve raised certain bank affiliates' permitted securities revenue share from 10% to 25%. It concluded that this still did not mean…
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Britain rammed a ship carrying Holocaust survivors
After World War II, Holocaust survivors aboard the ship Exodus tried to reach Palestine, then under British rule. British forces rammed and boarded the…
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The ancient water gauge that helped set taxes
For centuries, officials used Cairo’s Nilometer to measure the Nile’s annual flood, and its readings helped determine taxes. Too little water threatened…
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The French spy who lived as both a man and a woman
After d’Éon threatened to expose secret French invasion plans, the government officially declared them a woman and paid for a new wardrobe in exchange for…
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How Loie Fuller turned fabric into stage lighting
She illuminated the billowing silk from several directions and used colored gels, making the fabric seem to shift like flame or a blossoming flower.
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How tiny packets made the modern internet possible
Packet switching breaks data into small pieces that can share network cables with traffic from other computers, then be reassembled at their destination.…
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Paris's 1900 world's fair recorded about 50 million admissions
That count included repeat visits, but the crowds were enormous. The Métro opened during the exposition, and Gare d'Orsay brought trains into a new central…
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When Asta Nielsen played Hamlet as a woman
In her 1920 silent film, Nielsen recast Hamlet as a princess raised as a prince to preserve the royal line. The role let her push her androgynous screen image…
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A market trade does not require someone to be a fool
A seller may need cash now while a buyer can wait years. They can agree on a price without agreeing on when they need the money or how much risk they can…
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The 200-ton machine that streamed music by telephone
Thaddeus Cahill's 200-ton synthesizer sent music over phone lines, but its loud, robotic organ music also interfered with Manhattan calls. The phone company…
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Aladdin's famous story came from a storyteller with a name
Hanna Diyab, a traveler from Aleppo, told Antoine Galland the tale in Paris in 1709. Galland then included it in his French collection of the Arabian Nights.…
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How Carmen Miranda's fruit hats became propaganda
Under FDR's Good Neighbor policy, Hollywood was encouraged to promote South American culture to keep those nations from siding with the Axis during World War…
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The scientist who needed a spotless lab to date Earth
Lead was the problem: a speck of it could swamp the tiny isotope differences Clair Patterson needed to measure. He made his lab exceptionally clean so the…
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Salk's polio vaccine trained immunity with an inactivated virus
The vaccine used virus particles treated so they could not reproduce, while retaining features the immune system could recognize. That offered a way to…
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Christine Jorgensen answered publicity with her own public voice
After news of her transition drew enormous attention in the 1950s, she gave interviews and developed a public career as an entertainer and speaker. Surviving…
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An Islamic scholar abandoned wealth after doubt left him unable to speak, then sought God as a beggar
After spiritual doubt left him unable to speak, 11th-century scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali gave up his wealth and wandered as a beggar. He later argued that…
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A storm stranded schoolchildren—and inspired youth hostels
In 1909, teacher Richard Schirrmann's class took shelter from a storm in a barn; seeing his students sleep on hay gave him the idea to use schools as…
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Oscar Micheaux turned his own novel into his first movie
Micheaux had been a homesteader and novelist before releasing The Homesteader in 1919. He built an independent filmmaking career around stories of Black…
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The projector that electrified a layer of oil
The Eidophor used an electron beam to deform an oil film on a rotating mirror; light passing through the changing surface produced a large-screen TV image,…
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A blacklisted writer won Oscars under fake names
Blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo used pseudonyms and fronts to keep working. He won two Academy Awards under false identities while accused communists…
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Enigma's extra dial turned one wiring setup into 40
The Uhr attachment added a 40-position switch to the machine's plugboard system. An operator could change connections by turning a dial instead of rearranging…
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The Simplon Orient Express offered a new route through postwar Europe
Introduced in 1919, the service used the Simplon Tunnel and a southern route through Italy, avoiding Germany and Austria. It was a new service alongside the…
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How pictures helped turn Yellowstone into a park
Artist Thomas Moran and photographer William Henry Jackson joined Hayden's Yellowstone expedition in 1871. Their images gave people far from the region a way…
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The tourist timetable that helped plan World War II
Cook’s Continental Timetable gathered European train schedules into one guide. During World War II, governments used it to coordinate covert troop movements…
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