I learned this today. The piano is only 300 years old and many famous composers that we know composed for the harpsichord, not the piano. The piano was invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori in about 1698. He worked for the house of Medici. He called his invention, “un cimbalo di cipresso di piano e forte,” which […]
#22 Why was the piano invented? Read More »
I learned this today. Leather is strong because the collagen fibers in the animal skin are strengthened and bolstered by other chemicals. It can take up to ten weeks to make leather. Making leather is a complicated process. The first thing is to remove the hide. The skin of any animal can be used to
#14 How is leather made? Why is it so strong? Read More »
I learned this today. A gun silencer works by reducing the speed of the gases that push the bullet out of the barrel, but it cannot silence the sound of the sonic boom from the bullet. A gun fires a bullet that comes from a cartridge. The cartridge that you load into a gun has
#13 How does a gun silencer work? Read More »
I learned this today. Before the invention of the elevator (lift for my British friends), wealthy people lived on the lower floors of a building because they didn’t want to climb stairs. People had no choice and climbed the stairs to the cheaper apartments. Before the invention of the elevator, the highest a building could
#11 How did the elevator change our lives? Read More »
I learned this today. The necktie that most men wear today came about because King Louis XIV of France liked the knotted neckerchiefs that the Croatian mercenaries in his army wore. People have worn cloths around their necks for as long as people have had cloth. Roman soldiers were the first people to wear knotted
#3 Why did men start wearing neckties? Read More »
I learned this today. Ketchup was created in the 17th century, but it wasn’t made of tomatoes. Ketchup began in Asia. The word ketchup either comes from the Hokkien Chinese word “ke-tsiap”, which was a salty sauce made from fermented fish, or the Malay word “kicap”, which was soy sauce. Whatever the origin of the
#2 Where did ketchup come from? What did it have to do with mushrooms? Read More »
I learned this today. We say, “the best thing since sliced bread”, but sliced bread has only been around since 1928. Humans have been eating bread for thousands of years. 30,000-year-old starch residue has been found on rocks used for pounding plants. Early humans could have spread the starch on a flat rock and cooked
#1 Who invented sliced bread? Read More »
