I learned this today. Standardized time and time zones weren’t needed until rail travel became popular in the 1850s. Having international time zones seems common sense to us these days. How can you conduct business in New York from London if you don’t know what time it is there? And knowing how many hours ahead […]
#37 Why did we start using time zones? Read More »
I learned this today. Neanderthals were named after the place where they were found. The Neander Valley in modern Germany. “Thal” means valley in German. The earliest Neanderthal bones found were in 1829 in Belgium. A Dutch naturalist called Philippe-Charles Schmerling found a skull, but he thought it was a fossil of a human skull
#31 Why are Neanderthals called “Neanderthals”? Read More »
I learned this today. The horse collar changed society in a huge way and many things we take for granted now came about because of the horse collar. There are different opinions, but humans probably started farming about 11,500 years ago. Many animals were domesticated at around this time as well. Fields were dug and
#26 How did the invention of the horse collar change society? Read More »
I learned this today. Why is Wall Street called “Wall Street” and why has it become a financial center? There are two theories as to why Wall Street is called Wall Street. Nobody knows which one is true. The first theory is that it was a street for a people called Walloon. At that time,
#25 Why is Wall Street called Wall Street? Read More »
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 »
