What is the Ides of March? It is the 74th day of the Roman calendar, which is March 15th. When we think about the Ides of March, we imagine that it is a cursed and dangerous day. In actual fact, ides was just a name for a day and there was nothing special about it. […]
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Why are truffles so expensive? They are very rare and very difficult to grow. What is a truffle? The truffle is the fruit part of a fungi, and it is similar to the top part of a mushroom. A truffle is a type of fungus that grows around the roots of some trees. They are
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What is Bitcoin? It is the original, and the most famous, digital currency. Let’s look at what Bitcoin is, why it was created, and how it works. Bitcoin was introduced to the world in 2009 by someone who said their name was Satoshi Nakamoto. Nobody knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is or even if it is
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When was the first drone? The first real drone was built in 1917 to counter German bombers or to deliver bombs. Drones are technically known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and drone is more of a nickname. They became known as drones in 1946, but the name came from one of the first successful drones
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Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman were the creators of the RSA encryption that we use many times, possibly hundreds of times, a day. They gave the first letters of their surnames to name it. Encryption has been around ever since people wanted to send secret messages. An early cipher is the Caesar cipher
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How does the female lac bug make plastic? They scrape bark from trees and mix it with a resin that they produce. The female lac bug produces a resin, which is a plastic. Plastics are made when molecules connect together to make long chains of polymers. These are what give plastics their strength and durability.
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How did Israel end up where it is? The British government had the idea to create a Jewish homeland roughly where the Land of Israel used to be. To do that, they had to break up Palestine. The UN adopted the plan and Israel declared statehood on May 14th, 1948. The name “Israel” was chosen
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What are the Queensberry rules? They are the rules for boxing published in 1867 and endorsed by the 9th Marquess of Queensberry. People have fought each other for as long as there have been people. Over time, fighting turned into a sport. The Romans had their gladiators and many other societies turned out in their
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Why did Tyrannosaurus rex have short arms? No one really knows. They could have no reason and be left over from longer arms that evolved away. They could have been used for slashing, gripping prey, and longer arms might have been bitten off by other Tyrannosauruses. They may have been used to help the dinosaurs
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What caused the Great Depression? There are many causes. Some of them are the investment bubble, the Wall Street Crash, the credit boom, the collapse of world trade due to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, bank failures, and the gold standard. Let’s look at these. First, what exactly was the Great Depression? In begin in 1929, the
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