For the first time in a long time, I got two emails from readers. One was a very encouraging email from a reader who wanted me to begin posting on this blog again (and I very well might, after a long period of dormancy). The second email was, well, this:
EJ (gofuckyourself@gmail.com) wrote: Buddy, is it [...]
Hours after Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Secret Service found themselves in a bind. President Franklin D Roosevelt was to give his infamy speech to Congress the next day, and although the trip from the White House to Capitol Hill was short, agents weren’t sure how to transport him safely.
The White House did [...]
Yes, the disinfectant more commonly known today as a toilet bowl cleaner, was once suggested for vaginal use. Talk about versatile!
Although it was always intended for household cleaning, from the 1920s up until the ’60s, Lysol was largely marketed for personal bodily use, rather than disinfecting doorknobs or coffee tables like we see in today’s [...]
Where did you think it got the name Coca-Cola anyway? Yes, popular legend is correct, and the soft drink did originally contain cocaine (obtained from the coca leaf).
Coca-Cola was first conceived between 1885 and 1886 by a John Pemberton, a former Confederate soldier turned drug store owner. He marketed it as a “patent medicine” and [...]
… Yes, that title is correct. Read on, intrepid history-seekers.
The pledge of allegiance was originally written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a socialist magazine writer. When he wrote it for an children’s magazine, he also described a salute that he thought would be appropriate during its recital.
The pledge was aimed towards children, and the magazine [...]
Especially since 9/11, the American flag has been plastered on everything from beer mugs to underwear, and seeing people wearing it or in car commercials has become a daily occurrence. But what many have forgotten is that the use of the flag in such contexts is expressly forbidden in official US Flag Code.
That’s right– wearing [...]
The year was 1977 and after several earlier failed campaigns, photography store owner turned equal rights activist Harvey Milk (pictured above) was swept into office as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city’s 11-member legislative assembly.
When sworn in the following year, Milk became the first openly gay American to be elected [...]
When people think history, they all too often think in black and white when events before, say, the 1970s are mentioned. But the world was “in color” back then too, and color photography technology goes all the way back to the 1860s, becoming widely commercially available in the 1930s.
Color photographs are a lot older than [...]
Any expectant mother or father these days is doubtless aware that items designed for baby girls are commonly pink, and those meant for baby boys are blue. But it wasn’t always this way.
As recently as the early 1900s, pink was seen by many as a color that went better with boys, and blue as a [...]
In 1999, an insurance company paid out a multi-million dollar settlement to family members of the victims in a triple murder case that had occurred seven years earlier. The company represented Paladin Press, a controversial book publisher.
Paladin, which specializes in action how-to manuals and supposedly forbidden knowledge, had published a book called “Hit Man: A [...]
