Two Countries Showed Up At The 1936 Olympics Flying Identical Flags
At the 1936 Summer Games, Liechtenstein and Haiti showed up flying identical blue and red striped flags. Fortunately they found a solution.
There’s A Far-Off Planet Sometimes Called Earth’s Evil Twin
Scientists have found that Exoplanet HD 189733b looks blue with white wispy clouds, but the similarities between that far-off world and this one stop right about there.
William Rankin Fell Through A Thundercloud And Lived
Today in 1959, Marine Corps pilot William Rankin passed through the middle of a thundercloud after having to eject from his plane. And despite the storm’s best efforts, he made it through in one piece.
Tom Stuker Used His Lifetime Airline Ticket To Travel More Than 24 Million Miles
Summer travel comes and goes for most of us, but Tom Stuker, the "world's most frequent flyer," bought a lifetime plane ticket in 1990 and has been up in the air a lot since then.
It Took Researchers Twenty Years To Figure Out The Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone unlocked a huge amount of knowledge about the ancient world. Or at least it would after scholars spent like two decades figuring out what it said.
New York Once Built Artificial Reefs Out Of Old Ice Cream Trucks
For National Ice Cream Day this Sunday, the story of how New York state once upcycled some ice cream trucks into artificial reefs around Long Island.
There Was Almost A Scary Sequel To “E.T.”
This day in 1982 was the date at the top of a movie treatment for “E.T. 2: Nocturnal Fears." And as the title suggests, the sequel would have been a lot creepier than the first movie.
William Walker, The Diver Who Saved Winchester Cathedral
Today in 1912, high honors for William Walker, who saved the UK’s famous Winchester Cathedral from partial collapse through five years of foundation work… all of which he did underwater.
Buckminster Fuller Proposed Putting A Big Dome Over Manhattan
Today in 1895, the birthday of Buckminster Fuller, the “engineer, architect and futurist" who once proposed building a see-through dome over part of Manhattan to save energy and money.
Ina Koenig Saved A Kid Who Fell Into A Mine Shaft By Keeping His Head Above Water
Around this time in 2012, a teacher in Germany saved a young student's life, literally keeping the three year old's head above water after falling into an abandoned mine shaft.