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Colonial Williamsburg Breakfast Was Cornmeal Hoecakes, Not Today’s Pancake Stacks

Williamsburg, Virginia, now calls itself the Pancake Capital of the World, with roughly one independent pancake house for every 1,450 residents, the highest ratio...

A Lab Fish, an LAX Lizard and 8 Other New Species Found in Unexpected Places

New animal species are supposed to turn up deep in rainforests, at the bottom of the ocean or in caves nobody has entered. Some...

Members of Congress Still Get Paid in a Shutdown, and 3 Other Capitol Hill Myths

When the federal government shuts down, hundreds of thousands of workers go without a paycheck. The 535 lawmakers who failed to pass the budget...

Salmonella Is a New Suspect in the 430 BC Plague That Killed Up to a Third of Athens

In the summer of 430 BC an unknown disease tore through Athens, and over several waves it killed somewhere between a quarter and a...

Derry Has Been Officially Londonderry Since 1613, Plus 9 More Renamed Cities

Plenty of people assume the fight over Derry and Londonderry is a modern one. In fact the Northern Irish city has carried the official...

Godzilla Was Born From a 1954 H-Bomb Test That Showered a Japanese Fishing Boat

The monster that has stomped through more than 70 years of movies started as something much darker than a pop culture mascot. In the...

Agatha Christie’s 11 Day Disappearance in 1926 Was Likely a Fugue State, Not a Stunt

For nearly a century, Agatha Christie's vanishing act in December 1926 has been told as a real life whodunit. The best selling novelist of...

Venus de Milo’s Missing Arms and 8 Other Mysteries Behind Famous Statues

Nobody knows what the Venus de Milo was doing with her arms. Scholars have argued for two centuries over whether she held an apple,...

Celery Was a Status Symbol in the Gilded Age, and 4 More Foods the Rich Craved

In the Gilded Age, wealthy Americans showed off celery. They displayed the stalks upright in special glass celery vases at the center of the...

The Great Lakes Had Dozens of Names Before 1744, From Lac du Chat to Karegnondi

Lake Erie was once Lac du Chat, the "Lake of the Cat." Lake Huron appeared on a famous 1656 map as Karegnondi, and Lake...

A Town Where Stairs Were the Streets, and 9 Other Real Places Out of a Fantasy

High in the Chilean Andes sits a town where staircases served as the streets, and 15,000 people once climbed them every day. Elsewhere, people...

A Ghost Army of Rubber Tanks and 9 Other Fakes That Saved Lives in World War II

In March 1945, a U.S. Army unit of 1,100 men convinced German forces it was two full divisions, about 30,000 soldiers. Its weapons were...

Google Was Once Called BackRub, and 5 Other Famous Brands With Forgotten Names

Before it was Google, the world's best known search engine was called BackRub. Vaseline started life as Wonder Jelly, Nike began as Blue Ribbon...

Hitler Visited His Eagle’s Nest Only 14 Times, and 6 More Secrets of the Retreat

The Eagle's Nest is one of the most famous buildings of the Nazi era, yet Adolf Hitler went there only about 14 times. He...

Disney World and Mount Vernon Sit Under No-Fly Zones, and So Do 8 Other U.S. Sites

Pilots cannot fly over Walt Disney World, and they cannot fly over George Washington's home at Mount Vernon either. Both sit inside permanent no-fly...

Africa Is 14 Times Bigger Than Greenland, and the Mercator Map Hides It

Look at the world map that hung in most classrooms and Greenland seems roughly as large as Africa. In reality Africa covers 11.7 million...

A Melted Candy Bar in 1946 Led Percy Spencer to the Microwave

The history of technology is full of happy accidents. Penicillin was one. So were Popsicles and Velcro. The accident that changed daily domestic life more...

Women’s Jeans Pockets Are 48% Shorter Than Men’s, and Here Is Why

If you know one thing about how women's clothing differs from menswear, it is the pockets. Dresses usually have none. Trousers have them in...

The Bison Fell From 30 Million to 1,000 Before America Saved It

Bison once moved across North America in herds that ran from Alaska to Mexico. In the 19th century, in the name of expansion, profit...

In Longyearbyen, Norway, It Is Famously Illegal to Die, and Nine Other Odd Towns

Most cities follow the same script. Ordinary streets, office buildings, houses, a park. A few places skipped the script entirely. Underground mining communities, abandoned settlements...

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