Today in 1935, a military mission you sure don’t see every day: at the direction of then-Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton, American planes carried out a series of bombing runs in Hawaii to stop a volcano.
A new project using smart cameras could help keep our neighborhoods in proper working order, and it’s all based around garbage trucks.
Some experts are worried AI could undo human civilization, but some of it is trying to help people. Like a project that uses AI phone bots to keep phone scammers from scamming people.
What do you have when you have a book that tells people "thou SHALT commit adultery"? You have what's known as the Wicked Bible or the Sinners' Bible, though who was encouraging all that sinning is something of a mystery.
The UK has lots of traditions. Here's another one: once a year, sometime between about now and mid November, the city of London pays rent to the Crown for several pieces of land in what’s called the Ceremony of Quit Rents.
Jaundice is treatable with phototherapy, but not all places have access to light therapy machines. A startup in Nigeria is building solar-powered phototherapy machines to fill that gap.
Today in 1879, a bar owner in Ohio received a patent for an invention that changed the way we buy and sell things: the cash register. He did it to thwart his bartenders, who he suspected of putting money meant for him in their own pockets. Plus: a professor in South Korea reveals one place from which you probably shouldn't give an online lecture.
Today in 1816, the US military awarded to built a contract for a fort next to Lake Champlain, near the border with Canada. For years crews worked to make the fort strong, until one day when they realized there was a big problem. Plus: people on Tumblr say today is the 1000th birthday of a medieval monk's brother named Werner.
Stott Hall Farm is an unusual place; on either side of the place, there's the UK's M62 highway. We'll explain how it happened. Plus: a couple in Texas bought a plot of land, spent years building a house there, and then got a knock on the door from the actual landowners, explaining that there'd been a mix-up.
Today in 1977, "Star Wars" premiered in movie theaters, and became a movie, pop culture and merchandising phenomenon. But how is it that, in one scene, an Imperial Stormtrooper walks helmet-first into an overhead door? Plus: in Kent, Ohio, there's a restaurant with a large-scale replica of an X-wing fighter out front. If you visit, stay on target!
