Cool Weird Awesome

Fred Thomas Played In The World Series While He Was On Active Duty In The US Navy

And his two jobs led to a pretty big custom in modern American sports.

Americans Accidentally Broke Plymouth Rock In Two – More Than Once

The story of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth rock came much later than the Pilgrims did. After that, people had a hard time keeping the rock in one piece.

The Society For The Prevention Of Useless Giving Tried To Get Americans Out Of All That Holiday Shopping

A little over a century ago, a group of women, plus one former US president, declared they were through with the overly commercial side of Christmas.

How An Amendment James Madison Wrote In The 1790s Got Added To The US Constitution In The 1990s

Everybody knows the government can move slowly, but not usually THIS slowly.

“O Holy Night” May Have Been The First Christmas Song Played On The Radio

On Christmas Eve 1906, it’s said that radio pioneer Reginald Fessenden used his technology to more or less invent holiday broadcasting.

Jakob Mierscheid, The Imaginary Member Of Germany’s Real Parliament

You don’t have to be a real elected official to have a real effect on politics.

To Make A Cold War Documentary, NBC Funded An Escape Tunnel Under The Berlin Wall

NBC's documentary "The Tunnel" came at a pivotal moment in the Cold War.

How Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” Became A Song For Every Christmas

It's the release date of a Christmas classic... even if it took a couple decades to become a standard.

This Robot Could Plant Baby Trees To Reforest An Area After A Forest Fire

This year brought us some pretty awful wildfires. A project in Portugal called Trovador asks if robots could take on some of the post-wildfire work for us.

It’s Bat Week on Cool Weird Awesome

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about winged mammals.
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John Thompson Lost His Arms In A Farm Accident, Got Himself Help And Got The Arms Back

On this day in 1992, John Thompson of North Dakota lost his arms in a farm accident. He then got himself emergency care in time so that he got his arms back.

The Really (Expletive) Complicated History Of Swearing On TV

Today in 1965, a landmark moment in the history of televised profanity: an f-bomb live on the BBC! We'll look back at some choice moments where people used choice words on the air.

Emma Schols Saved Her Six Kids From A Burning House

Today in 2019, a woman in Sweden rose to an unthinkable occasion: she rescued all six of her children, including three under 5 years old, while their house burned down.

The Legend Of James Bartley, Who Was Supposedly Swallowed By A Whale

Supposedly this month in 1891 a sailor named James Bartley was swallowed by a whale and lived! But The Straight Dope took a closer look and found this story was almost certainly too good to be true.

Why Did The Fonz Jump The Shark In The First Place?

The phrase “jump the shark” is now a shorthand we use for the moment a show or a story turns absolutely ridiculous and keeps heading downhill. But why the heck did it happen at all?