Cool Weird Awesome

Train Cars, A Trip To The Beach And Telegraphs Helped Inspire The Bar Code

A lot of people are out shopping today, so we'll look at the history of the unsung hero of all that fast and furious commerce.

Thanksgiving Without Cranberries? For Many Americans In 1959, It Happened

Cranberry sauce is a classic Thanksgiving side dish, but not in 1959, thanks to what History.com has called the Great Cranberry Scare.

The Tan Hill Inn, Where Getting Snowed In With Strangers Can Actually Be Fun

A 2021 winter storm essentially trapped dozens of guests and an Oasis cover band for days at a Yorkshire inn… and they kind of loved it.

Mr. Delicious, The Fast Food Mascot Who Sold Roast Beef With A Side Of Middle-Aged Angst

Fast food chain Rax launched an ad campaign featuring the fast food world’s first smart-alecky, ironic and probably very depressed mascot.

Bessie Blount Griffin Invented A Way For Veterans With Disabilities To Feed Themselves, And So Much More

She was a physical therapist, inventor, forensic expert, writer, speaker.... the list goes on and on.

PropType Turns Almost Any Surface Into An Augmented Reality Keyboard

For years, we’ve been able to type on our devices just about anywhere we go. Now there’s a project that can let us type on just about any surface, not just on our phones or computers.

Yo-Yos Work A Little Differently In Space Than Here On Earth

The yo-yo has been around in some forms since ancient times, and there have even been a few occasions when it’s gone into space.

How Bullwinkle Once Managed To Honk Off A Lot Of TV-Owning Parents

It was an extremely irreverent show, especially for its time. And that’s why one of the jokes ended up getting the producers in trouble.

Peel Off A Layer Of This Paper Plate For Earth’s Sake

Use the plate once, and instead of throwing everything away, you peel off the top layer and it's as if you have a whole new plate.

Pedestrianism, The Enormously Popular 19th Century Sport Where People Went For Really Long Walks

You could draw 10,000 paying spectators to an arena to see a bunch of people walk around in a loop for hours.
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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?