Leonardo da Vinci, Inventor of the Resume (Cool Weird Awesome 1221)
Today in 1452, the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci, the painter of the Mona Lisa, namesake of a code (and a ninja turtle) and, according to Fast Company, the inventor of the resume.
It’s Mail Week on Cool Weird Awesome
This week we're re-delivering some of our favorite episodes about letters, packages and deliveries.
William Faulkner Was An Iconic Author And A Mediocre Mailman (Cool Weird Awesome 1094)
Today in 1897, the birthday of William Faulkner, the Nobel Prize winning author of novels like The Sound and the Fury, and, for a few years, one of the most unproductive postmasters the US mail has ever seen.
25 Days of Holiday Songs 2022: “Mail Early For Christmas” by Jack Webb
The irony of a troupe singing that you’ll “be a mellow fellow,” while Jack Webb is getting tough on holiday laggards!
The First Cars Licensed As London Taxis Were Electric Vehicles (Cool Weird Awesome 898)
Today in 1897 is said to be the day that London first licensed motor vehicles as taxicabs. They were nicknamed "hummingbirds" and they were battery-powered.
The “Parcel Post Bank” Was Mailed To Its Construction Site, A Few Bricks At A Time (Cool Weird Awesome 882)
This day in 1916 was an important day in US Postal Service history - a rule change that came after the community of Vernal, Utah basically had a bank mailed to them, in installments of bricks.
New York City Used To Deliver Mail Through Pneumatic Tubes (Cool Weird Awesome 798)
Today in 2006, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens famously told his colleagues that the Internet was not a dumptruck, it was a series of tubes, figuratively speaking. But here’s a story about some literal tubes that New York City once used to deliver mail.
The “Six Triple Eight” Brought Black Excellence To The Army During World War II (Cool Weird Awesome 709)
Today in 1945, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, began heading to England for deployment. These 855 servicemembers, all Black women, took on a mission that may not have been glamorous but was considered absolutely essential to the war effort.
Why Don’t Astronauts Do Laundry In Space? (Cool Weird Awesome 569)
There was a story recently about how NASA was partnering with Tide laundry detergent to work on a way to do laundry in space. Which means we don’t already do laundry in space, and there are some pretty big reasons why.
How Ethel Merman Helped Get America To Use ZIP Codes (Cool Weird Awesome 564)
Today in 1963, the US Postal Service officially started using ZIP codes as a way to quickly sort huge amounts of mail and get it to where it needed to go. How did they get Americans to adopt ZIP codes? A mascot named Mr. Zip and a jingle sung by Broadway legend Ethel Merman.