The “Six Triple Eight” Brought Black Excellence To The Army During World War II

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.

By |2024-12-16T09:53:15-05:00February 3, 2022|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , |

Why Don’t Astronauts Do Laundry In Space?

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.

By |2024-12-06T06:28:22-05:00July 8, 2021|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , |

How Ethel Merman Helped Get America To Use ZIP Codes

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.

By |2024-12-07T20:44:04-05:00July 1, 2021|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , |

Henry Brown Escaped From Slavery By Mailing Himself To Philadelphia

On this day in 1849, Henry Brown escaped slavery from a Virginia plantation in a very unusual way: he arranged it so he could hide in a small wooden box that was sent to Pennsylvania. Here's some of his story.

By |2024-12-02T10:07:17-05:00March 29, 2021|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , |

“Stagecoach” Mary Fields, Montana’s One-Of-A-Kind Mail Carrier

Mary Fields was the first Black woman to receive a Post Office contract to deliver the mail, and in the Wild West, no less. Here's a little more about a pioneer who definitely made some history.

By |2024-12-02T09:53:07-05:00March 15, 2021|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , , , |

When Americans Could Mail Their Children From Place To Place

It was on this day in 1914 a family in Grangeville, Idaho sent a four year old through the mail to her grandmother in Lewiston, 73 miles away. And she wasn’t the only kid to travel this way.

By |2024-12-07T20:44:36-05:00February 19, 2020|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , |

Will Kryptos, The Unsolvable CIA Puzzle Sculpture, Finally Be Solved?

Kryptos is a puzzle sculpture that’s been on the grounds of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia since 1990. Three of its four coded messages have been solved - and now we have a clue that might reveal the fourth.

By |2024-12-07T19:50:24-05:00February 4, 2020|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , , |
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