Showing results by author "Dan Lewis" in All Categories

On the southern shore of eastern Cuba is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a small outcrop of land and sea controlled by the United States. The almost-rectangular 45-square-mile zone has been home to US troops since the summer of 1898, when Marines landed there during the Spanish-American War.

The Mexican state of Chiapas (officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas) is located in the nation's south, bordering Guatemala and the Pacific Ocean. Among the many indigenous people of the area are the Tzotzil, who are about 300,000 strong and live primarily in a municipality known as San Juan de Chamula (known simply as Chamula).

For many people around the world, the day starts with a cup of coffee. This has been true for centuries, but the origins of the drink aren't quite clear.

On April 15, 2014, the moon wasn't nearly as bright as the moon typically is, and appeared to take on a reddish color (from Earth, of course) – the result of a lunar eclipse, which occurs when the sun, earth and moon are aligned. The earth blocks most (but not all) of the sunlight that would have otherwise reflected off the moon's surface, leading to a dull, red sphere in the sky.

Yves Rossy is a pilot. Like most other pilots, he flies things. But unlike any other pilot, the thing he flies is himself.

It was June 23, 2011. A 59-year-old man named Richard James Verone was being held in North Carolina, unable to pay his $2,000 bond. He was awaiting his day in court – June 28th – for a crime he'd committed two weeks earlier. It was a smooth, calculated crime. On the morning of June 9th, Verone showered, ironed his shirt, and hopped into a cab to go to a nearby bank. He handed the teller a note with a simple demand: take some money out of the drawer and hand it over.

From the end of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union nearly fifty years later, the happenings of those nations behind the Iron Curtain were hidden in the shroud of communism. Many of the goings-on came to light in subsequent years, with most being stories of abuses under communist dictators. But some of the revelations unveiled in the 1990s were secrets about the Nazis. For example, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, someone discovered a swastika made of trees.

Taste test: Does a $17 burger always taste better than a $4 one? Find out on this episode of Now I Know. A hamburger that costs $17 probably tastes good. No, it has to – who would pay $17 for a burger and fries that didn’t? No one – at least not twice. That makes sense: in order to stay in business with an expensive menu, whatever you’re selling better make for a good dining experience. But at some point, our palates can’t really discern between foods.

There's a grim, dark side to the honey bun biz. Get the un-sugarcoated story on this episode of Now I Know. A honey bun is a cake-y dessert that sells for about $1 at your deli. It’s nothing special, as pre-packaged desserts go, except perhaps for the fact that it’s pretty bad for you. The small version of the treat weighs three ounces and runs 340 calories, 15 grams of fat, and 210 milligrams of sodium – roughly the same nutritional value as one and a half Snickers bars.

What scandal nearly cost President Grover Cleveland the election? Get the inside story on this episode of Now I Know. The Presidency of Grover Cleveland is already unique for the well-known reason that his two terms were not consecutive. Cleveland won the 1884 Presidential election by a narrow margin – less than a half a percent of the popular vote – and took the Presidency.

In 2011, a total of 81,000 people were adopted by Japanese families. If you think that's a lot of babies changing families, though, you're wrong – but not because 81,000 is a small number.

The name Edward Martin is hardly a household one. At the pinnacle of his career – at least, the part that's relevant to this story – he competed in his hobby's world tournament three times.

There's been a hostage situation in the UK every year since the 1500s. Oh, and it involves the queen. Explore the Queen of England's 'flesh and blood' insurance policy, on this episode of Now I Know. Every May or June – depending on whether the United Kingdom is holding Parliamentary elections that year – both houses of Parliament assemble to be addressed by the reigning monarch. The event is rife with pomp and circumstance, as one would expect from a regal tradition dating back to the 1500s.

In 1999, a 22-year-old Missouri man named Cornealious Michael Anderson held up a Burger King at gunpoint, making away with more than $2,000 in cash. He was captured two months later, and in July 2000, Mike Anderson was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Alligators' tails allow them to swim. By moving its tail from side to side, the animal can propel itself through water at fish-like speeds, which is important because when it comes to eating, alligators have a pretty easily defined diet: if it is in or near the water, it is food.

Is zero odd or even? Find out how India drove around the problem on this episode of Now I Know. Zero is an even number. Let’s get that out of the way. But if that gave you pause, you’re not alone – it can be a little hard to internalize. That’s why Wikipedia has a surprisingly long entry discussing the subject and why, according to a study from the 1990s (as explained by the BBC), “people are 10% slower at deciding whether zero is odd or even than other numbers.”

On March 9, 2014, Neil Moore was in Wandsworth Prison, a maximum security prison in London, England, awaiting trial. Moore, whose modus operandi was fraud, had been charged with orchestrating a series of bank heists – pretending to be a bank official and, via a bit of social engineering, he had managed to convince (real) staffers at other financial institutions to wire him some cash.

The 1970 FIFA World Cup has a few unique claims it can make: it was the first and only time that Israel qualified for the final stage; it was also the only time that Argentina failed to qualify; and it was, to date, the only time that the qualification rounds helped spark a war.

Did you know that Silly Putty is a by-product of World War II-era rubber rationing, or that the Anglo-Swedish War resulted in exactly zero direct deaths? And about the Richmond Golf Club, who posted an addendum to the official rules in case a round of golf was interrupted by a round of bombs dropped by the Nazi Luftwaffe? Now I Know: Military is the ultimate challenge for any know-it-all who thinks they have nothing left to learn about the military.

In September 2013, a New York City man named Antonio Ciccarello died as a result of a stab wound. About five days prior to his death, Ciccarello was commuting to work like he normally did, traveling from Manhattan's Lower East Side to Times Square. But this trip was different.