Happy Groundhog Day! America’s weirdest tradition. If you missed it this morning Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, predicting 6 more weeks of winter. Boo. But if you were hoping for an early spring you might still have a chance. Turns out the legendary groundhog who has been forecasting the weather since the first Groundhog Day in…
With the temps being frigid outside lately I figured this would be a good mundane mystery to figure out today. Why do we “shiver” when it’s cold out? Much like a lot of things with the human body, it’s our brains helping to protect us from the elements. Science! When we shiver our body is…
With all the craziness going on in the stock market and on wall street lately (most of which I BARELY understand) I decided to make today’s mystery simple but Wall Street related. Where did the name Wall Street come from originally? Yes, Wall Street is a reference to an actual wall. A wall that was…
Everyone who can drive has encountered a stoplight. But what and who decided that red, green, and yellow should be the colors. Back in the 1830s stoplights first started being used by railroad companies who created the light system to let train engineers know when to stop or go. The different light colors would represent…
With the snow coming down this afternoon I thought this would be a good mystery for today. Anytime you see ice even though it’s solid frozen water there is always a layer of liquid on the surface which makes it slippery. Even in the coldest temperatures hundreds of degrees below zero, there is still a…
We’ve all been part of a proposal in one way or another. Being proposed to, seeing someone else get engaged, or even being the one getting down on one knee to pop the big question. But why one knee? The “getting down on one knee” tradition dates all the way back to medieval times in…
You’ve probably yelled at your kids more than a few times about this. “elbow off the table!” I even forgot sometime now as an adult. But why is this such bad manners anyway? It all started back in England in the middle ages apparently. They did not have traditional dining tables back then, just these…
If you’re a decaf coffee drinker you’re probably used to looking for that recognizable orange coffee pot whenever you’re at a restaurant, diner, coffee shop, or in line at Dunkin’. But why is it orange? It actually started back in 1923 as a marketing strategy by the coffee company, Sanka. They were the first ones…
Today Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. But why is Inauguration Day always on January 20th? It always hasn’t been that way. George Washington actually took the oath of office in the springtime on April 30, 1789. Back in the 19th century, the Constitution was written to make March 4th…
I always thought it was called pound cake because you “pound” the ingredients to make it. Nope. The real answer is even better. It’s called pound cake because one of the first ever recipes for it called for a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs and a pound of flour.…