One of the most expensive bottles of wine in history cost $225,000, but no one will ever know if it was truly worth it. In 1989, New York wine merchant, William Sokolin, brought the precious bottle to the Four Seasons Hotel. He proudly showed it off until a jaw-dropping accident … [Read more...]
Climate change is speeding up. According to some research, the earth is losing 200 species of plants, insects and animals a day. Britt Selvitelle and Aza Raskin believe that understanding non-human language can save the world. They are neither linguists nor environmental … [Read more...]
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje remembers his first day of school like it was yesterday. The sun was shining, and the air was crisp. He particularly remembers how a policeman smiled at him before spitting in his face. It was the youngster’s first experience with institutionalized … [Read more...]
Mohan Paswan made a living as a tuk-tuk driver in New Delhi. Every week he sent money back home to support his family. In January, he was hurt in a traffic accident. He needed someone to take care of him. His 15-year-old daughter jumped on a train to save the day. Jyoti Kumari … [Read more...]
An unassuming man in a T-shirt and baseball cap stood playing a $4 million violin near the Washington DC subway station entrance. For 43 minutes, he played beautifully on his nearly 300-year-old instrument. This is no surprise since Joshua Bell is one of the world’s most talented … [Read more...]
Author AJ Jacobs jokes that his specialty is being able to focus on the negative. He says he’s not alone in having a glass-half-empty personality. He says that humans are wired this way. It may have been useful to keep our eyes on dangerous predators in prehistoric times, but for … [Read more...]
Twenty-seven-year-old Angus Barbieri was a big man with a big appetite. At 456 pounds, he was also classified as “grossly obese.” Unhappy with his weight, he decided to take matters into his own hands. In 1965, the six-foot man visited a hospital in Dundee looking to lose a … [Read more...]
Private Wojtek is hailed as a war hero in Poland, but the renowned soldier was neither Polish nor human. Wojtek was a brown bear who was dealt a poor hand as a cub. After hunters killed his mother, Wojtek wandered the world alone until he was found and adopted by a young … [Read more...]
In 1606, the bubonic plague returned to London. Two years earlier, it had killed 30,000 of its inhabitants. The plague hit like a hammer that winter. This time the city took no chances. It shut down on a massive scale. All the theaters closed. This was a bitter blow for … [Read more...]
Aristotle once questioned what separates humans from animals. He decided it’s not language or reason. It’s laughter. Aristotle wrote that the moment when a baby first laughs is when the child becomes fully human. According to historian Barry Sanders, Aristotle believed that … [Read more...]
Planet Earth is not in great shape. Our oceans are swamped with plastic. Our rivers run with poison. The air is polluted, and our forests fall to the woodcutter’s ax. The climate is in crisis. The world burns. Big problems call for big solutions. We need trailblazers who think … [Read more...]
While all phobias are irrational fears, some are stranger than fiction. Most of us are afraid of dying, but people with Apeirophobia are cut from a different cloth. They are afraid of living forever. When Bobby Azarian was four years old, his grandfather died from cancer. … [Read more...]
After 13 years of playing hard to get, two giant pandas in Hong Kong’s Ocean Park Zoo have finally mated. Zookeepers were over the moon. Pandas have a mating season of just 24 to 72 hours per year. Normally the zoo is flooded with throngs of daily visitors. But since the zoo has … [Read more...]
As of early April 2020, over one-third of the world is facing some type of lockdown because of Coronavirus. People in different countries are facing various levels of quarantine and social restriction. But what we are all experiencing is a steady stream of bad news. We are … [Read more...]
The first reported case of the Coronavirus in the US was on Jan 19th, 2020. For months, Americans had denied how serious the situation was. Many said that it was no different than a common cold or flu. They thought all the warnings and hype were overblown. Some even said it was a … [Read more...]
Cecilia Giménez was a devout churchgoer in the town of Borja. The 81-year-old Spaniard was also an art lover. After seeing that the 120-year-old painting on a local church’s wall was in poor shape, she picked up a brush and got to work. She began trying to restore the painting of … [Read more...]
One evening, Linda Munkley’s dog, Bea, jumped on the sofa and began sniffing her chest. At first, Linda wasn’t bothered by her dog’s strange behavior, but she wouldn’t leave her alone. Linda began checking her chest, but she found nothing out of the ordinary. Bea continued … [Read more...]
The man who would later become the President of the United States of America signed his letter Rebecca. It was a letter to the editor criticizing James Shields, State Auditor of Illinois. When Shields opened up the newspaper and read the criticism, he was angry. He stormed into … [Read more...]
Sodeto in Spain is considered the luckiest village in the world. In 2011, nearly all of its 240 residents became millionaires overnight. All except one. His name is Costis Mitsotakis. In the thick of Europe’s economic crisis, Sodeto was suffering. Many villagers were battling … [Read more...]
Hyowon is not your run of the mill funeral company. In addition to traditional ceremonies, they also offer mass funerals for the living. Participants in the living funeral service wear traditional burial clothes. First, they take funeral photos. Next, they are led up a dark … [Read more...]
