Some of the world’s most famous, civilization-altering discoveries happened by accident. Take Penicillin, for example. The guy who discovered it, Sir Alexander Fleming, simply forgot to clean up his work station one night and returned to discover the world’s first antibiotic growing right there in his unwashed petri dish. But that’s not what this particular list is about. All the inventions here were invented very much on purpose – they just didn’t end up being used in the way their... READ ON
© Rick Friedman/Corbis After weathering several weeks of pressure from his Republican rivals, Mitt Romney released his tax returns early this morning, revealing that he made $45 million over 2010 and 2011, and he'll pay 14 or 15 percent of that in taxes. That may seem like a lot—a $6.2 million dollar check to the IRS is enough to make the average American blush—until you look at Romney’s chief opponent, Newt Gingrich, who raked in $3.2 million in 2010, but clocked in at a 31.7 percent tax... READ ON
Unrelated image of Mitt Romney holding Dino Flintstone via Rick Friedman/Corbis During the GOP debate last night in South Carolina, Mitt Romney was asked yet again if he intended to make his tax returns public. The former governor of Massachusetts first avoided the question, then hemmed and hawed, then gave a resounding…maybe? It’s not the first time Romney, the former chief executive of Bain Capital, a successful private equity firm, has performed a verbal do-si-do on stage with regards to this... READ ON
Kristina Postnikova / Shutterstock.com The largest country in Central Asia—it’s as big as all of Western Europe combined—turns 20 years old today, and to celebrate, here’s a list of ten random facts about everyone’s favorite Kazakh-speaking ‘Stan. 1. For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Borat, the fictional reporter invented by the English comedian Sasha Baron Cohen, hails from Kazakhstan. In Baron Cohen’s 2006 blockbuster movie, Borat describes his native land in less than... READ ON
Girl standing atop Soviet tank in Red Square during the Communist hard liners' coup attempt in August 1991. © David Turnley/CORBIS Twenty years ago today, on December 8, 1991, a group of Soviet leaders got together in a house in snowy Belarus to declare the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The resulting treaty, the Belavezha Accords, split the former USSR into a series of independent states. To mark the two-decade anniversary, here’s a collection of numbers that illustrate a very... READ ON
© Michael Maloney/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis This Friday, 152 million people—that’s half the population of the United States—will flock to shopping malls, big box stores, online merchants and retailers across the country to shell out an estimated $465.6 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. Known as “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving is one of the busiest shopping days of the year. While the name Black Friday is often explained as the day major retailers "get... READ ON
The existing 650-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border has been a hot political topic in the States for the last few years, and with the Republican primary campaign in full swing, it’s making headlines again. Already, Michele Bachmann has promised to build a “double-walled fence” along the entire 2,000-mile border, while Herman Cain has said he would consider erecting a 20-foot-high electric fence (though he later claimed he was joking). Rick Perry said he’d install more fencing and a... READ ON
© Tim Brakemeier/dpa/Corbis When Saparmurat Niyazov died in 2006, Turkmenistan lost its so-called “President for Life.” During his 16-year reign over this impoverished Central Asian country, Niyazov built a formidable cult of personality around himself, indulging in all manner of nutty dictatorial behavior, including renaming days of the week and months of the year after himself and his family, outlawing gold teeth, and erecting, in the center of the capital, an enormous, gold-plated statue of... READ ON
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we thought we’d do a little research into the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s regulations on our favorite holiday foods. We wish we... READ ON
Most of us think of international borders as invisible, but clear-cut lines: stand on one side, and you’re in one country; stand on the other, you’re in another country. But here’s a list of five international borders that, for one reason or another, are not quite that simple. 1. The Indian Exclave in Bangladesh That Contains a Bangladeshi Exclave (Which Contains Another Indian... READ ON
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In the early stage version of The Wizard of Oz, Toto was replaced by a cow named Imogene.
