Lucas Reilly

Lucas Reilly

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Lucas Reilly is a senior English and music double major at Lafayette College. An active jazz pianist, Lucas is also an editor for Lafayette’s student newspaper. Lucas grew up in the rural town of Sayre, PA—a place you’ve probably never heard of and probably will never hear of again. He owns a couple leather-bound books, and his room occasionally smells of rich mahogany. He is also an overly optimistic fan of the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates. In his spare time, he cries about being a Pirates fan.

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Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Swift Were Fart Joke Masters

Benjamin Franklin was many things: printer, inventor, postmaster, turkey-zapper, constitution-signer, and connoisseur of fart jokes. The founding father fancied flatus. So much, actually, that in 1781 he penned an essay dedicated to the thunder down under.... READ ON

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Hear James Joyce Read From <em>Ulysses</em> and <em>Finnegans Wake</em>

Sylvia Beach convinced the author to record passages of his most famous books.... READ ON

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20 Recyclable Objects That Might Surprise You

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50 Collective Nouns to Bolster Your Vocabulary

Start working these into conversation.... READ ON

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12 Famous Authors Who Also Wrote for Children

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8 Government Conspiracy Theories (And How They Could Be Right)

Grab your tinfoil hats. It’s time to get paranoid.... READ ON

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Are You Smarter Than an Eighth Grader? 1912 Edition

For most of us, eighth grade is a stew of awkward memories: pimples, doodles, and straight-armed slow dances. But for students 100 years ago, it was probably their last year at school. Thanks to mandatory schooling laws established a decade earlier, kids in Kentucky could stop attending class at 14 years old. Of the 72 percent of children who attended primary school in America, fewer than 20 percent continued on to high school. So travel back to 1912 and pretend this is your exit exam to the real... READ ON

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A Selection of 19-Year-Old Isaac Newton's Secret Sins

In 1662, a 19-year-old Isaac Newton started carrying a leather-bound journal, which he used to track finances and work out math problems. But he also used it to hide something secret. On two pages, Newton scribbled a cryptic code, a code that went unsolved for over 300 years. In 1964, historians finally solved the script. They discovered a list of sins: 57 of Newton’s wrongdoings. The journal—today called the Fitzwilliam notebook—paints the Enlightenment icon as a mood-swinging, sweet-toothed,... READ ON

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12 Historical Speeches Nobody Ever Heard

For every speech, there are a bunch of versions that ended up on the writers' room floor. Here are 12 speeches that were written but, for a variety of reasons, never delivered. 1. “In Event of Moon Disaster”As the world nervously waited for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to land on the moon, Nixon speechwriter William Safire penned a speech in case the astronauts were stranded in space. The memo was addressed to H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s Chief of Staff, and includes chilling directions for the... READ ON

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24 Adorable Photos of Presidents With Little Kids

Pete Souza/White House After TIME named Barack Obama its Person of the Year, it released a series of photos by Pete Souza—which included the adorable photo above, of the president pretending to get caught in Spider-Man's web (Spider-Man, in this case, was the child of a White House staff member). That inspired us to dig up other aww-inducing photos of presidents with kids. Speak softly and hug tight: Teddy Roosevelt shows us his soft side, hugging granddaughter Edith Roosevelt Derby in... READ ON

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