THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW

One of the 20th century's greatest minds vanished, never to be seen again. Ettore Majorana, Italian physicist, laid the ground work for most of what modern physicists study today. But on March 25th, 1938 he left home and never returned. Of course, theories abound, but none have been proven. Perhaps the weary man left society before his work quite possibly ended mankind. Ettore Majorana was born August 5, 1906 in Catania, Sicily. His father's brother was a physicist as well, perhaps influencing Majorana. As a boy Majorana was able to do large scale mathematic problems in his head. He entered Sapienza University in 1923 to study engineering, but changed his focus to physics. Enrico Fermi asked Majorana to work with him as  a specialist in Quantum Mechanics. In 1933 as a Nazi party ascended to power, Majorana traveled to Germany to work with Werner Heisenberg. He considered Heisenberg a friend and enjoyed their working together. He traveled to Copenhagen to work with Niells Bohr. ...

  Tik Tok: people dance, sing, make food, extoll the virtues of a good book, basically anything to get attention. But two trends from the 1920s and 1930s became popular crazes without the aid of social media - flagpole sitting and goldfish swallowing. Those trends have died out over many years, but once were popular attention getters. Newspapers covered these antics, and record setters became stars. Now these trends are all but forgotten, even though both seem perfect social media fodder. Flagpole sitting was exactly what it sounds like. Ordinary people would  ascend flag poles in high traffic areas, place themselves on a platform and ... sit. And sit. And sit. The trend started with a man called "Shipwreck" Kelly - called that because he alleged to have survive the Titanic. A Hollywood movie theater hired Kelly to sit atop the flagpole and promote a new film. The novelty caught on and businesses hired "sitters" to advertise sales and other promotions. A record-sett...

  Let's say you're in Nuremberg, Germany on May 26th, 1828. Normal day, doing normal German stuff - eating pretzels, drinking beer, wearing Lederhosen - when suddenly a young man of about 16 approaches town square. Citizens say he looks "drunk or crazy." A shoemaker goes up to the boy who says "I want to be a soldier like my father," and repeats that phrase for days anytime he's spoken to. The boy hands over two letters addressed to a specific Calvary man. The boy is taken to him, but the soldier does not recognize the boy. The first letter, written by the boy's mother, says he is named  Kaspar Hauser  and he was born April 30, 1812. His father was a Calvary man who is now deceased. She could not take care of him and left him with a man. The second letter is from that man who says the boy knows basic reading and writing. The man can no longer care for the boy and says "keep him, or kill him." The handwriting on both letters looks strikingly...