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Before there were bicycles, there were velocipedes. Primitive, pedal-less, and un-steerable wooden precursors to bikes emerged at the end of the 18th century, but in 1818, a guy named Baron von Drais earned a patent for a device with a padded saddle and a steerable front wheel. The patent was...

About 100 million bicycles are manufactured worldwide each year.

The master of suspense, who terrified audiences with movies like Psycho and The Birds, considered himself an ovophobe—someone frightened of eggs. Alfred Hitchcock explained to an interviewer in 1963: "I'm frightened of eggs, worse than frightened; they revolt me. That white round thing without...

It is true that everybody thinks their Italian grandma—or nonna—is best cook around. So it was a genius idea when Joe Scaravella decided to gather up as many nonnas as he could to work in his restaurant in Staten Island. Enoteca Maria combines the skill of these delightful, talented grandmothers...

In the 1870s, the city of Liège, Belgium, attempted to employ 37 felines as mail carriers, according to the BBC. Messages were tucked into waterproof bags that the kitties would carry around their necks. However, while one cat apparently made it to its destination in under five hours, the other...

In 2013, Animal Planet aired Mermaids: The New Evidence, a documentary—or rather, a mockumentary—that “proved” the half-human-half-fish beings exist. And while the program was fake, plenty of the 3.6 million viewers that watched believed that the fictional claims were real. In fact, so many...

1. You can hear over 180 different languages and dialects in Toronto, as more than a third of the people who live there speak a language other than English and French. You can see the multicultural nature of the city in areas like Little Italy, Little Portugal, and Chinatown, which often have...

First written in 1838, the Constitution of the state of Florida guarantees the right to privacy, the freedom of speech, and the right of pregnant pigs to be free from cages. Unlike many crazy or outdated laws, this amendment is recent (passed in 2002) and comes from a well-meaning place: the...