InterestingShit

During the 9/11 attacks if it floated, it was needed. Half a million New Yorkers rescued by a Coast Guard-led fleet of tugboats and yachts.

The United States of America was basically built upon tax revolt, so why do we have to pay it? The Boston Tea Party showed their protest against the British tax system by dumping a consignment of taxed tea, which in turn led to a series of events that preceded the American Revolution. After The Resolution for Independancy in 1776, the United States raised money mainly by using import and export taxes. President Abraham Lincoln was the first to introduce tax on personal income in 1861. This was so that he could fund the Civil War, so he imposed a flat tax for people who had incomes of $800 and over. By 1913, the 16th amendment was ratified, giving Congress the power to collect income taxes. They imposed a 1% flat tax on income over $3000, with additional 6% tax on income over $500,000. By the time World War I started in 1918, everyone making over $1 million was taxed up to 77% to help finance the war. The American people took only a short breather, before they were taxed again to help alleviate the effects of The Great Depression. Taxes went up again in 1938, this time to help fund the Second World War and they stayed high until the 60s. Compared to the past century, America now has the lowest tax rate.

Today, if your home phone is still plugged into the wall, you are being archaic. We live in a world of instant everything – food, calls, texts...Imagine what it must have been like to have to send a pigeon to deliver your message and wait for the reply? Pigeons have been used as messengers since 3000 B.C. The raven might have the thunder in Game of Thrones, but it is the pigeons who are the go to bird to deliver your message even today. How do they do it, you ask? They just fly home! Thanks to their abilities for magnetoreception, they instinctually align and orient themselves to the magnet fields of the Earth. The simplest example comes from the first Olympic games in 776 BC, when every athlete was to bring his own pigeon; if they won, he would release the pigeon, so that the bird might deliver the news of the victory to his village. Even the famed Genghis Khan was a huge fan of homing pigeons and used the birds to establish communications with Eastern Europe and Asia. These birds were a massive tactical advantage for his men. For the past few years, the police has caught carrier pigeons attempting to various contraband into prisons, like drugs, sim cards, even cell phones! Let us see you send a cell phone via email!

Taking personal transportation from the ground and up in the skies seems closer than ever today. It seems that science fiction is slowly creeping into reality, as cars are getting more and more capable of flight. The world might be one flying DeLorean poorer, but present time car manufacturers are close to creating the first automobile that will shorten the distance you have to pass towards your destination. Cartoons and movies might have had characters behind the steering wheel of a flying car for the past few decades. Hollywood surely won't even bat an eyelash if a car flew over their sky. But people have been trying to get their cars flying in the skies for the past century. In fact, the first car to be successfully airborne was the Aerobile in 1934. Also called Aerocar, it was the first roadable aircraft that saw the light of day but never hit the pavement. The Aerocar was invented by Waldo Waterman, an inventor and aviation pioneer from San Diego, California. Dozens of flying car prototypes have been made and tested since then, but the one who may have gotten closest to actually releasing one into the public has to be – drum roll please – Elon Musk! The Tesla CEO claims that his flying Model F will be ready to ship in 2019. Uber is also joining in on the “Back To The Future” plan, saying that they plan to have their cars in the air by 2020.

The Immigrants who landed at New York's Ellis Island numbered over 12 million. They came from every corner of the globe, in search of what became to be known as the American Dream. These are the faces.

In the 1600s Japan was not a big fan of Western culture. To emphasize that point it banned its citizens from traveling abroad with a penalty of death if they did for over 200 years. Sakoku (literally "country in chains" or "lock up of country") was the foreign policy of Japan under which no foreigner or Japanese could enter or leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enforced when missionaries from Spain and Portugal came with ambitions to spread the Christian faith in Asia. Christianity was forbidden in Japan and rewards were offered to anyone who will give out the location of Christians to the authorities. No one was allowed to enter or leave the country. If people were caught leaving it, they would be mercilessly executed. Japanese people who were abroad and wanted to return were also prohibited. Japanese ships were prohibited from leaving Japanese waters and foreign ships were not allowed to approach. The only fleet allowed to dock were the Dutch East India Company, who they trusted. Almost 220 years after the enforcement of Sakoku, American warships were sent to intimidate the Japanese into trading and in 1853, Japan opened it's borders once again.

Doc knows the best way to treat a sick toddler is get them buzzed on illegal narcotics, or so said the medical thinking of the early 1900s.

They're smart & have a sense of smell that rivals that of the family canine. These rats hunt out landmines & disease faster than humans ever could.

Brooklyn used to have a mind-blowing amount of weeds. Or should we say weed, as in the kind that people smoke and it makes them…chillaxed?

How did a pea-soup fog turn fatal overnight? Millions of homes burning coal in furnaces non-stop for weeks had something to do with it.

First impressions can be lasting ones, so when it comes to catching the eye of a prospective partner this pufferfish pulls out all the stops to create a mating masterpiece.

It was a growing community with schools & churches, yet it was deemed expendable enough to be demolished to make room for Central Park. Why?

The pioneers that we now know as the Pilgrims were anxious, given many tales of vicious tribes, about how they might be welcomed on the shore of the Americas. And yet the first words they heard from a Native’s mouth were: ‘May I have a beer, please?’ in perfectly intoned and inflected English and accompanied by a girthy smile.

For this historical figure over time fiction has become fact. Find out about the real woman behind the story Disney never animated for you.

There was a time when zeppelins ruled the skies, floating on air thanks to hydrogen. After dozens of fiery accidents within the industry the Hindenburg's burning marked the beginning of the end for airships.

Mani Manithan is a man with a plan, & it’s meant to be a little backwards. For 28 years he’s walked in reverse in the name of global unity.

Odds for a kid attending a Residential School in Canada and dying were greater than being killed in WWII. There’s no Hallmark card for that.

The author’s adventures took him to the skies & across Earth’s toughest terrains, but his final tale ends with a mysterious plane crash.

New Yorkers are a hardy breed, & the amazing fact that their not-too-distant relatives used to eat raw oysters from the Hudson proves it.

It's potentially a historic ancient burial ground shrouded in mystery but surrounded by millions of unexploded cluster bombs. Try and study the region-if you dare.

The events of September 11, 2001 will never be forgotten. Through the darkness of that day shone a light as one small Canadian community opened their doors & their hearts to stranded airline passengers from around the globe.

1906. The Bronx Zoo stuck an African pygmy in a cage, told the masses he was a cannibal, & watched the zoo’s attendance double as a result.

When a 17-year old girl celebrated Christmas by falling 10,000 feet from a plane she proved Santa might not need to be packing a parachute. As far as holiday airport mayhem goes, chances are the 92 occupants (86 passengers and 6 crew) of the propeller powered LANSA Flight 508 flying between the Peruvian cities of Lima and Pucallpa had probably all seen worse. For some of them, the seven hour wait in the busy airport a day before Christmas might have been the most frustrating thing. Two of said passengers were Juliane Koepcke and her mother Maria, traveling home to meet her father. At the 40 minute mark of what was supposed to be an hour long flight, Flight 508 hit a thunderstorm in a pitch black sky. As the plane continued further into the storm, its body began to shake violently. Juliane was in the midst of a 10.000 foot free fall, when she fell unconscious. When she did come around, she was on the ground in dense rain forest, with with a severe concussion and a broken collarbone, a scrape on one arm and a deep gash on her leg, the rest of the plane scattered across almost 6 square miles Despite being heavily injured and unsuitably dressed for the jungle, the 17-year-old set out to find her mother. With a bag of sweets she found in the wreckage as her only source of food, she struggled to get out of the wreckage. Eventually she stumbled across a group of lumbermen, maggots falling from her open wounds. The men took her to a nearby village, where a pilot flew her to a hospital in a town called Pucallpa, where she was finally reunited with her father.

Think the only waste Silicon Valley has created is the flood of spam in your inbox? Turns out the Valley has a problem of toxic proportions.

Remembrance Day is observed on November 11th in several countries. Why?