The myth that carrots improve your eyesight comes from WWII.

WORLD HISTORY

Carrots offer many health benefits, but improved eyesight isn’t one of them. The myth that superhuman vision is attainable if your diet resembles that of Peter Rabbit persists all the same, and it has a surprising origin: World War II. While it’s true that everyone’s favorite orange vegetable is good for your eyes if you’re deficient in vitamin A, this truth was stretched past its breaking point by British propaganda during the war. 

With meat, sugar, and other foods rationed for the war effort, carrots were among the vegetables that citizens were encouraged to grow and eat more of in their victory gardens, and Britain ended up with a large carrot surplus. This resulted in a promotional campaign led by Doctor Carrot, “the children’s best friend” who encouraged Britons to cook vegetable-heavy recipes and reduce the surplus, and a Disney cartoonist went so far as to create an entire family of anthropomorphic carrots based on the character. Britain’s Food Ministry told citizens that carrots could help them see in the dark during blackouts, which were common at the time in order to avoid German bombers. The myth may have served another purpose, too. It’s often reported that in order to conceal the invention of on-board Airborne Interception Radar from the Germans, the British attributed their pilots’ skills — particularly, the ability to hit targets in darkness — to the habit of eating lots of carrots. 

TSA Collects Your Loose Change

With hundreds of thousands of travelers throwing wallets into bins every day, some loose change is bound to fall out and get left behind. Over time, that really adds up; in 2020 alone, the Transit Security Administration (TSA) gathered more than $500,000 in loose change, and that’s during a pandemic — in 2019, they picked up more than $900,000. The biggest source of lost change was Harry Reid (formerly McCarran) International Airport near Las Vegas, where passengers left behind $37,611.61.

The TSA has to submit reports to Congress every year on how much they’ve gathered and what they spent it on. They ended 2020 with $1.5 million, including money leftover from previous years, and spent much of it on pandemic mitigation measures like masks, gloves, and face shields.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

It is eight days away from the election. People are still not sure which way they want to vote. The easy answer is to pick the place you wish to be in. Does the prospect of mass deportations bother you? How will they happen and who will be sent away? We know Trump considers only the white race as being worthy so anyone outside that will be deported. Where is he going to send the native Americans?
Do you want to be in a country that presents opportunities and has an upbeat tempo? It may not occur directly after the election as the MAGA crowd is probably going to go on a rampage because their great leader did not get reelected. At any rate the nation will still be a democracy and your rights will have meaning and be protected.
The choice seems clear to me and that choice is to keep Trump out of office. If you believe that he is just blowing smoke with his talk you have to remember that he has a program in the 2025 manifesto and that provides much of the intended actions to be taken. Will he be able to use the military to do his dirty work? Unfortunately there are Officers that will follow his orders as well as lower ranks to carry out the deeds. It is sad to think that all of the people in the military took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and yet are willing to violate that oath for the sake of favor from a dictator, or more correctly a dick.
No matter who is elected expect turmoil. If Trump wins we go into a tailspin of economic disaster as the whole world economy will most likely do a flip. We will no longer be a favored nation and the Chininesse or someone else will step in as the lead nation. If Harris wins the MAGA lot will most likely be called upon to disrupt as much as possible while Trump cries about losing again and tries to get the results overturned.
Will we see fighting in the streets? How truly committed to the cause are the followers? Jim Jones got a lot of people to drink the kool aid so we have to wonder how many of these followers are willing to put it on the line for the leader. Since his rallies have been shrinking and he is now getting hit with news reports that actually say he is wrong some may have second thoughts on going too far with the nonsense. Chances are that if they are met with their own brand of violence they may just quit. Inflicting pain on others is a lot different than having it inflicted on yourself.
Of the choices lets just remember that our nation was and is unique and that our goal is to become better for all of us, and move forward.

Superman originally couldn’t fly.

“Happy Birthday to You” Was Originally “Good Morning to All”

“Happy Birthday to You” famously went through a huge copyright battle, despite being one of the best-known songs ever written in English. Sisters Patty and Mildred Hill initially published the song in 1893, and it remained under copyright, most recently to Warner Music Group, until a judge deemed the copyright invalid in 2015. But the original song written by the Hill sisters wasn’t “Happy Birthday to You” — the melody was for a greeting song called “Good Morning to All.”“Happy Birthday to You” was simply a variation that popped up in the early 20th century, although it eventually became the main lyric associated with the tune.

The oceans are becoming greener.

Climate change isn’t just raising the temperature of the world’s oceans — it’s also changing their color. As the oceans absorb the excess heat generated by greenhouse gases, that heat is altering the aquatic life in their waters. New research published in Nature in 2023 shows that the familiar blue hue of the oceans has been steadily transforming over the past 20 years into a greener shade, especially in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. 

The color of the ocean is dependent on a variety of factors, but one key is the light absorption of H2O. Water usually readily absorbs longer wavelengths of light — red, yellow, and green — and scatters blue. However, a concentration of marine life can cause emerald waters. The newly green hue detected by the 2023 research likely reflects a change in the ocean’s phytoplankton — the algae responsible for 70% of the world’s oxygen, and which also provides the foundation for the marine food web. Scientists monitored ocean color using NASA’s Aqua satellite, and found marked shifts toward green in about 56% of the world’s oceans between 2002 and 2022. Statistical simulations showed that added greenhouse gases are to blame, although it’s not exactly clear how, since areas that warmed the most at the surface weren’t the ones that turned green the most. Some scientists theorize that the change may have to do with reduced mixing in the layers of ocean water, caused by the heat, which limits the nutrients that rise to the surface and consequently affects the types of plankton that can survive. But don’t go color-correcting your photos just yet: While satellites can detect the change in ocean hue, the change is slight enough that most humans probably wouldn’t notice a difference.

The entire Australian government was dissolved in 1975. 

W hile the majority of government shutdowns are averted with budget compromises, that wasn’t the case during the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975. On November 11, Governor-General Sir John Kerr — Queen Elizabeth’s representative in the Australian government — formally dismissed the country’s prime minister, Gough Whitlam, a member of the Labor Party who failed to broker a bipartisan spending bill. Whitlam’s firing came at 1:15 p.m., and 15 minutes later, Kerr appointed Liberal Party leader Malcolm Fraser, a member of the opposition, as the new prime minister. The Liberal-controlled Senate then pushed through a spending bill, though the Labor-controlled House revolted against Fraser with a vote of no confidence. All the bickering came to a head at 4:50 p.m., when Kerr, at the request of Fraser, dissolved the entire Australian Parliament. This forced Australia to hold new elections a month later that were ultimately swept by Fraser and the Liberals.

Queen Elizabeth II’s involvement in this debacle remained ambiguous until 2020, when a series of letters between Kerr and Buckingham Palace were released. Although she technically served as Australia’s head of state, the queen’s role in the country’s affairs was largely symbolic. Even still, Kerr consulted with Buckingham Palace over his theoretical right to dissolve Parliament on the monarchy’s behalf. Letters between Kerr and Martin Charteris — the queen’s private secretary — implied that Kerr would be within his power if he chose to act, but also concluded it was “better for Her Majesty not to know.” Around that time, Kerr also communicated with Prince Charles regarding concerns over the Australian prime minister, asking the prince to relay the message to the queen.

Woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.

WORLD HISTORY

Woolly mammoths roamed the Earth for at least half a million years, coexisting with humans for millennia before finally going extinct some 4,000 years ago. That’s a long time, but it’s not that long in the grand scheme of things. For perspective, consider the fact that woolly mammoths were still alivewhen the pyramids of Egypt were being built. That speaks to both how long one of history’s most famous empires lasted — Egypt existed for more than 3,000 years, making it 15 times older than the United States — as well as how relatively recently the elephantlike creatures existed.

If your mind still isn’t sufficiently blown by ancient Egypt’s longevity, remember also that Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landing than she did to the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza. Woolly mammoths, meanwhile, were impressive in their own way, even if they weren’t as big as you might imagine — they were about the size of a modern African elephant. Nevertheless, these creatures still loom large in the collective imagination millennia after their extinction, which was long thought to have been caused by humans hunting them. More recently, a consensus has emerged that the true culprit was climate change: The planet warmed too rapidly for them to adapt, as melting icebergs wiped out the vegetation they subsisted on.