Climbing the Mountain to See Gorillas
All exhaustion was forgotten about when I first saw the apes. All of a sudden you realize you’re surrounded by them! Read the rest of this entry »
Tax-y and He Knows It
The Supreme Court’s health care ruling was surprising for many reasons, but the most surprising feat of judicial interpretation was the tap-dance John Roberts did between the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) and the Constitution’s Taxing clause. Read the rest of this entry »
The “One-Armed Wonder” of Baseball’s War Years
By the beginning of the 1945 baseball season, Ted Williams was serving as a Navy flight instructor, Joe DiMaggio was stationed in Hawaii, and Stan Musial had reported to Maryland. With many of the game's big name bats claimed by the war effort, some teams had to turn to fresh faces to fill their rosters. One of these men was an outfielder from Pennsylvania named Pete Gray, who played the game while having only one arm. Read the rest of this entry »
Calculating the Distance to a Lightning Strike
A flash of lightning brightens the sky and is followed seven seconds later by the ominous roar of thunder. How far away was the lightning strike? Read the rest of this entry »
Looking Back at 1776
George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree, sure. But who among us thinks that George III was a good guy, or that a tankard of ale was unknown on the battlefields of the American Revolution? That conflict has more than its share of myths. With David McCullough, author of John Adams and 1776, we'll look at some of them, along with a preview of coming attractions. Read the rest of this entry »
The Stars of Fireworks
Tomorrow, as people across the United States celebrate Independence Day, they will be treated to dazzling pyrotechnic displays. How those bewildering arrays of patterns and fusions of color emerge from what essentially amounts to a paper cylinder with some string and a few "stars" packaged inside comes down to chemistry. Read the rest of this entry »
Faces of the Founders
In honour of Independence Day, Britannica presents a portrait gallery of ten of the most influential individuals in the founding of the United States. Read the rest of this entry »
Snapping Turtle Yearlings at Lincoln Park Zoo’s Nature Boardwalk
Once a female snapping turtle has laid her eggs, it takes about 80–90 days for them to hatch. When the hatchlings break out of their eggshells and crawl out of the nest, they are only about the size of a quarter, and their shells are rather soft. Read the rest of this entry »
Happy Birthday, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Today Britannica marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Swiss-born philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Read the rest of this entry »
Turbulence: An Airplane’s (and Airplane Passenger’s) Worst Nightmare
Turbulence can shake a plane by its roots in a split second. Every seasoned airline passenger has experienced that dread sensation. But what is turbulence, and why does it happen? Step inside to find out. Read the rest of this entry »
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