Showing results by narrator "Giovannie Cruz" in All Categories

A candy bar – let's go with the criminally underrated Sky Bar as an example – will cost you about $1 nowadays, give or take. Accounting for inflation (and even though I'm about to talk about Canada, we're going to use all US dollars here, because accounting for inflation and for currency exchange rates at the same time is basically impossible for someone without an advanced math degree), that same candy bar should have cost about 10 cents back in 1947.

The problems that beavers can cause are, actually, pretty simple: firstly, the animals build dams – which is a very good thing if they're in a relatively rural floodplain, but a really bad thing if they're in more densely populated suburbs or cities – and secondly, if left unchecked, beavers in an area with a lot of humans can cause damage to trees and, in some cases, flooding.

Off the southwestern corner of the Korean Peninsula is Sorokdo, or Sorok Island. At first glance, it looks like a good vacation getaway – it is a tiny but accessible 1.75-square-mile (or 4.46-square-kilometer) spot of land with nice beaches and pine trees, and is home to about 1,000 people, give or take a few hundred.

Richard Feynman was one of modern history's greatest scientists. A well-respected academic, Feynman won the Nobel Laureate in Physics in 1965 and later served as a member of the commission that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are, respectively, the largest city and the capital of the state of Minnesota. Together, they're often referred to as the "Twin Cities" because they border one another—the local baseball team (the Minnesota Twins) even adopted the moniker.

A typical Hershey's chocolate bar is 1.55 ounces (or about 44 grams) and contains 210 calories—most of which are empty, or nutrient-less, calories. No doubt about it, Hershey bars are a treat—and there are few people, if any, who would say otherwise.

"There's no such thing as a free lunch." That quote, the origins of which are unknown, has been a staple rule of economics for nearly a century.

On the evening of December 2, 1984, a chemical manufacturing plant in Bhopal, India owned by Union Carbide began leaking toxic gas into the residential areas surrounding the plant, and the resulting tragedy is considered one of the worst such disasters in history.

In 1875, two men from Wisconsin convinced P.T. Barnum, the famed showman, to join their business – a circus. Barnum's job was to lend his name to the product and, ultimately, his wisdom as well, and the circus became known as "P.T. Barnum's Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Hippodrome."

At the close of World War II, the victorious Allies split Germany into four parts—one controlled by France, another by the United Kingdom, another by the United States and another by the Soviet Union. And Berlin, although it was embedded within the Soviet-controlled sector, was itself divided into four similarly managed parts.

Baseball, like many other sports, requires good hand-eye coordination. This is especially true if you're trying to hit a pitched ball with a bat – for instance, a 75-mile-per-hour fastball (which is fast for amateurs, but comically slow if you're a Major League pitcher) reaches home plate in less than a second.

In the 1971 book The Lorax, the incomparable Dr. Seuss tells the story of an environmentally conscious monster (the Lorax) and his efforts to protect Truffula trees (a fictional species) from an industrialist named the Once-ler who is chopping them down.

In April 1939, DuPont Chemical introduced nylon stockings to the world at the World's Fair in New York City.

The building located at 33 Thomas Street in Manhattan – like many buildings in Manhattan – is tall. But at 550 feet, it isn't all that tall by New York City's standards – it doesn't even crack the top 100.

You may know Arnold Schwarzenegger by such films as Terminator, Twins, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, Terminator 2, Conan the Barbarian, Predator, True Lies, Conan the Destroyer, and Terminator 3. You probably also know him as the 38th governor of California, serving in that office from November 2003 until January 2011.

Libraries are, increasingly, more than just books—they're repositories of information, and all that knowledge is made open to the public. You can scan decades-old magazines now stored on microfiche, check out CDs and DVDs (and even vinyl and VHS tapes, if you have a device that can play them), and you can surf the internet with reckless abandon.

Let's do some math. The drive from Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, to Bellingham, Washington State (United States of America) is approximately 40 miles (or 60 kilometers), most of which is highway driving.

For various reasons, dating someone you work with can be a bad idea. Many companies have rules called "no fraternization" policies, which outline the dos and don'ts of office romance.

If, right this second, you want to watch a TV show or movie, your choices are immense. That choice extends beyond the specific program you wish to watch, too – you also have many ways to obtain that content.

History, it's said, is written by the winners – they're the ones who are still around to do the research, write the magazine articles, author the books and curate the encyclopedias.