Life’s a Beach: Weird News from the Water’s Edge
Here’s a roundup of all the weirdest weird news stories that happened on a beach.
General News
The Wild and Wacky World of Tariffs
Tariffs are nothing new. Here’s a look at the history of tariffs, and how they’ve been used as economic tools ad loopholes.
On the Air with Uncle John
Uncle John has been on the radio a lot this month talking about our 37th book, UNCLE JOHN’S ACTION-PACKED BATHROOM READER.
How Uncle John and Company Made ‘Uncle John’s Action-Packed Bathroom Reader’
Uncle John is back with his 37th Bathroom Reader, full of trivia, facts, and stories to keep you occupied. Here’s how it came together.
An Earth Day Origin Story
Good news: This entire article is 100 percent planet-friendly! Here’s how we got a holiday celebrating the environment and arguing for its preservation. SILENT SPRING Author and biologist Rachel Carson won a National Book Award for The Sea Around Us, one of three 1950s bestsellers about the ocean. As the years wore on, she observed continually […]
Pre-Order Alert: Strange USA
We can’t wait to share Strange USA, the latest in the popular Strange series, with all you Uncle John’s fans out there. To build up anticipation, we decided to wait for the perfect date to hit bookshelves: July 4th, of course. But you can pre-order today! See below for more info, and check out our […]
NFL Teams That Almost Moved (But Didn’t)
In the last few years, the St. Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers moved to Los Angeles, while the Oakland Raiders headed to Las Vegas. Those are some team moves that worked out — unlike these proposed franchise relocations that didn’t quite work out. St. Louis Patriots About a decade before quarterback Tom Brady arrived […]
More Than Four Fab Facts About the Fab Four
It’s Beatlemania all over again around here, both in this article filled with little-known facts about the Beatles, and in our publishing sibling Thunder Bay Press’s new book, The Beatles: Illustrated Lyrics,So get back, come together, drag a comb across your head, and get ready to love eight days worth of facts. The Beatles’ “White […]
Gandhi: The Myths About the Mahatma
Mahatma Gandhi is a towering, larger-than-life historical figure who changed the geopolitical makeup of the world of the 20th century. But how much do you really know about Gandhi, what he did, and why it’s important? As we prepare to release a book about the man, here’s a look at some of the misconceptions about […]
Imagine Ghosts Are Real
John Lennon was tragically assassinated in 1980. But according to some people, the Beatle never completely left the earthly realm. And your bird can sing In 1995, the three surviving Beatles at the time — George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr — reunited for the first Beatles recording in decades. They added their vocals […]
Death at Disneyland
Disneyland: It’s the happiest place on Earth! Well, not if you die there, it’s not. In 1984, a California woman named Dolly Regena Young boarded the Matterhorn Bobsleds. Sometime during the ride, her seatbelt came undone and she was thrown from the ride and onto the tracks. As she was riding in the back of […]
History’s Greatest Potheads
And now, a sober, haze-free look at some noble and venerable historical figures who (somewhat surprisingly) partook in cannabis, the favorite pastime of Cheech, Chong, Snoop Dogg, and Willie Nelson. Queen Victoria. The monarch who reigned over the British empire from 1837 to 1901 was highly influential on many aspects of British life, from food […]
Billionaires…in…SPAAAAAAACE!
In July 2021, Amazon founder and multibillionaire Jeff Bezos launched himself into space. What’s more surprising about this? He’s hardly the first non-government-agency-affiliated person to reach the edge of the cosmos. Here’s a brief history of private spaceflight. 1961: Just four years after the Soviet Union launched two Sputnik satellites, the first manmade objects to […]
They Put a Man on the Moon (And His Name Was Neil Armstrong)
Neil Armstrong will never fall out of the history books — in July 1969, the astronaut became the first human being to ever step foot on the moon. Here are some little-known facts about the man and his work, which are also the subjects of a new book from Portable Press. Neil Armstrong got into […]
Fun Facts About the 2021 NBA Playoffs
This year’s NBA Playoffs are a little bit different than usual. Not only did they start a lot later than in years past, owing to delays caused by coronavirus shutdowns, but they’re also full of quirks and monumental firsts. The fifth-seeded Atlanta Hawks upset the Eastern Conference’s #1 team, the Philadelphia 76ers, in the conference […]
A Few of the Biggest Collapses in Football History
As the NFL playoffs end and the Super Bowl is just around the corner, a few teams and players are bound to make sports history and achieve gridiron glory. That’s the opposite of what happened with these teams, who lost the magic at the worst possible time. Houston Oilers vs. Buffalo Bills, 1993 Playoffs There’s […]
A Look Back at What Was Supposed to Happen in 2020 (According to Psychics)
This was a wild, harrowing, and unpredictable year… and one that self-proclaimed psychics somehow didn’t see coming. Here are some events that psychics claimed were supposed to happen in 2020. The world may have avoided a catastrophic attack by this man — psychic Sidney Friedman ominously predicted that “cookies” would “disappear.” Friedman also said that […]
8 Things You Didn’t Know About Harriet Tubman
Many northern states banned slavery by the mid-1800s, but the immensely ugly practice continued in the South, ended only after presidential action, a constitutional amendment, and a Civil War. Until that point, enslaved Americans fleeing the South did so with the assistance of the Underground Railroad, a secret network that got people safely into the […]
