Humor is a distinctly human trait. While different cultures and generational groups might disagree on what we find most funny, the tendency to laugh at jokes unites all of humanity. And humor is by no means a modern invention; humans have probably been telling jokes since we first started talking.
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Society is indeed full of heroic figures like these. But when it comes to the total number of lives saved, there is one man who has all these others beat. That man is the American agricultural expert Norman Borlaug, who may have prevented over a billion deaths.
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His mom has Canadian citizenship, which he therefore shares, so it was simply a good choice for him when thinking of the future. Canada was a gateway to Silicon Valley, full of "all the cool stuff." Musk did exactly that: He leveraged his education in Canada to move to the US and build a startup.
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Francis Scott Key was so inspired by his experience during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812 that he wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner." Yet, the path taken by Key's words and the flag that inspired them has been long and unexpected. This is the history of The Star-Spangled Banner explained.
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It seems like a band's bassist usually gets the short end of the fame stick. Queen's bassist, John Deacon, is no exception to that rule. A large part of that probably has to do with Deacon dropping out of the musical spotlight following Freddie Mercury's tragic death in 1991.
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Fake news as a term soared during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The phrase was used so often that the Collins Dictionary dubbed it the word of the year in 2017. While "fake news" means different things to various people, its basic definition is news that is fabricated.
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History's Vikings is a lot of dramatic fun, but the show is historically accurate in some ways. Here are some things Vikings gets right about history.
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Artsakh, a region situated in current Azerbaijan, has repeatedly declared its independence, and the people of Artsakh have been denied time and time again.
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Lovecraft Country doesn't hesitate to drop historical references, and it gets quite a few things right about the history it's referencing.
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Generally, Vikings could be very terrible.One of those terrible elements of Viking culture is the possible invention of criminal profiling. You know, the kind that predicts if people will be criminals based on how they look. The thing that some authorities still use even though it's unfair.
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At the start of the Industrial Revolution, child labor abuses and injustices came into question as the textile, coal, and chimney industries used kids.
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Some D-Day participants have spoken about what it was like, because remembering is important. Here's what it was like taking part in D-Day.
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There are many aspects of Don King apart from his charming, camera-hungry side that most of us are far less familiar with. Like, for example, the fact that Don King sued sports channel ESPN for defamation in 2005.
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Out of the entirety of the collective Star Wars cast, though, two actors haven't fared as well, both Vader-related.
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There was a time when kids were allowed to go out and explore their neighborhoods, but several high-profile disappearances in the 1980s caused some big changes.
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In National Treasure, Nicolas Cage is looking for a treasure. But is truth stranger than fiction? Here's what National Treasure gets right about history.
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Polio is thought to have been around for thousands of years, but it didn't reach pandemic levels until the 20th century. This is the messed up history of polio.
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Heavy metal rockers Queensryche stunned fans around the world in 2012 when the five-piece announced the end of its iconic lineup.
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Spiritualism was at an all-time high in the 19th century. So much so that seances became a fad and a fixture of social life to boot. It's in this environment that the Ouija board, or planchette, came about.
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December 21, 2012: the day the world didn't end. Here's the truth about the 2012 apocalypse.
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Jane's Addiction paved the way for the "alternative rock" genre we know today, beginning in 1985 with humble roots that the likes of The Pixies, Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins would later embrace. Despite a string of successful singles, the band had tensions running high between members.
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The fall of the Berlin Wall is something nobody saw coming. Here's what it was like the day the Berlin Wall fell.
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But little did people know that Papa, as Hemingway was sometimes called, was also a spy. No, not just for the US, but for the Soviet Union.
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Our modern impression of the 1980s wouldn't be very familiar to the people who actually lived through the decade. Here are some things people get wrong about the 1980s.
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As The List noticed during the vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence October 7, the latter spent several minutes not noticing the housefly that set up shop atop his white hair, while the rest of the global audience looked on and wondered how in the world he didn't notice.
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Not only did people drink beer for pleasure, but by brewers' advertisements that often extolled the mental and physical benefits of their product.
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Interviews with Secret Service agents and bystanders revealed what it was really like witnessing JFK's assassination.
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