The Weekly Dose

STRANGE NEW WASP SPECIES THAT WOULD MAKE THE ALIEN PROUD  _ A horrifying new wasp species has been discovered in the US. The insect inserts its eggs into living flies, with the larvae later bursting out of the host’s abdomen. The life cycle of the species — Syntretus perlmani — involves the female wasp depositing her eggs inside a fruit fly using a hypodermic-like  ovipositor . The larva...

➠ A study found that just over 65% of adults drink alcohol to relax. ➠ A study has found that when you cry, it actually does make you feel better Researchers say they can predict a relationship’s success based on a couple’s speaking style. [If a couple speaks softly to one another, things are probably good — if a couple prefers to communicate via thrown shoes, there may be a problem.] WE WILL SPEN...

It is Tuesday July 14th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1881: The outlaw known as Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. • 1913: Gerald R. Ford Jr., the 38th president of the United States, was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother’s second husband later adopted and renamed him. • 1969: The United States $500, $1,000,...

It is Monday July 13th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1923: The Hollywood sign was dedicated. • 1985: Live Aid, an international rock concert in London, Philadelphia, Moscow and Sydney, Australia, was held to raise money for Africa’s starving people. • 1994: Tonya Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, was sentenced in Portland, Oregon, to two years in prison for his role in the attac...

It is Thursday July 9th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1892: The first concrete road in America was completed in Bellefontaine, Ohio. The first asphalt road was laid down in July 1870 in Newark, New Jersey. • 1910: The first airplane to fly a mile in the air did so this day with W.R. Brookins of Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the controls. • 1985: Football great Joe Namath signed a f...

It is Wednesday July 8th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1680: The first confirmed tornado in America killed one person in Cambridge, Massachusetts. • 1776: The Declaration of Independence was read aloud in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. • 1831: John Stith Pemberton was born in Knoxville, Georgia. Pemberton was a pharmacist addicted to morphine after using it to treat a wound he receive...

It is Tuesday July 7th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1863: The United States began its first military draft; exemptions cost $100. • 1865: Four conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln were hanged. • 1928: Sliced bread was sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri. It was described as “the greatest forward step in the b...

It is Monday July 6th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1785: The dollar was unanimously chosen as the monetary unit for the United States. • 1933: Baseball’s first All-Star game was held at Chicago’s Comiskey Park. The American League beat the National League 4-2. • 1955: America’s first seat belt law was signed, in Illinois. • 1957: Teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for th...

It is Friday July 3rd. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1819: The first savings bank in the United States (The Bank of Savings in New York City) opened. • 1852: Congress established the United States’ second mint, in San Francisco, California. • 1884: Dow Jones published its first stock average. • 1922: Fruit Garden and Home magazine published its first issue. Two years later, the publ...

It is Thursday June 25th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1947: The Diary of Anne Frank was published. • 1951: The first commercial color telecast took place as CBS transmitted a one-hour special from New York to four other cities. • 1991: Francis Johnson’s world record 8.7-ton ball of twine, which he had been building since 1950, was moved to a prominent place in downtown Darwin, Min...

It is Wednesday June 24th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1497: The first recorded sighting of North America by a European took place when explorer John Cabot, on a voyage for England, spotted land, probably in present-day Canada. He claimed the piece of land for England, which is now Newfoundland. • 1892: Robert Ford was gunned down in a Creede, Colorado, saloon. Ten years earlier,...

It is Tuesday 23rd. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1868: Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the “Type-Writer”. • 1888: Frederick Douglass becomes the first African-American nominated for US president. • 1993: Lorena Bobbitt of Prince William County, Virginia, sexually mutilated her husband, John, after he allegedly raped her. • 2005: In Suffolk, Vi...

It is Monday June 22nd. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1882: The Air-Conditioned Rocking Chair was patented. It had a propeller fan mounted overhead that was turned by the chair’s motion. The faster you rocked, the faster the fan turned. • 1847: The doughnut was invented. • 1970: President Richard Nixon signed a measure lowering the voting age to 18. • 1981: Mark David Chapman p...

It is Friday June 19th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1846: The first baseball game under recognizable modern rules was played in Hoboken, New Jersey. • 1910: The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington. • 1941: General Mills in Minneapolis created a new dry breakfast cereal called Cheerie Oats. The name was later shortened to Cheerios. • 1978: The Garfield comic st...

It is Thursday June 18th. Let’s start the podcast! T HAPPENED TODAY • 1873: Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election. • 1928: Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean. She was a passenger; Wilmer Stutz was pilot and Lou Gordon was mechanic. • 1948: Columbia Records publicly unveiled its new long-pl...

It is Wednesday June 17th. Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1870: George Cormack was born in Scotland. In 1924, working in the U.S., he invented Wheaties. • 1885: The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor. • 1976: What remained of the American Basketball Association, the Nets, Pacers, Nuggets, and Spurs, merged into the NBA. • 1994: Following a televised low-speed highway chase...

It is Tuesday June 16th, Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1891: The George A. Hormel & Company was founded in Austin, Minnesota. In 1937 it introduced Spam, now the world’s biggest selling canned meat product. • 1903: A U.S. patent was issued for a soft drink formula called Pepsi-Cola. On the same day a U.S. patent was issued for Chicken Goggles, designed to protect chickens from b...

It is Monday June 15th, Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1884: The world’s first roller coaster opened at Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. It was called the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway. The cars traveled at 6 miles per hour. • 1920: The United States Postal Service ruled that children may not be sent via parcel post. • 1966: The United States Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v....

IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1952: A 17-year-old Bonham, Texas, housecat named Dusty set a Guinness record by giving birth to her 420th kitten. • 1965: Queen Elizabeth honored the Beatles by making them members of the Order of the British Empire. Several British Army officers were so outraged, they returned their medals. • 1981: Little-known comedian David Letterman hosted “Looking for Fun” on HBO. • 1987:...

It is Thursday June 11th, Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1962: Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin became the only prisoners to successfully escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island. • 1982: Director Steven Spielberg introduced his classic science-fiction film, E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial. • 1993: Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park premiered. • 1998: Amazon.com expanded its...

It is Wednesday June 10th, Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1682: The first tornado recorded by settlers in North America was sighted near New Haven, Connecticut. • 1793: Philadelphia ceased to be the capital of the United States when all federal government offices moved to Washington DC. • 1943: The Ball Point Pen was patented by Lasalo Biro of Budapest, Hungary. • 1965: Subway owner...

IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1909: Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, became the first woman to drive across the United States. With three female companions, none of whom could drive a car, for fifty-nine days she drove a Maxwell automobile the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York, to San Francisco, California. • 1915: Les Paul was born in Waukesha, Wiscons...

It is Monday June 8th, Let’s start the podcast! IT HAPPENED TODAY • 1953: The Supreme Court ruled that restaurants in the District of Columbia could not refuse to serve blacks. • 1968: James Earl Ray was arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. • 1969: The New York Yankees retired Mickey Mantle’s uniform No. 7 during “Mickey Mantle Day” at Yankee Stadium. • 1984: The movie Ghostbusters hi...

It is Friday June 5th, Let’s start the podcast! This day in history • 1783: The first public demonstration of a hot-air balloon flight took place at Annonay, France, where brothers Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier succeeded in launching their 33-foot-diameter balloon. The unmanned balloon rose an estimated 1,500 feet and traveled about 7,500 feet before landing after a 10-minute flight. • 1956: Elvi...

It is Thursday June 4th, Let’s start the podcast! This Day in History • 1937: Grocery chain owner Sylvan Goldman introduced the shopping cart at his Humpty Dumpty store in Oklahoma City. Goldman’s first cart was wheels and a basket on a folding chair. • 1973: The patent for the ATM was granted. • 1989 The Tiananmen Square protests were violently ended in Chinese capital city Beijing with People’s...