Notes from the Brooklyn Polygnostic Institute

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#2,461
Fun Fact

The writers of the Freakonomics series of books had a contest to determine a new six word motto for the United States. These were the winners.

Our Worst Crtics Prefer to Stay. (194 Votes.)

Caution! Experiment in Progress Since 1776 (134 Votes.)

The Most Gentle Empire So Far (64 Votes.)

You Should See The Other Guy. (38 Votes.)

Just Like Canada, with Better Bacon (18 Votes.)


May be verified in the article Contest: A Six-Worad Motto for the U.S.? that appeared in When to Rob a Bank…And 131 More Warped Suggestions And Well-Intended Rants by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner pg. 98


Happy July 4th oh seekers of knowledge.
 
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Lost in the stacks.
#2,462
#2,462
Fun Fact

Gloria Gaynor recorded her song "I Will Survive" shortly after breaking her back when she fell over a monitor onstage." She recorde while wearing the back brace they put on her after her emergency surgery.

May be verified in the article Gaynor's miraculous recovery that appeared in the People section of the June 2, 2017 issue of The Week Magazine. The information originally appeared in an article by Linda Das that appeared in The Sunday Daily Telegraph.
 
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Lost in the stacks.
#2,463
#2,463
Children's author Maurice Sendak became fixated on news footage of the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping at age three and became traumatized when he saw a picture of the baby's dead body.

May be verified in a review of There's a Mystery There: The Primal Vision of Maurice Sendak by Jonathan Cott that appeared in the June 2, 2017 issue of The Week Magazine.
 
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Lost in the stacks.
#2,468
#2,468
Fun Fact


Bob Dylan put out an 18 disc, $600 box set of every sound recorded during the taping of the albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde which includes every rehearsal, every false start, every giggle and cough and all twenty takes of “Like a Rolling Stone.”


May be verified in the review of Bob Dylan: The Cutting Edge that appeared in the November 27, 2015 issue of The Week Magazine
 
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Lost in the stacks.
#2,469
#2,469
Fun Fact

Metal corrosion costs the U.S. 437 billion a year "More than all other natural disasters combined.

May be verified in a review of Rust: The Longest war that appeared in the March 27, 2015 The Week magazine
 
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Lost in the stacks.
#2,470
#2,470
Coca-Cola would disintegrate an aluminum can in three days if it didn't have an epoxy interior coating.

May be verified in a review of Rust: The Longest war that appeared in the March 27, 2015 The Week magazine
 
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#2,471
#2,471
Fun Fact

NASA's secondary mission in the 1960's was to improve the economy of the South and fight segregation. President Johnson believed the two goals were linked. Space centers were built in Houston; Huntsvulle, AL ; rural Mississippi and Brevard County FL. NASA enforced equal opportunity hiring rules for its contractors (poorly), forbade its employees from participating in events in segregated institutions and brough significant numbers of educated workers to the deep South.Ex-Nazi Werner von Braun had many disputes with the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace.

May be verified in a review of We Could Not fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program by Richard Paul and Steven Moss that appeared in the Shortlist section/Lives of the Scientists/ by Laura Helmuth in the April 26, 2015 New York Times Book Review
 
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#2,472
Rachel Swaby was inspired to write a collective biography of 52 female scientists after reading a a 2013 obituary of rocket scientist Yvonne Brill that mentioned her beef stroganoff recipe and number of children before getting arounf to her professional achievements.

May be verified in a review of Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science -and the World by Rachel Swaby that appeared in the Shortlist section/Lives of the Scientists/ by Laura Helmuth in the April 26, 2015 New York Times Book Review
 
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#2,473
#2,473
Fun Fact

When Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize for working out the crystal structure of Vitamin B12 The Daily Mail announcec "Nobel Prize for British Wife."

May be verified in a review of Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science -and the World by Rachel Swaby that appeared in the Shortlist section/Lives of the Scientists/ by Laura Helmuth in the April 26, 2015 New York Times Book Review
 
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#2,474
#2,474
Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in statistics

May be verified in a review of Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science -and the World by Rachel Swaby that appeared in the Shortlist section/Lives of the Scientists/ by Laura Helmuth in the April 26, 2015 New York Times Book Review
 
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#2,475
#2,475
Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer, was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron and the mathematician Annabella Milbanke. Her mother forced her to study mathematics in order to squelch all of her poetic impulses.Milbanke was irritated by her daughter's impulse to seek "playful uses for science and mathematics."

May be verified in a review of Ada's Algorithm: How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age by James Essinger that appeared in the Shortlist section/Lives of the Scientists/ by Laura Helmuth in the April 26, 2015 New York Times Book Review
 
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mikelibrarian

Lost in the stacks.
#2,476
#2,476
Fun Fact

The combined wealth of the world's 85 richest people. $1.7trillion is now equivalent to that held by the poorest half of the world's population, some 3,5 billion people according to the nonprofit group Oxfam.

may be verified in an article that appeared in the January 31, 2014 issue of the Week Magazine. The information first appeared in the Los Angeles Times
 
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mikelibrarian

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#2,477
#2,477
Fun Fact

Maurice Sendak was often bedridden as a child. he became fixated on the kidnapping of Lindbergh's baby and was traumatized when the baby's corpse had been found.

May be verified in a review
 
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mikelibrarian

Lost in the stacks.
#2,479
#2,479
According to a 2013 study by the National Endowment For The Arts only 47% of Americans said they had read a book for pleasure in the last year.
May be verified in the October 11, 2013 issue of The Week Magazine
 
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#2,480
#2,480
Jake Lamotta's father would force him to get into street brawls with other children and then collect the money thrown into the ring by spectators.

May be verified in the Obituaries section of the October 6, 2017 The Week Magazine
 
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