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149 short, true stories behind the things you use every day. Each one names its source.
In 1943 the US banned sliced bread.
Answer to read the story.For seven weeks, partly to save on wrapping. Read the story
Bing Crosby taped his radio show on wartime German machines
In the 1940s American network radio wanted its music live, so Crosby did his show twice on the same day, once for each coast.
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Two astronauts reported a UFO, then played Jingle Bells
In December 1965 the crew of Gemini 6A radioed that an object was moving north to south in a polar orbit, very low, as if about to reenter.
The Cavern Club once told John Lennon to cut out the rock
In 1957 the Cavern was a jazz cellar in Liverpool that put up with skiffle but not rock 'n' roll.
Django Reinhardt played his guitar solos with two fingers
In 1928 Django Reinhardt knocked over a candle in his caravan, and the fire badly burned the ring and little fingers of his left hand.
The 808 drum machine died because transistors got better
Roland's TR-808 came out in 1980 and flopped. Many musicians wanted drums that sounded real, and its drums did not.
The Million Dollar Quartet may have been a trio on tape
In December 1956 Elvis Presley dropped in at Sun Studio in Memphis while Carl Perkins was recording, with a little-known pianist named Jerry Lee Lewis.
Haydn's Farewell Symphony ends with the players walking out
In 1772 Prince Nikolaus Esterházy kept his musicians at his summer palace in rural Hungary longer than anyone had expected. Their wives were a day's journey away.
Trinidad's steel drum grew out of a colonial ban on drums
After riots at Trinidad's carnival in 1881, the colonial authorities banned drumming.
Before microphones, some violins came with a metal horn
Early records were made by sound alone: musicians played into a big horn, and an ordinary violin recorded poorly.
The two men behind baseball's song had never been to a game
In 1908 Jack Norworth saw a sign on a subway train for that day's game at the Polo Grounds. He wrote Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and Albert Von Tilzer set it to music.
149 stories. Ten free a day.
In the app these are the Learn cards.