Page 13 - Best of the Week

The 1/4 audio plug (like the one on headphones) was created even before plug sockets!

The plug you use to hook up your headphones to your phone or computer is a piece of living history. Originally used as a telephone switchboard connector, it was invented in 1878, and has been in use ever since.

This invention was created in 1878 making it even older than plug sockets, the first of which was invented in 1883! Making this one of the oldest and yet modern invention of our times. Some inventions come and go, but as for the ¼ audio plugs it seems that it is here to stay.

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The stereotype of Jewish people being greedy comes from Christians not being able to perform certain jobs!

The Middle Ages were an era of time when Christianity was essentially ruling Europe. The Christian Church had such a high power of authority, it was able to tell citizens what they could and could not do. For example, the Church proclaimed that Christians were not allowed to lend money and charge interest, a practice called usury.

The world, being the cruel place that it is, gave restrictions onto the occupations that Jews were allowed to have. Guess what one of those occupations was? Bingo. Jewish people were restricted to being usurers and money lenders, meaning that they could loan people money and charge them interest.

Since being a money lender was one of the only occupations that a Jewish person could be, the idea that Jews are greedy and money-mad developed. As a result, Jewish people still have to live with that stereotype today.

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An infamous episode of the X-Files was based on something that happened to Charlie Chaplin!

'Home' is the title of an infamous X-Files episode being notorious for being the first X-Files episode for having a parental warning at the beginning of an episode. In it, Mulder and Scully find a family of inbred, mutated freaks in a small town called 'Home.'

The show had shocking images and an atmosphere that resembled the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The script turned a lot of heads at Fox. Some executives even called it immoral. Turns out, the writers based the script on the real life experiences of Charlie Chaplin.

Chaplin was touring England in a musical. He went to stay in an old boarding house. The family who ran it liked him and asked him to come upstairs to show him something not many people saw. There was a man with no arms or legs. Then, they started dancing and the kid flopped around. When they were done, the kid lay on his back and was rolled under the bed.

That anecdote showed up in an autobiography and the writer of the episode thought that he just had to do something like that at some point in his life.

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Alaska is both the east- and westernmost state in the US!

The Aleutian Islands of Alaska cross the 180 degree-meridian longitude. This means that these islands are part of the Eastern hemisphere. This means that Alaska is the state that is farthest north, east & west in the United States!

If you don't believe in that technicality, the easternmost state is Maine, then Alaska retains it's northernmost and westernmost titles, and Hawaii rounds out the group by being the southernmost.

Of the lower 48 states, Maine is easternmost, Minnesota the northernmost, Washington the westernmost and Florida the southernmost.

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An Italian bank takes Parmesan cheese as collateral!

If you're in the market for a bank loan in Italy, you can use cheese as your collateral. There's a special cheese bank that has state of the art security features to protect the 300,000 wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese stored in there.

Here's how this business works: Parmigiano-Reggiano takes a long time to properly age. Farmers have a hard time getting through tough times due to the long time between production and sale. This is where the bank comes in.

In exchange for a cheap loan, the bank will keep the farmers' wheels of cheese during the period where the wheel are just supposed to sit and age. This let's farmers run the rest of their business, make future sales, pay wages, while the cheese ages.

Read more about this interesting business model at the source.

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