Category: Online Clips

In medieval Europe, you couldn’t just rent a hut and set up shop as a blacksmith, candle-maker or embroiderer. In most towns, you had no choice but to join a guild, which entailed apprenticing with a master practitioner for a number of years (without pay, but with room and board) until you became a full-fledged master yourself. At that point, you were expected not only to practice your trade, but to participate in the activities of your guild, which served double and triple duty as a social club and a charitable organization. Much of what we know about medieval guilds comes from the city of London, which kept the most extensive records about these organizations (which even had their own pecking order in the social hierarchy) from the 13th to the 19th centuries. Below, you’ll learn about 14 typical medieval guilds, ranging from bowyers and fletchers (makers of bows and arrows) to cobblers and cordwainers (fabricators and repairers of footwear). Read 14 Medieval Guilds You Didn’t Know Existed

For the average law-abiding citizen, it can be difficult to distinguish between the Hollywood version of the Mafia (as depicted in Goodfellas, The Sopranos, the Godfather trilogy, and countless other movies and TV shows) and the real-life criminal organization on which it is based. Also known as the Mob or La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia is an organized-crime syndicate founded and run by Italian-Americans, most of whom can trace their ancestry back to Sicily. Part of what has made the Mob so successful—and so difficult to eradicate—is its stable organizational structure, with various families directed from the top by powerful bosses and underbosses and staffed by soldiers and capos. Here’s a look at who’s who on the Mafia org charts, ranging from the least influential (the “associates” who can be whacked at will) to the most deadly (the mythical capo di tutti capi, or “boss of all bosses.”) Read The Structure of the American Mafia

In the 1944 Tom & Jerry short “The Zoot Cat”—only the thirteenth cartoon ever made starring that famous duo—Tom’s would-be girlfriend lays it on him straight: “Boy, are you corny! You act like a square at the fair, a goon from Saskatoon. You come on like a broken arm. You’re a sad apple, a long hair, a cornhusker. In other words, you don’t send me!” The sad cat goes out and buys himself some new duds from Smiling Sam, the Zoot Suit Man, prompting his wide-eyed gal pal to do a one-eighty.  “You’re really a sharp character! A mellow little fellow. Now you collar my jive!” Read A Cultural History of the Zoot Suit

There are few concepts in the history of economics that have been misunderstood, and misused, more often than the “invisible hand.” For this, we can mostly thank the person who coined this phrase: the 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith, in his influential books The Theory of Moral Sentiments and (much more importantly) The Wealth of Nations. Read The Invisible Hand of the Market

With the possible exception of choosing the wrong door and wandering onstage during a full-dress Metropolitan Opera production of Tosca, waiting in a restaurant or bar to meet a blind date is the most exposed, nerve-wracking, humiliating experience a person can have. It’s not just that you have no idea what to expect from your Internet pen-pal or your cousin’s idea of a great set-up. It’s that you’re convinced that everyone in the immediate vicinity—customers, wait staff, random people walking their dogs on the street—know exactly why you’re standing there so meekly and are having a good laugh at your expense. Read Waiting for a Blind Date?

We all know the basics of the food chain: plants eat sunlight, animals eat plants, and bigger animals eat smaller animals. In the world of nature, though, there are always exceptions, as witness plants that attract, trap and digest animals (mostly insects, but also the occasional snail, lizard, or even small mammal). In this article, you’ll meet 12 famous carnivorous plants, ranging from the familiar venus flytrap to the less well-known cobra lily. Read 12 Plants That Eat Animals

There are plenty of exaggerations, myths and outright lies circulating about the so-called Loch Ness Monster—which is especially galling to paleontologists, who are constantly being told by people who should know better (and by overeager reality-TV producers) that Nessie is a long-extinct dinosaur or marine reptile. In this article, you’ll discover 10 fascinating Loch Ness Monster facts, as opposed to myths. Read Facts, not Myths, About the Loch Ness Monster

In just about every dinosaur movie ever made, there’s a scene in which Tyrannosaurus Rex lunges into the frame, opens its tooth-studded jaws at a near-ninety-degree angle, and emits a deafening roar–perhaps toppling its human antagonists backwards, perhaps only dislodging their hats. This gets a huge rise from the audience, every time, but the fact is that we know practically nothing about how T. rex and its ilk vocalized–it’s not like there were any tape recorders 70 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period, and sound waves don’t tend to preserve well in the fossil record. Read How Loud Could Dinosaurs Roar?

What are the ingredients of a successful camping trip? Well, as someone who weathered no less than two overnight expeditions at sleepaway camp 30 years ago, I feel qualified to offer this comprehensive list. Read closely, lest you and your date trudge back to civilization with severe malnutrition, third-degree burns and/or the odd missing limb. Read Take Her Camping – A How-To Guide

Pretty much every animal on the face of the earth has been assigned its very own boring, nearly unpronounceable genus and species name, but only a few merit the kinds of monikers that make the average nature enthusiast sit up and say, “Hey! What the heck is that?” In this article, you’ll discover 12 imaginatively named animals, ranging from the screaming hairy armadillo to the sarcastic fringehead (and yes, we’ll explain how these critters came by their names, and why they may or may not be entirely appropriate). Read The 12 Weirdest Animal Names