This is the Yes or BS blog, where you can play the game for yourself. Either pick a random story from the pictures below, or choose your specialist subject from the categories listed here. Just read the story through and decide whether, YES, you think it’s true, or no, you think it’s total B.S—then click you answer in the box at the bottom of each post to see if you’re correct.
We all know about official state birds, state trees, state flowers, and the like. There are even official state dances (spoiler alert: 25 of them are square dancing), and thirteen states have even gone so far as to nominate official state dinosaurs (shoutout to Hypsibema missouriensis!). But thus far, California is the only US state to have nominated an official state element. And it’s all down to Judy Garland. According to the memoirs of George Cukor, who directed Garland in
The Machs Factor: a sonic boom (Pixabay) In February 1964, NASA and the US Federal Aviation Administration began conducting what they knew as “Operation Bongo II”. Alas, no, this was nothing to do with learning to play the drums. Nor resurrecting Oingo Boingo. Instead, with an eye to investigating the implications of transcontinental supersonic air travel, NASA and the FAA began investigating the effects of sonic booms on urban areas, their buildings and other structures, and
The new Google Maps update was next to useless. (Pixabay) Here’s a quick trivia question to kick things off: what do Russia, Turkey and Egypt all have in common? Have a think. I’ll wait. If you know your world geography then you’ll doubtless have worked out that these are the world’s three “transcontinental” countries—nations that straddle the traditional boundaries between the continents. So with the Ural Mountains taken as the boundary between Europe and Asia, Russia falls
If you’ve never seen the 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark, you’re seriously missing out. It’s about a young blind woman named Susy (played by Audrey Hepburn) who becomes inadvertently embroiled in a violent drug smuggling heist. The vast majority of the film is set in Susy’s flat, where she is slowly and nail-bitingly terrorized by an ever-more psychotic criminal (played by Alan Arkin) in a nerve-shredding game of cat-and-mouse. But it’s not what happens on screen in Wait Until
Being President of the United States is a demanding job. And it’s fair to say that (until recently as least) many holders of that position have understood the importance of keeping themselves fit and healthy while in office. Of all the fitness fanatics ever to have held the Highest Office in the Land, however, it’s probably Theodore Roosevelt who takes the top spot. Teddy boy: The face of a natural born sportsman (Wikimedia Commons/Public domain) Not only was good ol‘ Teddy a
Wakey wakey: A bird’s-eye view of Wake Island (NASA/Public domain) Wake Island is a tiny isolated coral atoll in Micronesia, more than 1,000 miles east of Guam, in the central Pacific Ocean. Just 2½ square miles in size, the island is arguably best known for the Battle of Wake Island, which took place on 8 December 1941 (the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii) and eventually saw the island occupied by Japanese forces. Ultimately a major component of the Pac