In 1949, you could walk into a store in the United States and buy a hat that doubled as a radio. Marketed as the "Man-from-Mars Radio Hat", it was a working portable radio built into a pith helmet, complete with vacuum tubes and a loop antenna sticking out of the crown. 🧵⬇️ (1/3)

Can your dreams win you a Nobel Prize? 🧵⬇️ (1/5)

The original true crime? In 1991, hikers in the Ötztal Alps found Ötzi the Iceman, a mummified corpse who was likely the victim in a prehistoric homicide.  What we know for sure is that he was well-fed, carried weapons, and bore over 60 tattoos.  Thaw out more clues ➡️ w.wiki/7o7W

Salsa – Spanish for "sauce" – combines traditional rhythms with modern arrangements, horn sections, and improvisation. It is a living expression of Latino experience, carrying forward a rich history of cultural exchange and musical innovation. Learn more ➡️ w.wiki/4if9

Where does water feel like fire but flamingos thrive? In northern Tanzania, at the base of the Great Rift Valley escarpment, lies Lake Natron. This shallow salt-and-soda lake is fed mainly by the Southern Ewaso Ng’iro River and mineral-rich hot springs. 🧵⬇️ (1/3)

On the southeastern coast of India, facing the Bay of Bengal, lies Mahabalipuram – an ancient port city whose stone monuments have stood for over 1,300 years. 🧵⬇️ (1/3)

We promise this pandemic was only virtual. 20 years ago, an unexpected event in the online game "World of Warcraft" caught the attention of players and researchers. A new dungeon introduced a boss whose special attack temporarily drained a player’s health and could spread to others nearby. 🧵⬇️ (1/3)

The Elver Eating World Championships celebrate a Gloucestershire, England tradition. Revived in 2014 with imitation eels, it’s now a quirky nod to heritage where adults and children take part in unique ways.  Learn more ➡️ w.wiki/FJEL

Have you heard of Hannibal? Recognized as one of the most successful military tacticians and generals of Western antiquity, Hannibal Barca was born in 247 BCE in Carthage, a powerful city-state in North Africa. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

What have you been reading lately? 8 September is International Literacy Day . One way of reading is an e-reader – a portable electronic device designed primarily for reading digital books, newspapers, and periodicals. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft to explore the outer planets and beyond. Each carried a 12-inch gold-plated copper phonograph disc – the Voyager Golden Record – intended as a message from Earth to any extraterrestrial life that might encounter it. 🧵⬇️ (1/5)

What does “!” actually mean❗ Used for joy, anger, warnings, and math (! = factorial), it is one of the most emotional punctuation marks. Some say it comes from Latin “io” – an ancient shout of joy. But in the wrong context, it can feel … hostile. Learn more! ➡️ w.wiki/3d73

Not just a mascot 🐐 The Kashmiri goat Billy was officially enlisted in the British Army – with a rank, a number, and a royal parade schedule. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

Where is everybody? Physicist Enrico Fermi asked this in 1950, and it became one of science’s biggest puzzles 🧵⬇️ (1/5)

Every August, Buñol, Spain turns into the world’s biggest food fight.  La Tomatina started in 1945 as a street quarrel and has grown into a festival with 20,000 ticket-holders and over 100,000 kg of tomatoes thrown in a day 🍅 Read more ➡️ w.wiki/AQqL

A clay disc, 16 cm wide, stamped with 241 symbols in a spiral. The Phaistos Disc is one of the most mysterious objects from the ancient world. Discovered in 1908 in a Minoan palace in Crete, Greece, it dates to the second millennium BCE 🧵⬇️ (1/2)

Can a monkey write "Hamlet"? 🐒 The infinite monkey theorem states that given an infinite amount of time and a typewriter, a monkey randomly pressing keys would eventually produce every possible finite text – including the complete works of Shakespeare.  Learn more ➡️ w.wiki/6G3C

What started as a failed bank robbery in 1973 ended up naming a psychological phenomenon 🧵⬇️ (1/6)

Ready for your newest sports obsession? 🏉   The 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup will feature 16 teams for the first time. Hosted in England from 22 August to 27 September, it kicks off in Sunderland and ends with the final at Twickenham 🧵⬇️ (1/3)

Stone tells many stories here. Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu, India, features 7th–8th century CE monuments built by the Pallava dynasty. Early Dravidian temples, rock-cut sanctuaries, and sacred scenes carved in stone, still standing after more than a thousand years. ➡️ w.wiki/EL9A

Ready for a Wiki race? 🏇➡️🐈 Start with Incitatus, the horse of Roman emperor Caligula – reportedly given a marble stall and nearly appointed to the Roman Senate. Your goal: reach Stubbs, the honorary cat mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, in the US. Gallop into Wikiracing ➡️ w.wiki/oXY

Three hand signs. One simple game. Infinite chances to avoid washing the dishes ✊✋✌️ Rock paper scissors is played around the world – but the story behind it is far from simple 🧵⬇️ (1/6)

Imagine cities powered by renewable energy, buildings overflowing with greenery, and communities in harmony with nature. Solarpunk blends sci-fi, art, and activism to show hopeful, sustainable futures with DIY innovation, solar power, and social inclusiveness. Learn more ➡️ w.wiki/9BBv

Where was the Land of Punt? For over a thousand years, ancient Egyptians traded with Punt, bringing back gold, ivory, incense, and exotic animals. They sometimes called it "God's Land" 🧵⬇️ (1/2)

Only about 1 in 10 people are left-handed, but if that is you, today is your day 👈  Left-handedness has existed for tens of thousands of years. Tools, bones, and cave art show it. Even some animals display paw or wing preferences. 🧵⬇️ (1/5)

Are you a zoomer, a boomer, or neither? 12 August is International Youth Day, the perfect time to look at how generations are defined. Generational labels are everywhere, but what do they actually mean? 🧵⬇️ (1/7)

Two English academics went for a walk in the gardens of Versailles … and claimed to have slipped into 18th-century France. 🧵⬇️ (1/5)

The cuisine of the country with the largest variety of potatoes in the world? Count us in 🥔🧵⬇️ (1/4)

Happy International Cat Day 🐈‍⬛ Once described as the "unofficial mascot of the Internet", cats have a longstanding relationship with humans. Today, images and videos of cats make up some of the most viewed content online. Pounce over for more feline content ➡️ w.wiki/9eT3

Wikipedia is part of something bigger. It is one of many projects supported by the Wikimedia Foundation to help promote free knowledge. These projects are maintained by a global community of volunteers known as Wikimedians. Every year, we celebrate them ➡️ w.wiki/ExNz

No wheels. No help. Just vibes. ⛵🪨 For more than a century, people have noticed these so-called sailing stones silently making their own trails, moving, somehow, while no one is watching. 🧵⬇️ (1/5)

No cats were harmed or unharmed in the making of this Wikipedia article ⚠️ 🧵⬇️ (1/7)

Ever blurt out "rabbit rabbit rabbit" on the first day of the month and wonder why you sound like a spell-casting bunny? If so, you are part of a tradition with surprisingly mysterious roots 🐰🐰🐰 Learn more ➡️ w.wiki/AY2e

What happens when Wikipedia editors, tech wizzes, and free knowledge fans meet up? Find out at #Wikimania2025, taking place from 6–9 August in Nairobi and online ➡️ wikimania.org

The Stone spheres of Costa Rica, also known as "bolas de piedra", are a group of over 300 stone spheres that were rediscovered in the 1930s as the United Fruit Company was clearing land for banana plantations. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

Do you think you know your way around history? Our new Which came first? game puts your mastery of chronology to the test 📅🌐 Every day, you will be shown a series of events that happened on that very day in history. It will be up to you to guess which event came first.

If your résumé gets rejected by a computer, it may not be personal (or fair). Algorithmic bias refers to systematic and repeatable errors in computer systems that create unfair outcomes. These errors often emerge when machine learning models are trained on data that reflects discrimination 🧵⬇️ (1/2)

Wait... where’s their head? 😲  In the late 1800s, Britain embraced a surreal photo trend: the headless portrait. Using early editing tricks, photographers like Rejlander and Balbirnie created eerie illusions.  Read more ➡️ w.wiki/6Fxz

Cold, remote, and full of seeds, the backup plan for global agriculture is buried in a mountain. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

Turkish coffee is an unfiltered brewing method that originated in the Ottoman Empire and remains popular across the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans, and parts of Eastern Europe. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

Apollo 11: A dangerous mission that landed in a tranquil place. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

The first convention for women’s rights in the United States began on 19 July 1848 with a two-day meeting in a small town. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

Surprise! A ha-ha is a hidden ditch that keeps livestock out without ruining a picture-perfect view. Its name comes from the surprise "ha-ha" people have when they finally notice it. Learn more about this landscape design element ➡️ w.wiki/Cdjk

How do you power an advanced civilization that spans a solar system or beyond? One idea: Build around your star itself. The Dyson sphere is a concept for a megastructure designed to surround a star and capture a significant portion of its energy output. 🧵⬇️ (1/2)

Before telescopes, there were temples 🌌 Tikal, an ancient Maya city in present-day Guatemala, was a powerful metropolis of palaces and plazas. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

Welcome to the town where the grocery store, the post office, and your neighbor are all just down the hall. 🧵⬇️ (1/3)

Zamrock is a music genre that developed in Zambia during the 1970s, blending psychedelic rock, garage rock, blues, and funk with traditional African rhythms and local influences – resulting in a high-energy sound with electric guitars, fuzz effects, and anti-establishment undertones ➡️ w.wiki/DyXq

You definitely do not want to get lost here. The Kőbánya cellar system is an underground tunnel network located in the 10th district of Budapest, Hungary. 🧵⬇️ (1/3)

Over the last century, comic books have leapt over tall buildings, flying from humble beginnings to the heights of popular culture. Their lasting popularity makes them seem invulnerable. The jury is still out about whether they have laser vision. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)

(No need to worry. This post is true.) The liar paradox is a classic puzzle in logic. It is built on a sentence that refers to itself. Usually something like, "This sentence is false". 🧵⬇️ (1/4)