Showing results by narrator "Mark Schectman" in All Categories

The Persian Gulf Pro League is the highest level of Iranian soccer. The Iran Pro League, or IPL, as it is often called, dates back to 1970, but has been around since 2001 in its current form. The sixteen teams in the IPL play 30 games over the course of a season; each team plays a home game and an away game against the other fifteen squads. Teams earn 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie, and the team with the most points at the end of the season is the league champion.

No Hope is for disaffected conservatives and moderates as well as liberals who are fed up with the political party system. Forty-three percent of Americans now identify as Independents. Many of them are right of center and used to be Republicans.

It's common knowledge that rubbing alcohol makes cuts burn. But, why? Find out the answer to this burning question on this episode of Now I Know. Get a scrape or a cut and your first step – after the subtle facial expression you make from the pain – may be to grab some rubbing alcohol. Your goal is to clean off the wound before applying a bandage, as you want to shield the scrape from the elements, and prevent trapping bacteria or other stuff within the injured area.

In the fall of 1994, the United States was introduced to a new tool in the world of crime solving and prosecution – DNA evidence. The O.J. Simpson trial had captured the nation's – if not much of the world's – attention, and a large part of the trial's outcome hung on DNA. At the time, the use of DNA evidence was still emerging, and the science wasn't well understood – or trusted – by juries.

There's been a hostage situation in the UK every year since the 1500s. Oh, and it involves the queen. Explore the Queen of England's 'flesh and blood' insurance policy, on this episode of Now I Know. Every May or June – depending on whether the United Kingdom is holding Parliamentary elections that year – both houses of Parliament assemble to be addressed by the reigning monarch. The event is rife with pomp and circumstance, as one would expect from a regal tradition dating back to the 1500s.

François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, was a French writer during the Enlightenment. Known for what would today be considered snark, he often made comments to which many would take offense. For example, in his 1764 treatise Dictionnaire Philosophique (which translates as Philosophical Dictionary), Voltaire quipped that "common sense is not so common." This smarter-than-thou attitude was a theme throughout his works, and, one would expect, his life as well.

It was June 23, 2011. A 59-year-old man named Richard James Verone was being held in North Carolina, unable to pay his $2,000 bond. He was awaiting his day in court – June 28th – for a crime he'd committed two weeks earlier. It was a smooth, calculated crime. On the morning of June 9th, Verone showered, ironed his shirt, and hopped into a cab to go to a nearby bank. He handed the teller a note with a simple demand: take some money out of the drawer and hand it over.

When George M. Stratton made himself a pair of “inverting glasses," his world turned upside down – and the scientific community gained some interesting new perspective. Learn more on this episode of Now I Know. George M. Stratton was born in 1865 in Oakland, California. By his early thirties, he was a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, but he took interest in psychology.

Today, the United States celebrates the fake holiday known as Groundhog Day. The tradition, which dates back to the 18th or 19th century, is pseudoscience, but probably the harmless variety. People gather around in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, waiting for a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil to emerge. (And yes, there are other Groundhog Day groundhogs, too, but Phil's the OG, assuming the "G" stands for "groundhog".)

Checks are, basically, IOUs. The person writing the check promises to pay the check's recipient at some point in the very near future. The check writer isn't even part of the transaction at that point – the writer's bank is instructed, literally, to "pay" the amount specified "to the order of" the person to whom the check is made out. The bank plays a critical role in the transaction beyond the delivery of cash, too – it helps ensure that the check writer is good for the debt now owed.

In 2013, Mamoru Samuragochi was nearing his 50th birthday and was at the peak of his fame. A talented composer, Samuragochi was near the top of the list if you needed an original score for a video game and was widely regarded as a leading talent in the realm of digital composition. He was also well known for composing a symphony about the Hiroshima bomb, which quickly became one of the more popular classical music pieces in Japan.

Should I stay or should I go? Find out why a large-scale effort to improve crosswalk safety in the U.S. and Canada crashed and burned, on this episode of Now I Know. About five years ago, municipalities across the United States, Canada, and likely points elsewhere began installing new technology for crosswalk safety. Gone were many of the simple “WALK” or “DON’T WALK” signals.

Here's a simple experiment you can try at home – and, probably will in the near future, whether you'd like to or not. Call a customer support hotline, try to talk to a real human and, well, you don't have to do much else. In many cases, you'll be put on hold, and you'll get to experience hold music. It's almost a given that this will happen, as hold music has become a very common feature of such phone systems. But it has a very uncommon history.

Meet the Beverly Hills Caviar Automated Boutique: a super fancy mall vending machine that sells caviar, escargot and truffles. Explore the fishy facts on this episode of Now I Know. In the market for a high-end, expensive meal? Here are two rules of thumb: One, don’t even bother looking at vending machines. A Snickers bar or bag of Pirate’s Booty may seem like a grand idea, but – even with the 20 ounce drink of your choosing – it isn’t going to make for a good date night experience. And two, don’t go to the mall.

Choco pies are two pieces of cake with a marshmallow-y filling in between, all covered with a layer of chocolate. In the US, at least, you can find them for about a buck a piece, but they're not very popular there – or in most of the West, for that matter. But in parts of Asia – China, Vietnam, and South Korea in particular – Choco Pies are a staple of snack time.

On January 5, 2010, Irish authorities descended upon the home of an electrician who, just a couple of days earlier, had traveled from his native Slovakia back to his adopted home of Ireland. Acting on a tip from the Slovak authorities, the Irish police believed that the man – whose name was never released to the press – had recently smuggled explosives into Ireland. Specifically, the man was believed to have transported an explosive called RDX in his luggage during his January 2nd flight.

In China, millions of women regularly gather for morning square dancing – despite the government's attempt to stop them. Get the step-by-step story on this episode of Now I Know. Today millions of Chinese women aged 55 and older regularly gather for morning square dancing – even though the Chinese government tried to stop them. Square dancing in China, at least among middle-aged and older women, became a trend in the mid-1990s.

From the end of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union nearly fifty years later, the happenings of those nations behind the Iron Curtain were hidden in the shroud of communism. Many of the goings-on came to light in subsequent years, with most being stories of abuses under communist dictators. But some of the revelations unveiled in the 1990s were secrets about the Nazis. For example, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, someone discovered a swastika made of trees.

Learn more about the French newspaper that publishes 'all the news that's fit to wait for a while,' on this episode of Now I Know. Some of the articles featured in the February 29, 2012 edition of the French-language newspaper La Bougie du Sapeur centered on the alleged dangers of chewing gum, changes in drink sizes, and a bunch of other items that don’t seem all that critical to everyday life. The newspaper is further distinguished by ads – there aren’t any – and by its website – it doesn’t have one.

What scandal nearly cost President Grover Cleveland the election? Get the inside story on this episode of Now I Know. The Presidency of Grover Cleveland is already unique for the well-known reason that his two terms were not consecutive. Cleveland won the 1884 Presidential election by a narrow margin – less than a half a percent of the popular vote – and took the Presidency.