Cafe History

The meter is the world's ultimate measure, but how did it become "the" meter? What is this measurement based on? The story of this revolution in measurement traces its roots to the French Revolution. Scientists decided that an equal and united people should have equal and united measures. So they sent a pair of young astronomers out to measure the world, and invent the meter. Little did they know they'd find nothing but war, deception, and strife along the way. As a result of this ill-fated mission, the meter carries an error that still persists today. Still think the metric system is so perfect?

How did St. Valentine become associated with love and romance? Get the full story behind the holiday.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9... and 0. With just these ten symbols, we can write any rational number imaginable. But why these particular symbols? Why ten of them?

Three decades of change in five seconds.

How the pigeon became known as the sky rat.

The crazy story of the arbitrary temperature scale used in a tiny minority of countries.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte" ("The Magic Flute") is widely regarded as one of the most influential operas in history.

Nostalgia was once considered an illness confined to specific groups of people. Today, people all over the world report experiencing and enjoying nostalgia. But how does nostalgia work? And is it healthy? Clay Routledge details the way our understanding of nostalgia has changed since the term was first coined in the late 17th century.

I'm thankful for science. And also pie.

Today, it is estimated that 50% of Americans eat at least one sandwich every day. And while it's all but impossible to imagine a world without them, sandwiches have only been around since 1762.

Few individuals have influenced the world and many of today's thinkers like Plato. He created the first Western university and was teacher to Ancient Greece's greatest minds, including Aristotle.

Sunken relics, ghostly shipwrecks, and lost cities aren't just wonders found in fictional adventures. Beneath the ocean's surface, there are ruins where people once roamed and shipwrecks loaded with artifacts from another time.

For the 64% of Americans that drink coffee daily, an expedient cup is practically essential. But preparing coffee hasn't always been easy.

Though people are most familiar with Plato's fictional Atlantis, many real underwater cities actually exist. Peter Campbell explains how sunken cities are studied by scientists to help us understand the lives of our ancestors, the dynamic nature of our planet, and the impact of each on the other.

For the majority of recorded human history, units like the weight of a grain or the length of a hand weren't exact and varied from place to place.

They sit with us at every meal, but why?

The discovery of the structure of DNA was one of the most important scientific achievements in human history.

North America didn't always have its familiar shape, nor its famed mountains, canyons, and plains: all of that was once contained in an unrecognizable mass, buried deep in Rodinia, a huge supercontinent that lay on the face of the Earth.

Humans. We have been around for a while now. When we think about our past we think about ancient civilizations, the pyramids, stuff like that. But this is only a tiny, tiny part of our history.

Celsius never devised nor used the scale that now bears his name.

Greece is full of wonderful new things and wonderful old things. But when WE become old things, will our ruins also be tourist attractions?