Today is Wednesday, Aug. 27, the 239th day of 2025. There are 126 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 27, 2011, Hurricane Irene made landfall in the United States; the storm would be responsible for 49 total deaths and more than $14 billion in damage. Also on this date: In 1883, the island volcano Krakatoa erupted with a series of cataclysmic explosions.
Chopsticks date back millennia, with the earliest examples in China appearing as early as 1200 B.C. Originally used as cooking tools for stirring pots and retrieving food from hot oil, they gradually made their way to the dining table. By around 400 A.D., chopsticks were more common as eating utensils, and within another century, they had spread widely throughout East Asia, from Vietnam to Japan.
"Maxwell's wasn't just a club-it was a community. It was a proving ground. It was where music scenes collided, friendships were forged, and bands found both their audience and their soul."
On August 17, 1915, a mob in Cobb County, Georgia, lynched Jewish businessman Leo Frank, 31, whose death sentence for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan had been commuted to life imprisonment.
Historians and researchers who have seen early drafts say the new texts gloss over these events, and also appear to downplay and omit major human rights violations, including the killings of up to half a million suspected communists from 1965-6, and mass rapes targeting ethnic Chinese during the riots that led to the fall of Suharto in 1998.
"When Paul Morphy plays seven games of chess at once and blindfold, when young Colburn gives impromptu solution to a mathematical problem involving fifty-six figures, we are struck with hopeless wonder," J. Brownlee Brown wrote in 1864.
"It was also at Fraunces Tavern in 1804 that Hamilton, presiding over a Society of the Cincinnati dinner, had his final public encounter with a disgruntled Aaron Burr, just a week before their fateful duel."
The excavation uncovered rubble from the house, lost domestic items, and animal bones from family meals which Newton almost certainly did not join.
Rock climbing has evolved significantly over centuries, moving from heavy boots and natural fiber ropes to lightweight shoes and durable gear, enhancing safety and efficiency.
George Ward Price, dubbed the Monocled Prince of the Press by Ernest Hemingway, was one of the most successful journalists, whose scoop after scoop left competition behind.
On Aug. 7, 1974, French highwire artist Philippe Petit performed an unapproved tightrope walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York, chronicled in the Academy Award-winning documentary Man on Wire.
Whether soft or hard, mild or strong, young or aged, plain or flavored, cheese is central to many gastronomies and cultures around the world. Global production is still on the rise to meet growing consumer demand.
Mars isn't just a planet. It's a philosophy, an ideology. The way humans think about it changes over time, reflecting the unstable mix of assumptions, hopes, dreams and anxieties that define each historical moment.
The recipe for Worcestershire sauce was developed in response to a request from a nobleman returning from India during the British occupation, aiming to recreate an Indian sauce.
In the Netherlands in 1943, more than 6,200 Dutch doctors -97 percent of the profession-refused orders to register with the Nazi-controlled Chamber of Physicians. This registry was intended to force doctors to cooperate with racial and ableist screening, deportations, sterilization, and euthanasia policies.