This month, the 2.3 million Girl Scouts across the United States will begin taking orders for some 200 million boxes of Thin Mints, Tagalongs and more as they launch their annual Girl Scout cookie sale. A considerable source of funding for troop activities, the sales are also an ...read more

Like fruit cakes, mincemeat pie is a holiday culinary tradition that inspires more skepticism than excitement among most Americans today. This dish, traditionally made with meat (usually beef or venison), suet (beef fat shredded from the animal’s loins), cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ...read more

Today hot chocolate might be thought of as a creamy treat for kids after a day of sledding and snowball fights, but it has been a source of strength and wellness for thousands of years. Between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago, cacao plants were first cultivated in Mesoamerica by the ...read more

Bobbing for apples has been an autumn tradition for hundreds of years. Despite its presence at Halloween parties and festivals today, however, its origins are more rooted in love and romance than tricks and treats. In fact, it began as a British courting ritual, popular among ...read more

Cinnamon has been in use by humans for thousands of years—as early as 2,000 B.C. Egyptians employed it, as well as the related spice cassia, as a perfuming agent during the embalming process, and it was even mentioned in the Old Testament as an ingredient in anointing oil. ...read more

It may surprise you that one of the most notable entrepreneurs of the American frontier didn’t wear a jacket, tip his hat and shine his shoes, but rather dressed in a coffee sack, donned a tin hat and traveled barefoot. John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, was a ...read more

Fall is quickly approaching, and the season delivers not only crisp, autumn air but our favorite crisp, autumn treat: apples. Originating in the Tien Shan mountains of Kazakhstan millions of years ago, the apple has been part of the human diet for tens of thousands of years. Just ...read more

Aside from the famous six-day hostage situation at the Sveriges Kreditbanken in Stockholm from which its name is derived, Stockholm syndrome is perhaps most famously associated with the iconic photo of a beret-wearing, gun-toting Patty Hearst robbing a bank in April 1974. The ...read more

Covering an expanse of over 6.6 million square miles, Russia is the world’s largest country by landmass, beating out runner-up Canada by around 2.8 million square miles. It includes nine different time zones and shares land borders with 14 neighboring countries. Russia’s origins ...read more

As the summer temperatures rise, so do our cravings for icy treats to beat the heat. Although they may seem like a simple combination of syrup and ice, there is a colorful history behind the many varieties of shaved ice Americans consume each summer. Get the low down on snow ...read more

It may be difficult to imagine, but there is a country in the world smaller than New York City’s Central Park and one with a population smaller than a typical high-school class. Based on landmass, Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, measuring just 0.2 square miles, ...read more

From the knights of medieval legends to Indiana Jones, the holy grail has been the most sought-after Christian relic in popular culture for centuries. The grail is most commonly identified as the cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper and that Joseph of Arimathea used to ...read more