BY RUDIE OBIAS MENTAL FLOSS Although most Americans spend Halloween dressing up and trick-or-treating, other countries have their own celebratory rituals. Here are 12 Halloween (and Halloween-like) traditions from around the world. 1. SAMHAIN // IRELAND AND SCOTLAND Ireland is considered the birthplace of modern Halloween with its origins stemming from ancient Celtic and Pagan rituals and a […]

From history.com    At 2:35 on the afternoon of October 27, 1904, New York City Mayor George McClellan takes the controls on the inaugural run of the city’s innovative new rapid transit system: the subway. While London boasts the world’s oldest underground train network (opened in 1863) and Boston built the first subway in the United States in 1897, […]

By Rachel Siegel The storefronts along Washington’s bustling H Street Northeast are lit up with familiar names and logos: Petco. Whole Foods. CVS. There is also a Starbucks. Or, more specifically, S-T-A-R-B-U-C-K-S spelled out in the hand symbols of American Sign Language. That fingerspelling is one way to spot the coffee giant’s first U.S. signing store, […]

By Jessica Stillman Inc.com  Elon Musk seems to get most of his sleep under his desk. Richard Branson recommends getting up at 5 a.m. Apple’s Tim Cook takes being an early riser even further, getting up at the ungodly hour of 3:45 a.m. And once these and other titans of industry are up they’re usually busy with productivity-boosting activities like exercise, […]

By Geoffrey James  writing for Inc.  Drinking coffee in moderation is good for your health but drinking a LOT of coffee is even better. The National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and the Feinberg School of medicine at Northwestern University recently analyzed coffee-drinking data from the UK Biobank, a long-term study of half a million people in the U.K. […]

DEIRDRE CLEMENTE writing for The Atlantic Americans began the 20th century in bustles and bowler hats and ended it in velour sweatsuits and flannel shirts—the most radical shift in dress standards in human history. At the center of this sartorial revolution was business casual, a genre of dress that broke the last bastion of formality—office […]

From peopleproductivitysuccess.com We often use the phrase “Our Employees Are Our Greatest Asset,” but what do we mean when we make this statement?   I must admit, I don’t think I have ever heard a company actually define what they mean by employees being their greatest asset, and if it’s not defined, then chances are employees aren’t…. So, in researching my […]

By Cate Lineberry Smithsonian.com  Darkness still blanketed the city of Charleston in the early hours of May 13, 1862, as a light breeze carried the briny scent of marshes across its quiet harbor. Only the occasional ringing of a ship’s bell competed with the sounds of waves lapping against the wooden wharf where a Confederate sidewheel […]

By Richard Quinn  writing for MarketWatch We’re faced with a host of thorny retirement issues: Keep Social Security solvent. Make Medicare affordable. Many Americans aren’t saving enough. They want to retire earlier than they can reasonably afford. They’re effectively financially illiterate. But in the end, you don’t need to worry about all Americans. Instead, what you […]

By Gabriella Borter  Doughnut lovers took to social media on Tuesday to decry a decision by Dunkin’ Donuts to drop its signature product from its name, an effort by the brand now known simply as Dunkin’ to highlight a wider array of menu items and appeal to a younger generation. The U.S. chain will still sell […]