February is Black History Month, a time for Americans to reflect on the cultural contributions African Americans have made to the United States. Some may be wondering how Black History Month became an official celebration. And why is it celebrated in February? Here’s the scoop.

Most history experts give credit to Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950). Woodson is commonly referred to as the father of black history. Carter led a challenging but amazing life. At the age of 19, he entered high school and completed his studies in two years. He then studied Greek and Latin, while working in a mine shaft. Eventually, he went to the University of Chicago, and finally got his PhD from Harvard University.

But what does that have to do with Black History Month? After founding the Journal of Negro History, Woodson was instrumental (read: it wouldn’t have happened without him) in organizing “Negro History Week.” Woodson chose a week in February as a way to honor the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln, who abolished slavery, and Frederick Douglass, the iconic civil rights activist.

Negro History Week became Black History Month during the 1960s. “No other single thing,” Woodson said, “has done so much to dramatize the achievement of persons of African blood.” According to AppalachianHistory.net, Woodson often remarked that “he hoped the time would come when Negro History Week would be unnecessary; when all Americans would willingly recognize the contributions of black Americans as a legitimate and integral part of the history of this country.”

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Mike

To make things easier for Android users, we developed an app that offered the Yahoo! Answers mobile experience outside of the browser. However, we noticed that most of our mobile users still access the site directly from their browsers. As a result, we decided to focus our resources in building better core experiences for Yahoo! Answers across devices. Effective today, we are retiring the app for Android, but don’t worry: you can still access the mobile version of Yahoo! Answers by visiting answers.yahoo.com from your favorite browser. Or if you already have the Android app downloaded, you’ll still be able to use it.

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How did the Academy Award get the nickname “Oscar”? According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the nickname “Oscar” came about when then “Academy librarian (and eventual executive director) Margaret Herrick remarked that it resembled her Uncle Oscar. The Academy didn’t adopt the nickname officially until 1939, but it was widely known enough by 1934 that Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky used it in a piece referring to Katharine Hepburn’s first Best Actress win.”

The Oscar’s official name is the Academy Award® of Merit, weighs 8.5 pounds is 13.5 inches and takes 3-4 weeks to manufacture. So who will be the lucky winners this year to take home the coveted prize?

The nominations were announced on January 24, 2012 and our very own Academy Awards on Yahoo! Movies will be providing complete coverage of the event. You can also make your predictions there and share them with your friends. The winners will be announced at the 84th Academy Awards on February 26, 2012 and will be hosted by Billy Crystal. So find out then to see if your predictions were right!

What do you think of the nominations? Do you think anyone or film was overlooked? Please leave a comment below.

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**Secret Revealed**

Like many kids, I didn’t like vegetables — especially carrots and broccoli. Adults frequently told me that carrots would improve my eyesight, so that seemed like a good reason to try liking them.

There was one person who didn’t tell me this, he actually told me the opposite. My grandfather overheard somebody tell me that carrots would improve my eyesight and he let me in on a little secret — it was all a big lie. Carrots do not improve your eyesight.

Sure, carrots and many other foods do contain beta-carotene, which metabolizes into Vitamin A and everyone agrees that is essential for maintaining eye health, but it does not improve it. If you are not consuming enough vitamin A, any number of sources could help restore your vitamin A supply. Carrots themselves are not unique or magical in this way. In fact, carrots have less beta-carotene per 200 calorie serving than red peppers, kale and lettuce.

Photo available in Flickr, under a Creatve Commons License

If lettuce, kale and red pepper have more beta-carotene than carrots, why do carrots get all the eyesight credit?

During World War II, the British were particularly good at shooting down Nazi bombers at night, when it’s almost impossible to see other planes. It was as if they had super-human sight, and they did. They had radar.

Once news stories started to circulate about these pilots with seemingly super-human eyes, the government needed a good explanation to prevent the Germans from learning about this technology. Carrots.

Flight Lieutenant John Cunningham, nicknamed ”Cats Eyes” for his incredible ability to shoot down enemy planes, had a natural love for carrots. The story wrote itself and they explained that they were feeding other pilots a lot of carrots to improve their eyesight too.

Chad Upton is the editor-in-chief of Broken Secrets and an official Yahoo Answers contributor.

Sources: duke health, snopes, self.com

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From Flickr, Creative Commons License

From time to time, we come across a few traditions. This one in particular caught our attention: the tradition of the “Poe Toaster.”

What is it?

For over seven decades a mysterious person would arrive at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe on his birthday, toast the author with a glass of cognac, then leave 3 roses and the unfinished bottle of cognac behind.  But for the third straight year, the Poe Toaster has been a no-show.

This mysterious visitor has been described as wearing dark clothes, a white scarf and a wide-brimmed hat. They come in the middle of the night. Some say it could be a father/son combo, which is why the tradition has continued for so long. Die-hard fans have been gathering each year to catch a glimpse, but since 2009, the toaster has not appeared.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Edgar Allan Poe, he is most famous for his poem, “The Raven” and short stores such as “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Pit and The Pendulum.” His death is still unclear, but he’s buried in Westminster Burial Ground, which is now downtown Baltimore. Hence the pro football team name: Baltimore Ravens.

So what do you think of this tradition? Have you heard of it? What other mysterious traditions do you want to share with the community? Tell us below!

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Of all the urban legends floating around college campuses, I think one stands out above all others. If your roommate dies, the legend says, you will automatically get a 4.0 GPA for the semester. True or false?

This one is 100% false, kids. Nobody knows for sure just how the story got started, but according to the experts at Snopes.com, stressed-out students were likely responsible. As the years went by, the story got told more and more, until people actually started to believe it.

And, as we pointed out in a piece from Ask Yahoo! several years ago, the notion does sort of make sense. After all, the death of a roommate would be extremely traumatic. Expecting a student to continue on with his or her studies does seem unreasonable. But, while students in this unfortunate situation are often given bereavement leave, an automatic 4.0 does not happen.

What are some of your favorite urban legends? Are they true, false, or unknown? Please leave a note below and let me know.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

January is a time when so many of us are gung ho about our goals.  Ready, excited, positive and determined this year will be the year we change, grow, progress and accomplish things.  But by spring many of us have completely abandoned those goals.  Why is it so difficult to follow through on them?

The media has tagged 2012 as “the end of the world.”  If it is, then how many of you are determined to do things just in case it is?  Will this inspire you to stick to your resolutions or to check things off your bucket list and be more of who you really want to be?

It’s natural to want to improve yourself and believing you can change is a great thing.  So, if this is our last year on earth what will you do to make it memorable?  And if it isn’t how many of you are ready to apply this philosophy each year after?  Please leave a comment below.

**Secret Revealed**

I love bananas.

They are a nearly perfect fruit. They taste great. They’re fairly inexpensive. They have their own protective skin and they contain many nutrients such as: vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

But, if I had to register a complaint about bananas, it would be their shelf life. Keeping them perfectly ripe is a fine art — one worth mastering.

The first trick is something my wife, Kristen, taught me: don’t buy all your bananas from the same bunch! Pick a couple green ones and a couple that are ripe/near ripe. Then you have some you can eat right away and others that will be ripe when you’re ready for them.

The interesting part is that those two bunches are likely the same age. You assume the less ripe ones are newer, but the food distributors control ripeness. They have large, air tight banana ripening vaults that give them very precise control over banana ripening. They’re usually divided into multiple sections, so bananas can be kept at different stages of ripeness. If they’re selling a lot of bananas, they can accelerate the ripening so they will be ripe when they arrive at the store. If sales are slow, they can slow ripening to avoid waste.

How do they do that?

Ethylene gas is used to induce ripening. In fact, bananas ripen themselves by producing ethylene and that’s why adding more ethylene to the air will speed banana ripening further. It’s really that simple.

To accelerate ripening at home, you just need ethylene gas. Luckily, tomatoes, apples, pears and bananas all produce it at an increasing rate as they ripen. If you put an apple or tomato in a bag with bananas, that will speed the ripening. Because bananas produce it, you can place the bananas in a bag to trap the gas and ripen them faster.

To slow ripening, you need to remove ethylene. You can’t remove ethylene completely, but you can slow its reaction by putting ripe bananas in the fridge. The skin of the banana will turn brown, which is normal, and the fruit inside is still good. You can keep bananas in the fridge for a couple weeks and they may not look good, but they still taste great. Do not put unripe bananas in the fridge, it will impede the early stages of ripening and spoil the fruit.

Some retailers also have “un-gassed” bananas; they aren’t as vivid a yellow color as the gassed bananas and are usually a mix between green and a muted yellow color, but the flavor of un-gassed bananas is generally better.

Chad Upton is the editor-in-chief of Broken Secrets and an official Yahoo Answers contributor.

Sources: Ripening, Banana, Raw Food Health

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Happy New Year!

Last year we asked you, “What was your favorite question in 2011?” And we got some great, quirky questions from our community. Thank you to everyone who participated and shared. Take a look at a few of the favorites or you can still tell us your favorite in the comments below.

What cartoon defines your childhood?

Is there a limit to human imagination?

If you were to put just 5 items into a paper bag that represented you, what would you pick?

Would anyone enjoy gefilte fish flavored ice cream?

Who brightens your day?

What is your future wedding song?

What is your weakness?

Are you stronger in knowledge or imagination?

If you could give one piece of advice to a 21-year-old, what would it be?

Have you ever fallen in love with someone you never expected to love?

How do I propose to my chicken?

If the world was really ending, what would you do for your last day on earth?

Could free will just be an illusion?

How can I make myself into a human peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

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Anyone who tosses a crumpled up piece of paper at the garbage can and misses is likely to hear a familiar expression from watchers: “Close but no cigar,” they’ll shout. How did this expression originate?

Like a lot of old timey phrases, nobody is 100% sure about how this one became so popular. However, most idiom experts agree that it likely originated at county fairs and the like during the mid-1900s.

According to The Phrase Finder, “fairground stalls gave out cigars as prizes, and this is the most likely source, although there’s no definitive evidence to prove that.”

The site writes that “Close, but no cigar” appeared in print form for the first time in 1935 as a line of dialogue in “Annie Oakley” starring the great Barbara Stanwyck in the title role.

The site, Take Our Word For It gets a little more specific with its theory. “It is widely assumed that it arose in carnivals, where the prize for ringing a bell with a sledge hammer was often a cigar. If you got close to ringing the bell but didn’t actually hit it, you might be told, ‘close but no cigar.’”

Got any favorite phrases with mysterious origins? Leave a comment below!

Thanks for reading,

Mike