The Bored is taking $100 back to 1940

The Bored wants to edutain you with the value of money.
$100 in 2012 would be the same as $1639 in 1940, according to this amazing workable inflation calculator.

Minimum wage was 30 cents an hour, with an average annual salary of $1,900.

A house cost $6,550 and a car cost $800.

A gallon of gas was 18 cents, and milk was almost double that, at 34 cents per gallon.  

$12.50 would buy this much groceries. 

And the rest is history...

The Bored Reports on China's Gold

The Bored wants to edutain you about China's Olympic gold medal wins.
Winning GOLD is everything for Chinese athletes, who have undergone insane training at one of China's 15,000 sports schools since the age of 6. Teachers are told to look out for children with sports talent, and inform Government Officials when they they are found. The children are then taken from their families to live at training facilities. This video gives you a glimpse at what the young athletes endure, it's not easy to watch... but undoubtedly you were astounded by Sports Person number 137's world record breaking performance.

Bored at the Library

The Bored wants to edutain you with The Rock Bottom Remainders, who performed for 20 years!
The 20 member band included notable authors and personalities like Stephen King, Amy Tan, Maya Angelou, Cynthia Heimel and Matt Groening!

Bored, with Haters

The internet said Barney the Dinosaur had cocaine hidden in his tail, and doled it out to the kids, Steve from Blues Clues apparently overdosed on heroin and Mister Rogers was once rumored to be a Marine sharp shooter. The Bored has conclusively decided that haters are always gonna hate.

"Interesting side note about Fred Rogers. He was the number three Marine sniper in the Vietnam war. And one of the reasons he always wears long sleeve clothing is because his arms are covered in tattoos." 

The Bored Wanders

The Bored is amused to learn that telegram service is still available in Canada Germany Japan Mexico and Sweden stop

Edutain yourselves with this 1928 leaflet on how to write a telegram economically.

Bored notes:  Marks of punctuation, such as the comma, period, dash, colon, etc., are not transmitted in telegrams unless the sender specifically requests it, and then they are counted and charged for, as one word each. The companies have been prompted to adopt this policy because it requires almost as much effort to transmit a mark of punctuation as to send a short word, and unless attention is specifically called to punctuation marks by counting them in the "check," there might be danger of their being overlooked. Messages in which the sender requests that marks of punctuation be transmitted are rare.

Edutainment Tonight - Saturday Night Edition

The Bored hopes you're not alone, because we're going to creep you out.

The lyrics to Stairway to Heaven came to Robert Plant in a flash of inspiration when he and Jimmy Page were sitting by a fireplace with Page strumming the intro chords. Plant: "I was holding a pencil and paper, and for some reason I was in a very bad mood. Then all of a sudden my hand was writing out the words, 'There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold/And she's buying a stairway to heaven.' I just sat there and looked at the words and then I almost leapt out of my seat."

This led to speculation that it was Satan who was moving the pencil. 

The Bored thought this chick was Edutaining

The Bored studied Clara Meadmore because she's the world's oldest living virgin at 107 years old...
Alas, we're disappointed to report that it took dedication and good morals, nothing exciting.

"I imagine there is a lot of hassle involved and I have always been busy doing other things. I grew up in an era where little girls were to be seen and not heard so I had to learn to stand up for myself and earn my own living ... Some men don't like that in a woman and before long I was too old to marry anyway. When I was a girl you only had sex with your husband - and I never married."