Showing results by author "Dylan Peters" in All Categories

Think the 1800s were polite, quiet, and proper? Think again. Behind the portraits, top hats, and candlelight dinners was a century full of dangerous inventions, deadly beauty trends, bizarre medical treatments, and everyday habits that would horrify modern people. Victorian society preached manners and morality—but behind closed doors people were: • Drinking medicine made from cocaine, arsenic, and opium • Using radioactive cosmetics and poisonous fashion • Sending children down chimneys for work • Watching public executions as entertainment • Experimenting with electricity on ...

You probably imagine the 1500s as an age of elegant castles, brilliant Renaissance artists, and brave explorers sailing into the unknown. That’s part of the story. The rest is… far stranger. In the 1500s, people believed diseases traveled through bad smells, doctors prescribed ground mummy as medicine, and cities dumped chamber pots straight out of windows into the streets below. Kings owned entire wardrobes of armored underwear, sailors thought sea monsters guarded the edge of the map, and public executions were treated like family entertainment events. Even stranger? Many of the ...

You probably picture the 1700s as polite tea parties, powdered wigs, and elegant Enlightenment thinkers discussing philosophy by candlelight. That image is… wildly incomplete. Behind the portraits and powdered faces was a world of pirates running governments, doctors prescribing tobacco smoke enemas, deadly fashion trends, experimental electricity shows, scandalous royal behavior, bizarre medical cures, and political revolutions that nearly collapsed entire empires. People fainted from corsets, kings lost their heads, scientists shocked dinner guests with electricity, and entire cities ...

The 1920s promised champagne, jazz, and a shiny modern future. What it delivered instead was a cultural chain reaction that still hasn’t stopped. Flappers, Flickers & Fallout pulls back the curtain on the decade that quietly invented the world we now live in—on screens, in celebrity culture, in politics, in moral panics, in advertising, in entertainment, and even in how we argue about truth itself. From silent film scandals that rewrote censorship forever, to Prohibition accidentally creating the gangster mythos, to radio turning politics into performance, to how the 1920s reshaped fame...

You probably imagine the 1500s as an age of elegant castles, brilliant Renaissance artists, and brave explorers sailing into the unknown. That’s part of the story. The rest is… far stranger. In the 1500s, people believed diseases traveled through bad smells, doctors prescribed ground mummy as medicine, and cities dumped chamber pots straight out of windows into the streets below. Kings owned entire wardrobes of armored underwear, sailors thought sea monsters guarded the edge of the map, and public executions were treated like family entertainment events. Even stranger? Many of the ...

Before it became the most visited vacation destination on Earth, Walt Disney World was a mosquito-infested Florida swamp hiding one of the most ambitious construction projects in modern history. Behind the castles, fireworks, and smiling mascots lies a world of engineering secrets, bizarre design tricks, strange rules, and astonishing stories that most visitors never notice. Did you know: The entire Magic Kingdom sits on top of a giant underground city? The “haunted” mansion wasn’t originally built where you think it was? Walt Disney secretly bought thousands of acres through fake ...

History tends to present the time around the birth of Jesus as quiet, sacred, and solemn. Reality was… considerably messier. The world between 10 BC and AD 50 was loud, crowded, political, dangerous, inventive, deeply religious, and sometimes unbelievably strange. Roman emperors ruled with theatrical ego. Street vendors sold questionable food. Doctors prescribed treatments that would horrify modern medicine. Religious movements collided, clashed, and spread through dusty roads and bustling ports. Meanwhile, ordinary people were navigating life in cities filled with sewage systems, ...

You remember the ’80s as neon, synths, big hair, and blockbuster dreams. But behind the VHS glow and Saturday morning cartoons lies a far stranger—and more surprising—truth. We Were Promised Hoverboards peels back the pop-culture polish to reveal how real 1980s events—Cold War scares, corporate shakeups, censorship battles, tech revolutions, moral panics, and political theater—secretly rewired movies, television, music, and everyday life. From the hidden reasons your favorite shows were canceled, to how global crises reshaped blockbuster plots, to why certain “harmless” trends...

The 1970s weren’t just about disco, shag carpet, and gritty movies—they were a cultural pressure cooker that quietly rewired how we watch, think, and remember. From political scandals that turned news into prime-time drama, to energy crises that reshaped storytelling, to TV experiments that would never be allowed today, this decade didn’t just entertain America—it reprogrammed it. Bell-Bottoms, Blackouts & Blockbusters pulls back the curtain on the real events, hidden influences, and strange behind-the-scenes decisions that shaped 1970s film, television, and pop culture. You’ll ...

The 1960s didn’t just change the world. It set it on fire, filmed it, put it on TV, and sold it back to everyone with a laugh track. The 1960's Were Absolutely Unhinged is a fact-packed deep dive into the real stories behind the moments that reshaped culture, film, and television—and the bizarre, shocking, and often unbelievable truths most people never learned in school. From the way assassinations altered broadcast rules, to how censorship panic rewrote Hollywood, to why sitcoms suddenly got weird, political, and surreal, this book reveals how chaos, fear, rebellion, and innovation ...

You remember the flannel. You remember the dial-up tone. You remember Blockbuster on Friday nights. But you don’t remember what was really happening behind the scenes. The 1990s weren’t just a decade of boy bands, sitcom sofas, and “be kind, rewind.” They were a cultural reset engineered in boardrooms, courtrooms, writers’ rooms, and newsrooms — decisions that still shape the world you live in today. Why did a handful of corporate mergers permanently change what you see on television? How did one court case quietly redefine music ownership? Why were some of the decade’s ...

So much happend in 1910;s we had to creat ethis MEGA version of historical facts! The 1910s looked simple on the surface. Horse carts still rolled down city streets. Silent films flickered in nickelodeons. Radios were experimental curiosities. Most people had never seen an airplane. And then everything exploded. World War I shattered empires. Hollywood quietly invented modern entertainment. Pandemics, propaganda, and new technologies rewired society faster than anyone realized. But the real story of the decade is stranger than the history books ever told. Inside this fascinating fact ...

"Creating awareness and tolerance one tic at a time." - Dylan Peters In Tic Talk - Living with Tourette Syndrome, Dylan Peters shares what he has learned of tolerance and acceptance during the five years he’s had Tourette Syndrome. In a style that is often humorous and always insightful, Dylan helps others, young and old understand TS and the enormous pressures this little-understood affliction places on those who have it and on those who love them. Illustrated by Zachary Wendland and painted by Kris Taft Miller. Foreword by Major League Baseball Player Jim Eisenreich. Teacher Strategies ...

Before there were drive-thrus, dollar menus, and late-night nugget runs… there were Roman snack bars, medieval street vendors, railroad lunch counters, and roadside burger shacks. Fast food didn’t just appear overnight — it evolved through wars, technology, urbanization, and a relentless human craving for food that’s quick, cheap, and satisfying. Inside this wildly entertaining fact book you’ll discover: The ancient Roman version of fast food sold in bustling street stalls. The bizarre reason white castle burgers had five holes punched in them. How a milkshake machine salesman ...

Ranked Top 10 "Best Lit Mags of 2023" by Chill Subs Synopsis: Carefully curated stories from our monthly magazine to create a themed short story book about the philosophy and ethics of research. Perfect for classrooms and book clubs, each story is 1,500-7,000 words and comes with five suggested discussion questions. The Mind Reader: An outspoken bar patron runs an experiment to see if the world can be divided into the "weak" and the "strong" in attempt to prove he's not an authoritarian fascist. Mahabbah: A scientist invents a virus that causes people to be compassionate and empathetic. ...

Ranked Top 10 "Best Lit Mags of 2023" by Chill Subs Synopsis: Carefully curated stories from our monthly magazine to create a themed short story book about the philosophy and ethics of business. Perfect for classrooms and book clubs, each story is 1,500-7,000 words and comes with five suggested discussion questions. The Pool: A good-willed apartment complex owner deals with ever-complaining tenants as she attempts community improvements. First Gold: A graphic designer is called out when he wins a design prize for an advertisement he plagiarized. Pandora's Dreams: A new technology allows the...