America 250: The bookseller who saved the revolution
In the winter of 1775, George Washington had a problem. His ragged army had the British pinned inside Boston, but no artillery to force them out. Then a…
Author: The Smart Reader Staff
Briefs and quick reads selected and edited by The Smart Reader's editorial team of Rick, Allyson, and Ryan Good.
The cat who outlasted six prime ministers
At 10 Downing Street, British prime ministers come and go. Larry the Cat just stays. On February 15, Britain’s official Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office…
Lake cow bacon almost happened
In 1910, America had two problems: a meat shortage and a plague of water hyacinth choking the waterways of the South. A congressman from Louisiana had one…
The ultimate portable power source?
A portable battery to charge your devices can really come in handy, but would you accept one that followed you around like a puppy? Solar power equipment…
OpenClaw flips the tech world upside-down (again)
The world can’t stop talking about OpenClaw, a just-released AI tool that its founder describes as, AI that actually does things., OpenClaw isn’t just…
The graphic is the Claude logo
Need an extra set of hands? Claude Cowork might be the solution You might already know about Claude, Anthropic’s series of large language models (LLMs),…
A brief history of the Olympics
The first Olympic Games were held in 776 B.C. in the Greek city of Olympia. Olympia was the site of the main temple to Zeus, and where the Greek god was…
First Olympics had one event
The first ancient Greek Olympic Games, traditionally dated to 776 BC at Olympia in honor of Zeus, consisted of only one event: the stadion race’a short…
One event not revived in the modern Olympics
Introduced in 648 BC, the pankration (meaning all strength or power) was the most brutal event in the Olympic games. Reminiscent of the modern Mixed…
Top 10 most popular dog names
Out of all the estimated 68 million pet dogs in the U.S., some names reign among dog owners. The top name of all is Luna, according to U.S. News & World…