Monday, August 24, 2026, brings National Waffle Day, marking the patent for an improved waffle iron that could be flipped without burning the cook.

Today’s journey includes a swimmer coated in porpoise oil, a six-minute song considered too strange for radio, and a planet dismissed during a meeting.

Today we explore Matthew Webb’s grueling swim across the English Channel, Queen’s refusal to shorten “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and the astronomical vote that reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet.

Along the way, we meet birthday celebrant Rupert Grint, the appropriately wizard-named actor who rapped his way into playing Ron Weasley—and later bought himself an ice-cream van.

Sometimes changing a label says more about us than it does about the thing being labeled.