I truly can't resist a great fun fact or a little trivia moment. Pop culture facts, presidential history, an absolutely wild fact about outer space? You name it, I'm on a Google deep dive about it.
I love facts so much that I even write an article each week full of the latest things I've learned! At the end of the month, I put 'em all together in one mega-post for your reading pleasure.
With that being said, that means there's a chance you've seen these facts in other BuzzFeed posts before!
So, without further ado, here are 61 utterly fascinating things I learned in November 2022:
1. Paul McCartney was one of the few people who knew Taylor Swift was dropping Evermore, her second surprise album, in December 2020. "I did the Rolling Stone cover with Taylor Swift, and she just emailed me recently, and she said, 'I wasn’t telling anyone, but I’ve got another album,'" McCartney said during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show. The issue? McCartney's latest album was slated for Dec. 10, which was the same date Taylor was envisioning for Evermore. McCartney said he gave Taylor her date, which was chosen to coincide with her Dec. 13 birthday. "People do keep out of each other’s way. It’s a nice thing to do," he said. Evermore dropped on Dec. 10, and McCartney III released the following week.
2. The depiction of the mafia in HBO's The Sopranos was allegedly so accurate that real members of the mafia were convinced that the showrunners had been spying on them. In an oral history of the show published in Vanity Fair, Terence Winter, an executive producer and writer on the show, said that an FBI agent told him that on Monday mornings after the show would air, all the agents could talk about was the show. "Then they would listen to the wiretaps from that weekend, and it was all mob guys talking about The Sopranos, having the same conversation about the show, but always from the flip side," he said. "We would hear back that real wise guys used to think that we had somebody on the inside. They couldn’t believe how accurate the show was."
So, how were they able to create such an accurate portrayal of the mafia? A total of 27 of the actors who appeared in the show had previously starred in Goodfellas, which meant they were familiar with playing members of the mob. Drea de Matteo told Vanity Fair that for many of the cast members, being on the show didn't even feel like acting. "It never really felt like we were trying to pretend that we were in the mafia or that we were Italian," she said. "We were just a bunch of Italians that were there. Once the show took off and I started doing press, I never even let go of who the character was. I would keep my accent and everything."
3. Some consider keeping your fish in a fishbowl a form of animal cruelty. In fact, some manufacturers refuse to sell fishbowls, and they tell pet owners to opt for fish tanks instead because the majority of fishbowls don't allow for adequate filtration and oxygenation. "Turning round and round in a small bowl drives fish crazy and kills them quickly,” Matthieu Lambeaux, the CEO of a French aquarium manufacturer, said. Goldfish can actually live for up to 30 years in a proper environment but often die in a matter of weeks or months when kept in a circular bowl.
4. In September 1961, Betty and Barney Hill, a married couple, were driving back to their home in New Hampshire from a camping trip in Canada when they claimed they had been abducted by aliens. The Hills reported seeing lights in the sky before allegedly witnessing a spacecraft full of "bipedal humanoid creatures" land in a nearby field. Following the landing, the Hills said they had no recollection of the next few hours. When the couple returned home, they said they noticed several alarming changes: Betty's dress was allegedly stained and torn, Barney's shoes were scraped, and the leather strap of their binoculars was destroyed.
In the years after the alleged abduction, the Hills were still experiencing lingering effects, and they sought hypnosis therapy to help them recall exactly what happened to them. After about a year of therapy, both began to piece together stories about what they experienced. They also drew a diagram of the spacecraft that became one of the first examples of the flying saucer UFO. By 1965, their story had been published in a Boston newspaper. Soon after, the story was expanded into a book called The Interrupted Journey and was later adapted into The UFO Incident, a movie starring James Earl Jones.
While the Hills' story was not the first time civilians had claimed to come into contact with aliens, it was one of the first times that the experience had been portrayed as anything but friendly. Some believed that the Hills had made the entire thing up. The Air Force ultimately dismissed the Hills' story. The Hills' story has since appeared in pop culture, most notably in American Horror Story: Asylum.
5. Don Cheadle had a major role in Ocean's Eleven, but don't try to look for him in the credits! Cheadle asked for top billing in the film alongside costars Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and George Clooney. After all, Cheadle had just starred in Traffic, which had won the Oscar for Best Directing by Steven Soderbergh, who was also directing Ocean's Eleven. Cheadle's request was denied, so he allegedly told the filmmakers to take his name off the movie entirely. Cheadle ended up returning for Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen and was able to negotiate top billing for each film.
6. New York City's Central Park covers about 843 acres in the center of Manhattan, which makes it larger than both Monaco and Vatican City. Monaco, which clocks in at 0.78 square miles, is about three-fifths the size of Central Park, while Vatican City, coming in at only 0.2 square miles, is about one-eighth the size of the park.
7. On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was leaving an event at the Washington Hilton when several shots were fired. Reagan was struck by a bullet that ricocheted off a limousine and lodged under his left armpit. Three other officials were injured in the assassination attempt. John Hinckley was immediately taken into custody but was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Following his trial, he spent three decades at a mental hospital until he was released in June 2022. Reagan's injuries went unnoticed until he began to cough up blood on the ride back to the White House, prompting a pivot to the emergency room.
The media initially reported that Reagan had not been injured at all during the shooting, only to backtrack their statements as more information was released. When Reagan got to the hospital, TV cameras captured him walking under his own power through the doors, but once he got inside, he allegedly collapsed to the ground. According to NPR, Reagan lost almost half of his blood volume and was just seconds away from dying because of the bullet wound. Despite the apparent severity of Reagan's wounds, the public had no idea how dire Reagan's initial prognosis was.
White House spokespeople told the media that Reagan was in great spirits. They claimed that he was cracking jokes with surgeons, reportedly telling them, "I hope you're all Republicans." He also told his wife, Nancy, that he "forgot to duck." For nearly 30 years, Americans had no idea how close to death Reagan actually was after the assassination attempt. Dr. Joe Giordano, who was then the head of trauma care at George Washington University Hospital, told CBS News that he believed Reagan would have died had he not been taken immediately to the ER.
8. Tiger beetles run so fast that they actually temporarily blind themselves. The beetles run at an estimated 53.87 body lengths per second, a speed at which their eyes can no longer gather enough light to see. This proves problematic when they're trying to track down prey because it makes it difficult for the beetles to keep track of their prey's location.
9. Imagine seeing Princess Diana on the big screen! According to Kevin Costner, this was nearly a reality. Following the success of The Bodyguard, which starred Whitney Houston as a singer who falls for the bodyguard (played by Costner) hired to protect her from a mysterious stalker, Costner said that he approached Princess Diana about appearing in a sequel to the film. "The studio liked the idea of doing a Bodyguard 2 [with Princess Diana] in the same kind of capacity as Whitney," Costner told PeopleTV. "Nobody really knew that for about a year."
Costner called Diana, who agreed to the film. "I just remember her being incredibly sweet on the phone when she asked the questions," he said. "She goes, 'Are we going to have like a kissing scene?' But she said it in a very respectful — she was a little nervous because I think her life was very governed." Costner also revealed that he received the first script for the sequel on Aug. 31, 1997, just hours before Princess Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris.
10. In 2018, 13-year-old Jaequan Faulkner set up a hot dog stand in front of his house in Minnesota to make money to buy new school clothes. Soon after Mr. Faulkner's Old Fashioned Hot Dogs opened for business, someone complained about the stand to the health department, citing improper food handling practices. Instead of closing down his hot dog stand, the Minnesota Department of Health helped Faulkner get his hot dog stand up to code to allow him to stay open. A few employees even paid the $87 permit necessary for the operation to ensure Faulkner could continue running his business.
11. During the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara, who was then the Secretary of Defense, started Project 100,000, an initiative to get more men to fight in the war even though they received low scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which determines basic eligibility for military service. President Lyndon B. Johnson had recently debuted his War on Poverty initiative, which provided benefits for military veterans. McNamara, who was trying to find new ways to boost the number of soldiers in Vietnam, believed recruitment standards could be lowered and thought that the benefits of programs for veterans could entice these men to fight.
Many of the men drafted under Project 100,000 were "ill-equipped" for service in a variety of ways. Some of them faced physical challenges that ordinarily would have excluded them from service, while others were deemed mentally unfit. A large portion of those who fought under Project 100,000 were illiterate. In some cases, the men didn't even take the tests themselves, but had recruiters take the tests for them. The men recruited under Project 100,000 were disproportionately Black. "Our best hope is to use the Armed Forces as a socializing experience for the poor," Labor Secretary Daniel Moynihan said. Once they began their military service, the soldiers recruited under Project 100,000 were treated as any other soldier would be.
The results of Project 100,000 proved to be devastating. Project 100,000 soldiers were three times more likely to be killed in action. They were reassigned and required remedial training at much higher rates than soldiers who weren't a part of the program. Soldiers who were a part of Project 100,000 made an average of $7,000 less than men who never went to war and were also more likely to be divorced. Many of the soldiers suffered from PTSD upon their return home. A staggering 180,000 of the more than 300,000 soldiers recruited in the program received less than honorable discharges, which made finding work or receiving veteran benefits difficult. The program was eventually called off in 1971 and was seen as a failure.
12. Steve Irwin, who charmed audiences as the Crocodile Hunter until he was killed by a stingray in 2006, said the only animal he was scared of working with was the parrot. "For some reason, parrots have to bite me," he told Scientific American in 2001. "That's their job. I don't know why that is. They've nearly torn my nose off. I've had some really bad parrot bites."
13. After Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins returned from their historic moon landing in 1969, they immediately were sent into a 21-day quarantine. The trip to the moon marked the first time a human had interacted with another celestial body, and NASA was worried that the astronauts had been potentially exposed to harmful bacteria or unknown dangerous elements.
After landing, they were immediately ushered to a Mobile Quarantine Facility, a modified Airstream trailer that the astronauts stayed in. They remained in the trailer during a drive through Hawaii, a flight across the Pacific, and a drive through Houston, Texas to get to NASA's office. "It was a happy little home,” Collins said. "We were there, five people happy as clams to be in a confined space. We had gin on board, had steaks. What the hell? I could have stayed in there a lot longer."
Once they arrived in Houston, the men were transferred to much larger quarters to carry out the rest of their quarantine, where they were closely monitored by doctors. Meanwhile, a team of scientists examined the rocks, dust, and debris that returned to Earth with the astronauts. They exposed mice to the astronauts and some of the debris to ensure that living creatures could withstand the lunar matter.
14. The corpse lily, or carrion flower, is the largest flower in the world. The flower measures more than three feet across and can weigh up to 15 pounds. The corpse lily got its name from its scent, which closely resembles that of decaying flesh in order to attract flies.
15. The NCAA, the governing body for collegiate athletes, has a hefty 400+-page rulebook full of some shockingly specific rules. For example, the NCAA said that student athletes with a full scholarship were not allowed to put cream cheese or any type of spread on a bagel. Why? The NCAA believed that putting a spread on a bagel counted as a meal. Athletes on a full scholarship were only allowed three meals a day, so the NCAA banned bagels adorned with a spread so it wouldn't count as a meal, but a mere snack. The rule was eliminated in 2013 after being widely criticized.
In 2014, the NCAA penalized three football players from the University of Oklahoma after the university self-reported that the players ate an excessive amount of pasta at a graduation banquet. An NCAA bylaw stated that universities could occasionally provide student athletes with "reasonable refreshments" at "celebratory events." They allegedly considered the pasta meal out of the bounds of a "reasonable refreshment." In order to be reinstated, each player had to donate $3.83, the estimated cost of the pasta, to charity. "We felt we ate more than $3.83, so we donated $5," Austin Woods, one of the penalized players, tweeted after the incident.
16. If you've ever wondered exactly who types all of those names and numbers in the Yellow Pages, ask Dustin Hoffman! The acclaimed actor moved to New York City in the early 1960s to become an actor, and he took on a series of odd jobs before hitting it big. Hoffman said he did everything from working at coat checks to stringing flowers onto Hawaiian leis. Hoffman also said he worked as a typist for the Yellow Pages, where he was allegedly the only man on the staff with over 80 women. "I’d do any job anywhere," he told Vanity Fair. "I had no shame."
17. When working on a screenplay, beloved 1980s teen movie writer John Hughes would allegedly write for 20 hours at a time, and he would have a first draft finished in a few days. According to ScreenRant, Hughes wrote The Breakfast Club over a single weekend in July 1982. One of the most famous moments from the movie actually had no script at all. The scene where the entire cast gathers to discuss the real reasons why they've all landed in detention was almost completely improvised, with the entire cast making up each reason on the spot.
The Breakfast Club wasn't the only movie Hughes wrote in record time! Ferris Bueller's Day Off came together just days before the Writers' Guild of America, which Hughes was a part of, went on strike. Hughes had allegedly pitched the concept to a Paramount Pictures executive, who loved the idea. Hughes knew he had to finish the movie before the strike, and allegedly wrote the first 50 pages of the script in about five hours. The pages were reportedly so good that they barely changed from the first draft to the final screenplay. He eventually delivered his draft to Paramount Studios at 11:50 p.m., 10 minutes before the strike was slated to start.
18. TLC fans owe NASA a major thank you! The channel was founded in 1972 by NASA and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. It was meant to be a network full of educational and instructional programming, and NASA agreed to distribute the channel for free via satellite. In 1991, Discovery purchased TLC. By the mid-1990s, they began infusing reality programming. In 1998, they officially dropped "The Learning Channel" name and began tailoring their programming to appeal to "moms and housewives," morphing into its current form as the home of shows like 90 Day Fiancé and 1,000-Lb. Sisters.
19. In 1971, Coca-Cola debuted a new ad campaign featuring a jingle called "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke." The idea for the song originated during a flight to London. Bill Backer, the creative director on the Coca-Cola advertising account, was en route to London to meet with Billy Davis, the music director for the Coca-Cola ads, and a team of British songwriters to come up with a new song for the brand's next ad campaign. There was so much fog in London that Backer's plane had to land in Ireland. Passengers were told to stay near the airport, which reportedly left many of them irate. By the next day, he recalled seeing many of the angry passengers sitting together in the airport's café, chatting and laughing over bottles of Coca-Cola.
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"[I] began to see a bottle of Coca-Cola as more than a drink that refreshed a hundred million people a day in almost every corner of the globe," Backer said. "So [I] began to see the familiar words, 'Let's have a Coke,' as more than an invitation to pause for refreshment. They were actually a subtle way of saying, 'Let's keep each other company for a little while.'" Once Backer got to London, he brought his observation to the songwriting team, with the line, "I'd like to buy the world a Coke." While Backer said some members of the team were initially wary, they proceeded with the songwriting process. Filming for the campaign cost $250,000, which was an unprecedented amount for the time.
"I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" was released in July 1971. The campaign was a hit, and soon, people were calling radio stations to request the song. While the original song was sung by the New Seekers, a British band, their management said they wouldn't have time to record an extended radio version, so Coca-Cola hired singers to form a group called the Hillside Singers. When the new version of the song was released, it charted within two weeks. Just a few weeks later, Coca-Cola convinced the New Seekers to record their own version of the song, and changed the title to "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony)." That version became a Top 10 hit. The ad was also featured prominently in the series finale of Mad Men, with the show insinuating that Don Draper (Jon Hamm) penned the tune.
20. In 1899, Morgan Robertson published a novel called Futility: or, the Wreck of the Titan. The novel featured a colossal ship called the Titan, which was billed as unsinkable. In the book, the Titan sinks on a cold April night during its maiden voyage across the Atlantic. Sound familiar? After the Titanic sank in 1912, people began drawing comparisons between the real-life tragedy and the fictional tale portrayed in the novel. While some believe that Robertson's novel is just an eerie coincidence, others are convinced that there is a spiritual explanation for it. To make things even creepier, Robertson had also written a short story that closely mirrored the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Robertson's story had been published in 1914, almost 30 years before the bombing.
21. Naomi Parker Fraley was the inspiration for the iconic Rosie the Riveter posters that became a symbol for women who worked in factories during World War II. The poster was originally displayed in Westinghouse Electric Corporation plants in 1943. It actually was not intended to be seen by the public, and instead was part of a campaign to deter absenteeism from the women working in the plant. In the 1980s, the poster resurfaced and soon became an icon for feminism. Soon, the Rosie the Riveter moniker became associated with the poster. During this time, several women came forward claiming they were the inspiration behind the image.
One of the women was Geraldine Doyle, who worked at a Michigan metal plant in 1942. Around that time, a photo of an unnamed woman wearing a polka-dotted bandana while working in a factory was heavily circulated. Doyle said she came across the photo again in 1984 and believed she was the woman in the photo. In 1994, the Rosie the Riveter poster had been featured on the cover of Smithsonian magazine, and by the late 1990s, several media outlets reported that Doyle was the inspiration behind the poster. Despite the insistence that Doyle was the woman in the photo, Dr. James J. Kimble was unsure and set off on a six-year investigation.
Through his research, Kimble found that Doyle was not the woman in the photograph. Instead, it was Fraley, who worked at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California. Fraley said that she had seen the poster and noted a potential resemblance between her and the painting, but didn't think much of it. In 2010, she attended a reunion held for women who worked during the war. The original photo was on display, with Doyle's name under it. Fraley said she was shocked because she knew that she was actually the woman in the image. She reached out to the National Parks Service, who in turn connected her with Kimble. Together, they found the original print of the photo, which identified "Naomi Parker" as the woman in the photo. Fraley died in 2016.
22. There is a theory that a fire onboard the Titanic contributed to the ship's tragic sinking. In photos from the shipyard taken about a week before the Titanic left for its maiden voyage, there are black streaks running along the ship's hull, in the same area where the ship was later gouged by an iceberg. Experts believe that the marks were the result of a fire that had been burning in the boiler room for about 10 days, and think that it might have significantly weakened the ship's infrastructure, potentially worsening the damage from the ship's fatal collision.
23. In 1974, actor Jack Nicholson learned that the woman he believed to be his sister was actually his mother, and that the woman he thought was his actual mother was his grandmother. A reporter for Time magazine was preparing for an interview with Nicholson to promote the movie Chinatown when he came across the shocking discovery, and called Nicholson to ask him if he knew that his "sister" was actually his mother. Nicholson was able to verify the story and told reporters that he was "stunned," but asked them to not report the findings in the article.
So, how exactly did this happen? Nicholson's mother June had reportedly gotten pregnant with Nicholson when she was 17 years old. His father was married to another woman, and June's mother Ethel allegedly threatened him with the Mann Act, a law that was used to prosecute sexual acts with minors. Ethel decided to raise the baby to protect the family from the shame associated with a child born out of wedlock. Meanwhile, June had aspirations of becoming an actor, and moved to Los Angeles when Nicholson was about four years old. Over a decade later, he decided he also wanted to pursue acting, and moved to Los Angeles to join his "sister." After the findings became public, Nicholson joked that June was his "sister-mother," but has rarely spoken about it since.
24. When shopping carts first made their debut in the 1930s, they were pretty unpopular. Many women claimed they looked too much like a baby carriage, while men thought pushing a cart was too feminine and were worried they would be seen as weak. Grocers hired actors to push carts around their stores and fill them up to demonstrate how useful they were, and soon, shopping carts became widely used.
25. Before becoming the classic that it is today, Back to the Future was rejected over 40 times, with one of the most notable rejections coming from Disney. In the movie, Marty McFly time travels from 1985 to 1955 and is tasked with ensuring his parents meet and get together, only to find the plan going incredibly wrong when Marty's mother inadvertently ends up falling for him. Screenwriter Bob Gale said that Disney believed the movie was far too risqué for their family-oriented audiences.
After getting rejected by Disney, director Robert Zemeckis took a second draft of the script to Columbia Pictures. Columbia was fresh off of hits like Animal House and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which were full of raunchy humor. When Columbia executives read the script, they allegedly said that it was too tame for their audiences and passed on the film. Universal Studios eventually bought the rights to the film, which went on to become the highest-grossing film of 1985 and was nominated for several Academy Awards.
26. Blue whales are not only the largest animal in the ocean, but the biggest animals to ever live on Earth. They're even larger than all known dinosaurs. A blue whale's heart weighs about 1,000 pounds, which is the average weight of a cow.
27. When World War II broke out in 1939, Queen Elizabeth II (then known as Princess Elizabeth), and her sister Princess Margaret were evacuated from Buckingham Palace and sent to Windsor Castle. During this time, many British children were evacuated from densely populated areas. In an effort to appeal to these children, Princess Elizabeth, who was 14 years old at the time, gave her first radio address as part of the BBC's Children's Hour. "My sister Margaret Rose and I feel so much for you, as we know from experience what it means to be away from those you love most of all," she said. "To you living in new surroundings, we send a message of true sympathy, and at the same time, we would like to thank the kind people who have welcomed you to their homes in the country.”
Some thought the speech was a kind gesture, while others thought it was propaganda. Following the speech, Elizabeth continued to stay plugged into the war efforts. She maintained a garden as part of the "Dig for Victory" campaign to help combat food shortages. On her 16th birthday, Elizabeth performed her first military regiment inspection and was named honorary colonel of the Grenadier Guards. Once Elizabeth turned 18, she insisted on joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), which was the women’s branch of the British Army.
When Elizabeth joined the army in 1944, her father, King George, ensured that she was not given a special rank. Elizabeth worked as a mechanic, and the media soon dubbed her "Princess Auto Mechanic." She spent most of her time in the training facilities and not on the frontlines, so she continued to live at Windsor Castle throughout the duration of her service. During her time in the military, Elizabeth eventually worked her way up to Junior Commander, which was the equivalent of Captain. When World War II ended in 1945, Elizabeth snuck into the celebrating crowds in her military uniform to celebrate with her fellow soldiers. In 1985, she told the BBC that she was scared that she would be recognized during the celebratory parade, but called it "one of the most memorable nights of my life."
28. The Brady Bunch was developed in 1966 after creator Sherwood Schwartz, fresh off of the success of Gilligan's Island, read an article in the LA Times claiming that over 30% of marriages involved children from previous marriages, and decided to create a show that explored blended families. Despite the fact that the entire premise of the show centered around a family with children from previous marriages, the series never revealed what happened to Carol Brady's first husband.
Although Schwartz maintained that Carol and her husband were divorced, he was hesitant to portray this on the show, as divorce was still seen as taboo at the time. Florence Henderson, who played Carol, decided to devise her own backstory about what exactly happened in her first marriage. "I killed my husband,” Henderson joked in a 2015 interview. "I was the original Black Widow. Nobody ever said, but I always say I just got rid of him."
29. In 1955, Jack Ryan, an engineer at Raytheon, was lured away from his role designing guided missile systems by Ruth Handler, who wanted him to come work at Mattel, her new toy company. Ryan agreed and became the head of research and development. While working at Mattel, Ryan designed and patented the original Barbie doll. Ryan's contract entitled him to 1.5% of royalties brought in from the sales of the doll. In 1980, he sued Mattel for nonpayment of millions in royalties and ended his relationship with the company. Ryan was also responsible for the design behind Hot Wheels cars.
30. Contaminated water at the White House is believed to be responsible for not only the deaths of three presidents, but the death of Willie Lincoln, one of Abraham Lincoln's sons. You've probably heard Washington, DC be referred to as a swamp, which is a nod to not only the politics of the nation's capital, but the fact that Washington was actually built on a swamp. When John Adams moved into the White House in 1800, it was allegedly incredibly damp and humid inside at all times.
Washington, DC lacked a sewer system, so people would leave their "night soil" in the streets, where it would be collected overnight and taken to a more isolated section of the city. At this time, the White House didn't have any pipes. Instead, servants would carry water into the house in buckets, where it was stored in two wells. While there were several proposals to build pipes in the White House in the early 1800s, the plans were denied due to a lack of funding. By 1833, construction on the pipes was underway, with the water slated to come from a spring located near the White House in Franklin Square.
The problem? The spring was located less than a mile away from the "night soil" depository. In addition to its proximity to the dumping grounds, the White House was also close to the Washington Canal, which was full of human waste and animal carcasses, and allegedly had a notoriously foul smell. These two factors led to some purportedly contaminated water flowing through the White House's new pipes. In 1844, William Henry Harrison died just a month after his inauguration. While it was initially believed that Harrison died from pneumonia, researchers theorized that Harrison actually likely died from bacteria believed to be found in the White House's water, adding that his symptoms lined up with enteric fever and gastrointestinal infection.
In June 1849, James Polk died just a few months after finishing up his term as president. Polk's symptoms were incredibly similar to those that Harrison experienced shortly before his death. In the years between their deaths, the White House allegedly did not make any improvements to their water system. Just a year later, President Zachary Taylor began experiencing cramps after consuming large quantities of cherries, milk, and White House water. His symptoms were consistent of those experienced by Harrison and Polk and were indicative of a water-borne illness. Taylor died five days later.
By 1860, James Buchanan pushed for running water to be pumped to the second floor of the White House for bathing. Abraham Lincoln was elected before Buchanan's request could be fulfilled, so Lincoln's family became the first to use the running water in the White House for bathing. During this time, Union soldiers fighting in the Civil War often relieved themselves in the water that was later pumped to the White House for bathing and drinking. In 1862, Willie Lincoln died from typhoid fever, believed to have been caused by the White House's contaminated water supply. His brother, Tad, was also sick, but ended up recovering.
31. After physicist Niels Bohr won the Nobel Prize in 1922, the Carlsberg beer company, located in Copenhagen, gifted him a house located directly next to their brewery. The house contained a direct pipeline to the brewery, so Bohr could pour himself a beer on tap right from the comfort of his own home. Although Carlsberg is a beer company, they also had a passion for science, and even developed a laboratory to experiment with brewing.
32. While some might assume that "Mother Mary" from the Beatles' "Let It Be" is the Virgin Mary, the song is actually a sweet ode to Paul McCartney's mother. McCartney said that he was going through a period of stress and anxiety due to the band's overwhelming fame and popularity when he had a dream in which his mother, Mary, who died when McCartney was 14 years old, appeared. "She was reassuring me, saying, 'It’s going to be ok, just let it be.' It felt so great. She gave me positive words," he said during a Carpool Karaoke segment. "So I wrote the song 'Let It Be' out of positivity."
Despite McCartney's story about his mother, Malcolm Evans, who was one of the band's managers, claimed that he inspired the song. "Paul was meditating one day, and I came to him in a vision, and I was just standing there saying, 'let it be, let it be…' And that’s where the song came from," he said in 1975. To give Evans credit, McCartney can actually be heard singing "When I find myself in times of trouble, Brother Malcolm comes to me," on a rehearsal track from the 50th Anniversary edition of The White Album.
Bandmate John Lennon allegedly was not a fan of the song because he believed that people would misconstrue the "Mother Mary" line as a biblical reference. "Let It Be" was the final single the Beatles released together before McCartney announced he was leaving the band. When "Let It Be" was released, it entered the charts at No. 6 before later hitting No. 1.
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33. Although Disney had been in the animation business for over 60 years, The Lion King was actually the first original Disney animated movie that hadn't been adapted from any source material. While working on the movie, animators went to the University of California’s Field Station for Behavioral Research to observe hyenas. The visit was granted under one condition: The filmmaker would not portray the hyenas in a negative light. When the movie came out in 1994, the biologists were allegedly furious when they saw that hyenas were villains in the movie.
Some biologists began to boycott the film because they felt that the depiction of the animals was harmful to efforts to protect wild hyena populations. One of the researchers was reportedly so upset by the portrayal of the hyenas that he sued Disney for "defamation of character" on the animals' behalf. The alleged lawsuit never actually made it to court. The Lion King went on to rake in over $1 billion in theaters and is the second highest-grossing G-rated movie of all time.
34. The only time foreign national anthems are typically played at Buckingham Palace is during visits by foreign dignitaries, but Queen Elizabeth II made an exception after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. On September 13, 2001, Queen Elizabeth II ordered the Bands of the Household Division to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" to show solidarity to the United States. This marked the first time in 600 years that a foreign national anthem was played at Buckingham Palace outside of a state visit.
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35. In 1992, a group of best-selling authors and creatives teamed up to form a band called the Rock Bottom Remainders. Notable members included authors Stephen King, Amy Tan, Barbara Kingsolver, and The Simpsons creator, Matt Groening. The group was started by book publicist Kathi Kamen Goldmark. "In the fine rock & roll tradition, the Rock Bottom Remainders were conceived in a car," Goldmark said. "As a semi-pro musician with a day job in book publicity, I spend a lot of time driving touring authors around San Francisco. … I decided to form a band of authors!"
The group made its debut at the American Booksellers Association world convention in 1992, and went on to perform several more charity shows over the next 20 years. Members of Rock Bottom Remainders even performed an NPR Tiny Desk Concert in 2010 before officially retiring in 2012. Despite their retirement announcement, the band eventually reunited for a performance at the Tucson Festival of Books in 2015.
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36. During the 19th century, there was a push to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Southern states saw this as a "culture war," designed to force Northern values on Southern states, and refused to accept it. Some Southerners even saw pumpkin pie as an anti-slavery symbol. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday to promote unity, but some Southern states still refused to participate. In the 1880s, Texas still refused to celebrate Thanksgiving, while other Southern states changed the date because they didn't want to participate in Lincoln's wish for "national unity." Some Southerners began to change the traditional Thanksgiving food to represent their own culture and values. In 1941, Congress officially ruled that Thanksgiving was a national holiday.
37. Last week, I saw this tweet that said recently re-elected senator Chuck Grassley, who was born in 1933, is older than chocolate chip cookies. This little factoid made me extremely curious about the story behind the invention of one of the world's most beloved desserts. It all began with Ruth Wakefield and her husband, who owned the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts. Ruth made all of the food for the inn's guests.
One night, Ruth was allegedly trying to make "Butter Do Drop" cookies and had the idea to put chopped-up bits of a Nestlé chocolate bar in them. She believed the addition of the chocolate pieces would yield solid chocolate cookies, but once she pulled them from the oven, found that the chocolate had remained in bits. Ruth's cookie invention, known as the "Toll House Crunch Cookie," became a massive success. The recipe was printed in a Boston newspaper, and by 1939, appeared on the back of Toll House packaging, as it still does to this day.
38. In 1989, a man bought a picture frame at a flea market in Pennsylvania for $4. When he took the print home, he removed the painting from the frame and found a print of the Declaration of Independence inside. The man showed it to a friend, who encouraged him to get the print appraised. Experts found that the print was actually one of 24 copies of the first printing of the Declaration of Independence. In 1991, the printing sold for $2.42 million at auction.
39. In 2000, Thad Roberts, a 23-year-old recent college graduate, nabbed a coveted internship at NASA. Roberts allegedly declared that he was going to be the first human to reach Mars. During the moon landing in 1969, astronauts collected moon rocks to bring back to study. Upon their return, the rocks were sealed to prevent contamination. In 2002, while working at NASA, Roberts and two other interns stole some of the moon rocks from a safe in the Johnson Space Center lab in Houston. Roberts and his accomplices, Tiffany Fowler, who was then 22, and Shae Saur, who was 19, then put the stolen rocks up for sale on the website for the Mineralogy Club of Antwerp, Belgium.
A rock collector saw the post and alerted the FBI, who set up a sting operation and arrested the group in Tampa, Florida on July 20, 2002, which was coincidentally the 33rd anniversary of the moon landing. The FBI found that they had stolen $21 million worth of moon rocks. In addition to the theft, they had contaminated the rocks by taking them out of their sealed environment. In an interview with CBS, Roberts even claimed that he had put some of the rocks under his pillow while having sex. "It was more about the symbol of what we were doing — you know, basically having sex on the moon." All three interns pled guilty. Roberts was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for the theft, while Fowler and Saur were fined and sentenced to probation.
40. The nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice" is believed to have a pretty dark origin story. The rhyme is supposedly about three Protestant bishops — Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer — who attempted to overthrow Queen Mary I of England, also known as Bloody Mary. Mary, who was Catholic, executed hundreds of Protestants during her five-year reign. The men were burned at the stake when their overthrow attempt was revealed. Historians believe that the "blind mice" represent the men's religious beliefs.
41. Effa Manley broke barriers in the sports world by becoming the first female owner of a professional sports team. Manley, who grew up in Philadelphia, moved to New York City, where she frequently attended Yankees games. During this time, Manley was involved in social causes and picketed in a campaign for local businesses to hire Black workers. In 1932, Manley attended a World Series game at Yankee Stadium, where she met her husband Abe, who was well-known in the baseball industry.
Together, they owned the Newark Eagles, a baseball team in the Negro Leagues. The Eagles ultimately won the Negro League World Series in 1946. People took notice of Manley's contributions to the team and praised her for her management and promotion styles. In 1946, Manley and her husband sold the team. Manley turned her focus to fighting for fair compensation and contracts for Negro League players. She helped players involved in the Negro League become seen as legitimate athletes, and helped them gain respect. Manley stood up for civil rights causes throughout her life, and advocated for Negro League players to be inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2006, she became the first woman inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.
42. In 2001, the band KISS unveiled the world's first-ever fully-endorsed coffin, which was named the KISS Kasket (not gonna lie, it's pretty clever). Band member Gene Simmons encouraged people to use it as a cooler before death. "You can have your last ride with your favorite band. But while you’re living, you can have a cold one," he said. "Why not have a daily use for the caskets? Why not watch your favorite ball game on TV, invite your friends over and open the Kasket to get a drink?" Several KISS super fans were eventually buried in the caskets, including “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, a member of the band Pantera. Abbott had been murdered by a fan during a concert in 2004, and had requested the coffin in his will. Simmons ended up donating the coffin prototype to Abbott's family.
43. On August 9, 1996, filming on Titanic took a turn when nearly 80 members of the cast and crew were hospitalized after eating clam chowder. While many initially believed that they had food poisoning, a newspaper in Nova Scotia, where the scenes were being filmed, reported that the chowder had actually been mysteriously laced with PCP. Both actor Bill Paxton and director James Cameron were among those who ate the chowder.
Paxton told Entertainment Weekly that he rarely ate the on-set catering, but decided to share a quick meal with Cameron. He said that the effects of the laced chowder became apparent after about 15 minutes. "Some people were laughing, some people were crying, some people were throwing up," he said. Paxton said that both he and Cameron eventually jumped in a van heading to a nearby hospital. "One minute I felt okay," he said. "The next minute I felt so goddamn anxious I wanted to breathe in a paper bag. Cameron was feeling the same way."
Despite Paxton telling the media that Cameron accompanied him to the hospital, Cameron later said that he was able to avoid getting medical attention. So, who laced the chowder? Investigators were actually never able to figure out what exactly happened. Some thought that an angry chef was at fault, while others believed that someone laced the meal in order to get revenge on Cameron, who was allegedly a tough director to work for.
44. The world's oldest living bird is a Laysan albatross named Wisdom, who is at least 70 years old. Wisdom was first identified and tagged in 1956. She returns to the same nest every year on Midway Atoll in Hawaii, home to the largest colony of albatrosses, to deliver her chicks. Biologists estimate that Wisdom has delivered between 30 and 36 chicks in her lifetime, including one most recently in 2021.
45. While you probably already knew the basics of President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination in Dallas, I dug up some surprising details from the tragedy that might not be as widely known. First Lady Jackie Kennedy normally did not travel with the president for political trips but decided to accompany him on his visit to Texas. CBS was the first TV station to break in with the news, just 10 minutes after Kennedy had been shot. After that, all three networks — CBS, NBC, and ABC — aired nothing but coverage of the assassination for four straight days. It became the longest uninterrupted news event until the TV coverage of 9/11.
After Kennedy was shot, Jackie refused to change out of the pink suit she had been wearing. "I want them to see what they have done to Jack," she allegedly told Lady Bird Johnson. The blood-stained suit has never been cleaned and is in the National Archives. It will not be seen by the public until 2103, as part of the Kennedy family's wishes. Although Jackie refused to part with the suit, she reportedly did remove her wedding band and put it on her husband's finger so it could be buried with him. However, she later asked an aide to get it back for her.
Kennedy's death was the first presidential assassination since the creation of the Secret Service. Secret Service members allegedly fought with Dallas police over who would retain possession of the president's casket. The Secret Service ended up with the casket, which was on board Air Force One when Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president. This also marked the first and only time a US President had been sworn in by a woman. Although the assassination was all over the news, there was one person who had no idea that the president had been killed. The New York Times reported that the Kennedy family decided not to tell Mary Josephine Fitzgerald, Kennedy's 98-year-old grandmother, about her grandson's death.
46. Queen Elizabeth II refused to let uncomfortable shoes ruin her day. Instead, Angela Kelly, the Queen's stylist, would purportedly first wear the Queen's shoes to break them in. The breaking-in period involved some very specific rules: Kelly was required to wear a pair of beige ankle socks and was only allowed to walk on carpet while preparing the shoes. "The Queen has very little time to herself and not time to wear in her own shoes, and as we share the same shoe size it makes the most sense this way," Kelly wrote in her book, The Other Side of the Coin: The Queen, the Dresser and the Wardrobe.
47. If you think you're into astrology, I'm pretty sure Grace Kelly has you beat! On Saturday, November 15, 1969, Kelly, the American actor who later became the Princess of Monaco, threw the "Scorpion Ball," a Scorpio-only bash. The Scorpion Ball served as Kelly's 40th birthday party, and the guest list was comprised of only Scorpios or plus-ones who were married to Scorpios. Notable attendees included actors Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor was only allowed to come to the party because her then-husband, Richard Burton, was a Scorpio.
Kelly also strictly enforced a red and black dress code, colors that have both been associated with the Scorpio star sign. The party's decorations included portraits of famous Scorpios from history, including Edgar Allen Poe and Marie Antoinette. This wasn't the first time Kelly's penchant for astrology came to light. During her acting days, Kelly was photographed on movie sets with Carroll Righter, an astrologist and horoscope writer. Kelly was even mentioned in Righter's obituary as one of his notable clients when he died in 1988.
48. Elements of Yoda were modeled off Albert Einstein. Stuart Freeborn, a special effects artist who worked as a makeup supervisor on Star Wars, took inspiration for the beloved character after spotting an Albert Einstein poster in an office. "The wrinkles around Einstein's eyes somehow got worked into the Yoda design," special effects artist Nick Maley said. "Over the course of this evolutionary process, Yoda slowly changed from a comparatively spritely, tall, skinny, grasshopper kind of character into the old wise-spirited gnome that we all know today." Freeborn also reportedly took inspiration from his own face when designing Yoda's other traits.
49. Every November, the White House holds a presidential turkey pardon to spare a live turkey from becoming a family's Thanksgiving dinner. So, how did this tradition start? In 1863, Abraham Lincoln's son Tad allegedly got upset when he learned that the live turkey his family was going to eat for Christmas dinner was going to be killed. Lincoln reportedly spared the turkey's life to appease his son. From that point, people around the country began sending turkeys to the White House in hopes of it becoming the bird that would end up on the First Family's Thanksgiving table.
Many incorrectly attribute Harry S. Truman as the president who held the first official pardon. While the National Turkey Federation sent Truman a Thanksgiving turkey in 1947, Truman allegedly ended up eating the bird instead of sparing its life. In 1963, John F. Kennedy received a turkey with a sign reading, "Good eating, Mr. President!" around its neck. Upon receiving the bird, Kennedy reportedly said, "We’ll just let this one grow," and sent the bird to a farm. The Los Angeles Times called Kennedy's gesture a "presidential pardon."
In 1989, President George H.W. Bush made the pardon official by assuring animal activists, who showed up at the White House to protest the event, that the bird would not be eaten. Since then, there has been a presidential turkey pardon held every year. The pardoned turkeys are selected by the National Turkey Federation. After the ceremony, they are sent to a farm or a veterinary college to live out the rest of their days. Sadly, the turkeys rarely live longer than a few months after their pardon, as turkeys bred for consumption have much shorter life expectancies than wild turkeys.
50. In 1900, thousands of spectators lined up to watch the annual Thanksgiving Day football game between Stanford and the University of California, known as "The Big Game." Many fans, most of whom were children, decided to climb onto the roof of a glassblowing factory overlooking the field to take in the game after the stands were full. James Davis, the factory's superintendent, was allegedly aware of the potential for people to climb on the roof and had reportedly been given six free tickets to the game so long as he kept people off of the roof. Soon, over 400 spectators had climbed onto the roof.
Factory workers tried to get the fans off of the roof and later recalled that the police refused to help them. About twenty minutes into the game, the roof collapsed, creating a loud crash that could be heard from the field. One spectator in the stands allegedly called out that the crash was a planned distraction, and the game continued on. Meanwhile, dozens of people had fallen through the roof, with some of them tragically landing on the factory's burning furnace. Over 20 people were killed during the crash, while dozens more were injured. Most of the victims were children. This remains one of the deadliest disasters ever at a sporting event.
51. Turkey wasn't always the Thanksgiving food of choice in the White House. In 1926, president Calvin Coolidge received a raccoon that he and his family planned to eat for Thanksgiving dinner. When Coolidge saw the raccoon, he allegedly became smitten with it and decided that he was going to keep it as a pet. Others say that Coolidge had never eaten raccoon before, and was a little wary of trying it for the first time for Thanksgiving dinner, which is why he ultimately spared the animal's life.
The Coolidges, who were known to be huge animal lovers, became enamored by the raccoon, which they named Rebecca. Members of the White House staff said that Rebecca was a "regular Houdini" who often escaped from her cage. The Coolidges even built a wooden house in a tree for Rebecca, located just outside of Coolidge's office window. In 1927, Rebecca was sent away after allegedly biting Coolidge's arm, but returned weeks later. In 1928, the family got another pet raccoon, named Reuben. Soon, Rebecca started escaping from the White House grounds and was eventually donated to the National Zoo.
52. Roses are one of the oldest living plants in the world. Archeologists have found rose fossils that date back 35 million years. Meanwhile, the world's oldest living rose clocks in at over 1,000 years old. The rose can be found growing on a wall in the Hildesheim Cathedral in Germany, and even survived a bomb during World War II.
53. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a holiday staple. The parade first started in 1924 and was held to promote the department store ahead of the Christmas season. It became a hit, drawing a crowd of nearly 250,000 people, so Macy's decided to make it an annual event. By 1927, the parade began incorporating balloons, with a rendering of Felix The Cat being the first-ever Macy's balloon. The issue? Macy's had no idea what to do with the helium-filled balloon once the parade was over. They decided to let it float into the air, where it eventually popped.
The next year, Macy's decided to once again allow the balloons to float up into the air but added a new twist. The company added release valves to the five balloons, which meant that the helium would slowly leak out over the course of a week or so. They stitched a return address to the balloons and told customers that if they found a piece of the balloon, they could bring it into Macy's for a $100 reward. Three of the balloons landed in Long Island, one drifted into the East River, and the final one was never found. Macy's continued with the balloon release method until 1932, when a piece of one of the balloons wrapped around a plane's wing.
54. I personally could not imagine anyone but Julie Andrews playing Mary Poppins, and turns out, Walt Disney couldn't either. After Disney saw Andrews on Broadway in Camelot, he knew he wanted her to play the iconic role of Mary Poppins. When he first offered Andrews the role, she turned it down because she was pregnant. Disney decided to hold production on the film until Andrews was ready.
55. The iconic TV dinner actually originated due to a surplus of Thanksgiving turkey! In 1953, Gerry Thomas, a Swanson salesman, noticed that the company had over 260 tons of frozen turkey left over after Thanksgiving. The turkeys were kept in refrigerated railroad cars, which only worked when the trains were in motion. This allegedly sent Swanson executives in a "tailspin," as they had to keep the trains moving at all times while trying to figure out what to do with the surplus of turkeys.
Thomas had the idea to put the turkey in partitioned aluminum trays with stuffing and vegetables to create a frozen meal that families could reheat. While the technology existed to create frozen dinners, their planned release to the public had been scrapped during World War II. 1954 marked the first year of full production for the TV dinners. Swanson ended up selling 10 million trays, and soon, companies like Banquet Foods and Morton Frozen Foods rolled out their own spin on the TV dinner.
56. Just two months before NASA launched Apollo 11 into space to reach the moon, the crew of the Apollo 10 performed a dress rehearsal, going through all of the steps required of reaching the moon without actually landing. There is a theory that NASA purposely under-fueled the Apollo 10 spacecraft to ensure that the crew didn't actually try to land on the moon. "Don’t give those guys an opportunity to land, ‘cause they might!" Eugene A. Cernan, the flight's lunar module pilot joked. The Apollo 10 crew successfully performed the dress rehearsal, paving the way for the historic moon landing just a few months later.
57. If you've ever wondered why Thanksgiving is now always held on the fourth Thursday of November, blame it on Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Prior to the 1940s, Thanksgiving had always been celebrated on the final Thursday of November. In 1939, it fell on November 30. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt felt that the relatively late Thanksgiving would shorten the Christmas shopping season too much, and decided to move the holiday up a week to Thursday, November 23.
When Roosevelt announced the proposed date change in August 1939, people weren't quite sure how to feel. The president was accused of "shattering another precedent," received criticism for altering a "sacred" date, and was even compared to Adolf Hitler for the change. The NFL was also angry with Roosevelt, as his proposal messed up their already planned schedule. Many governors refused to celebrate the new Thanksgiving. Charles D. White, the mayor of Atlantic City, declared November 23 would be "Franksgiving." Only 23 of the 48 states ended up celebrating the holiday on November 23. In 1941, Congress officially ruled that Thanksgiving would always be held on the fourth Thursday of November.
58. No one is quite sure how the idea that black cats are bad luck originated. In fact, in Great Britain and Japan, black cats are believed to be symbols of good luck! There is evidence that people began linking black cats to the Devil during the Middle Ages. During the plague, people killed black cats, which turned out to be a bad idea, as the cats often killed the rodents that were spreading the disease. In later years, black cats became linked to witches.
59. On November 25, 1976, the Band performed The Last Waltz, their farewell concert that would later be made into a concert film by Martin Scorsese. The issue? The show landed on Thanksgiving Day. Despite the fact that the show landed on a holiday, the Band ended up selling over 5,400 tickets to the show. Included in the $25 ticket price was an entire Thanksgiving dinner for anyone who showed up to the concert before show time. They even hired a staff of 300 people to serve the meal. Talk about dinner and a show, right?
According to memoirs by several members of the Band, the meal included "220 turkeys (with 500 extra drumsticks), 90 gallons of gravy, 2,000 pounds of peeled yams, 40 crates of lettuce, 18 cases of cranberries, a special dressing (made of 70 bunches of parsley, 5 quarts of garlic, 10 quarts of sage, 100 pounds of butter, 500 pounds of celery, 500 pounds of onions and 350 pounds of croutons), 1000 pounds of potatoes, 400 gallons of cider, 400 pounds of pumpkin pie, a stew made from six crates of vegetables and 300 pounds of Nova Scotia salmon." Bob Dylan allegedly brought the salmon from New York all the way to the show in San Francisco.
60. Despite being regarded as one of the most intelligent people of his time, Benjamin Franklin's formal schooling ended at just 10 years old. Franklin learned how to read at a young age and reportedly spent one year at grammar school. He then had a private tutor for a year before his formal education came to an end. By the time Franklin was 12, he had embarked on a printing apprenticeship under his older brother, where he eventually taught himself how to write.
61. And finally, Maya Lin was the Yale architecture student who created the winning design for the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial in Washington, DC. Lin's parents had both fled China during the Communist takeover in the 1940s and met once they moved to America. They raised Lin and her brother in Athens, Ohio, where they both worked as professors at Ohio University. Lin eventually headed to Yale to study architecture. She designed a blueprint for the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial as part of a class project. Lin eventually decided to submit her project to the design competition, where it beat out 1,200 other entries. She was just 21 years old.
Lin's design was seen as untraditional and received major backlash when it was announced. At the dedication ceremony for the memorial in 1982, Lin's name was never even mentioned due to the controversy. She eventually returned to Yale as a graduate student. After graduating, Lin went on to create more large-scale art and architectural work including the Langston Hughes Library for the Children’s Defense Fund in Clinton, Tennessee, the federal courthouse in New York City, and a Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2016, Barack Obama awarded Lin with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
