I'd consider sharing fun facts to be my love language, whether it's a fact about space, a story about a badass woman in history, or a tidbit about a fascinating moment in pop culture.
I love fun facts so much that I write a weekly post full of the coolest things I've learned each week.
And if you'd like to read each of these posts from August, here they are:
So without further ado, I’ve compiled 83 of my favorite facts I learned in August 2022:
1. If you're familiar with The Truman Show, then you know the film revolves around Truman, whose entire life has been filmed and broadcast without him knowing. The main character begins to suspect that something's amiss, and the show's producers plot to make Truman think there's something wrong with him to ensure the show can go on.
Since the film's release, psychologists have noticed a phenomenon that they call The Truman Show Delusion, in which people believe they are being constantly filmed, with their lives being continuously broadcast for the world to see. In some cases, the patients believed the people in their lives were paid actors, while others were certain that there was a specific person who could "release" them from the show. In one case study, a man planned to meet an unidentified woman at the Statue of Liberty, because he believed she was the key to ending the show. Psychologists reasoned people who suffer from these delusions likely have underlying mental health issues.
2. The mantis shrimp has the world's fastest punch, clocking in at about 50 miles per hour. In fact, the shrimp's punch accelerates faster than a .22-caliber bullet.
3. When the Talking Heads released their song "Psycho Killer" in 1977, many believed that the band wrote it about David Berkowitz, who was known as the Son of Sam killer. Berkowitz terrorized New York City from 1976 to 1977 and murdered six people during that time. His crimes led to a massive manhunt. Berkowitz received the Son of Sam moniker after he sent letters to New York newspapers signed "Son of Sam." People noted similarities in the lyrics of the song and Berkowitz's story, and assumed that the Talking Heads had based their hit song on the case, which had dominated news coverage.
In reality, David Byrne, frontman of the Talking Heads, had begun writing the song long before Berkowitz began his killing spree. In the liner notes on one of the band's compilation albums, Byrne wrote that he got the idea for the song after imagining what a ballad written by Alice Cooper, who is known for shocking audiences, might sound like. “Both the Joker and Hannibal Lecter were much more fascinating than the good guys. Everybody sort of roots for the bad guys in movies.” The band started playing a version of the song in 1975, a year before Berkowitz's first crime.
Despite the fact that Byrne had no intention of relating the song to the murders, Sire, the band's record label, decided they were going to promote the song in tandem with coverage about the crimes. "Psycho Killer" was released as a single and became the band's first song to reach the Billboard 100.
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4. Guiding Light earns the honor of being the world's longest-running TV drama. The soap debuted on the radio in 1937, then pivoted to TV in 1952, where it ran until 2009. The show aired over 18,000 episodes between the radio and TV iterations. If you were interested in binge-watching the soap, it would take you 591 days and one hour of continuous watching to get through every episode.
5. If you've watched American Horror Story: Hotel, then you might remember Lady Gaga's terrifying portrayal of Elizabeth, the glamorous owner of a murderous hotel who uses the sharp nails of her gloves to kill people and drink their blood to ensure she maintains her youthful looks. As it turns out, the character was based on Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary, who is known as one of the most prolific serial killers in history.
Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary, who was also known as the Blood Countess, allegedly tortured and killed hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries. Elizabeth was born into an incredibly prominent family: her immediate family controlled Transylvania, while her uncle was the king of Poland. She married into another wealthy family in 1575 and had four children before her husband died. Following her husband's death in 1604, an investigation was launched into Elizabeth after rumors that she had tortured and murdered women began to surface. The results were staggering. Elizabeth had killed an estimated 600 young women.
Many of them worked for her, while others came to her to be educated on how to fit in with nobility. Some of Elizabeth's torture methods included covering victims in honey and leaving them to be bitten by insects, forcing them into deadly ice baths, and driving sharp needles into their fingers. Some have suggested that Elizabeth was motivated to murder the women so she could bathe in their blood to preserve her youth. However, many of the rumors about the blood baths surfaced an entire century after Elizabeth's death and were never verified. While Elizabeth was arrested in 1609, she was never tried for the crimes, and instead was sentenced to captivity in her castle, where she remained until her death in 1614. The Guinness Book of World Records crowned Elizabeth as the world's most prolific female murderer.
6. Queen Elizabeth II has served the United Kingdom for so long that she's the only monarch that 85% of Britain has ever known. It's believed that there are fewer than 100,000 people older than her in the United Kingdom.
8. Baseball fans should probably thank Bing Crosby for having the only footage of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. It was long believed that the tape of the game, during which the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the New York Yankees to take home the championship, was missing forever. In 2010, a tape of the game was found in Crosby's wine cellar, and is the only known footage that exists from the game.
Crosby was a huge Pittsburgh Pirates fan who got incredibly superstitious during games. In fact, he was part owner of the team! During the Pirates' World Series run, Crosby got so nervous that he took his wife on a European vacation to get his mind off of the game. He hired a company to tape the game for him so he could watch it if the Pirates won. Turns out, he kept the prized reels in his wine cellar, where they sat for over 50 years. After they resurfaced, the MLB Network aired the footage in a special broadcast.
9. During the construction of the Empire State Building in 1929, the New York Times reported that the building's plans had been modified to extend the height of the building by 200 feet so that zeppelins could dock at the top. Some believed that this was a cover story and thought that the building was being made taller to compete with the height of the nearby Chrysler Building.
Experts said the plan was impractical and ensured it would never happen. Despite this, by 1930, doctored photos of blimps at the top of the building began to circulate. In September 1931, a privately owned airship docked at the top of the Empire State Building for three minutes, with 40 mph winds swirling.
10. For many people, Sesame Street was a childhood staple. In fact, it's been estimated that 86 million Americans watched the show as children. However, in Mississippi in the 1970s, Sesame Street was deemed too "controversial" for children and was pulled from the air. In January 1970, just a few months after the show's premiere, the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television held a meeting where the all-white panel deemed the diversity featured on the show harmful and offensive.
In April 1970, the committee took a poll that decided, by a 3–2 margin, that the show would be pulled from Mississippi public television, saying they would "postpone" airing the show until they felt Mississippi residents were "ready" for its messages of inclusivity and integration. The members who had been outvoted were furious, and they leaked the decision to the New York Times before the formal announcement was made. Public perception skewed heavily in favor of allowing the show to air, with many calling out the blatant racism of the decision. Within a month, the decision had been reversed, and Sesame Street resumed airing in Mississippi.
11. A narwhal's tusk is actually one of only two teeth that it will have during its lifetime. The tusk actually resembles an inside-out tooth, with up to 10 million nerve endings that render the tusk incredibly sensitive.
12. In 2010, Nickelback released their album Dark Horse. When planning the music video for the song, they envisioned a frat party–like atmosphere, and they contacted a Michigan brewery named Dark Horse to supply the beer in exchange for being featured in the video. The brewery turned down the offer, with head brewer Aaron Morse issuing a scathing statement. "It’s obvious that this would be a great opportunity for us and maybe get some mainstream youth into craft beer rather than the swill," he wrote. "However, none of us at the brewery really care for the band (or frat parties), so our knee-jerk reaction is 'no thanks.'" The story made headlines again in 2012, when Morse said he didn't regret his decision. "I absolutely hate that band," he said. "It's shit rock and roll that doesn't deserve to be on the radio."
13. I was not expecting to learn about a partnership between FEMA and Waffle House this week, but I'm here for it. FEMA, the federal agency that responds to disasters, unofficially uses the Waffle House Index to categorize exactly how intense a storm might be. Waffle House restaurants are typically open 24/7, and they only close unless things are looking dire, so FEMA started using Waffle House's closures as a scale for the potential damage of a storm.
If Waffle House is closed, then FEMA calls it a red storm. If Waffle House is open but has a limited menu, then it's a yellow, and if the restaurant remains open with business as usual, then it's a green. While the premise might have been seen as silly, Waffle House spokesperson Pat Warner told NPR that the index is actually a good indicator of how quickly a community might rebound after disaster. "If we're opening up quickly, that's a good sign that community is going to come back quickly. If we are on a limited menu, that's probably because we have some utilities out, so it's going to take a bit longer for that community to come back."
14. It's estimated that a NASA spacesuit costs up to $150 million in today's money. When they were first used in 1974, they cost between $15 and $22 million to produce. As of 2021, NASA only had four working spacesuits left and has invested more than $200 million since 2009 to create new suits.
15. Before Meghan Markle became an actor and then married into the royal family, she worked as a calligrapher at Paper Source, where she even taught calligraphy lessons. Markle was so talented that she was hired as a freelance calligrapher, and she even wrote the wedding invitations for Robin Thicke and Paula Patton's 2005 nuptials. "I went to an all-girls Catholic school for like six years during the time when kids actually had handwriting class," Markle told Esquire. "I've always had a propensity for getting the cursive down pretty well. What it evolved into was my pseudo-waitressing job when I was auditioning. I didn't wait tables. I did calligraphy."
16. During Burger King's 2004 chicken fries rollout, the brand decided to promote the new product by creating a fake band called Coq Roq, a "rooster metal" band whose identities were hidden behind masks while performing. Crispin Porter + Bogusky, a Miami-based ad agency, created the premise, which came complete with a backstory that the up-and-coming band decided to skip signing with a traditional record label and chose to partner with Burger King instead.
Burger King hired real musicians to portray the band. They recorded four songs and starred in two music videos, and they were planning a United States tour. Tom Zukoski, who worked for the agency, said plans for the tour were thwarted when it was revealed that the lead singer, who was a Canadian actor, had a criminal record that prevented him from traveling in the US.
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The singer's criminal record wasn't the only Coq Roq controversy. Part of the advertisements involved photos of the fictional band's groupies and often featured lewd sexual innuendos. The ads were pulled, although Burger King claimed they didn't receive any complaints about the ads. When the band Slipknot, who famously performs in masks, caught wind of Burger King's plan, they sent a letter to Burger King's corporate office threatening a copyright infringement lawsuit. The band also claimed they had been approached by the ad agency to perform in the ads a year earlier, before Burger King hired actors for Coq Roq. Slipknot dropped their lawsuits, and Coq Roq disassembled once the singer's criminal record surfaced.
17. When Steven Spielberg delivered Harvard's commencement address in 2016, he revealed that he received three paleontology credits for his work on Jurassic Park. Spielberg dropped out of college during his sophomore year to focus on his film career, but promised his parents that he would go back to school if things didn't work out. He decided to finish his degrees in his 50s, and re-enrolled at California State University Long Beach, where he was awarded the credits.
18. On Oct. 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was heading to an auditorium to deliver a campaign speech in Wisconsin. Although Roosevelt had retired from politics following the end of the second term of his presidency in 1909, he had been so disappointed by William Howard Taft's presidency that he formed the National Progressives party and decided to run for re-election. When Roosevelt left his hotel, he folded his 50-page speech in half and put it in the breast pocket of his coat, next to a metal case holding his glasses. As he headed to his car, a man emerged from the crowd and fired a revolver at Roosevelt's chest.
Roosevelt's entourage told him he needed to seek medical attention, but he refused. Instead, he pressed his finger to his lips, and after finding that he was not bleeding from the mouth, decided that the bullet hadn't hit his lung. He continued onto the auditorium, where he was quickly examined before giving the speech. It was determined that his script and glasses case prevented the bullet from puncturing his lung, although he did have a dime-sized bullet wound in his chest. Roosevelt spoke to the crowd for 84 minutes, then headed to the hospital, where it was found that the bullet was in his rib, where it remained for the rest of his life. Weeks later, he was defeated by Woodrow Wilson in the election.
19. While you probably know Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, there was actually another founder: Ron Wayne, who cashed out his shares in the company in 1976 for a measly $800. Wayne, who worked at Atari, drew the brand's first logo and created the contracts that defined the responsibilities for each founder. Wozniak was in charge of electrical engineering, Jobs handled marketing, and Wayne oversaw mechanical engineering and documentation.
20. The record for the world's longest family tree goes to none other than Confucius's lineage. It begins in the 8th century BC, with Confucius's great-great-great-great grandfather Kung Chia, with 86 lineal descendants following.
21. North and South Dakota both became states on Nov. 2, 1889. When president Benjamin Harrison signed the official proclamations, he had his secretary of state cover the names on the documents, then had them shuffled after signing so no one would know which Dakota became a state first. "They were born together," Harrison reportedly said. "They are one and I will make them twins." Despite this, North Dakota is typically seen as the 39th state, while South Dakota is the 40th.
22. In 1967, Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon. Prior to Switzer, no woman had ever signed up for the marathon, even though there was no official rule preventing her from racing. She used the name “K. V. Switzer" when registering and was given an official race number and bib. When entering, Switzer said she had never intended to make a political statement, and instead was just hoping to tackle one of the world's most famous races.
About four miles into the race, Switzer was interrupted by a man screaming, "Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!" It was Jock Semple, a race official who was incensed that a woman had dared to enter the race. Semple grabbed Switzer's shirt and tried to rip her bib off of her. Switzer instantly became the center of attention, and despite the interruption, finished the race and vowed to ensure that no other woman would ever be treated like that at the marathon. By 1972, women were officially allowed to race the Boston Marathon. In 1975, Switzer placed second in the marathon, then ran it again in 2017 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her first run. She wore number 261, the same number she wore in 1967.
23. While about half of panda births result in twins, it's rare for both twins to survive. After giving birth, giant pandas often abandon one of the cubs and choose just one to raise. It's too difficult for a panda to raise two cubs, as their diets, which are primarily made up of bamboo, don't allow them to produce enough milk to sustain two cubs.
24. When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in 1791 at age 35, a Berlin newspaper reported that he died from poisoning, with his official cause of death being "fever and rash." Many believed that the composer had been poisoned by Antonio Salieri, a fellow musician who was sometimes seen as Mozart's rival. By the time Salieri died in 1825, rumors flew that Salieri even confessed to the poisoning while on his deathbed. Mozart himself didn't help the rumors: He reportedly told his wife that he believed he had been poisoned just a few weeks before his death.
Despite the evidence pointing to a potential poisoning, Mozart's actual cause of death might have been a little less dramatic. In 2009, researchers published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that suggested that Mozart actually died from a bad case of strep throat.
25. Before she became one of the world's most famous performers, Madonna worked at a Dunkin' Donuts in Manhattan. She was supposedly fired after accidentally squirting donut filling all over a customer.
26. During Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, over 2,000 doctors, nurses, patients, and other hospital personnel were sheltered inside Memorial Hospital. As Katrina doused the city, windows shattered and the building shook as the occupants huddled for cover. At some point early the next morning, the power in the hospital went out, rendering some patients, who relied on electronic medical devices to survive, in grave danger. Although the hospital was equipped with generators, they were only designated for emergency lights and equipment that was deemed necessary for survival.
Once the storm passed, Memorial's occupants, largely unaware of the true impact of the storm, awaited rescue. By the morning of August 30, the levees holding back the stormwater snapped, sending water from nearby Lake Pontchartrain flooding through the city. The power grid at Memorial Hospital was located only a few feet above ground, leaving it at risk of severe electrical damage. There was no choice but to evacuate the hospital, including over 200 vulnerable patients. The hospital's emergency plan did not cover what to do in case of a flood, so executives quickly formulated new guidelines: Critical patients and babies in the NICU would be rescued first, while anyone with a Do Not Resuscitate order would be the last to leave because they "had the least to lose."
The issue? Memorial Hospital was home to LifeCare, an independent hospital for patients that needed close care around the clock. Most of LifeCare's 52 patients were on ventilators and were largely left out of the rescue conversations being held by hospital executives. As patients from the main hospital began the evacuation process, LifeCare employees realized they weren't included in the evacuation and were told that if they wanted to be rescued, they needed to seek permission from hospital executives. Dr. Ewing Cook, who worked for Memorial, ordered that all treatments, except those deemed essential, be stopped to lessen the burden on nurses. On August 31, the generators failed, with all 52 LifeCare patients still inside the hospital.
By September 1, employees at Memorial and LifeCare brought all remaining patients to the hospital's first floor and categorized them by likelihood of survival in order to determine who to evacuate first, with Dr. Anna Pou leading the charge. After seeing how slowly the evacuation was progressing, Pou and a team of nurses allegedly gave LifeCare patients a dose of morphine and Versed, a fast-acting sedative, a combination that was known to induce death. When the hospital was investigated in the weeks following Katrina, 45 bodies were recovered. After performing toxicology reports on the bodies, investigators discovered that 23 of them tested positive for the deadly combination, and all had died in the same three-hour span. Doctors later told authorities that they overheard Pou and Cook discussing euthanasia.
It was later determined that at least nine of the deaths could be deemed homicides. On July 17, 2006, Pou was arrested and charged with four counts of second-degree murder, while Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, both nurses who assisted Pou, were arrested. Budo and Landry had their charges dropped in exchange for their testimony. In 2007, a grand jury decided not to indict any of the suspects for their actions at Memorial Hospital. Pou is still a practicing doctor in Louisiana. Sheri Fink chronicled the story in her book Five Days at Memorial. An adaptation of the book, also called Five Days at Memorial, is currently airing on Apple TV+.
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27. During periods of extreme strain, Earth's continental plates began to accelerate at speeds up to 20 times faster than their average. About 200 million years ago, the plates began drifting at a speed of 20 millimeters per year, or as fast as fingernails grow.
28. When Gerald Ford became the President of the United States on August 9, 1974 after Richard Nixon resigned, he officially became the first and only person to serve as president without being elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency. Richard Nixon had selected him to be his vice president after Spiro Agnew, Nixon's running mate, resigned in 1972.
Nixon, who resigned after the Watergate scandal, nominated Ford, who was the House minority leader at the time, to be his vice president following Agnew's departure. In 1973, Ford was confirmed as vice president. This method of replacing the vice president was relatively new. Before Nevada ratified the 25th amendment, which created this new presidential line of succession in 1967, the Speaker of the House would have become the new president. Once Ford became president, the Speaker of the House was his acting vice president until Nelson Rockefeller, his actual choice, was confirmed.
29. Elton John chooses to honor his favorite female musicians by naming his beloved pianos after them. John has named pianos after Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, and Diana Krall. In 2011, he debuted a new piano that came complete with LED screens that reacted to his playing. The piano, which cost $1.3 million and took four years to construct, was named Blossom after Blossom Dearie, a jazz singer.
30. King Ranch in Texas is bigger than the state of Rhode Island, clocking in at about 825,000 acres. Prior to the land being split up between the owner's children in 1935, the ranch was bigger than the state of Delaware.
31. In 1936, Orson Welles, who went on to direct films like Citizen Kane, made an all-Black verison of Macbeth as part of the Federal Theatre Project, a branch of the Works Progress Administration created to rebound from the Great Depression. The show, which was performed at a Harlem theater, gave Black actors the chance to perform in leading roles, instead of being relegated to background roles or parts that played into racial stereotypes.
The show, which is often called "Voodoo Macbeth," faced immense criticism when it was announced. Members of the Black community thought that Welles was going to make a mockery of them, while major Shakespeare fans thought Welles' casting choices mocked the original play. Welles proved all of the naysayers wrong after the play debuted to rave reviews and went on for a sold-out 10-week run. In 1982, Welles called the play "the greatest achievement of my life," because the show successfully integrated the theater during its run. "Everybody who was anybody in the black or white world was there," he told the BBC. "And when the play ended there were so many curtain calls that finally they left the curtain open, and the audience came up on the stage to congratulate the actors. And that was magical."
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32. While I'm sure you're aware that the sun is huge, did you know that it's so massive that 1 million Earths could fit inside of it? Puts things in perspective for you, doesn't it?
33. When the Dakota, which is the oldest remaining luxury apartment building in New York City, began construction on the Upper West Side in 1880, it was one of the first major buildings to be built in the area. Legend has it that workers would joke that it was so far away from everything else in New York City that it felt as far out west as the Dakota territory. The moniker stuck, and the building was officially dubbed the Dakota.
Apartments in the Dakota sold out before construction was even completed. From the grand opening in 1884 to 1929, there wasn't a single vacancy in the building. In 1980, John Lennon was shot outside the building. His widow, Yoko Ono, still lives in the apartment they shared.
34. By the time George Washington was elected president in 1789, his teeth were in such bad shape that he only had one real tooth left in his entire mouth. He had a long history of dental issues, and normally wore dentures, which were comprised of his own teeth that had been pulled, teeth he took from the slaves he owned, and animals. In 1796, he had his final tooth pulled and gave it to his dentist, Dr. John Greenwood, as a gift. Greenwood kept the tooth in a small glass container that hung from his watch chain.
35. In 1976, the Band (yep, that's their actual name) was preparing their farewell concert, which was set for Thanksgiving night in San Francisco. The concert was set to be filmed by Martin Scorsese for a documentary called The Last Waltz. The Band invited tons of their famous friends to perform at the show, including Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young.
Before Neil Young was slated to perform, he allegedly partook in some cocaine backstage. As he performed his song "Helpless," cocaine residue was hanging from his nostril. Once the filmmakers started reviewing the footage, they found that the cocaine was completely unmissable. Young's manager demanded that Scorsese find some way to edit it out. Scorsese refused, and told the manager that it looked more "rock and roll" that way. However, at some point, Scorsese was convinced to edit the footage.
The issue? There was no CGI back in 1976, and editing Young's nose proved to be a bit more difficult than expected. They eventually created what became known as "the traveling booger matte," an effect that hovered over Young's nose as he performed. Robbie Robertson, a member of the Band, joked that it was "the most expensive cocaine [Young] ever bought."
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36. In 2012, a brand-new ant species was discovered in a small portion of Manhattan. The ant, cleverly named the "ManhattAnt," was located at the Broadway medians between 63rd and 76th streets in New York City. Scientists said that while they initially believed the ant hailed from Europe, they later learned that it appeared to be a species that was brand new to the entire world.
37. Quentin Tarantino became a huge fan of CSI after watching episodes during breaks on set while filming Kill Bill. When CSI's producers heard that Tarantino was a fan, they invited him to direct an episode. Tarantino ended up directing the Season 5 finale, called "Grave Danger," which critics called one of the show's most intense and horror-filled episodes. "Grave Danger" marked Tarantino's return to TV, after previously directing an episode of ER. He hasn't directed any TV shows since.
38. "The Starry Night," arguably one of Vincent van Gogh's most famous paintings, represents his view from the Saint-Paul de Mausole asylum, located near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in France. After experiencing a breakdown in 1888, van Gogh checked himself into the asylum. He took several creative liberties with the work, leaving out the metal bars on his window and adding in more of the village than would have been visible from his perspective.
39. Wyoming was surprisingly progressive in the fight for women's rights. In 1924, Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected governor, making her the first female governor of any US state. She had been married to William B. Ross, who served as governor before her. When he died in 1922, she was nominated as the Democratic candidate, and ended up winning the election. During her term, she fought for rights for farmers and refined budgets in schools. Although Ross lost her bid for re-election, she went on to serve as the vice chair of the Democratic National Convention, and was appointed as director of the US Mint by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In addition to boasting the first female governor, Wyoming was also the first state to grant women the right to vote. In 1870, a full 50 years before women were federally granted suffrage, Wyoming passed a measure allowing women over the age of 21 to vote and hold office. While this was a huge deal in the fight for suffrage, historians note that the motivation may have been less than wholesome, with many supporting giving women the right to vote instead of granting that same ability to Black men, immigrants, and Native Americans.
40. Sharks, who are often dubbed the "garbage cans of the ocean," notoriously eat trash and other less than palatable things they find floating in the sea. Turns out, if they try something they don't like, they can just "evert" their stomachs, meaning they can push their stomach out through their mouth to give it a rinse and get the offending object out.
41. While dating Kelly Preston, George Clooney bought a pet potbellied pig, reportedly as a gift for his then-girlfriend. When the couple split, Preston told Clooney he could keep the pig, who the pair named Max. Max was soon spotted on some of Clooney's movie sets. Clooney allegedly refused to give up the pig when given an ultimatum in not one, but two relationships. Max died in 2006 at age 18, with Clooney calling their bond "my longest relationship to date."
42. In the 1980s, Legacy International, a square dancing organization, lobbied for the square dance to be named the national dance of the United States, but their attempts failed. Legacy International then decided to individually appeal to the states to get them to adopt the square dance as their state dance, even if the state had no significant ties to square dancing. Some believed the push to promote square dancing was part of a conspiracy to get the square dance, which had been fading in popularity, in the physical education curriculum in schools all over the country. The square dance is currently the state dance of over 20 states.
43. Daisy Bates was one of the people who led the charge to integrate schools during the civil rights movement. When Bates was 3 years old, her mother was killed by three white men in a racially motivated incident. As Bates grew up and understood the situation, she vowed to devote her life to racial justice. After getting married, Bates and her husband settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, where they started one of the only Black newspapers devoted to the civil rights movement. She also worked closely with the NAACP, and eventually gained notoriety for her work when she became president of the organization's Arkansas chapter.
Through her work with the NAACP, Bates started to organize groups of Black students to enroll at all-white schools. If the students were turned away, she would publicize the event in her newspaper, and would praise the schools that followed the federal mandate that integrated schools. When it came time to attempt to integrate schools in Arkansas, Bates was tapped to lead the charge. She selected the students who comprised the Little Rock Nine, drove them to school to protect them, and even joined the school's parent organization to fight for them. Bates faced intense backlash for her work. She was the target of death threats and had to shut down her newspaper as a result.
Despite the danger, Bates continued to organize groups of Black students. Her work eventually lead to national recognition. In 1963, Bates was invited to sit onstage during the March on Washington, and ended up delivering a speech at the event. For the rest of her life, Bates worked to uplift Black communities in Arkansas. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom soon after her death in 1999.
44. If you're in the mood to laugh, might I suggest 30 Rock? In 2014, a reporter for the Atlantic crunched the numbers to see which comedies were able to pack in the most jokes per minute, and found that there was an average of 7.44 jokes per minute in the sitcom.
45. In 2011, Jayme Gordon filed a lawsuit against DreamWorks, claiming that he had created the characters and the concept of their 2008 release Kung Fu Panda. He said that he had begun developing the idea during a trip to Boston's Chinatown in the early 1990s, and had sent a portfolio containing the idea to executives at Disney and DreamWorks. Gordon was seeking over $12 million in damages.
As the case proceeded in court, DreamWorks found that the concept artwork Gordon had submitted as evidence had actually been drawings he traced from a Lion King coloring book that had been published in 1996. When it was revealed that they had found the drawings from the coloring book, Gordon said that Disney must have stolen his ideas as well. In 2015, he was indicted on charges of fraud and perjury, and was sentenced to two years in prison.
46. I never thought of moose as being all that fast, but apparently, they're pretty speedy from birth! Moose calves can typically outrun humans by the time they're 5 days old.
47. In the 1920s, Georgia Tann operated the Tennessee Children's Home Society, which was a front for a massive black-market trafficking scheme where she kidnapped babies and sold them to wealthy families. Tann passed the bar exam in Mississippi, but her father told her that becoming a lawyer was unusual for women, so she turned to social work, which was one of the few socially acceptable careers for women at the time. After being fired at an adoption home in Mississippi after complaints arose around her adoption practices, Tann moved to Tennessee and was hired as the executive secretary of the Tennessee Children's Home Society.
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By 1924, Tann had worked her way up to director, where she developed her scheme. She decided to kidnap poor infants and children because she believed that their families wouldn't have the intelligence or resources to search for them. In some cases, Tann or one of her agents would drive a nice car through poor neighborhoods in an attempt to dazzle children and lure them in. She also bribed doctors and nurses to tell new parents that their child was stillborn and frequently lurked outside of prisons and mental hospitals to try to steal any children who had been born there. Tann would even kidnap children who were playing outside, and told them that their parents had died. Tann went so far as to place ads in local newspapers begging rich families to adopt the babies.
Celebrities like Joan Crawford and June Allyson adopted babies from Tann, who was pocketing up to $5,000 for each of the adoptions she facilitated. Despite the fact that many parents filed reports that their children were missing, Tann was able to avoid trouble because of her close relationship with the Memphis police, as well as her friendship with E.H. Crump, a business tycoon turned Memphis mayor. She worked with local judges to falsify and destroy adoption papers.
In 1947, Tann was diagnosed with uterine cancer just as the scheme was beginning to fall apart. Crump was losing political influence in Memphis, and people had started to whisper about her tactics. During Gordon Browning's mayoral campaign, he decided to hire an investigator to uncover Tann's adoption scheme. In September 1950, a case was launched against Tann, but she passed away just days later. Two months after her death, the Tennessee Children's Home Society closed for good. It's estimated that from 1924 to 1950, Tann kidnapped about 5,000 children. It's also believed that about 500 children died under Tann's care. In the years following, several of the children Tann kidnapped were reunited with their parents.
48. During the Geneva Summit in 1985, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev went on a walk together. Their discussion was kept under wraps until 2009, when it was revealed that during the stroll, Reagan, who was a big science fiction fan, asked Gorbachev if they could agree to pause the Cold War in the case of an alien invasion. The two even agreed to help each other out in the event that either country was attacked by the invaders.
49. While the AARP might now be one of the largest organizations in the world, it actually got its start from a chicken coop. In the 1940s, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, who had been appointed to a committee for retired teachers' welfare, was contacted by a man whose neighbor was a former teacher. The teacher received so few benefits that she had to live in a chicken coop and lived off of only $40 a month. Andrus was so taken by the story that she created the National Retired Teachers Association in 1947, then formed the American Association of Retired Persons, or the AARP, in 1958.
50. If you're looking for a picturesque drive without anything blocking the view, you might want to plan a trip to Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, or Vermont. They're the only four states that have banned billboards.
51. When Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho was published in 1991, it became a hit, and the movie rights were bought less than a year later. After several years of being stuck in development limbo, indie director Mary Harron was announced as director, with Christian Bale attached to star. Soon after, Lionsgate got involved with the project and decided that they wanted a bigger name to anchor the film.
As the search for a new star began, Lionsgate decided to approach Leonardo DiCaprio, who was fresh off of filming Titanic, with the script and an offer of $20 million to star in the movie. DiCaprio was interested, but Harron thought that he had the wrong look for the role, and believed that if he starred, the "wrong type of crowd" would go see the movie. Lionsgate pressed forward with DiCaprio and reportedly allowed the actor to put together his own short list of potential directors, with Oliver Stone eventually agreeing to direct. Shortly after, both DiCaprio and Stone dropped out, and Bale and Harron were back.
So why did DiCaprio ditch the movie? Feminist activist Gloria Steinem was a vocal opponent of both the book and the movie for its depiction of violence against women. Steinem reportedly took DiCaprio to a Yankees game and told him that doing the movie would be bad for his career. DiCaprio supposedly took this to heart and dropped out of the flick soon after. The real kicker? Shortly after American Psycho was released, Steinem married environmental activist David Bale, who just so happened to be Christian Bale's father.
52. When giraffes are born, they usually fall 6 feet to the ground and typically land on their heads. The shock of the landing actually shocks newborn giraffes and prompts them to start breathing. The fall also bursts the amniotic sac and severs the umbilical cord.
53. Before the Fyre Festival, there was Woodstock 99, another massive music festival failure. The festival was held at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York, and was the second attempt at emulating the legendary 1969 Woodstock festival. Acts like Willie Nelson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette, and Ice Cube were scheduled to perform for an estimated 400,000 attendees, despite the fact that the venue had a cap of 250,000 people.
During the festival, which was held in July, temperatures swelled to over 100 degrees during the day. Due to the massive number of attendees, many were forced to camp on hot asphalt. Water bottles were sparse and costly, while lines for free water took hours. Attendees resorted to breaking open the pipes, which caused flooding and mud. During Kid Rock's set, he told the audience to pelt the stage with their empty water bottles, which some thought was commentary on the water situation. After the festival, some festival-goers even threatened to sue for negligence because of the lack of water.
During the Red Hot Chili Peppers' closing set, they performed a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" as a tribute to his performance at the original Woodstock. Festival-goers took the song to heart, and began setting fires in the crowd during the performance. Once people noticed the fires, the entire venue devolved into chaos — vehicles were flipped over, and vendor tents were raided and burned. There were also several reports of sexual assault that arose during the chaos. New York state troopers attempted to take control of the situation, and said they weren't able to extinguish all of the fires until the next day. After the festival ended, the San Francisco Examiner called the festival "the day the music died."
54. I don't think an umbrella will suffice on planet HD 189733b. According to NASA, it rains glass on the planet, with winds reaching speeds of 5,400 mph, which is seven times the speed of sound.
55. School of Rock is known for its use of music from some of rock's biggest names, from AC/DC to Stevie Nicks. Filmmakers wanted to use Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" in the movie, but knew it would be challenging because Led Zeppelin rarely approved use of their music in movies or TV shows. Jack Black decided that he was going to make an onstage appeal while filming to persuade them to use the song.
While filming the movie's Battle of the Bands scene, Black turned to the camera and asked the "gods of rock" for permission to use the song. "This is a movie about rock, and without that song this movie will crumble into smithereens. Oh no — the movie is kickass. But dude, your song would be a hard rockin’ cherry on the top of the mountain." Led Zeppelin approved, and "Immigrant Song" was used in the movie. In 2017, "Immigrant Song" appeared in Thor: Ragnarok, and Black jokingly challenged star Chris Hemsworth to a "Battle of Jams" for ripping off his movie's big feat.
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56. On October 17, 2015, a mega-tsunami struck Alaska's Ice Bay. The tsunami was caused by 180 million tons of rock sliding into Taan Fiord, which generated a wave that reached 633 feet and stripped over 8 square miles of forest. Although the tsunami was later deemed the fourth-largest tsunami recorded in history, nobody even knew it initially happened because it occurred in such an isolated area.
57. Theodore Roosevelt's family was known for their menagerie of unusual pets during his presidency. When he took office in 1901, his 17-year-old daughter Alice got Emily Spinach, a garter snake, as a pet. Alice reportedly chose the name "because it was as green as spinach and as thin as my Aunt Emily." Her brother Quentin also loved snakes. He reportedly bought four snakes at a pet store, then barged into the Oval Office while Theodore was in a meeting with several senators and let the snakes loose. They were quickly captured and taken back to the pet shop.
In addition to the snakes, the family kept dogs, birds, a one-legged rooster, several horses, and even a small bear as pets. The family's bull terrier Pete reportedly bit so many White House employees and visitors that he had to be sent away to the family's home in Long Island.
58. Movie trailers got their name because they used to come after, or trail, the actual movie. Surprisingly, the first trailer actually wasn't even for a movie! Instead, promotion for The Pleasure Seekers, a play that debuted in 1913, is known as the first official trailer.
59. Thomas Nast was the cartoonist behind some of America's most recognizable figures, creating the imagery for icons like Uncle Sam, Santa Claus, and the donkey and elephant used to represent the Democrat and Republican parties. Nast served as cartoonist for Harper's Weekly from 1862 to 1886, and quickly became known for his brutal takes on politics. The elephant emerged from "Third Term Panic," an 1874 cartoon that Nast drew as commentary on the rumor that President Ulysses Grant, a Republican, was contemplating running for a third term in 1876. Nast labeled an elephant as "the Republican vote." In later cartoons, Nast would label a donkey as the Democratic party, and the iconography stuck.
In addition to creating recognizable political symbols, Nast popularized depictions of Uncle Sam and Santa Claus as well. While versions of Uncle Sam had been appearing since the War of 1812, Nast's 1870s version has since become the one that is most widely used today. Prior to the 1860s, Santa Claus was often portrayed as a tall, thin man. In 1863, Nast drew a new version of Jolly Old Saint Nick, complete with a beard and a belly full of Christmas cookies. The new Santa was often used in Civil War propaganda cartoons, but has since endured to be the Santa we recognize today.
60. J.R.R. Tolkien was incredibly detail-oriented and protective over his work, especially the Lord of the Rings series. When he decided to sell the movie rights for the franchise, he forbade Disney from ever being involved in the production, saying Walt Disney was "simply a cheat" who had been "hopelessly corrupted" and only cared about profits. In the 1950s, Tolkien's publisher supposedly approached Disney about adapting the books without Tolkien's consent, but Disney reportedly turned the project down because they thought it was too complex and scary for their audience.
61. While the fully grown size of most mammals, including humans, is mostly set from birth, give or take a few inches, that's not the case for other animals. Fish, lizards, snakes, and other amphibians are "indeterminate growers," which means they technically never stop growing.
62. While filming The Sound of Music in 1964, director Richard Wise wanted to put banners featuring swastikas and other Nazi imagery throughout the city of Salzburg to make the film appear historically accurate. The city turned down this request, so Wise told them that he would instead include real newsreel footage of the city cheering for Adolf Hitler when he visited during World War II. Soon after, the city backtracked on their statement and allowed Wise to hang the banners.
63. Rose Cleveland was the first LGBTQ+ First Lady. Rose served as First Lady during her brother Grover Cleveland's presidency because he was unmarried. During the time period, unmarried presidents had to select a female relative to fill in as First Lady. Rose, who was an author and teacher, provided a well-respected counter to her brother's often debaucherous ways. Rose left the White House in 1886 after Grover married Frances Folsom, his 21-year-old ward. During the winter of 1890, she met Evangeline Simpson.
By April 1890, the two began writing each other love letters. For six years, the couple traded letters, traveled together, and even revealed their relationship to their families, who appeared to have accepted them. In 1896, Evangeline shocked Rose by announcing that she was engaged to Henry Whipple. She wrote back begging her to reconsider, but they married later that fall, and Rose fled to Europe. While they kept in contact, their letters became far less frequent. Whipple died in 1901, and soon, Rose and Evangeline resumed their relationship. In 1909, Rose gave Evangeline an ultimatum: They needed to live together. She agreed, and the pair moved to Italy, where they lived until Rose's death in 1917.
64. I'm low key terrified of snails now. Freshwater snails are hotbeds for parasites, and are responsible for about 200,000 human deaths every year. Meanwhile, cone snails are actually one of the deadliest sea creatures. Their venom is so potent and made from such a variety of toxins that there is no antidote for their stings.
65. After the Jacksonville Jaguars found themselves winless after the first three weeks of the 2003 NFL season, coach Jack Del Rio put a massive tree stump and ax in the middle of their locker room to enforce their new mantra: "Keep chopping wood." Players would often chip small pieces of wood off of the stump after practice. By week 5 of the season, the Jaguars had finally gotten their first win, but the stump and ax remained the focal point of the locker room. During practice one day, punter Chris Hanson and kicker Seth Marler finished their workout early and headed back to the locker room. Hanson jokingly swung the ax, which lodged right in his leg. He was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. Just nine months later, Hanson returned to the field, with no lingering effects from the accident.
66. After the success of Disneyland and Walt Disney World, Disney wanted to develop a third theme park. They wanted to build the park in a place that already had an established tourist scene, and landed on Washington, DC as the perfect location. By 1991, development on the park was underway. Officials decided to build the park in Haymarket, Virginia, which was located about 35 miles away from Washington. Over 4,000 men had been killed just a few miles from the site during the Battle of Bull Run. The Walt Disney Company began purchasing land through shell companies in an effort to keep the plans under wraps. In 1993, Disney formally announced that construction on Disney's America was set to begin.
Instead of focusing on Disney's trademark characters, the park's attractions would be American history-themed, with exhibits on slavery, the Vietnam War, immigration, and Native Americans. "We are going to be sensitive, but we will not be showing the absolute propaganda of the country," Disney Chairman Michael D. Eisner said during the park's official announcement in 1993. "This is not a Pollyanna view of America," Bob Weis, a Disney senior vice president, said. "We want to make you a Civil War soldier. We want to make you feel what it was like to be a slave or what it was like to escape through the underground railroad." Weis's remarks were seen as incredibly offensive.
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While some locals were thrilled with the potential jobs and business opportunities the park would bring to the area, others were worried about the way Disney planned to portray sensitive historical events. “We have so little left that is authentic, that is real, and to replace it with plastic history, mechanized history, is a sacrilege," historian David McCullough said about the park. By spring 1994, 30 historians and writers formed a group called Protect Historic America to protest the park. Disney shot back and said that they had hired their own historians who would ensure the exhibits would remain authentic and accurate.
As the controversy around the portrayal of history ramped up, so did other concerns surrounding the park. Many began complaining about traffic, run-off, potential taxpayer costs, and the impact the park might have on local historic sites. In June 1994, a Congressional hearing about the park was held, with a protest march following in September. On September 28, 1994, Disney officially announced that they were pulling out of the Haymarket site. While they looked for other locations, the Disney's America project never came to fruition.
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67. Iron Man was originally created on a dare! Marvel creator Stan Lee was challenged by a friend to create a character that was incredibly unlikable with the hopes of him becoming beloved by readers, despite his unfavorable traits. The result of the dare was Tony Stark, a billionaire weapons dealer who was portrayed as being incredibly selfish. Lee knew that many of his readers weren't fans of war and the military when Stark made his debut during the Cold War, but decided to make Stark's personality and career revolve around war anyway. It paid off. Iron Man became a beloved character, and 2008's Iron Man was the film that kicked off the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.
68. We're all technically living in the past! It takes your brain about 80 milliseconds to process events once they've happened, meaning that by the time you understand what's going on, it's in the past. In fact, some physicists have argued there is actually no such thing as "now."
69. In 1677, Daniel Leeds started an almanac that used astrology in a lot of its predictions. Quakers were outraged by this and often called Leeds an evil Satan worshipper. Despite this, the almanac was a success, and turned into a family business that Daniel passed down to his son Titan. While running the almanac, Titan learned that Benjamin Franklin was trying to publish an almanac of his own.
Franklin wanted to dissuade people from reading the Leeds almanac, so he decided to publish a prediction that Titan Leeds would die on a certain date in 1733. When the date came and went without Titan's death, Leeds started a campaign proclaiming that Franklin was a liar. Franklin decided to tell his readers that Leeds must be a ghost, then argued that he had been resurrected. Shockingly, Franklin's audience believed this, and his almanac went on to be a success, while Leeds's almanac petered out.
70. It took Norman Greenbaum just 15 minutes to write the lyrics for his song "Spirit in the Sky" in 1968. The song became an instant hit, and has since been featured in over 30 commercials and 60 films. Greenbaum told the New York Times that he makes at least $10,000 every time the song is used in media. “Well, it’s not like it’s made me rich," he said. "But because of 'Spirit in the Sky,' I don’t have to work. So in that sense, it’s a comfortable living.”
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71. NBC officials assumed that The Office would do particularly well in the middle-age, working-class demographic. When the show premiered in 2005, they found that it was struggling with their target audience. Cast members worried that the show wasn't going to be renewed, and said that NBC executives were often pessimistic about the show's chances.
The show eventually scored a second season just as Apple was making TV show downloads available on iTunes. Much to the shock of NBC executives, they found The Office took up four of the five slots for the most downloaded shows. Once they realized that the show was skewing younger than they expected, they were able to retool the show, making it brighter and more optimistic.
72. If you want to see a piece of the Berlin Wall, just head to the men's room at the Main Street Station Casino, Brewery, and Hotel in Las Vegas, where three urinals are mounted on a graffiti-covered slab of the wall. It's unclear exactly who brought a piece of the wall to the casino because it was already there when Main Street bought the property in the 1990s.
73. When WarGames, which featured a teenage hacker breaking into the US missile system and nearly launching nuclear war, was released in 1983, Ronald Reagan was treated to a screening at Camp David. After finishing the movie, Reagan called a meeting and asked, "Could something like this really happen? Could someone break into our most sensitive computers?" White House staff went on to investigate, and about a week later, came to Reagan and said, "Mr. President, the problem is much worse than you think.” Reagan's fears surrounding the movie eventually pushed the government to update computer security at the Department of Defense, and paved the way for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
74. While legend might tell you that oysters make pearls out of a grain of sand, that's not always the case. Oysters actually can make pearls out of anything, from food caught in their tissues to a piece of debris. Then, oysters begin coating the irritant in the same substance that their shells are made out of, in turn creating a pearl. Pearls take about 5 years to fully develop. Now, farmers often slip an irritant into the oysters and check back on them years later to ensure a gorgeous pearl every time.
75. NBA legend Tim Duncan wasn't always big on basketball. Duncan was born in St. Croix, where he dreamed of following in his older sister's footsteps and becoming an Olympic-level swimmer. When Hurricane Hugo hit the US Virgin Islands in 1989, it destroyed the island's only Olympic-sized pool. Duncan was told that he would have to start swimming in the ocean if he wanted to continue his training.
The issue? Duncan was so afraid of sharks that he refused to swim in the ocean, and was forced to withdraw from the team. Soon after, he turned to basketball, where he instantly excelled on the court. And as for those Olympic dreams? Duncan went on to make the US National Basketball Team. While a knee injury kept him out of the 2000 Olympics, he competed in the 2004 games, where the team won a bronze medal.
76. Mullets are a trend I didn't have on my 2022 bingo card, but apparently, they're back! The Beastie Boys actually coined the term "mullet" in 1994, and are even credited with naming the hairstyle in the Oxford Dictionary. While the hairstyle had been popular long before the band, their 1994 song "Mullet Head" was the first time a name was associated with the "business in the front, party in the back" look.
77. While alligators and crocodiles are equally terrifying, there’s only one place in the world where the two species peacefully co-exist: South Florida.
78. The 2003 live-action adaption of The Cat in the Hat ranks highly on my list of movies that feel like a total fever dream. The movie was so bizarre that it ended up on tons of "Worst Of" lists. Even Dr. Seuss's widow Audrey Geisel hated it. She thought the movie was so bad that she refused to allow any more live-action adaptions of Dr. Seuss's work, and said the film was especially disappointing because The Cat in the Hat was the "spokescat" of the Dr. Seuss brand.
79. While "Google" is widely used as a verb today, the first instance of it ever appearing on TV was in an October 2002 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the Season 7 episode "Help," Willow asks Buffy, “Have you Googled her yet?” Just a few months later, the word "Google" was voted the most useful word of 2002.
80. On January 24, 1961, a US Air Force bomber sprung a fuel leak and broke in half while flying over Goldsboro, a town in eastern North Carolina. As the bomber broke, two nuclear bombs fell from the plane and hit the ground. Luckily, the bombs, which were said to be stronger than those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, didn't detonate. A pin on one of the bombs was pulled in time to prevent it from exploding, while the other bomb was damaged too badly to detonate when it hit the ground.
So, what would have happened had the bombs gone off? Each bomb had a radiation radius of over 15 miles, although winds could have pulled the radiation even further. Had this happened today, the radiation alone would have killed an estimated 60,000 people, and left an estimated 54,000 more injured.
81. Astronauts Mark Lee and Jan Davis met in 1991 while training for the same space mission. They immediately fell for each other and wed soon after. The couple knew they had to keep their relationship secret if they wanted to stay on the same mission, because NASA had an unwritten policy that forbade married astronauts from flying together. Nine months later, they finally revealed their marriage after they knew it would be too late for NASA to train replacement astronauts for their flight. To this day, they're the only married couple who has ever flown in space together.
82. We all know that the Titanic sank during its maiden voyage after striking an iceberg, but did you know that area is now known as Iceberg Alley? Located in Canada, between 400 and 800 icebergs are spotted in Iceberg Alley each year. After the Titanic sank in 1912, Canada, the United States, and 12 other countries formed the International Ice Patrol to warn approaching ships of dangerous icebergs ahead.
83. And finally, Virginia Apgar broke barriers for women in medicine. After finishing college, Apgar became one of few women to attend medical school. In 1933, she was one of the first women to graduate from Columbia University with a medical degree. While Apgar originally wanted to be a surgeon, she found that women were frozen out of the speciality, so she set her sights on anesthesiology, which was then seen as a nurse's responsibility. Through the 1940s, Apgar worked to legitimize anesthesiology. In 1949, she became Columbia's first female full-time professor, where she researched the effects of anesthesia during childbirth.
In 1952, Apgar developed the Apgar Score. An Apgar Score is assigned to every infant during childbirth, and measures the pulse, respiration, muscle tone, color, and reflexes of a newborn baby. The Apgar Score has proven crucial in saving the lives of infants in the first few minutes of childbirth, and is still widely used today. Apgar's research went on to help develop the field of perinatology, which focuses on fetal health and complicated pregnancies.
