Fact of the Day

DarkRavie · November 14, 2022

Fact of the Day - PIE

Did you know... Pie is one of America’s favorite desserts, and each flavor is as unique as the person that enjoys it. Maybe you prefer tart cherry or creamy coconut. Personally, I will never get tired of chocolate. (Erin Elizabeth | July 5, 2022)

Stories Behind 5 of the World's Favorite Pies

by Interesting Facts

The earliest pies were valued by anybody who needed to store food for the long haul. A well-baked pie, made with a thick crust called a “coffin,” could last in your pantry for up to a year. Pies were especially beloved by sailors, who required stockpiles of well-preserved food that would take up little space in a ship. As the BBC notes, “having a hold stacked with pies was a far more sensible use of precious square metres than bringing a cook and dozens of livestock along for the journey.” Before the 16th century, most of these pies featured savory fillings. The sweet pies we enjoy today were rare and pricey, reserved for royalty and anybody willing to pay top-dollar for sweeteners. Dessert pies wouldn’t become common among regular folk until the height of the slave trade, which saw millions of sacks of sugar imported from the West Indies. Like the traveling pies of the Middle Ages, the word “pie” itself has taken a fascinating journey. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word may be a nod to the magpie, a black-and-white bird common to Europe. It’s believed that early pies, with their light crusts and dark fillings, resembled the bird’s plumage. Another theory is that the word refers to the magpie’s nest, which is famous for being stuffed with anything the bird can get its claws on. (Early pies, after all, were a motley mix of whatever the cook could find in the kitchen: meat, offal, fruits, spices, and more.) Support for this etymology lies in Scotland’s national dish of haggis, which — like early pies — is famed for containing a slew of ingredients. According to Alison Richards at NPR, “the word haggis or haggesse turns out to be an alternative name for magpie.” In any case, pie as we know and define it now was in common rotation by the 19th century. Today it's a staple of American cuisine, in particular, and the preferred dessert for many holidays. Home cooks and professional chefs alike invent new recipes all the time, sometimes competing in national pie competitions in an attempt to create a new favorite flavor. Nothing beats the classics, though. Here’s a closer look at the origins of five of the world's most popular pies.

1. Mincemeat Pie: Cuisine From the Crusades

In the 13th century, European crusaders returned home with stories of war — and, if legends are true, a few good pie recipes inspired by Middle Eastern cuisine, which fearlessly combined sweet and savory flavors. Clearly impressed, the crusaders told those back home about delicacies containing an array of meats, fruits, and spices available only in distant lands. (A 1390 recipe for “tartes of flesh,” for example, suggests adding saffron to a pastry of sugar, pork, cheese, and eggs.) Expensive to bake, the pie recipes influenced by the crusaders were initially reserved for the wealthy or presented at feasts and holidays. By the 16th century, though, these “mincemeat” treats were a Christmastime mainstay. Today's mincemeat pies are actually just mince pies; meat was dropped from the recipe sometime before the Victorian era.

2. Blueberry Pie: A Wartime Treat

Berry and drupe-based pies have existed since the 16th century, when Queen Elizabeth I famously took a bite of the world’s first cherry pie. But when pies came to the New World, non-native fruits took precedence over blueberries. That changed during the Civil War. As brother fought brother, sardine canneries in New England lost most of their business in the Deep South. Thankfully, Maine was (and is) the largest producer of wild blueberries in the world, so the factories pivoted to canning local fruits instead. Soon, the struggling canneries captured a new market: Soldiers who had never tasted Maine blueberries were downing the stuff by the dozens, transporting them in the form of pies. An American classic was born.

3. Apple Pie: Britain’s Gift to America

The phrase “as American as apple pie” is a misnomer: The dish is decidedly British. Unlike blueberries, apple trees are not native to North America. (Rather, America’s first apple seeds and cuttings were brought over by Jamestown colonists for the purpose of making cider.) Britain’s first apple pie recipe was recorded back in 1381 by Canterbury Tales author Geoffrey Chaucer, who called for figs, berries, saffron, and more. Here it is:

Tak gode Applys and gode Spyeis and Figys and Reysons and Perys and wan they re wel ybrayed colourd wyth Safron wel and do yt in a cosyn and do yt forth to bake wel.

As with blueberry pie, America’s love affair with apple pie may be traced back to the United States military. By the early 20th century, America had become one of the world’s largest apple producers. During World War II, it was common for soldiers abroad to say they were fighting “for mom and apple pie.”

4. Pumpkin Pie: Star of America’s First Cookbook

When you think of it, it’s odd to transform a gourd into a sweet dessert. But Americans have been doing it since the mid-17th century. In 1655 in New Netherland — now New York state — a Dutch lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck observed that “the English, who are fond of tasty food, like pumpkins very much and use them also in pies.” These early pastries, however, did not resemble modern pumpkin pies. “They contained layers of sliced (sometimes fried) pumpkin, combined with sugar, spices, and apple slices,” Ellen Terrell writes for the Library of Congress blog. The first modern custard-style pumpkin pie recipe wouldn’t be recorded until 141 years later, when Amelia Simmons wrote the first American cookbook. (You can view the recipe here.)

5. Key Lime Pie: The Pride of Florida

Floridians are defensive about their state pie — and for good reason. Key limes, with their uniquely pleasant pucker, are named for their association with the Florida Keys, where they first thrived in the United States. But the pie itself may not be a Sunshine State creation. According to some sources, the dairy-loving masterminds at the Borden Company concocted the recipe that would become key lime pie in a New York City test kitchen in 1931. (The recipe was a ploy to sell sweetened condensed milk.) Floridians, however, still insist that the original key lime pie was invented by a cook with the mysterious name of “Aunt Sally,” who allegedly adapted the recipe after acquiring it from a sponge fisherman working off the Florida Keys.

Source: Popular Pie Flavors To Enjoy | Pie History

DarkRavie · November 15, 2022

Fact of the Day - 10 GALLON HATS

Did you know... A 10-gallon hat actually only holds three-quarters of a gallon.
It might sound like a trick question: How many gallons of water does a 10-gallon hat hold? Turns out, not even one. The famous piece of Western wear can only contain about three quarts of water — that’s a mere three-quarters of a gallon. (Hatmakers advise against double-checking this figure at home, since complete saturation isn’t kind to felt and fur hats.) There’s no clear origin to the misleading 10-gallon name, but some linguists believe the term stems from cross-cultural confusion. One theory holds that American cowboys picked up the name while working alongside Spanish-speaking cattlemen, many of whom wore wide-brimmed hats with decorative galóns (aka braids). The most elaborate of these featured band upon band of detailing — as many as 10 hatbands. Another theory suggests that “10-gallon” was an anglicized version of “tan galán,” a Spanish phrase meaning “very handsome,” used to describe cowboys as they rode off into the sunset and the like. Western films of the early 20th century primarily outfitted actors in 10-gallon hats, though those depictions weren’t historically accurate when it came to reenacting the Old West. With their large brim and tall crowns, 10-gallon hats can easily catch the wind or attract attention, making them an impractical choice for ranchers and outlaws alike. Derby (aka bowler) hats were actually the most commonly worn men’s hat until the mid-to-late 1800s, after hatmaker John Batterson Stetson released his first cowboy hat, called the “Boss of the Plains.” His version was inspired by the original 10-gallons but could withstand the elements. It became popular on ranches, movie sets, and even at the White House.

Tom Mix, Hollywood’s first Western movie star, appeared in more than 300 films.

Before John Wayne and Clint Eastwood became Hollywood superstars thanks to their roles in Western films, another on-screen cowboy dominated the genre: Tom Mix. The Pennsylvania-born actor appeared in his first film in 1909, beginning a career that would be bedazzled by iconic Western wear, including an oversized Stetson 10-gallon hat. Mix was also known for performing his own stunts, a feat he was able to accomplish thanks to his experience as a cowhand and a member of the Texas Rangers. He would go on to star in more than 300 screenplays, the majority of them silent films, and by 1928 was Hollywood’s highest-paid actor. Mix’s career dwindled as “talkie” pictures rolled around, but he continued his showbiz career with a second act as a rodeo and circus star until his death in 1940. (Interesting Facts)

The Ten Gallon Hat: A Tall Tale Still Told

BY DAVID MCLEMORE

If you had to name a company known for quality hats off the top of your head it would be pretty easy. The first and possibly only one that immediately comes to mind? Stetson. This American classic brand is known for its cowboy hats, otherwise known as the ten gallon hat.

Stetson and the original ten gallon hat
Founded in 1865 in the American West, the John B. Stetson Company certainly aimed to please. The Boss of the Plains hat was one of its initial offerings, providing practical workwear for the style-conscious cowboy. The story behind it is a good one too. As the story goes, during his travels to the Rockies and the Great Plains after the end of the American Civil War, Stetson realized that his eastern city hat was too small-brimmed for the Wild Wild West. He had some beaver pelts and nothing to shape them with but a flat frying iron and a cooking pot. And now you know how the hat got its wide brim and overall shape.

The 10-gallon hat that Stetson produced had about a four-inch (10 cm) crown and a wide brim that could be curled, if desired, and it became quite popular. Reportedly, people Stetson met along the trails would offer him as much as the price of a Colt pistol for one of his hats, so he knew he was onto something. The hats quickly became widely available starting at “one-grade quality” for $5 all the way up to “full beaver” for $30 (about $471 today!). Stetson founded the John B. Stetson Company, started selling those hats, and the rest is history! The crease you now find in cowboy hats would come later, with the Tom Mix hat, named after the silent cowboy film star who made it popular between 1910 and 1930. But the Boss of the Plains was the hat that started it all.

Does the ten gallon hat really hold 10 gallons?

A quick glance at the hat tells you that it certainly doesn’t hold 10 gallons (37.85 L). A famous Stetson advertising poster painted by cowboy-artist Lon Megargee that circulated around 1924 may have helped spur this claim. Titled “The Last Drop from His Stetson,” the painting depicts a cowboy crouched down in front of his trusty horse as it seemingly slurps up water from his ten-gallon hat. To borrow a little Texas phrasing: though “The Last Drop from His Stetson” is a fine painting, it’s also a lot of hogwash. Though you would think that your hat would be ruined if a horse drank water from it, those original Stetsons were as tough as the cowboys who wore them. In fact, when the battleship USS Maine sunk in 1898, then raised 14 years later in 1912, one of the original Stetsons on board was found. They cleaned off the muck, and even after 14 years of salt water and nibbling fish, the hat was fine. The problem with the 10-gallons claim isn’t in the hat’s durability, but rather in its capacity. John B. Stetson himself filled up one of his hats and confessed that it would truly hold only a modest 3 quarts; that is, just 0.75 gallons (2.84 L).

So how did the ten gallon hat get its name?
There are two conflicting theories on the origin of the ten-gallon hat name, both situated around the vaqueros, the cowboys of Mexico. One theory is that the name for the ten gallon hat comes from the Spanish word galón, a type of braid that decorated a hat’s crown. Texas cowboys may have understood the word as “gallon” and the name spread. The other theory is that the names comes from the Spanish tan galán, meaning “very gallant” or “very dashing.”

Tom Mix was an American film actor who starred in early Western movies between 1909 and 1935. The ten gallon hat was Tom Mix’s trademark. Mix would even help an unemployed John Wayne find work shifting props at Fox Studios, helping Wayne launch his Hollywood career.

In reality, most cowboys wore bowler hats, so picture the Wild West with a whole lot more “Clockwork Orange” going for it than you might be comfortable with. Entertainers like Buffalo Bill Cody, Tom Mix, and John Wayne helped to give the ten-gallon hat its modern association as the cowboy hat. To quote John Wayne: “It was the hat that won the west.”

Source: About the 10 Gallon Hat | Brief History Facts of the 10 Gallon Hat

DarkRavie · November 16, 2022

Fact of the Day - COMMON SURNAMES

Did you know... Last names, also known as surnames, can tell us a lot about our family history and cultural identity. Our surnames can help us trace our family trees, but they can also tell us about the history of how people traveled across the world, built their communities, and contributed to society. It turns out that there’s actually a lot to know about last names...including why some last names are more popular than others. (Ashley Robinson | Feb 28, 2021)

The Story Behind 9 of the Most Common Surnames in the World

by Interesting Facts

What are the world’s most popular surnames? It’s a big question, to be honest. Naming conventions vary across the globe. Folks in some countries, such as Mongolia, don’t have surnames at all. In other places, like Hungary, the so-called “last name” comes first. Meanwhile, in Russia and elsewhere, the spelling and pronunciation of a name may depend on your gender. And sometimes a surname can change with each passing generation, as in Iceland. All of this complicates tracking the world’s most common surnames. The task is made even more challenging by the fact that if we were to simply stick to raw totals, this list would contain only names from China or the Indian subcontinent. (After all, those regions are home to one-third of the world’s population.) Instead, we looked at the most popular surnames from different geographic regions: Asia, the Middle East, South America, and so on. (An approximation of the number of name-holders is provided by Forebears, a genealogy portal.) In no particular order, here’s the history behind some of the world’s most storied surnames.

1. Wang (107 million)

The surname Wang used to be a handy way to show off your family’s political connections. It’s represented by the Chinese character for “King” or “Monarch.” The name’s popularity in China grew over millennia as various ruling clans and dynasties used it to highlight their pedigree and inheritance. Today, it doesn’t carry much political clout: Approximately 107 million people share the name Wang, making it the most common surname in the world.

2. Nguyen (24.6 million)

About 2,100 years ago, China conquered present-day Vietnam. At the time, the Vietnamese didn’t have surnames, which was a problem for the Chinese, who wanted to keep track of their new vassals. So they started handing out surnames. One of those names was Ruan, which would evolve into Nguyen. “It seems likely that some mid-level Chinese bureaucrat, in seeking to figure out who actually lived in his newly conquered Vietnamese territory, simply decided that everyone living there would also be named Ruan—which became Nguyen,” writes Dan Nosowitz at Atlas Obscura. Today, up to 40 percent of Vietnam’s population bears the name.

3. Kim (18.8 million)

From 57 B.C.E. up until the year 935, most of the Korean peninsula was called the kingdom of Silla. In the fourth century, The 17th ruler of Silla, Naemul, established a hereditary monarchy that would maintain control of the throne for an impressive five centuries. These people called themselves Kim. The name was fit for a King: The word means “gold.” (Today, approximately one in every five South Koreans are called Kim.)

4. Smith (4.5 million)

Anglo-Saxon in origin, Smith harks back to the word smite, which means to “strike with a hammer. In medieval Europe, professional smiths (blacksmiths, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, and more) were among the most skilled and respected citizens in a community. Eventually, occupational names like “Tim the Smith” were shortened. Today, Smith is the most common surname in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia.

5. Singh (35.7 million)

Derived from the Sanskrit word “lion,” Singh is common among North Indian Hindus. And like Kaur, it’s also the name-of-choice for male Sikhs. In fact, the surnames Kaur and Singh are so widespread that immigration officials have complained that it’s too difficult to process paperwork from Sikhs. For 10 years, Canada addressed the problem by telling Sikhs to change their last names before applying to immigrate. According to the policy, “the names ‘Kaur’ and ‘Singh’ is not sufficient for the purpose of immigration to Canada.”

6. Johnson (3.1 million)

This surname owes its popularity to the New Testament. The given name John is one of the most popular in Christian world, and for good reason—The Bible is chock full of beloved Johns: John the Apostle, John the Baptist, and John the Evangelist to name a few. The spread of Christianity helped make John one of the most popular first names in the western world. When patronymic surnames became popular in the middle ages, Johnson would become an obvious frontrunner. (And it hasn’t hasn’t looked back. It’s now the second most common surname in the United States.)

7. Ahmed (25.7million)

As common a first name as it is a last name, Ahmed and its variants is easily one of the most well-known names on the planet. Extremely popular in Pakistan and east Africa—especially the small island nation of Comoros—the word means “To thanks or praise” or, more specifically, “thanks to God.” The name appears in the Koran, in which Jesus foretells that “an apostle … shall come after me, and whose name shall be Ahmed.”

8. Gonzalez (9.8million)

In the 5th century, the Visigoths settled in modern Spain and imported a distinct Germanic language, called Gothic. The name Gonzalez, meaning “son of Gonzalo,” roots back to the Gothic tongue. It’s believed the name Gonzalo may trace back to the old Gothic word for “battle” or “battlefield.” Others suggest it refers to the Gothic words for “war hall” or “castle.” (The Gonzalez family crest is an imposing castle tower.)

9. Rodriguez (9.2 million)

For Spanish surnames, the suffix -ez is patronymic. That is, anytime you see a Spanish name ending in -ez, the name means “son of.” The surname Rodriguez, for example, merely means “Son of Rodrigo.” It derives from the old Germanic name Hrodric, which loosely means “powerful ruler.” Back in the day, anybody in the Rodriguez clan could claim that he or she was related to a political bigwig.

Source: Most Common Last Names in the World | Surname History

DarkRavie · November 17, 2022

Fact of the Day - LAMBORGHINI

Did you know... Lamborghini began by making tractors.
Today, the name Lamborghini is synonymous with automotive opulence, but the Bologna, Italy-based company has an origin story that’s more humble than you might expect. Born in 1916, Ferruccio Lamborghini served in the Italian Air Force as a mechanic during World War II, learning the ins and outs of some of the most advanced vehicles in the world. Returning home after the war, Lamborghini knew his home country would need to increase agricultural output to recover from the devastation of the conflict. With other tractor companies (one of them being FIAT) too expensive for his war-weary compatriots, Lamborghini put his mechanical skills to work and created cheap-yet-powerful tractors salvaged from surplus military material. Starting with its first tractor, named Carioca, in 1948, Lamborghini Trattori became an immensely successful business. Lamborghini’s fortune from the tractor business, along with other proceeds from his dabblings into air-conditioning and heating systems, provided enough capital for Lamborghini to buy his own Ferrari 250 GT sports car in 1958. Ever the mechanic, Lamborghini was unimpressed with his Ferrari (especially its less-than-luxurious clutch) and even began a feud with Enzo Ferrari himself. So, he decided to make his own sports car, and in 1963, Automobili Lamborghini launched a legacy of fine automobile craftsmanship that has lasted for 60 years and counting. (They also still make tractors.)

Lamborghini tried to make one of the U.S. military’s most important vehicles.
In the early 1970s, Lamborghini was in dire financial straits. To bring in some much-needed cash, the Italian luxury brand looked to an unlikely place — the U.S. military. By the mid-1970s, the Pentagon was seeking to finally retire its WWII automobile warhorse, the Jeep, for a new vehicle that could withstand the rigors of the modern battlefield. In partnership with a defense contractor based in San Jose, California, Lamborghini developed the Cheetah, an all-terrain vehicle, and debuted its creation at the 1977 Geneva Motor Show. Although the concept vehicle ran into some legal troubles, the biggest problem was that its one-off prototype handled poorly and was easily destroyed during testing. The military went another route instead, and in 1983 chose AM General’s High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, otherwise known as HMMWV, or the more phonetically friendly “Humvee.” (Interesting Facts)

Facts Everyone Should Know About Lamborghini

BY IAN WRIGHT | JANUARY 01, 2022

From inventing the supercar to failing to sell motorcycles. Ferruccio Lamborghini was born on April 28, 1916, and developed a reputation for mechanical ingenuity when he was stationed as a vehicle maintenance supervisor for the Italian Royal Air Force. Stuck on an island in the middle of World War II meant the supply chain for parts wasn't reliable, so he had to get creative to keep things running. When he returned to Italy, he created a business making tractors from surplus military machines, then expanded into manufacturing all kinds of things, including heating and air-conditioning systems. Ferruccio Lamborghini became a wealthy man and spent some of his money on sports cars, specifically a Ferrari 250GT regularly serviced by Ferrari at its Maranello headquarters. When Lamborghini's own mechanic pointed out that a replacement clutch in the car was the same as used in Lamborghini tractors, but with a massive markup from Ferrari, he was incensed and confronted Enzo Ferrari. Enzo being Enzo, he belittled Ferruccio Lamborghini as a tractor maker that didn't know anything about sports cars. Lamborghini responded to Enzo Ferrari's arrogance by building his own sports car, the Lamborghini 350 GTV. It was a two-seater coupe powered from the front by a V12 engine. Automobili Lamborghini was established as a company in 1963 in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy, and changed the automotive world in short order.

1. Lamborghini Invented The Supercar As We Know It

Enzo Ferrari gave in to the mid-engine layout in race cars as it was necessary, but he liked his production cars to be traditional grand tourers. Ferruccio Lamborghini preferred powerful sports cars that were more comfortable cruisers over race car-derived road machines. Lamborghini's top engineers thought the way forward was mid-engine, so Gian Paolo Dallara, Paolo Stanzani, and Bob Wallace set about building a prototype on their own time. Ferruccio wasn't wholly convinced of its long-term viability but recognized that a ferocious mid-engined car could be a great marketing tool. He gave the engineers a free hand to develop the idea to the end, then contracted the Italian design studio Bertone to design the bodywork. Between them, they invented the Lamborghini Miura and created the first supercar with a rear mid-engine two-seat layout. Just 764 were built between 1966 and 1973, but it became a global sensation. Amazingly, the engineers took a massive design idea from the equally culturally important Mini by designing the engine and transmission as a single unit to share lubrication from the oil.

2. Total Of 26 Lamborghini Models
At the time of writing, Lamborghini has produced just 26 separately named models. If you ignore the single and special production models based on existing models, that number drops to 18 over 59 years. The one with the most sub-models is the landmark Lamborghini Diablo with 18 different variations despite only around 900 being built in total. The lowest selling model was Lamborghini's second, the 400 GT. The biggest selling model is, at the time of writing, the current Huracan which sold its 14,022nd unit in 2019, matching the Gallardo's total build number over its ten-year production run. Not bad for a company that started out with farm equipment.

3. There's More To The Logo Than Bullfighting

It's well known that most Lamborghini models are named after an aspect of bullfighting history, but that's not the only reason the bull was settled on as a logo. Ferruccio Lamborghini's star sign was Taurus, and the bull and bullfighting were passions for him. Also, the bull represented power, speed, and prestige to him - as well as a great response to Ferrari's prancing horse logo. The original logo for the automaker was a black-and-white bull on a red background with the shield outlined in black. The more familiar black-and-gold color scheme didn't appear until 1972, but in 1974, a monochrome version was created, and it wasn't until 1998 that black and gold returned and the badge we know today was created.

4. It Took 11 Years For The Countach To Officially Reach North America
The Lamborghini Countach was launched in 1974, and its radical design and performance changed the supercar game again. However, it wasn't built from the factory to meet the United States or Canadian safety and emissions regulations. That didn't stop Americans, though, and quite a few made their way across the ocean as gray market imports and modified to meet legislation. Lamborghini was well aware the US was a big market for the brand and the car but didn't build one to meet standards until the US-specification Countach LP5000 QV in 1985. Like other sports cars of the era, the US model had larger energy-absorbing bumpers fitted. Inevitably, most owners pulled them off straight away.

5. The Fastest And Most Expensive Lamborghini Is The Veneno

A new Lamborghini is never going to be cheap, but the Veneno Coupe weighed in at $4 million and the Veneno Roadster at $4.5 million. Five coupes and nine roadsters were built and, if you want one now, expect to pay at least double the original cost when one comes up for auction again. Not only did the Veneno arrive in 2013 as the most expensive production car on the planet, but its 6.5-liter V12 pushed it to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds and on to a top speed of 221 mph. The specs don't stop wowing there, though. In corners, the Veneno will pull 1.41 G, and it'll come to a stop from 60 mph in just 98 feet. That's the length of the world's largest bus or two feet short of the height of a ten-storey building.

6. Lamborghini Offers Winter Driving Courses
Most high-end manufacturers will teach you how to drive fast in one of their vehicles on a track. Lamborghini, however, will put you out on a track topped with ice and snow. In 2020, the event that Lamborghini describes as a "fun and instructional program" took place in Aspen, Colorado, and people attending had the chance to thrash Lamborghini Huracán EVO and Urus models around in the snow. We're not sure if this benefitted any of them in the real world, but we'd bet our bottom dollar that the experience was seriously fun. Teaching Urus owners that their SUVs are more than just pavement pounders is something we can get behind too.

7. Ferruccio Lamborghini Didn't Want To Go Racing

According to Lamborghini's founder, taking the brand racing would drain too many resources, including cash. As a result, he decided there would be no factory team or factory support for racing teams. His engineers didn't agree, particularly the ones that came from Ferrari, where selling road cars was what supported the racing. Under Ferruccio's reign, a few highly modified prototypes were built but none went racing. Lamborghini did build Formula 1 engines from 1989 to the early 1990s to the Larrousse, Lotus, Ligier, Minardi, and Modena teams. It's commonly believed the Modena team was Lamborghini's factory project, but the automaker was just a supplier. Now, though, Lamborghini does have visibility in racing through its motorsport department, Lamborghini Squadra Corse. The department organizes the Lamborghini Super Trofeo and Lamborghini GT3 one-make series. Lamborghini these days is happy to build customer race cars such as the Huracán GT3 EVO to go tear up the track with.

8. Lamborghini Built A Motorbike
The 1980s were a great time for Lamborghini financially, and the head of the company at the time, Patrick Mimran, decided the brand should branch out. Lamborghini still builds incredible engines for boats, but the project to develop and sell a motorcycle didn't go so well. The Design 90 motorcycle was outsourced to Boxer Bikes and used a Kawasaki engine. Fifty orders for the bike were made, but only six were built, including concepts. The project was iced when GM took over Lamborghini and was ultimately forgotten about. The last time we saw a Design 90 in the wild, it went up for auction but didn't meet its reserve price. Still, Lamborghini remains a highly attractive marque, and the vehicles it has found success with are better than ever.

Source: Facts About Lamborghini | Interesting Facts to Know About Lamborghini

DarkRavie · November 19, 2022

Fact of the Day - MUSTACHES

Did you know... Whether you have one, want one, or wish they’d all disappear, the Mo has made its comeback. Just in time for Movember, the author of One Thousand Moustaches lets us in on some hairy secrets. (Allan Peterkin | Updated: Oct. 04, 2018)

Comb Through These 6 Facts About Mustaches

by Interesting Facts

Each November, millions of people around the world grow out their facial hair for Movember, an annual celebration that started in Melbourne, Australia, in 2003. The mustache serves as a symbol of a movement to raise awareness and money for health issues such as prostate and testicular cancer, but Movember isn’t the first time mustaches have played an outsized role in culture. From their time as a fashion-forward Victorian status symbol to an expression of freedom in 20th-century France, these six fascinating facts about mustaches might have you seeing “face lace” in a whole new light.

1. The World’s Longest Mustache Is Over 14 Feet Long

If every person were like Ram Singh Chauhan, most razor companies would go out of business. Since March 2010, Chauhan has proudly held the Guinness World Record for the longest mustache. He has been growing his since 1970, when he was just a 12-year-old boy, and recent measurements from Chauhan’s personal Instagram account put the mustache’s ever-increasing length at 19.3 feet. This isn’t to say that Chauhan’s mustache is unkempt — on the contrary, Chahuan spends up to two and a half hours each day meticulously grooming his facial hair and massaging it with herbal oils. He only trims around the lip area and washes the mustache once every two weeks. While his whiskers initially caused strife between him and his wife, Asha, she now shares Chauhan’s sense of pride and considers the hairy accessory part of the family.

2. Some Indian Police Officers Are Paid Bonuses for Growing Mustaches

In India, mustaches are considered symbols of masculine pride and respect — so much so that police departments in parts of the country (from the large central state of Madhya Pradesh to Uttar Pradesh in the north) pay out bonuses to officers who grow out their upper lip hair. Indian police chiefs believe that mustachioed constables are treated with more respect, hence the unusual bonuses. The tradition of sporting robust mustaches faded somewhat among Indian men after the 1990s, but the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary found their incentive program so successful that they hiked their mustache bonus by 400% in 2019. While it remains up to each individual officer whether they grow a mustache or not, officers who do so will earn a few hundred extra rupees in their pockets each month.

3. French Waiters Once Went on Strike for the Right to Grow Mustaches

While growing a mustache may be incentivized by Indian police departments, facial hair was strictly regulated in France around the turn of the 20th century. With French elites attempting to co-opt the mustache as a class symbol, waiters, domestic workers, and even priests were forbidden from growing one. Tensions came to a head in April 1907, when a group of French waiters participated in a strike to demand benefits such as better pay and more freedom to grow facial hair. The waiters were among several groups fed up with forced shaving, and their decision to strike left high-end Parisian restaurants losing roughly 25,000 francs per day in revenue. A bill was introduced to outlaw mustache bans across France, and even though it ultimately failed, many waiters at individual restaurants across the country successfully earned the right to wear mustaches. Unfortunately, such a win came at the expense of meaningful financial gains like pay raises, so it mainly proved to be a symbolic victory for workers’ rights.

4. Mustachioed Victorian Men Used Special Utensils for Tea and Soup

Growing a mustache or beard was a fashionable choice during the Victorian era in Great Britain, but it didn’t come without challenges — especially when it came to consuming hot liquids. Men with facial hair often found their mustache wax melting straight off their upper lip and into their drinks. Luckily, an intrepid inventor named Harvey Adams came up with a solution in the 1860s: the “mustache cup.” The cup featured a built-in ledge for men to rest their mustaches against for protection, as well as a hole for liquid to travel through. These adult sippy cups were popular not only in the U.K. but also throughout the U.S., where they were sold at stores like Sears and Marshall Field’s. The Victorian era also saw a few other mustache-based inventions for the kitchen: In 1868, New York engineer Solon Farrer came up with a mustache spoon, which inventor Ellen B. A. Mitcheson tweaked and submitted for patent in 1873. Her idea involved adding a piece of metal to a traditional spoon to keep the mustache from coming into direct contact while slurping down soup, allowing hot liquids to travel through while maintaining perfectly waxed whiskers.

5. Copies of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” Included Cardboard Mustaches

The Beatles famously ditched their mop-top haircuts and clean-shaven faces in favor of a new, mustachioed look in advance of their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The decision actually had a practical purpose: Paul McCartney suffered a moped accident in 1965, which split his upper lip. As with any fashion choice the Beatles made, fans wanted to replicate their look, so the band included cardboard cutout mustaches that could clip onto the nose with the release of the chart-topping album. The set of accessories also included cardboard badges and military stripes to dress like Sgt. Pepper.

6. Salvador Dali’s Mustache Is Reportedly Still Intact

Though surrealist artist Salvador Dalí passed away in 1989 at the age of 84, his most striking physical feature is reportedly still intact: his mustache. According to Narcís Bardalet, the embalmer who tended to Dalí’s body after his death and participated in his 2017 exhumation to collect DNA for a paternity claim, Dalí’s mustache still perfectly sits “[like clock hands at] 10 past 10, just as he liked it.” While still alive, Dalí was known to be proud of his distinctive facial hair; he once claimed that he and French novelist Marcel Proust used the “same kind of pomade” for their mustaches. Dalí’s mustache was even the subject of a book, 1954’s Dali’s Mustache: A Photographic Interview, which the artist co-authored with photographer Philippe Halsman. The book features their interview alongside 28 images of the artist’s unique and seemingly immortal facial hair.

Source: Things You Didn’t Know About Moustaches | Facts About Mustaches

DarkRavie · November 19, 2022

Fact of the Day - ACRONYMS

Did you know... Whether you realize it or not, you likely use acronyms all the time in your everyday speech. When you tell someone about a funny GIF, for instance, you're using an acronym to describe the moving image that made you laugh. And did you ever stop to wonder what the abbreviations a.m. and p.m. mean when it comes to time? Yes, acronyms are very much a part of our daily language, but most people don't have a clue what many of them mean. For example, what are we actually doing when we RSVP? Keep reading to find out the answer—and the meanings of several more of the most common acronyms in the English language. Spoiler alert: Some of them aren't even English! ( MORGAN GREENWALD | DECEMBER 18, 2019 )

Acronyms You See Every Day and Their Meanings

by Interesting Facts

Some words and letters are such a familiar part of everyday life that they almost fade into the background. From markings on your electronics, food packaging, and clothes to the words you see on water bottles and inside elevators, here are the meanings behind some mysterious letters you might see every day.

1. UL

The letters "UL" can be found on many things, including electric plugs, heaters, smoke alarms, and personal flotation devices. UL stands for “Underwriters Laboratories,” a company that's been conducting product safety testing for more than a century. If an item meets UL's safety standards, it earns the right to bear a "UL" mark. The man who founded what became UL, William Henry Merrill Jr., got the idea to set up an electrical testing laboratory after being dispatched to check fire risks at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. The Underwriters Electrical Bureau was founded in 1894, and Underwriters Laboratories was incorporated in 1901. UL began offering its label service to certify products it had tested in 1906.

2. CE

You may have spotted a "CE" on eyeglass frames, mobile phones (or their packaging), appliances, electronics, and more. CE stands for the French phrase "Conformité Européenne," which means “European compliance.” The CE designation indicates an item has met the standards to be sold in the European Economic Area. The certification process ensures that products in specific categories adhere to safety, health, and environmental standards. Placing CE on things isn't required outside of Europe, but plenty of manufacturers leave the CE mark on items that are sold both in Europe and elsewhere.

3. FCC

Mobile phones, earbuds, television stations, and other communication devices operate on radio frequencies. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission checks to make sure these devices can function with no harmful interference. The FCC also ensures a device won't overexpose users to radiofrequency (RF) energy, which is a type of electromagnetic radiation. After obtaining FCC approval, manufacturers will place an FCC logo on the device and/or its packaging. At first glance, this logo can appear as if it contains just an F and a C next to each other, but a closer look will reveal there's a second C hidden inside the first one.

4. OTIS

Maybe you study the insides of elevators to have something to do during your ascent or descent, or perhaps you get nervous and read every bit of elevator signage in search of reassurance it's working properly. If so, you've likely seen "OTIS" emblazoned on an elevator's floor, control panel, or elsewhere. This isn't an acronym or abbreviation — OTIS refers to the Otis Elevator Company. In the 1830s and '40s, passengers regularly died in elevators when lifting cables broke. Inventor Elisha Graves Otis created an elevator safety brake, and in 1853, showed off his invention at New York City's Crystal Palace Convention by ascending on an open platform, cutting the hoisting rope with an ax, and not falling thanks to the safety brake. Four years later, E.V. Haughwout and Company's department store in Manhattan became the first business to use elevators equipped with this special brake. After the Otis Elevator Company was founded in 1853 and Otis patented his invention in 1861, Otis elevators helped transform cities. Today, the company continues to make elevators with the name “Otis” displayed inside. The safety mechanisms in present-day elevators even stick to the same basic engineering principles that Otis originally used.

5. OU

People who don't keep kosher may have seen the letter “U” inside a circle on some food items and not have known this indicated the item was processed according to Jewish dietary laws. This letter “U” is actually inside an “O,” not a circle; “OU” stands for “Orthodox Union Kosher.” Some products may be marked with “OU-D” to indicate that they contain dairy or were made on equipment that handled dairy. “OU-P” tells people an item is kosher for Passover. “OU” isn't the only way to signal that a food item is Kosher. A “K” inside a circle or a star are other well-known marks for kosher foods.

6. PET

You can find the letters "PET" on many plastic bottles, including most of the ones that hold beverages. PET is an acronym for the plastic “polyethylene terephthalate,” which is part of the polyester family of polymers. Above the word "PET" on these bottles, you'll also usually see a 1 in a triangle made up of arrows. This is a recycling code. PET bottles can successfully be recycled, so make sure to do this instead of throwing yours away.

7. USB

USB is such a familiar term that you may not be aware it's an acronym for "universal serial bus." USB really did live up to the "universal" part of its name. Before USB, serial ports, parallel ports, and more were used to connect external devices like keyboards, mice, and printers. USB made it possible for these different devices to hook up to computers via the same connection. USB technology was developed by a group of American businesses, notably Intel, and first became available in 1996. When Apple's iMac came out in 1998, it was a USB-only computer. USB is still popular today, as are USB-C ports on phones, tablets, and certain computers.

8. YKK

Zippers are part of our daily lives, whether on our jeans, coats, or bags, and as long as they work, they usually don't receive intense scrutiny. However, a closer look at various zippers will likely reveal that many of them are inscribed with the letters "YKK.”

YKK stands for “Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha,” which roughly translates to “Yoshida Manufacturing Shareholding Company.” This company, founded in 1934, uses its own brass, polyester, threads, and even zipper machines. By controlling so much of the process, YKK can deliver high-quality zippers. The company also sells these zippers at reasonable prices. The combination has made YKK a go-to in the garment industry — and explains why half of the world’s zippers have YKK zippers.

Source: Common Acronyms Meaning | Facts About Acronyms and Their Meaning

DarkRavie · November 20, 2022

Fact of the Day - MASTERPIECE THEATER

Did you know... It’s been parodied by Sesame Street and the Disney Channel, and beloved by millions of culture-seeking television viewers for more than four decades now. Today marks the 45th anniversary of Masterpiece’s debut on PBS. Though today’s Masterpiece looks slightly different than the Masterpiece Theatre that made its premiere on January 10, 1971, the program has succeeded in remaining “steadfast in our commitment to bringing the best in drama to American public television audiences.” Here are 13 things you might not know about the Sunday night tradition. ( Jennifer M Wood | Jan 10, 2016 )

Things You Might Not Know About "Masterpiece Theatre"

by Interesting Facts

In today’s world of streaming entertainment on demand and short attention spans, the idea of a television series celebrating its 50th anniversary feels like — and is — an anomaly. But such is the case for Masterpiece, formerly known as Masterpiece Theatre (more on that later), which is still going strong five decades after its January 1971 debut. Incredibly, although the series has undergone numerous changes over the past five decades, it still offers basically the same winning formula that it has offered for generations: curated programming largely consisting of adaptations of classic novels by (mostly British) authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Agatha Christie, and Jane Austen, among others. Some of its most popular dramas, like the award-winning Downton Abbey and fan-favorite Sherlock, have become so successful that viewers often forget they’re products of the anthology series. As well-established as Masterpiece is, however, there’s a lot about its history and its form that remains a mystery to even its most ardent fans. Here are eight surprising facts about the long-running series that may help shed some light on the ever-enduring appeal of Masterpiece.

1. It’s the Longest-Running Primetime Drama in the History of American Television — Even Though the Content Is Exclusively British

Masterpiece Theatre premiered its first episode on January 10, 1971, following the success of a 1967 adaptation of John Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga. Stanford Calderwood, who was then the president of WGBH, Boston’s PBS affiliate, saw that success and wondered whether there might be a growing American appetite for British drama. His instincts proved spot-on. While on vacation in London, he convinced the execs at BBC that a partnership could prove fruitful for both networks; now, 50 years later, American viewers continue to clamor for classic British stories told with beautiful sets and elaborate costumes.

2. Producers Found the Iconic “Masterpiece” Theme Song at a Club Med in Sicily

Part of the appeal of Masterpiece is its unapologetic British-ness, from the period costumes to the bucolic sets. Interestingly, however, the trumpet-filled theme song that ushers in each episode comes not from England but from France — specifically, French composer Jean-Joseph Mouret. Even stranger, producer Christopher Sarson stumbled upon the now-instantly-recognizable intro at a Club Med in Palermo, Sicily. As the story goes, Sarson heard the music on vacation with his soon-to-be-wife in 1962, when Club Med played the stately tune (“Rondeau” from Mouret’s Symphonies and Fanfares for the King’s Supper) each morning as a way to summon guests out of their grass huts for breakfast. “It was just magic,” Sarson previously told PBS. “I wanted to use it for Masterpiece Theatre but there was no way I could bear to put a French piece of music on something that was supposed to be English. I went through all kinds of English composers and nothing worked. So, it became the theme.”

3. The Series’ Original Host, Alistair Cooke, Thought It Was Going To Fail

Masterpiece Theatre’s very first host was British-American broadcaster, author, and journalist Alistair Cooke. Cooke was the face of the series for more than 20 years, but he actually turned down the hosting gig when it was first offered to him. At the time, he was working on his own BBC series, and he wasn’t convinced that Masterpiece would appeal to American audiences. According to Rebecca Eaton, who has served as Masterpiece’s producer since 1985, Cooke only agreed to sign on at his daughter’s urging. In a show of skepticism, Eaton wrote in her 2013 book Making Masterpiece, he signed a one-year contract just weeks before the series premiered — and proceeded to sign one-year contracts for the remainder of his time as host, a whopping 22 seasons.

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Russell Baker, who succeeded Cooke as the show’s host in 1993, didn’t want to take the job either, though for different reasons. The journalist reportedly had qualms about filling Cooke’s big shoes — it was only after his daughter begged him to consider the role that he eventually agreed.

4. Helen Mirren’s “Prime Suspect” Character, Jane Tennison, Is Believed To Have Inspired More Nuanced Female TV Roles

Helen Mirren has been acting since the 1960s, but she is perhaps most beloved for her leading role in the early ’90s Masterpiece Theatre series Prime Suspect, in which she played a no-nonsense Detective Chief Inspector for London’s Metropolitan Police Service. The series itself was groundbreaking for honing in on themes of sexism in the workplace, especially as it affected Mirren's character, Jane Tennison. Mirren was nominated six times (and won twice) for Best Actress in a Miniseries at the Emmys, and her character has been credited as a model for strong female TV leads, including Kyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Leigh Johnson on The Closer and Gillian Anderson's Stella Gibson on The Fall.

5. “Downton Abbey” Is the Series’ Most Successful and Popular Miniseries

In its 50-year history, no Masterpiece miniseries has drawn as much buzz as Downton Abbey, which debuted in the U.K. on September 26, 2010, and on PBS the following January. The series, which aired its final season in the U.S. in 2016, chronicled the lives of an aristocratic family and their domestic servants in the fictional Yorkshire county estate of Downton Abbey. It tackled historic events ranging from the First World War to the Spanish influenza pandemic to the Irish War of Independence, all through the lens of the highly hierarchical household. It’s the most nominated non-U.S. series in Emmy history, with a total of 59 nominations and 12 wins. In 2019, a full-length feature film was released due to popular demand, furthering the storyline of the original Masterpiece series and featuring many of the original actors.

6. Parodies Include “Sesame Street’s” “Monsterpiece Theater” and Disney Channel’s “Mousterpiece Theater”

Masterpiece has become such a cultural institution that it has inspired parodies in a number of mainstream shows, ranging from Sesame Street’s “Monsterpiece Theater” (featuring host Cookie Monster as “Alistair Cookie”) to the Disney Channel’s “Mousterpiece Theater,” hosted by George Plimpton. The hilarious Thug Notes is also a clear spin on the prim and proper Masterpiece formula, as is Issa Rae’s Ratchetpiece Theatre. A number of sketch comedy shows have featured spoofs of the long-running series, too, including In Living Color, which aired a sketch in season 5 that had Jamie Foxx and David Alan Grier reciting the lyrics of popular gangster rap songs in a deadpan manner. Mad TV also previously ran a sketch called “Master P’s Theater,” with the titular rapper sitting in the host’s seat.

7. The Decades-old Series Was Given a Modern Brand Update in 2008, Dropping the Word “Theatre” and Splitting Into Three Sections

So, about that name change: In 2008, in a bid to modernize the series, the word “Theatre” was dropped from Masterpiece Theatre, resulting in a sleeker, simpler moniker. The series was also split into three different sections that would ostensibly serve up different stories for different viewers — Masterpiece Classic, Masterpiece Mystery!, and Masterpiece Contemporary. Masterpiece Classic was originally hosted by Gillian Anderson, but has since been taken over by Laura Linney and dropped the word "Classic," to become just Masterpiece. Alan Cumming hosts Masterpiece Mystery!, and David Tennant hosts Masterpiece Contemporary (first hosted by Matthew Goode).

8. Countless Hollywood Stars Made a Name for Themselves on “Masterpiece” Series Before (And After) Crossing Over to the States

Helen Mirren is far from the only household name to grace the ever-expansive web of Masterpiece cast lists. Other A-listers, including Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey), Laurence Olivier (Henry V), and Peggy Ashcroft (The Jewel in the Crown) also had major roles on Masterpiece series.

Source: Cultured Facts About Masterpiece Theatre | What You Might Not Know About "Masterpiece Theatre"

DarkRavie · November 21, 2022

Fact of the Day - CARROTS

Did you know... Carrots weren’t originally orange.
Today carrots are practically synonymous with the color orange, but their auburn hue is a relatively recent development. When the carrot was first cultivated 5,000 years ago in Central Asia, it was often a bright purple. Soon, two different groups emerged: Asiatic carrots and Western carrots. Eventually, yellow carrots in this Western group (which may have developed as mutants of the purple variety) developed into their recognizable orange color around the 16th century, helped along by the master agricultural traders of the time — the Dutch. A common myth says the Dutch grew these carrots to honor William of Orange, the founding father of the Dutch Republic, but there’s no evidence of this. What’s more likely is that the Dutch took to the vegetable because it thrived in the country’s mild, wet climate. (Although the orange color may have first appeared naturally, Dutch farmers made it the predominant hue by selectively growing orange roots — scholars say these carrots likely performed more reliably, tasted better, and were less likely to stain than the purple versions.) The modern orange carrot evolved from this period of Dutch cultivation, and soon spread throughout Europe before making its way to the New World. Today, there are more than 40 varieties of carrots of various shapes, sizes, and colors — including several hues of purple.

Purple is associated with royalty thanks to a rare mollusk.
For most of European history, creating a rich, resilient purple dye was an extremely expensive process. The dye could only be made from the dried mucus glands of murex shellfish found near the ancient Phoenician town of Tyre on the Mediterranean (now part of Lebanon). Making just one gram of this pigment, known as Tyrian purple, required nearly 9,000 of these mollusks, so only the very wealthy — emperors and royals — could afford to use the color. In ancient Rome, purple became associated with the power of the emperor, and the idea continued after the empire’s fall. In medieval and Elizabethan England, a series of sumptuary laws ensured that the color purple was reserved only for the most elite members of society “upon payne to forfett the seid apparel.” Luckily, in 1856, chemist William Henry Perkin accidentally created a synthetic purple dye, later called mauve, while trying to synthesize a drug for malaria. Purple’s imperial reign was over. ( Interesting Facts )

Interesting Carrot Facts Worth Knowing

by Emily Hannemann | Updated: July 18, 2022

Few vegetables are as versatile as carrots. They’re equally at home in desserts like carrot cake as they are in casseroles, and, of course, being taken straight from the fridge and dunked in ranch dressing. It’s no wonder many gardeners add carrots to their yearly harvest — there’s so much you can do with them! In celebration of the iconic veggie, here’s a collection of fun carrot facts.

Carrots Are Older Than You Think

Despite their prominence in modern grocery stores, orange carrots emerged in the 1600s. Purple and yellow were once the most prevalent colors, and today, heirloom varieties have made a big comeback.

We Eat a Lot of Carrots!

The average person eats more than 10,000 of these sweet, crunchy vegetables in their lifetime. On a yearly basis, folks munch on 8.3 pounds of fresh carrots, and consume 1.4 pounds of the veggie from the freezer.

Learn how to store vegetables so they stay fresh longer.

Carrots Are Very Good for You

To those who know about nutrition, this’ll probably be the least surprising of our carrot facts. These orange vegetables are an incredible source of nutrients like beta carotene, vitamin C and potassium, but they’re especially high in vitamin A. Even just half a cup of cooked or raw carrots contains about 204% of your recommended daily value.

The Carrot “Life Cycle” Takes Two Years

Carrots, a biennial vegetable, have a life cycle that takes two years. If you leave a healthy carrot in the ground, its top will bloom and produce a round of seeds in its second year. Learn more about growing carrots.

Most of the Carrots in the U.S. Are Grown in One State

More than 85% of carrots in the U.S. are grown in California—the city of Holtville, California, calls itself the carrot capital of the world. Michigan and Texas are also among the top carrot-growing states.

Source: Facts About Carrots | Fun Facts About Carrots

DarkRavie · November 22, 2022

Fact of the Day - STATE NAMES

Did you know... You can practically glean the history of America in the names of all 50 states. The story of the United States begins in the East and the South and is reflected in the origin of the names of the states. In the East and South, many states owe their monikers to our forebears from England, France, and Spain. These states include New York, Vermont, and Florida. Another influence from the earliest time in our history is Native American culture, apparent in several state names. It is also apparent in many city names. There are a lot of obscure places with strange names that people have a hard time with – like these 50 town names most people will struggle to pronounce. ( John Harrington | July 2nd, 2020 )

States Whose Names Were Almost Very Different

by Interesting Facts

If you grew up in the United States, chances are you learned the names of all 50 states at a pretty young age. But while it may be hard to imagine now, the U.S. map could have looked very different. Here are eight states that almost had entirely different names — and the fascinating stories behind them.

1. Nevada

Anyone who has traveled around the West has probably come across the name Humboldt. It appears in county names, street signs, rivers, and mountain ranges — and if history had gone a little differently, the state of Nevada would bear this name, too. The Humboldt name found its way across the region because of the exploits of an explorer and naturalist named Alexander von Humboldt. Born in 1769, Humboldt helped popularize scientific exploration with his book Kosmos. He had a fascination with geology, and he ended up traveling approximately 6,000 miles across Central and South America, exploring the oceans and landscapes. On his travels, Humboldt became the first person to figure out that altitude sickness was caused by lack of oxygen. However, Humboldt never actually set foot in the western U.S. It was fellow explorer John C. Frémont who chose to name many locations after him in honor of his scientific contributions. When Nevada became a state in 1864, Humboldt was seriously considered as a name — but ultimately, the government chose Nevada, the Spanish word for “snow-covered” instead.

2. Utah

The origins of Utah are closely tied to the history of the Mormons, who initially wanted to name this state Deseret after a name in the Book of Mormon. While the Mormon church began in New York, its members struggled to acclimate. This forced church members to hit the road as they searched for a place to settle. Leader Brigham Young decided to move the Mormons west to the Salt Lake basin. As they began to settle, Young petitioned Congress to create a new state for them. The initial suggested boundaries of Utah were enormous, spreading across what is now Nevada and stretching all the way to the coastline of Southern California. Young’s petition was initially declined, at least in part due to the prevailing anti-Mormon bias in American society at the time. However, after the Mormons publicly abandoned polygamy several decades later, they were finally granted statehood in 1896. The resulting state was much smaller than they had hoped, and they didn't get to name it Deseret. Instead, the government chose the name Utah, after the Ute tribe that lived there.

3. Maine

New Somerset, Yorkshire, Columbus, and Lygonia were all potential names for Maine, but, of course, none of them stuck. In fact, King Charles reportedly hated the name New Somerset so much that he responded adamantly that the region should be known as "the County of Mayne and not by any other name or names whatsoever." The name Mayne first appeared in writing as early as 1622, but to this day, no one is quite sure how it morphed into Maine instead — and where the name ultimately came from. The most prevalent belief is that the region was named after the nautical term "main land" to distinguish it from the many islands located in the sea around the coast of Maine. An alternate theory is that it was named after an English village or a French province of the same name. However it came to be, King Charles can rest easy knowing that the name New Somerset never stuck (though Somerset is the name of a county in Maine).

4. Kentucky

We’re all familiar with Kentucky bourbon and the Kentucky Derby, but if history had gone another way, we could have been drinking Transylvania bourbon while watching the Transylvania Derby. The name has nothing to do with Dracula, although T-shirts for Lexington’s Transylvania University are always a popular tourist souvenir. In 1750, physician and explorer Thomas Walker came across a long-rumored path through the Appalachian Mountains, which he named the Cumberland Gap in honor of the Duke of Cumberland. Nearly 20 years later, explorer Daniel Boone crossed the Gap; Fort Boonesborough was established in 1775. Around the same time, businessman Richard Henderson set up the Louisa Company to negotiate the purchase of some land in what is now Kentucky. The company soon changed its name to the Transylvania Company, and in 1775, Henderson signed the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals with the Cherokee tribe, granting him a large tract of land. It became known as the colony of Transylvania. The Latin root "sylvania" refers to a wooded area, and "trans" means “across” (as in, across the Appalachians). Unfortunately, Henderson’s treaty was quickly struck down since Virginia had already laid claim to the land and declared ownership of all rights. Hopes for Transylvania faded, and in 1792, this part of Virginia’s land broke away to become the state of Kentucky. However, no one can quite agree on the origin of the name. Possible translations include “prairie,” “land of tomorrow,” and “river of blood.”

5. Oklahoma

Fifty-five Native American tribes live in Oklahoma, and at one time, it was proposed that Oklahoma would be named after one of their most renowned figures — Sequoyah, who introduced reading and writing to the Cherokee language. In 1890, the Oklahoma Organic Act passed in Congress, with the intention of creating a new state. At the time, the land included in the proposal covered two territories: the Oklahoma Territory in the west and the Indian Territory in the east, where multiple tribes had been forcibly moved as a result of the 1830 Indian Removal Act. The Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations united in a proposal to seek statehood, which would allow them to maintain control over the lands originally granted to them during the previous treaties and resettlements. The state would be run in accordance with tribal governments, with each tribe having its own county. In 1905, several bills were filed in Congress to request the state of Sequoyah. However, politicians in D.C. refused to even consider the possibility of a Native American-led state. Instead, President Theodore Roosevelt suggested that the two territories be joined, and in 1906 he signed the law that created the state of Oklahoma, a name that comes from the Choctaw language and means “honorable nation.”

6. West Virginia

In 1863, West Virginia was formed after taking the unusual step of seceding from the state of Virginia. The move protested Virginia’s secession from the Union in support of the Confederacy. The original proposed name for the new state was Kanawha, although some were worried that this might be confused with the existing county of the same name. Eventually, Kanawha gave way to simply West Virginia. This wasn’t the region’s first attempt to form a separate state. Benjamin Franklin proposed the State of Vandalia in the 1770s. (The name was in honor of George III’s wife Charlotte, reputedly a descendant of the Vandal people.) The state would have encompassed what is now West Virginia, as well as parts of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. However, the Revolutionary War superseded those plans. In 1775, locals petitioned the Continental Congress to create Westsylvania, comprising roughly the same area as the proposed Vandalia. Both that petition and another in 1783 went ignored. Historians suspect that the Continental Congress did not want to rile up Virginia or Pennsylvania at a time when they needed to show a united front.

7. Wyoming

Wyoming's name is derived from the Delaware Native American word mecheweamiing, which means “large plains.” But the original Wyoming wasn’t out west — it was the name of a valley in Pennsylvania. In 1865, when a new territory was being considered in what is now Wyoming, James Ashley, a U.S. representative for Ohio, suggested the name Wyoming. Born in Pennsylvania, he was familiar with the Wyoming Valley and believed that the name would reflect the verdant valleys of the newly expanding American West. But this was before he’d actually visited the region — after doing so, he expressed regret about the name choice, deeming the land not fertile enough to produce crops or sustain a population. However, by this time, the name had already caught on. When Wyoming finally achieved statehood in 1890, alternatives more fitting to the area’s peoples and history were considered. Potential names included Cheyenne, Yellowstone, Big Horn, Sweetwater, and others. But Wyoming was how most people referred to the land, and so the state retained its historical link with Pennsylvania.

8. Colorado

Before Idaho achieved statehood in 1890, its name was almost used for another state: Colorado (which joined the Union in 1876). While some claim that the name Idaho came from a Kiowa word for “enemy,” historians say that there is no trace of the word before it was mentioned in Congress in 1860. When much of the West was opening up to mining, lobbyist George M. Willing proposed the name for what is now Colorado, claiming it was a Shoshone word. Although this was disputed, few people paid attention at the time. Later, though, an amateur historian who had originally joined Willing in the proposal did a little more research and came to the conclusion that the word was made up. He asked the Senate to change the name, and Colorado (Spanish for “red-colored”) was chosen instead. Despite the misconceptions, the Idaho name stuck around in popular consciousness. When Congress later decided to create another mining territory further north, the name was chosen for the territory.

Source: Facts About States Names | States Almost Named Differently

DarkRavie · November 23, 2022

Fact of the Day - MARS (planet)

Did you know... Mars is a constant point of discussion for space explorers around the world. We’ve sent dozens of spacecraft there to study it. Some want to land astronauts on it. The planet is just far away to make that dream difficult, but just close enough to spark our imagination. So what are some of the most important things to learn about the Red Planet? ( ELIZABETH HOWELL | FEBRUARY 13, 2015 )

Fascinating Facts About Mars

by Interesting Facts

When it comes to human spaceflight, NASA and other space agencies around the world have their sights set on Mars. Humans have gazed upon this small pinprick of red in the night sky for millennia, and in that time, ancient astronomers, Enlightenment philosophers, and high-tech robots have learned a lot about our planetary neighbor. Named after the Roman god of war, Mars lies some 33.9 million miles from Earth at its closest possible approach. It’s during this precious moment of planetary alignment, which occurs roughly every two years, that NASA sends its scientific cargo toward the red planet. These six fascinating facts are the result of centuries of tireless research and scientific discovery, even as they hint at other mysteries yet to be answered.

1. Mars Isn’t Really Red

“The red planet” is a slight misnomer. Martian rocks are filled with iron, and much like on Earth, if you leave iron outside in the elements it’ll eventually rust. The dust from these oxidized rocks gets kicked up into the atmosphere, creating the red hue stargazing humans see. But over the millennia, we’ve crept closer to our planetary neighbor for a better look — even dropping a few robotic rovers to do some poking around — and scientists have discovered that the surface of Mars is more yellowy-brown, sort of like butterscotch. In fact, Mars is a vibrant palette of gold, tan, brown, and even some green. NASA’s Curiosity rover also discovered in 2015 that if you dig only a few inches beneath the oxidized outer layer of the Martian surface, the soil is actually bluish-gray — not red at all.

2. Mars’ Moons Are Nothing Like Earth’s Moon

Ever since their discovery in 1877, the moons Phobos and Deimos — named after the Greek gods of fear and dread, respectively — have been something of a curiosity. Phobos orbits only 3,700 miles above Mars (compared to our moon’s 238,855 miles). Deimos, meanwhile, is relatively tiny at some 6.8 miles in diameter, making it one of the smallest moons in the solar system. However, the biggest mystery about Mars’ moons is where they came from. One theory suggests that the two moons could have been formed from asteroids impacting the Martian surface, much like our moon. Alternatively, they could possibly be asteroids themselves, captured in orbit by Mars’ gravitational pull. Unfortunately, neither moon will be around forever. Phobos is slowly being pulled toward Mars and will eventually (in 50 million years or so) break apart, either forming a ring around Mars or impacting the surface. Deimos, on the other hand, is slowly escaping Mars’ gravitational clutches and will one day be flung into space.

3. Mars Also Has Four Seasons

Seasons might seem like a feature exclusive to planet Earth, but Mars also experiences four distinct seasons. Because the Martian year is twice as long as Earth’s, its seasons are also double in length — stretching from 142 days in autumn to nearly 200 days in spring in its Northern Hemisphere. (Days on Mars are 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35.244 seconds.) Mars’ ice caps grow during its winter period and recede, almost disappearing entirely, when spring turns to summer. Summer on Mars can be tumultuous: Because the Red Planet is closest to the sun when the Southern Hemisphere is tilted toward it, Martian summers in the Southern Hemisphere are much hotter than summers in the Northern Hemisphere, and this temperature difference creates strong storms. Martian summers are also far from hospitable, as lows reach -284 degrees Fahrenheit. However, summer highs can reach a balmy 68 degrees if you’re willing to brave those chilly nights.

4. Mars Has Liquid Water

Earth is a water planet — 71% of its surface is covered with the stuff. Mars, on the other hand, has more in common with the Mojave Desert, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sporting some H2O of its own. Scientists have known for a while that water flowed on Mars in its distant past, but until recently, many believed that any water on the planet was currently locked up in its frozen ice caps or in Martian rocks. But in 2018, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission used ground-penetrating radar to explore Mars’ southern ice cap, and scientists were astounded to find that liquid water flowed a mile beneath the surface of a subglacial lake. Although temperatures there are far below water’s typical freezing point, salt deposits keep the water in liquid form. These pools beneath the icy surface are similar to Lake Vostok in Antarctica, and their discovery opens up an exciting new area for exploration.

5. Mars’ Soil Is Poisonous

With a nearly nonexistent atmosphere, freezing temperatures, and scarce water, Mars isn’t a place you want to stay if you’re a living, breathing organism. Even microbes can’t survive on the surface, because Mars’ soil is poisonous. For more than 20 years, Mars rovers have analyzed soil samples in different parts of the planet and have found a ubiquitous compound known as perchlorate, a substance toxic to humans. Usually, microbes love perchlorates, but Mars’ particular conditions — especially its high abundance of UV light — turn the perchlorates into a toxic cocktail. In 2017, scientists recreated Martian conditions in a lab and found that UV rays broke down perchlorates into hypochlorite and chlorite, a mixture that’s fatal to bacteria. Within 30 seconds, all microbes exposed to this Martian soil facsimile were sterilized.

6. Mars Is the Only Planet Entirely Inhabited by Robots

Scientists haven’t found life on Mars (yet), but that doesn’t mean Mars is a boring place. On July 4, 1997, NASA’s Pathfinder rover landed on the red planet, and in the quarter-decade since, NASA has sent four more rovers — Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and its latest robotic addition, Perseverance (2020-2021) — to follow in its footsteps (or in this case, treads). The European Space Agency also hopes to send its rover, the Rosalind Franklin, to Mars by 2028. In addition to these rovers, Mars is also populated by robotic landers such as NASA’s InSight, several orbiters from space agencies around the world, and even a pint-sized robot helicopter. Mars might be void of life, but until humans put boots on Martian soil, the planet will continue to be a playground for one thing: robots.

Source: Interesting Facts About the Planet Mars | Facts About Mars

DarkRavie · November 24, 2022

Fact of the Day - MEANINGS BEHIND SONGS

Did you know... You’ve heard them a million times. You may even know all of the lyrics. But no matter how often you’ve encountered these songs, there’s a good chance you’ve been interpreting them incorrectly. The “hidden” meanings and stories behind these six tunes will make you think twice the next time they cross your path.

1. “Walk This Way,” Aerosmith (1975)

In late 1974, Aerosmith was messing around during the soundcheck at a show where they were opening for the Guess Who. They managed to land on the iconic guitar riff and drum beat that would eventually become “Walk This Way.” The lyrics, however, took a little longer. For a while, as they worked on the song, Steven Tyler would just scat nonsensical words — but then Mel Brooks came along. After seeing Brooks’ Young Frankenstein in early 1975, the band members were quoting lines from the movie at each other, including the part where Marty Feldman’s Igor tells Gene Wilder to “walk this way” and Wilder begins to imitate Igor’s hunched steps. Aerosmith’s producer heard the quote and suggested that it could make a great title for the song. Tyler worked his spontaneous scatting into lyrics, and a classic tune was born. When Run DMC covered the tune a decade later, it became a hit all over again — and helped revive Aerosmith’s sagging career.

2. “Philadelphia Freedom,” Elton John (1975)

With lyrics like “From the day that I was born/I’ve waved the flag/Philadelphia freedom,” and because the song came out just a year before America’s bicentennial, it’s easy to assume that Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom” is about patriotism. In reality, it’s about tennis legend Billie Jean King. After becoming friends with King in the early ’70s, the British-born John told her that he wanted to write a song in her honor and came up with the idea to name it after her tennis team, The Philadelphia Freedoms. He debuted the rough cut of the song for King and her team during the 1974 playoffs; King immediately fell in love. “He said, during the part where he goes ‘Philadelphia’… ‘That’s you getting upset with an umpire.’ Walking up to the umpire … stomping: ‘PHIL. UH. DEL-phia.’ I was laughing so hard,” she said in an interview with eltonjohn.com. King knows most people don’t know the song was written for her — and she doesn’t care. “We didn’t want it to be anything about tennis. No, it’s a feeling. It’s a great song for a team. It’s a great song if you’re not a team.”

3. “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Bonnie Tyler (1983)

This epic ’80s ballad is certainly a heartbreaker, but the lyrics are just vague enough that it’s not entirely clear what the heartbreak is. In 2002, lyricist Jim Steinman — who was also responsible for Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” (1983) and Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” — came clean about the song’s origins to Playbill. “I actually wrote ["Total Eclipse of the Heart"] to be a vampire love song. Its original title was 'Vampires in Love' because I was working on a musical of 'Nosferatu,' the other great vampire story. If anyone listens to the lyrics, they're really like vampire lines. It's all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love's place in [the] dark.” Steinman revived the idea for a musical called Dance of the Vampires that opened on Broadway in December 2002, but despite starring the legendary Michael Crawford (of Phantom of the Opera fame), the brief, 56-performance show was a flop. Costing $600,000 per week to produce, and ultimately producing a loss of $12 million, the New York Times deemed Dance one of the most expensive Broadway flops of all time.

4. “Sweet Caroline,” Neil Diamond (1969)

The story of “Sweet Caroline” seems to be ever-evolving. For decades after the song first charted in 1969, no one knew who the mysterious Caroline was. Diamond managed to keep his inspiration a secret until 2007, when he played at a very famous 50th birthday party and revealed that the woman of the hour — Caroline Kennedy — had been his muse all of those years ago after he saw a picture of her riding a horse in a magazine. The claim was a little suspect; Caroline was only nine in the photo, and the lyrics contain some decidedly adult lyrics. But the rest of the story came together in 2014 when Diamond told the Today show that the song itself was about his then-wife, Marsha. Because the two syllables in her name didn’t fit the scheme of the song, the singer racked his brain for a three-syllable substitute that would roll off the tongue. He recalled the famous photo of the young Caroline Kennedy, and that’s when he realized that her name was so good, so good, so good.

5. “Blackbird,” the Beatles (1968)

The lyrics “Take these broken wings and learn to fly” have inspired many people from many different walks of life in the 50-plus years since Paul McCartney wrote “Blackbird.” But at a concert in 2016, he revealed that he had written the song with a very specific issue in mind: civil rights in the U.S. Although he has mentioned the connection several times over the decades, it was particularly poignant when he talked about his inspiration during a 2016 concert in Little Rock, Arkansas. “Way back in the Sixties, there was a lot of trouble going on over civil rights, particularly in Little Rock,” McCartney said. “We would notice this on the news back in England, so it’s a really important place for us, because to me, this is where civil rights started,” he told the crowd, which included two members of the Little Rock Nine (a group of Black students whose enrollment at a previously all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 drew national attention). “We would see what was going on and sympathize with the people going through those troubles, and it made me want to write a song that, if it ever got back to the people going through those troubles, it might just help them a little bit, and that’s this next one.”

6. “Sabotage,” the Beastie Boys (1994)

The subject of this 1994 classic with the even more iconic video was a mystery until the Beasties’ memoir was released in 2018. As it turns out, it was their creative response to a producer who was rushing them to finish Ill Communication. While working on their fourth album, the group was having some trouble making decisions about their songs, and producer Mario Caldato was over it. In order to move things along and complete the album, he pushed on tracks that weren’t ready or good enough — much to the Boys’ chagrin. To protest, Ad-Rock penned the famous “I can’t stand it” opening scream with Caldato in mind. “I decided it would be funny to write a song about how Mario was holding us all down, how he was trying to mess it all up, sabotaging our great works of art,” he wrote.

Source: Meanings Behind Famous Some Famous Songs

DarkRavie · November 25, 2022

Fact of the Day - BLACK FRIDAY

Did you know... "Black Friday" once referred to employees calling in sick after Thanksgiving.
The day after Thanksgiving is known for the deluge of holiday shoppers that descends on stores for serious savings. Some will tell you that the term “Black Friday” originally referred to the bottom lines of these stores, as the day of skyrocketing sales sent them out of the “red” (losing money) and into the “black” (making money) — hence, “Black Friday.” However, the origins of the phrase are a bit murkier. The first known use of “Black Friday” to describe the day after Thanksgiving comes from the November 1951 issue of the page-turning magazine Factory Management and Maintenance. In it, a writer hyperbolically describes the day as “a disease second only to the bubonic plague in its effects. At least that’s the feeling of those who have to get production out, when the ‘Black Friday’ comes along. The shop may be half empty, but every absentee was sick … ” In other words, “Black Friday” wasn’t about hordes of shoppers pulsing through stores, but weary (and possibly hungover) factory workers calling in sick. Although this is the first recorded use of the term, it’s unlikely that this version is what eventually became known across the U.S. as “Black Friday” in the late 20th century. Our modern sense of the term likely originated in the 1950s, when Philadelphia cops began using “Black Friday” to describe the traffic mayhem of shoppers and sports fans descending on the city after Thanksgiving and before the Army-Navy football game on Saturday. Philadelphia stores tried to change the name to “Big Friday” but failed, so instead transformed the day’s negative connotation into a positive one, and the idea of “Black Friday” as a day of financial solvency was born.

Benjamin Franklin never wanted the turkey to be the national bird.
A common myth from the United States’ nascent years is that Benjamin Franklin, the polymath inventor and founding father, advocated for the humble turkey to be the national avian symbol rather than the more fearsome-looking bald eagle. Although Franklin loved turkeys more than your average 18th-century celebrity, he never seriously considered the turkey a suitable U.S. icon. The myth originates from a letter Franklin wrote criticizing the Society of the Cincinnati, a hereditary patriotic organization founded by former Revolutionary officers in 1783 (and, incidentally, the inspiration for the name of Cincinnati, Ohio). Franklin wrote that the bird on the society’s seal looked more like a turkey than an eagle. To clarify that he was not maligning the noble game bird, Franklin described the turkey as a “respectable bird,” a “true original Native of America,” and a “Bird of Courage.” Conversely, Franklin described the bald eagle as a creature of “bad moral Character.” Yet the larger focus of the letter was meant to criticize the hereditary nature of the Society of Cincinnati, which Franklin felt was contrary to American principles. He never actively advocated for the turkey to replace the bald eagle, and his bird-related comments may have been intended merely as a humorous aside. ( interesting Facts )

Fun Black Friday Facts: History and Weird Stats
Author: Kellye | Updated November 21, 2022

Welcome to fun Black Friday facts 101. If you’re like most Black Friday shoppers, you have your eye on laptops, TVs, game systems like Nintendo Switch, or clothing, but what do you really know about one of the biggest shopping days of the year? Did you know that in 2021 roughly 155 million Americans shopped on Black Friday and 88 million folks shopped online? Whew! Americans spent $8.9 billion shopping Black Friday deals online in 2021. We’ve rounded up a few fun, interesting, and historical tidbits to keep you informed and entertained while you wait for your dream sales to pop up.

1. The nonretail term Black Friday dates back to 1869.

Obviously, none of us were alive to remember the U.S. stock market crash of Friday, Sept. 24, 1869. That period was called Black Friday due to the financial crisis that resulted from two investors trying to drive up the price of gold. They bought as much gold as they could and sold it for astronomical prices, which led to the Wall Street bankruptcy.

2. The idea of after-Thanksgiving sales didn’t start until 1924.

The post-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza you know today started over 90 years ago. It wasn’t until the 1924 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade that the idea of the Friday after Thanksgiving as the kickoff for the holiday shopping season was established. In a totally unrelated story, American factories in the 1950s used “Black Friday” to refer to the workers who called in sick the day after Thanksgiving to enjoy the long holiday weekend. They were definitely onto something.

3. Philadelphia coined the retail term in the early 1960s.

When it comes to fun Black Friday facts in the retail realm, you have to give credit to Philadelphia. Historians say that Philadelphia cops used the phrase in the early 1960s. They were frustrated with the bad weather, congested shopping, 12-hour work days, and horrible traffic after an annual Army-Navy football game the day after Thanksgiving.

4. Big Friday instead of Black Friday? No thanks.

In 1961 Philadelphia department stores attempted to rebrand Black Friday by calling it “Big Friday.” They wanted to stay away from the negativity of the name. Of course, you know the term didn’t stick.

5. Retailers in the 1980s started to gain a profit on Black Friday.

Another theory in relation to the term Black Friday is that retailers’ accounting records during the 1980s moved from “red” to “black.” Red indicated loss, while black meant profit. Back then you kept financial records by hand. The phrase started gaining some traction after the ’80s due to the positive boost in sales despite the negative connotation.

6. Black Friday didn’t become what it is today until the 1990s.

You started to see people camping out for items in the 1990s. However it wasn’t until 2005 that Black Friday was designated as the busiest shopping day of the year. Its predecessor was the Sunday before Christmas.

7. Plumbers are very busy on Black Friday.

Some fun Black Friday facts are pretty gross. Did you know that Black Friday is the busiest time of year for plumbers? Yep, due to all of those clogged toilets at stores, the systems are overwhelmed. And somebody has to fix ’em, right?

8. Drunk shopping is pretty common.

Did you know that 12% of Black Friday shoppers are drunk or plan on being under the influence? With a few clicks of your mouse, you could end up with some unique buys. No judgment here.

9. Free shipping is still the biggest draw on Black Friday.

Free shipping has the biggest influence on buyers’ decisions, according to numerous shopping surveys. This is a growing trend that retailers are listening to. In the past consumers shied away from online purchases because paying for shipping was a drawback. In addition, both in-store and curbside pickup were in demand in 2021. Retailers who offered these options increased their sales by 50%.

10. America isn’t the only country to celebrate Black Friday.

Over 15 countries in the world celebrate Black Friday or some kind of late-November holiday shopping spree. In Mexico, Black Friday is called “El Buen Fin,” which means “the good weekend.” Cheers to that!

11. Crest Whitestrips were a big seller on Black Friday.

Who knew that you were so concerned about whitening your teeth during the holidays? In 2021 Crest 3D Whitestrips were a top seller, specifically the Professional Effects Teeth Whitening Kit. With over 69,000 reviews on Amazon — mostly five stars — it’s clearly popular. Fun Black Friday fact: in 2015 pajamas were the biggest seller. Some Walmart locations sold out, and the company had over 10 million in stock for the holiday.

12. Black Friday shopping causes more deaths than shark attacks.

Since 2006 17 people have died and 125 people have been injured in the U.S. on Black Friday. National Geographic noted that there’s a 3.7 million chance of being killed by a shark. Your chance of being injured or dying on Black Friday is greater than your chance of being attacked by a shark.

Source: Facts About Black Friday | Weird Facts About Black Friday

DarkRavie · November 26, 2022

Fact of the Day - BODY DOUBLES

Did you know... Queen Elizabeth had a longtime body double.
Leaders have historically used body doubles to thwart would-be assassins, but Queen Elizabeth II’s double served a different — and significantly less bloody — purpose. A big part of being the queen of the United Kingdom was simply showing up. Whether opening a hospital or hosting a foreign dignitary, the queen was always busy. A majority of her events required rehearsals, and that’s where Ella Slack came in. Although she doesn’t look like her majesty, Slack is about the same height and build, so if an event needed to test camera angles or see if the sun would be in the queen’s eyes, Slack was the person for the task. Slack got the job while working for the BBC’s events department in the 1980s. She stood in for the queen more than 50 times, including riding in the royal carriage and attending rehearsals for the opening of Parliament. However, Slack didn’t get to enjoy all the comforts of royalty. As a strict rule, she was never allowed to sit on the throne in the House of Lords and instead just “lurked” above it. Slack was never paid for her stand-in efforts, but considered her role “a pleasure and an honor.”

Technically, the queen owned all unmarked mute swans in open waters in the U.K.
Since the 12th century, the English monarchy has held the title of Seigneur (lord) of the Swans. For many years, mute swans — the elegant type you know from “Swan Lake” — were a popular food served by the rich. It was the king or queen who granted swan ownership rights, and the cost of going against those rights was severe. For example, anyone caught stealing swan eggs could face a year in prison, and it was treasonous to illegally eat a swan until 1998. In the 14th century, the crown granted swan ownership rights to Abbotsbury Swannery, one of only a few surviving companies with such privileges. The swannery marks their swans with a small ring around the bird’s leg. Any mute swan that isn’t marked in such a way remains property of the monarch. Strangely, this law also applies to dead swans, so any well-meaning taxidermist not wishing to run afoul of the law must contact the royal swan marker before stuffing any of the crown’s birds. ( Interesting Facts )

Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Hollywood Body Doubles

By Shaunacy Ferro | December 8, 2017

Hugh Jackman and his Real Steel body double, Taris Tyler

When you see the back of an actor’s head in a movie, it may not be the actor you think it is. In addition to stunt performers, most movies employ body doubles (or photo doubles) with a passing resemblance to the principal actors. While some body doubles are brought on set for specific skills—like helping an actor pass as a professional athlete—the job can often involve just being a body, whether that means being nude on camera, having photogenic hands, or appearing in place of actors who can’t be on set for some reason. Here are nine secrets of the job:

1. THEY MIGHT ONLY BE MODELING ONE BODY PART.
Body double Danielle Sepulveres has played the hands of other actors in plenty of roles in her career, on TV and in beauty commercials featuring close-up shots of her holding moisturizer or makeup. She’s drizzled dressing on salad in place of Brooke Shields. She regularly slides files across tables, makes lists, and pours wine in the place of actresses on The Good Wife. (She has also played Jill Flint's butt on the show.) “I knew only glimpses of my hands might make it into a shot, or part of my shoulder along with a wisp of hair,” she wrote of one of her jobs in Good Housekeeping in 2016. But she overheard the director complaining that her wrists looked “vastly different” than those of the principal actress in the movie, 2015’s Mania Days. “Luckily, I didn't get fired in spite of my wrists, but I wouldn't have been surprised had it happened.”

2. THEY’RE NOT JUST THERE TO SHOW THEIR BUTTS.

Yes, body doubles are often brought in if an actor doesn’t want to bare it all on camera. But they are hired for other reasons, too. For one thing, union rules mandate the actors get 12 hours off between when they leave set for the day and their next call time, so if the shoots are running long, the crew might employ someone else to stand in. Other times, it's a matter of particular talents. Most actors may be able to sing, dance, and cry on camera, but few also have the athletic skills to allow them to pass as a sports legend. In Battle of the Sexes (2017), Emma Stone plays Billie Jean King, one of the best tennis players of all time. To realistically represent King’s skills on the court, the movie makers brought in tennis doubles to play in place of Stone and her co-star, Steve Carell. Stone’s double was chosen for her playing style, which resembled King’s, and worked with King on-set to perfect her imitation. The effort was, according to The Wall Street Journal, a huge success. “Not only is the tennis believable, it’s a meticulous representation of the type of tennis played in that era: serve and volley, chipping and charging to the net, touch volleys and soft hands.”

3. ACTORS CAN GET TOUCHY ABOUT WHO PLAYS THEM.
When you are tasked with choosing a celebrity doppelgänger, you’ve got to keep egos in mind. “The choice reflects on the principal actor,” DeeDee Ricketts, the casting director for Titanic, told Vanity Fair in 2016. “We have to take into consideration that they can’t be too thin, or more beautiful, or too heavy, or too old, or else the principal actor will think, That’s how they see me?” Actors often get to give input on who will be their double, and sometimes have final approval rights written into their contracts. When she was being considered for the job of Janet Leigh's body double in Psycho's iconic shower scene, model and Playboy covergirl Marli Renfro had to strip down for both Alfred Hitchcock and Leigh herself so that they could make sure her body looked enough like Leigh's, as Renfro recently revealed at a Brooklyn screening of the documentary 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene. In the case of nude scenes, actors might even have final approval on what physical moves their doubles are allowed to make.

4. THEY MIGHT NEVER MEET THEIR DOUBLE ...

If you’re working as an actor’s double, by definition, you’re not going to have scenes with them, and so some body doubles never meet the stars they’re pretending to be. Danish actor Elvira Friis, who worked as a body double for Charlotte Gainsbourg (and her character’s younger self, played by Stacy Martin) during the racier scenes of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac (2013), never met the actor. “The closest I got to Charlotte Gainsbourg was that I was wearing her dress,” Friis told The Wall Street Journal.

5. OR THEY MIGHT SPEND A LOT OF TIME WITH THE PEOPLE THEY'RE PORTRAYING.
But how much time an actor spends with their doppelgänger really depends on the role. Some actors spend plenty of time with their doubles on set helping them get into the role. In What Happened to Monday (2017), Noomi Rapace plays the roles of seven identical sisters, making body doubles a necessity on set. Rapace helped direct her doubles during filming, “as they needed to know how the star would play the scene for each character so that it would sync up when she performed the part herself,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Game of Thrones star Lena Headey (who plays Cersei) worked closely with her double Rebecca Van Cleave for a nude scene in the show’s fifth season finale. Headey walked Van Cleave through her character’s thinking and movements for each shot. Then, Headey did the same performance herself, wearing a beige dress that could later be edited out. In the final product, Headey’s facial expressions were merged with Van Cleave’s nude body.

6. THEY DON’T ALWAYS LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THEIR COUNTERPARTS.

Because body doubles are often only seen from the back or side, they may not look quite as much like their acting counterpart as you’d think. Brett Baker, who worked as Leonardo DiCaprio’s body double for Titanic, is several inches shorter than DiCaprio and seven years older. From the front, you wouldn’t peg him as a Jack Dawson lookalike. But with the same clothes and haircut, shot from above and behind, he passed easily as DiCaprio. Once Leo’s closeups were done, according to Vanity Fair, Baker was often brought in to stand opposite Kate Winslet as she played through her half of the scene. In some cases, he didn’t make it into the final shot at all, but still had to be on set for those 14-hour days.

7. THESE DAYS, THEY GET A BOOST FROM CGI.
With the help of technology, filmmakers can put their leading actor’s face on a body double’s torso, so they don’t have to limit their body doubles to just back-of-the-head or partial shots. This allows them to seamlessly meld both the main actor and the body double’s performances in post-production. That can allow directors to get exactly the scene they want in shows like Orphan Black, which features Tatiana Maslany playing multiple roles, or in cases where actors don't want to get totally naked on-camera. In rare cases, it can also be used to bring actors back from the dead. When Paul Walker died in a car crash midway through filming Furious 7 (2015), the filmmakers used his brothers and another actor as body doubles, superimposing computer-generated images of Walker’s face on their performances. Around 260 shots featuring Walker’s doubles appeared in the final cut.

8. IF AN ACTOR CAN’T ALTER THEIR WEIGHT FOR A ROLE, A BODY DOUBLE CAN FILL IN.

When Matt Damon was filming The Martian (2015), he wanted to lose 30 to 40 pounds to portray astronaut Mark Watney after he had been surviving on meager rations for years. But the filming schedule made that impossible, so a body double had to be brought in for some shots. “I was going to lose a bunch of weight in the third act of the movie, then put the weight back on,” Damon told Maclean’s. However, as the schedule shook out, they filmed the NASA interiors in Hungary, then immediately went to Jordan, which doubled as the Red Planet for the film’s purposes, and shot all the exterior shots from the beginning, middle, and end of the movie, with no time for Damon to lose a significant amount of weight. The skinny body double isn’t on screen for long. “It was, like, two shots,” Damon describes. (Still, fans noticed.)

9. SOMETIMES THEY NEVER MAKE IT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA AT ALL.
When it comes to nude scenes, sometimes body doubles are hired but never used. Veteran body double Laura Grady was cast as Robin Wright’s lookalike for State of Play (2009), but didn’t shoot a single scene. “I just sat in my trailer, ready to go, and then at the end, [Wright] decided to do her own scenes,” Grady told Vulture in 2014. “That happens sometimes. Sometimes they just get a body double because they think they might need one, and then all of a sudden the actress is comfortable and she’s like, ‘No, I’ll just do it.’ Or they change a scene and they don’t make it as risqué.” Don’t worry, though—the double still gets paid.

Source: Facts About Body Doubles | Facts About Hollywood Body Doubles

DarkRavie · November 27, 2022

Fact of the Day - PISTACHIOS

Did you know... Pistachios can spontaneously combust.
It turns out there’s a price to pay for how tasty and nutritious pistachios are: Under the right circumstances, they can spontaneously combust. Everyone’s favorite shelled nut is especially rich in fat, which is highly flammable. Thankfully, that only becomes a problem when pistachios are packed too tightly during shipping or storage. It’s important to keep the nuts dry lest they become moldy — but if they’re kept too dry and there are too many of them bunched together, they can self-heat and catch fire without an external heat source. Though exceedingly rare and easy to avoid if the proper instructions are followed, pistachio self-combustion is a real enough concern that the German Transport Information Service specifically advises that pistachios “not be stowed together with fibers/fibrous materials as oil-soaked fibers may promote self-heating/spontaneous combustion of the cargo.” Don’t worry, though: It won’t happen in your pantry with just a few bags, which means you can indulge in the shelled snack of your dreams without worrying about their flavor becoming unexpectedly smoky.

Raw cashews are toxic.
Cashews are delicious, but you’d never know it from looking at a cashew tree — they’re quite strange-looking. If seeing one in the wild makes you hesitant to eat the fruit they bear, there’s a good reason for that: Cashew shells are toxic. They contain a toxin called urushiol, which triggers a delayed allergic reaction in the form of a painful, itchy rash; urushiol is also found in poison ivy, which, like cashews and pistachios, is a member of the Anacardiaceae family of trees. It’s for this reason that cashews are roasted before being sold and consumed, even those labeled as “raw.” Doing so removes all traces of urushiol and makes them safe to eat. ( Interesting Facts )

Surprising Facts About Pistachios

By Julie Upton, MS, RD | March 30, 2016

They may be small, but the puny pistachio packs a nutritional punch.

Here are 10 reasons to go nuts for pistachios:

1. They're nutrient-dense.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database, pistachios provide more than 30 different vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients.

2. They have as much protein as an egg.

A serving (1 oz or 49 nuts) has 160 calories and 6 grams of protein – about the same as an egg.

3. Their shells may help you eat less.

It's true: Preliminary research suggests, but does not prove, that in-shell pistachios may help you reduce calorie consumption. In one study, people who left pistachio shells on their desk lowered their calorie intake by 18 percent compared to participants who discarded shells immediately after consumption. The shells may help remind you of how much you've eaten, so you're less likely to overindulge.

4. They smile.

In China, pistachios are known as the "happy nut" because they look like they're smiling. Often given as a gift during the Chinese New Year, pistachios are a symbol of health, happiness and good fortune.

5. They're heart-healthy.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's qualified health claim for nuts: "Scientific evidence suggests, but does not prove, that eating 1.5 ounces per day of most nuts, such as pistachios, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease." Be sure to check the nutrition information on the back of the package for fat content.

6. They're grown in the U.S.

While the cultivation of pistachios began in the Middle East thousands of years ago, today more than 550 million pounds of pistachios are grown in California, making the U.S. the second leading producer of pistachios.

7. They'll fill you up, not out.

Pistachios provide fiber and protein to help keep you fuller longer. What's more, they're one of the lowest-fat, lowest-calorie and highest-protein tree nuts.

8. They're great for cooking and baking.

Pistachios provide a rich, nutty flavor and texture to savory chicken or seafood meals, as well as sweet baked goods and grain-based sides. Here's a great Pistachio Crusted Salmon recipe to try.

9. They'll help you snack smarter.

According to USDA research, about a quarter of daily calories – 586 for men and 421 for women – now come from between-meal bites. Pistachios are a healthier alternative to the most popular snacks, including soda, chips, candy and baked goods.

[See: Healthy Snacks for When You Feel Hangry.]

10. They open on their own.

Pistachios grow in heavy grape-like clusters surrounded by a fleshy hull (they're actually related to mangoes!). When they ripen, the pistachio kernel grows inside until (in most cases) the shell splits open.

BONUS: Pistachio Recipes

Source: Interesting Facts About Pistachios | More Facts About the Pistachio Nut

DarkRavie · November 28, 2022

Fact of the Day - FOUR CORNERS MONUMENT

Did you know... There’s only one place in the U.S. where four states meet.
Want to try being in four places at once? Then get thee to the aptly named Four Corners Monument, which marks the intersection of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. It’s the only place in America where so many states converge, which is especially impressive given that there are 65 spots where three states meet. The exact location of the quadripoint (the technical term for a place where four territories touch) was a matter of more debate than you might expect, with some surveyors arguing that it should have been about 2,000 feet to the west, thanks to changes in the technical reference systems used for various surveys. It wasn't until a 1925 Supreme Court case that the matter was officially settled. Ending the dispute was an especially lengthy process when you consider that the borders were first surveyed in the aftermath of the Civil War. What’s more, it isn’t just state boundaries that are marked by the Four Corners Monument: The lands of the Navajo Nation, which maintains the site, meet those of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe there. The monument itself is fairly modest, with each state’s seal embedded in a cement pad around a circular granite disk that reads, “Here meet in freedom under God four states.” Sprawl just so on that disk, and you can have a different limb in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico each.

There’s only one four-nation quadripoint in the world.
Situated in Southern Africa, it marks the intersection of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. As with the Four Corners in the U.S., there have been disagreements over the precise boundaries and whether they constitute a true quadripoint; because it involves sovereign nations rather than neighboring states, the stakes of those debates have occasionally led to diplomatic spats. Unlike its American counterpart, however, there’s no monument to mark this quadripoint — mainly because it's in the middle of a river — but it’s a gorgeous sight nevertheless. ( Interesting Facts )

The National Monument That's in the Wrong Place
Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings reveals that one of our country's most popular tourist attractions—the Four Corners National Monument—is actually not in the correct location.
BY KEN JENNINGS - July 1, 2013

Americans are funny. We’ll complain if have to walk all the way to the sidewalk to take out the trash, or drive a friend to the airport. And yet we’ll drive hundreds of miles into the desert to see a completely arbitrary point and take pictures of ourselves standing on top of a small metal disk where nothing ever happened. We feel as if we’ve accomplished something important, standing in four states at once. But have we really? It turns out that the famed Four Corners Monument isn’t even in the right place.

The “Four Corners,” where Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico meet, is the only quadripoint of its kind in the United States. Canada has had its own Four Corners since 1999, when the new territory of Nunavut was carved out of the Northwest Territories. There probably hasn’t been an international quadripoint since 1961, though there’s some disagreement about one in southern Africa.

So it is a fairly rare geographical oddity, which helps explain why Four Corners gets over 250,000 visitors a year. It’s been cannily promoted as a tourist destination by the Navajo Nation, which owns the site and sells admission, frybread, and turquoise necklaces. Visitors line up in the hot sun to stand on the bronze-and-granite circle and attempt an awkward pose that will put them in all four states at the same time.

The Four Corners quadripoint dates back to the Civil War, when some residents of the vast New Mexico Territory tried to split off a new territory called Arizona—and join the Confederacy. Confederate maps show Arizona and New Mexico as a stack of two flat territories, divided north and south, but when the Union won the war, they elected to separate Arizona and New Mexico east and west, by continuing the Utah-Colorado border all the way down to Mexico. All these borders were defined as straight lines of latitude and longitude (which, incidentally, were measured not from the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England, but from the zero meridian commonly used on American maps of the time: Washington, D.C.)

Unfortunately, 19th-century surveying technology wasn’t precise enough to follow the meridians and parallels precisely. The Utah-Colorado state line, for example, wanders a mile and a half away from the legislated border at one point. The Supreme Court ruled in 1925 that the initial survey should remain the official border (and the Navajo Parks and Recreation Department has gone to lengths to remind everyone of that), even where it was screwed up, but the fact remains that Four Corners is not where Congress tried to put it in 1863. The real spot, we can now see with GPS, is 1,807 feet to the west. But there aren’t any souvenir stands up there, if you’re trying to buy a blanket.

Source: Facts About the Four Corners Monument | Four Corners Monument in the Wrong Place?

DarkRavie · November 29, 2022

Fact of the Day - WORLD WIDE WEB

Did you know... Few inventions are as indispensable to modern life as the World Wide Web. Created by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, this now-ubiquitous application consists of interconnected hyperlinks that connect information located on servers around the world. After sending a request to a server for a particular webpage, a web browser interprets that information and displays it on computers, tablets, phones, or even watches. Today, there are nearly three times as many connected devices as there are people living on Earth, and the web forms the backbone of human communication and commerce around the globe. These eight fascinating World Wide Web facts show how one of modern life’s most pivotal inventions came to be — and what its future might look like. ( Interesting Facts )

Fast Facts About the World Wide Web
By Michele Debczak | March 12, 2019

Though the World Wide Web has only been around for a few decades, it's practically impossible to imagine life without it today. In honor of its 30th birthday—a milestone celebrated by today's Google Doodle—here are some facts about the system that keeps the world connected.

1. The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.
Thirty years ago, CERN computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee proposed an idea for a database of hypertext links that would allow people to send data and communicate across a network. Berners-Lee wasn't looking to transform modern life when he invented the World Wide Web; he had just gotten tired of having to switch computers whenever he needed to access information that wasn't on his main work computer.

2. There's a difference between the internet and the World Wide Web.

Though the terms are often used interchangeably, the internet and the World Wide Web are not the same. Many experts peg the start of the internet to September 2, 1969, when a team of computer scientists at UCLA got two computers to send data to each other through a network for the first time. Twenty years later, the World Wide Web made this technology user-friendly and accessible to the public.

3. The world's first website is still online.
Many websites from the early days of the Web have gone dark, but the first one is still live. Berners-Lee brought the site online from a lab in the Swiss Alps in 1991. Even though it looks primitive, the site has actually been updated from its original state several times.

4. The first image ever uploaded is very '90s.

In 1992, Berners-Lee needed a photo to test out the World Wide Web's new image-hosting capabilities. An IT developer shot a photograph of a comedy band, Les Horribles Cernettes, which was comprised of other CERN employees at the Swiss lab where they worked [PDF]. When the picture was uploaded, it made history as the first image ever shared on the Web.

5. Berners-Lee has mixed feelings about his invention today.
Over the past 30 years, Berners-Lee has watched his creation evolve into a force he could have never envisioned. In an open letter published to mark the World Wide Web's 30th birthday, he wrote, "while the web has created opportunity, given marginalized groups a voice, and made our daily lives easier, it has also created opportunity for scammers, given a voice to those who spread hatred, and made all kinds of crime easier to commit." He urged people to fight to minimize the negative consequences of the Web, such as harassment, polarizing discourse, and the spread of misinformation.

Source: Facts About the World Wide Web | World Wide Web Facts

Edited November 29, 2022 by DarkRavie

DarkRavie · November 30, 2022

Fact of the Day - ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Did you know... Abraham Lincoln considered joining the Donner Party expedition.
In the spring of 1847, American newspapers printed horrifying reports about an ill-fated group of pioneers who had become trapped in the Sierra Nevada over the winter. With few provisions and facing unbearable cold, nearly half of the group’s 81 members perished before rescue parties could find them, four to five months later. Eventually, the Donner Party’s tragic tale became embedded in American history, but it could have had a much greater impact had a young Illinois lawyer chosen to join the group. In the 1840s, emigrants were itching to go west in search of gold, new beginnings, and a glimpse of the West Coast’s famed beauty. So it wasn’t strange that Abraham Lincoln, then working as a lawyer, helped at least one traveler settle his affairs before beginning the journey. An Irish entrepreneur named James Reed had known Lincoln from their days serving together in the Black Hawk War in 1832. According to the historian Michael Wallis, Reed — a founder of the Donner Party — extended an invitation to the 37-year-old lawyer and his family to join the voyage. Lincoln was likely tempted: He reportedly had a lifelong interest in visiting California. But his wife, Mary Todd, was adamant they should remain in Illinois considering the difficulty of 2,000 miles of wagon travel with a young son and a baby on the way. The Donner Party departed Springfield, Illinois, without the Lincolns on April 15, 1846. Mary Todd was present as the wagons pulled away, waving farewell to an expedition that would go on to face extreme peril. Abraham Lincoln, however, traded his dream of westward travel for political ambitions that took him much further in history when he became the 16th President 15 years later.

Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service.
In a strange twist of fate, one of President Abraham Lincoln’s final acts was the creation of the Secret Service. Signed into law on April 14, 1865 — the same day Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre — the Secret Service was established as a group of investigators with an entirely different mission than their purpose today. During the 1800s, one-third of all American currency was counterfeit, a problem so staggering that Lincoln created a commission to find a fix. The solution was an investigative squad that could bust the bogus banknote problem, giving way to the first iteration of the Secret Service. The Secret Service initially served under the Department of the Treasury, though officers would occasionally provide security for the President if other law enforcement was unavailable. It would take another President’s assassination — William McKinley’s in 1901 — for Congress to assign the Secret Service to permanent presidential detail, though the department is still responsible for investigating financial crimes and fraud today. ( Interesting Facts )

Things You May Not Know About Abraham Lincoln
by CHRISTOPHER KLEIN | UPDATED:MAY 7, 2020 | ORIGINAL:NOV 16, 2012

1. Lincoln is enshrined in the Wrestling Hall of Fame.
The Great Emancipator wasn’t quite WWE material, but thanks to his long limbs he was an accomplished wrestler as a young man. Defeated only once in approximately 300 matches, Lincoln reportedly talked a little smack in the ring. According to Carl Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln, Honest Abe once challenged an entire crowd of onlookers after dispatching an opponent: “I’m the big buck of this lick. If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns.” There were no takers. Lincoln’s grappling exploits earned him an “Outstanding American” honor in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

2. Lincoln created the Secret Service hours before his assassination.
On April 14, 1865, Lincoln signed legislation creating the U.S. Secret Service. That evening, he was shot at Ford’s Theatre. Even if the Secret Service had been established earlier, it wouldn’t have saved Lincoln: The original mission of the law enforcement agency was to combat widespread currency counterfeiting. It was not until 1901, after the killing of two other presidents, that the Secret Service was formally assigned to protect the commander-in-chief.

The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C, 1865.

3. Grave robbers attempted to steal Lincoln’s corpse.
Secret Service did come to Lincoln’s protection, but only in death. In 1876 a gang of Chicago counterfeiters attempted to snatch Lincoln’s body from his tomb, which was protected by just a single padlock, in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois. Their scheme was to hold the corpse for a ransom of $200,000 and obtain the release of the gang’s best counterfeiter from prison. Secret Service agents, however, infiltrated the gang and were lying in wait to disrupt the operation. Lincoln’s body was quickly moved to an unmarked grave and eventually encased in a steel cage and entombed under 10 feet of concrete.

4. John Wilkes Booth’s brother saved the life of Lincoln’s son.
A few months before John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln, the president’s oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, stood on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. A throng of passengers began to press the young man backwards, and he fell into the open space between the platform and a moving train. Suddenly, a hand reached out and pulled the president’s son to safety by the coat collar. Robert Todd Lincoln immediately recognized his rescuer: famous actor Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes. (In another eerie coincidence, on the day of Edwin Booth’s funeral—June 9, 1893—Ford’s Theatre collapsed, killing 22 people.)

5. Lincoln is the only president to have obtained a patent.
Benjamin Franklin isn’t the only American political leader who demonstrated an inventive mind. After being aboard a steamboat that ran aground on low shoals and had to unload its cargo, Lincoln, who loved tinkering with machines, designed a method for keeping vessels afloat when traversing shallow waters through the use of empty metal air chambers attached to their sides. For his design, Lincoln obtained Patent No. 6,469 in 1849.

6. Lincoln personally test-fired rifles outside the White House.
Lincoln was a hands-on commander-in-chief who, given his passion for gadgetry, was keenly interested in the artillery used by his Union troops during the Civil War. Lincoln attended artillery and cannon tests and met at the White House with inventors demonstrating military prototypes. Although there was a standing order against firing weapons in the District of Columbia, Lincoln even test-fired muskets and repeating rifles on the grassy expanses around the White House, now known as The Ellipse and the National Mall.

7. Lincoln came under enemy fire on a Civil War battlefield.
When Confederate troops attacked Washington, D.C., in July 1864, Lincoln visited the front lines at Fort Stevens on two days of the battle, which the Union ultimately won. At one point the gunfire came dangerously close to the president. Legend has it that Colonel Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., a future Supreme Court justice, barked, “Get down, you fool!” Lincoln ducked down from the fort’s parapet and left the battlefield unharmed.

Night attack on Fort Stevens, while President Lincoln was there, on July 11, 1864.

8. Lincoln didn’t move to Illinois until he was 21.
Illinois may be known as the Land of Lincoln, but it was in Indiana that the 16th president spent his formative years. Lincoln was born in a Kentucky log cabin in 1809, and in 1816 his father, Thomas, moved the family across the Ohio River to a 160-acre plot in southern Indiana. Lincoln did not migrate to Illinois until 1830.

9. Poisoned milk killed Lincoln’s mother.
When Abraham was 9 years old in 1818, his mother, Nancy, died of a mysterious “milk sickness” that swept across southern Indiana. It was later learned that the strange disease was due to drinking tainted milk from a cow that had ingested poisonous white snakeroot.

10. Lincoln never slept in the Lincoln Bedroom.
When he occupied the White House, the 16th president used the current Lincoln Bedroom as his personal office. It was there that he met with Cabinet members and signed documents, including the Emancipation Proclamation.

Source: Facts About Abraham Lincoln | Facts You May Not Know About Abraham Lincoln

DarkRavie · December 1, 2022

Fact of the Day - BEER

Did you know... Beer dates back at least 5,000 years.
Beer is as old as history — and by some counts, even older. Many experts assert that the emergence of Sumerian cuneiform in the fourth millennium BCE marks the beginning of recorded history. Similarly, the first hard evidence of beer brewing also comes from the Sumerians of Mesopotamia, in a town called Godin Tepe (now part of Iran). In 1992, archaeologists there discovered traces of beer in jar fragments dated around 3500 BCE. However, some scholars suggest that beer is as old as grain agriculture itself — which would put the boozy beverage’s invention at around 10,000 BCE, somewhere in the Fertile Crescent. Strangely (or not), thousands of Sumerian tablets make mention of beer. In fact, it even makes an appearance in the Epic of Gilgamesh, often regarded as the oldest surviving piece of literature. But among all these references, no recipes for this ancient brew were ever recorded. The closest thing to step-by-step instructions is a text known as the Hymn to Ninkasi (aka the goddess of beer). Written around 1800 BCE, this hymn describes the malts, cooked mash, and vats used in the beer-making process. It seems that Sumerian beer had mostly two ingredients: malted barley and beer bread, or bappir, which introduced yeast for fermentation. The beer was then drunk from communal jars, and its sediments were largely filtered out by drinking the concoction from reed straws. In 1989, the Anchor Brewing Company of San Francisco worked with anthropologists to recreate this Sumerian concoction; they deemed their results “drinkable.” Thankfully, beer has undergone significant innovations since its invention thousands of years ago.

The “beer before liquor” rule has no scientific basis.
“Beer before liquor, never been sicker; liquor before beer, you're in the clear” is an adage of unknown origin claiming that low alcohol-by-volume (ABV) beers are best imbibed at the end of a night of drinking rather than early on. However, no scientific studies support this myth. Once in your stomach, alcohol is absorbed immediately into the bloodstream, so the order in which you drink that alcohol won’t positively or negatively affect your hangover future. The only kernel of truth is in how these drinks affect your decision-making abilities. If you switch to higher ABV beverages (like liquor) late into the evening, your impaired judgment might miscalculate how many drinks you’re actually having. In the end, it doesn’t matter what order you knock ’em back, but other factors can impact your morning hangover — such as smoking history, genetics, and food intake (contrary to popular belief, drinking water won’t save you). At the end of the day, the best advice is to just drink less; experts recommend never drinking more than four drinks in an evening. ( Interesting Facts )

Beer Facts to Make You Sound Smarter at Parties
By Lee Breslouer | Published on 4/12/2016

Being able to sound smart at a party is an essential life skill, right there with knowing how to change a tire... or being able to call AAA to change the tire for you. And since we're gonna bet you'll be at a party sometime within the next few days (or perhaps you're currently staring at your phone trying to avoid eye contact with everyone at a party), we wanted to give you some fun things to say when you're standing around drinking beer. Drink in these random fun facts about beer history, brewery names, Oktoberfest, and a whole lot more -- all of which will enable you to sound smarter at parties.

The first modern American IPA was Anchor Liberty Ale

A single-hopped, dry-hopped West Coast IPA before there was such a thing as West Coast IPAs (remember, this was first released in 1975), Anchor's Liberty Ale still features Cascade hops. Perhaps the only way the beer's changed in the last 40+ years is that it's currently available in cans. And obviously the high watermark in the existence of Liberty Ale is that it was selected as one of America's 25 essential IPAs.

Beer cans debuted way back in 1933
Before a guy named Krueger terrorized suburban children (and me) in their dreams, there was a brewery with the same name in Newark, NJ that teamed up with a canning company to package Krueger Special Beer. Sadly, that beer had only a 3.2% ABV, which means it could have been around 7% more delicious. But that's all the law allowed back then. Bless your lucky stars you're alive in 2016.

Schlitz invented the brown bottle + tall boys

Despite the fact that you're more likely to see Schlitz in a can out in the wild than a bottle, back in 1911, things were different. The Milwaukee-founded brand was the first to block out the sun via a brown bottle, which keeps your beer as fresh as possible until you pour it into a glass. Schlitz also invented the tall boy, likely to ensure that people would have something fun to carry around in tiny paper bags.

North Dakota drinks more beer than anyone
It seems impossible that Nevada would be out-drank by any other state, considering how much booze is consumed solely in Las Vegas (NV came in seventh place), but if the US had a drinking competition, North Dakota would drink more beer per person than any other state. Each resident drank 43.6 gallons of the stuff in 2013, according to 24/7 Wall Street. New Hampshire and Montana came in second and third place, respectively.

7.3 million liters of beer were served at Oktoberfest

The fact that Oktoberfest is held mostly in September is one of those head-scratchers. But one thing that makes perfect sense is that in a little more than two weeks from mid-September to October in 2015, Germans and beer-loving tourists from all over the world drank 7.3 million liters of beer during the Oktoberfest celebrations. And we're sure there's not a direct correlation between all that beer being consumed and 180 missing passports being turned into lost & found at the fest. And a singular wheelchair, CNN found.

Smuttynose's sexy-sounding brewery name has a creepy backstory
It's not often obvious what your favorite brewery is named after. For example, Dogfish is not named after the sea creature named dogfish. It's a place in ME where founder Sam Calagione spent his summers... and that place was named after the sea creature. But we digress! Smuttynose is named after an island off the NH coast where a double murder happened in the 1870s. Plenty of other brewery names aren't obvious either, so we compiled a bunch of our favorite backstories.

Mississippi and Alabama only legalized homebrewing in 2013

Homebrewing is a cornerstone of the craft beer movement in the US. Many homebrewers are encouraged by their success brewing at home, and open up microbreweries. And some of those microbreweries become billion-dollar companies. The outdated laws in MS and AL might explain why this hasn't happened yet in those two states. But that all changed in 2013, thank heavens. Perhaps those states will soon legalize dancing and rock 'n' roll.

Every American craft brewery combined employs fewer people than Anheuser-Busch
Considering that Anheuser-Busch is a global beer-making conglomerate, it shouldn't be surprising that it employs a ton of people. But what might be surprising is that the craft beer industry in total employs over 121,000, which is still fewer people than just AB, at over 150,000. And that doesn't even include the hundreds of its employees that are horses.

Click below on Know Your Beer Fact to learn more beer.

Source: Interesting Facts About Beer | Know Your Beer Facts

DarkRavie · December 2, 2022

Fact of the Day - SAUNAS

Did you know... 99% of Finnish people visit a sauna at least once a week.
Just as England loves its tea and the Netherlands loves its bicycles, Finland loves its saunas — so much so, in fact, that 99% of Finns visit a sauna at least once a week. There are around 3.3 million saunas in the country of 5.5 million people, and they’re everywhere: homes, offices, even factories and underground mines. There are also Finnish proverbs about saunas, ranging from the egalitarian (“All people are created equal, but nowhere more so than in a sauna”) to the slightly dark (“If a sick person is not cured by tar, spirits, or sauna, then they will die”). The second of these relates to the health benefits of saunas, which were once considered anecdotal but have more recently been backed by data showing that visiting the steamy sites is associated with a reduction in the risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions. Reverence for the sauna is instilled in Finns from a young age, with Jarmo Lehtola of the Finnish Sauna Society explaining that traditionally, “children were taught to behave in a sauna as if they were in church.” Finland’s president even has their own official sauna, and saunas are regular features in Finnish embassies and consulates worldwide, where they have been used in important diplomatic talks.

Finland is the happiest country in the world.
Since 2012, the World Happiness Report has been published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, an initiative of the United Nations. In addition to being in the top 10 every year since the beginning, Finland ranked first in the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 editions of the report — making it basically the happiest country in the world, at least by this ranking system. Using polling data from Gallup, the report is broken down into six categories: gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make your own life choices, generosity of the general population, and perceptions of corruption levels. Finland scored a 7.821 out of 10 in the most recent edition, and was once again joined near the top of the list by every other Nordic country: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland. The U.S., meanwhile, wasn’t that far down the list — the nation ranked 16th, just below Canada and just above the United Kingdom.

The Finnish Sauna Culture
BY MINNA | JANUARY 21, 2021

The Finnish sauna culture was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on December 17, 2020. The list includes living cultural heritage practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, and know-how from around the world. It includes such practices as the Turkish coffee ceremony, Beijing opera, and Argentinian tango. The UNESCO Intangible Heritage List describing this new entry into the list includes the nomination document. That document describes the Finnish sauna culture and details the reasons why it should be included in the UNESCO list. So, in this blog post, we won’t go into those reasons or repeat what most people already know. Instead, we present you with 5 facts you may not have known about the Finnish sauna culture.

Fact 1: The oldest still operational public sauna in Finland in Tampere
Hermanni Lahtinen and his wife Maria Lahtinen established the Rajaportti sauna in 1906. This oldest still operational public sauna in Finland in Pispala, Tampere. At first, women and men bathed together but starting from 1931 onwards they had their separate saunas. Over the years, the sauna has been in the hands of different entrepreneurs. The association that runs the sauna today has been operating it since 1989. At the end of 2019, the association opened an internet archive showing different types of archival material related to the Rajaportti sauna. The archive is a fascinating collection of photographs, videos, and recordings. There are plenty of public saunas operating in different parts of Finland.

Here are some

public saunas in Helsinki;
Forum Sauna in Turku where you can also enjoy cupping (see our next fact below);
public saunas in Tampere;
Kankaan sauna and Hakalan sauna in Jyväskylä. Hakalan sauna is a members-only sauna but they do accept visits by non-members on occasion; and
Koivurannan sauna raft in Oulu.

A washer washing a person in Elanto public sauna in Helsinki in 1950.

Fact 2: Cupping still practiced in Finland
Cupping (kuppaus) therapy is a form of alternative medicine in which heated cups create local suction on the skin. In Finland, the form of cupping that is practiced is so-called wet cupping. This means medicinal bleeding where the cups suck blood from small skin incisions. In the past, cupping was very much associated with Finnish sauna culture. Cupping in its different forms was a widespread therapy method throughout history. In Finland, the first literary sources referring to the practice date from the 15th century. The practitioners were mainly women. Then went from house to house offering their services. Back then, cupping was used to treat different types of pain, high blood pressure, rheumatism, etc. Until the middle of the 20th-century cupping was a wide-spread therapy method for these ailments in Finland. Something of its importance is evident in the way the verb kupata (to cup) has begun to mean other things as well. It can mean to exploit someone for money, to fleece off of somebody. This harks back to the way cupping teases blood out of a person. Kupata can also mean to loiter or to do something very slowly. This, in turn, describes the cupping process which is slow and deliberate. After around the 1950s, the popularity of cupping decreased significantly. But the practice never died completely. These days, there is an association for cupping practitioners in Finland. If you are interested in getting cupping here’s a link to a list of practitioners by area. The Rajaportti sauna archive includes videos about cupping and cupping traditions. It also includes a video of a cupping session. The video is in Finnish without subtitles but it shows one practitioner, Pirjo Kumpulainen, at her work. There is no scientific proof for any healing effects of cupping.

Cupping practitioner Hilda Leskinen cupping with cow horns in 1927.

Fact 3: Nazis made Finnish sauna known in Central Europe
Although sauna-type facilities were common in Central Europe in the past, they had all but disappeared by the end of the 18th century. There, different types of heat treatments had replaced saunas. In Central Europe, Finnish sauna culture started to become known in the early part of the 20th century due to the success of Finnish track athletes. According to the Tuomo Särkikoski, interest in the effects of the Finnish sauna grew especially in Germany around the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The Germans had built a Finnish sauna for the Finnish Olympic athletes in the Döberitz Olympic village. Finnish sauna and Finnish athletes coming out of it even featured in one of Leni Riefenstahl’s movies. The movie premiered in Finland in 1938 and Riefenstahl herself came to the Finnish premier. Nazi propaganda viewed the sauna as an important way to increase the stamina of soldiers. They thought that sauna culture also fitted well with their idea of cleanliness and racial hygiene.

Fact 4: A festival celebrating mobile saunas
In one of our early blogs, we mentioned that Finland is the promised land of summer festivals. That is true. And there’s at least one festival dedicated solely to saunas. This time mobile saunas.The Mobile Sauna Festival is organized in Teuva Municipality almost every summer. Summer 2020 was a gap year, but they have announced that this year the festival will take place July 24. The participating saunas must be transportable and they have to be big enough for at least one person. The organizers are expecting over 50 mobile saunas from Finland and other countries to join the festivities. The program will include different types of sauna-related competitions. Here you can see pictures of participating saunas from previous years.

Fact 5: There is no single Finnish sauna culture
Like with so many other things associated with Finland, Finnishness, and Finns there really isn’t a single Finnish sauna culture. Families in different parts of the country have different sauna traditions. Also, sauna culture varies between genders. Practices related to sauna also vary based on where that sauna is located. Those living in apartment buildings with a single communal sauna may have very different practices than those living in one-family homes. For example, although Finns, in general, go to the sauna naked not everyone does that in mixed gender groups. Also, people like very different types of saunas. Some like them hot. Some like them more mellow. The preferred temperature can be anywhere between 65 and 100⁰C. These different preferences are very evident in public saunas where different people have access to the scoop with which to throw water on the sauna stove. So, when you are going to the sauna for the very first time, don’t hesitate to ask what type of sauna-related traditions your hosts have.

Source: Sauna Facts | Finnish Sauna Culture

DarkRavie · December 3, 2022

Fact of the Day - CARICATURISTS

Did you know.. A famous caricaturist hid the name of his daughter in his drawings for decades as a game.
Some caricaturists, whether in celebrity restaurants or theme parks, face customers who are less than thrilled with their portraits, but to be drawn by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld was considered an honor. Hirschfeld began working with The New York Times in 1929, often drawing the stars of Broadway and Hollywood, but it wasn’t until the birth of his daughter Nina in 1945 that a now-legendary game began. In many of his drawings following her birth, for the Times and other prominent publications, Hirschfeld hid his daughter’s name “in folds of sleeves, tousled hairdos, eyebrows, wrinkles, backgrounds, shoelaces — anywhere to make it difficult, but not too difficult, to find,” Hirschfeld once said. Next to his signature, the artist included the number of times “Nina” appeared throughout the image. This tradition inspired an unofficial puzzle for decades, as readers scanned Hirschfeld’s work to find each and every “Nina” — and this included Hirschfeld himself. According to his foundation’s website, the artist became so accustomed to adding his daughter’s name as part of his artistic process that he often had to go back through the piece and find every hidden “Nina” for himself in order to come up with the total count. Hirschfeld continued this tradition for nearly 60 years, until his death at the age of 99 in 2003.

A computer programmer built an algorithm for finding Waldo in “Where’s Waldo?”
When it comes to hiding secrets in illustrations, nothing compares to Where’s Waldo? First published in Britain in 1987 under the title Where’s Wally? (it’s still called that in the U.K.), this famous series of books follows the bespectacled and candy cane-colored Waldo through various adventures as he hides among artist Martin Handford’s amazingly detailed illustrations. “As I work my way through a picture, I add Wally when I come to what I feel is a good place to hide him,” Handford once told the publisher Scholastic. Because Waldo’s location is random in all the original 68 illustrations in Handford’s original seven books, any sort of sleuthing strategy seems impossible. Well, almost impossible. In 2015, a doctoral student named Randal Olson from Michigan State University’s High-Performance Computing Center developed a computer algorithm for locating Waldo. By performing a “kernel density estimation” on Waldo’s 68 locations, Olson developed a few simple tips. For example, Waldo never appears in the top left corner, bottom right corner, or near the edges of either page. Then, Olson developed an algorithm for scanning a typical Waldo spread, including step-by-step processes for which parts of the page to scan first. When the algorithm was put to the test, Olson says he spotted Waldo in most spreads in less than 10 seconds. However, some “outlier” illustrations took a bit longer, proving Waldo can still stump both man and machine. ( Interesting Facts )

Secrets of Caricature Artists
By Lela Nargi | May 25, 2018

The word caricature likely conjures up images of street artists on boardwalks or outside museums working up quick, humorous sketches of visitors, to the delight or dismay of their subjects. But the exaggerated illustrations of caricature include a lot more than what you see on the boardwalk—and can be more art than kitsch. We spoke to three experts in the field about the subjects caricature artists love and hate to depict, the best way to make their job harder, what they do if you don't like their drawing, and how they can tell when you really don't want to sit for a portrait.

1. THEY WANT YOU TO KNOW IT'S OLDER THAN YOU THINK.

Some of the greatest artists in history practiced caricature as a means to develop their skills. Eileen Owens, curator of "Biting Wit and Brazen Folly: British Satirical Prints, 1780s–1830s" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, says Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first artists to use caricature, in the “grotesque” sketches of unusual faces and heads that populated his notebooks. (His 16th-century biographer, Giorgio Vasari, wrote that Leonardo was “so delighted when he saw curious heads, whether bearded or hairy, that he would follow anyone who had thus attracted his attention for a whole day.”) Many other well-established Renaissance artists dabbled in caricature on the side, as breaks from their rigorous training: "It was a lot more huge noses, big hair, ways to poke fun at faces. You had to be adept at drawing to know how to exaggerate," Owens says. The form gained momentum in late-17th century Italy, when Pier Leone Ghezzi “started making funny little drawings that poked fun at well-to-do Romans and tourists,” according to Owens. From there, it spread to Britain, where it became so popular that publishing companies sprung up for the sole purpose of printing caricatures. Publishers also rented out portfolios of caricatures by the day, and hung prints in their windows, to which crowds flocked to see the latest depictions of a buffoonish Napoleon and laughable upper-crust fashions. Owens says, “This was your chance to keep up with the gossip—kind of like People magazine today.”

2. MANY OF THEM ARE SELF-TAUGHT.

Lots of caricature artists learn on the job, in part because there's not a ton of specific training available. Illustrator Tom Richmond, who spoofs movies for MAD Magazine (among other gigs), says, "Only a handful of art schools teach cartooning or caricature as a major part of curriculum, so it's hard to find instruction on how to do it. Caricature is such a specialized sort of thing, and diverse; you can’t teach it like you teach people how to draw comics, where [there's] storytelling technique and sequential art tricks and a science behind it, so to speak." Overall, what Richmond and others strive for is to “translate [your] art skill [into caricature], really lean into it—no matter how you practice.”

3. IT CAN BE GREAT TRAINING FOR OTHER ART FORMS.

Richmond says that when he teaches at workshops around the country, he always recommends—no matter what facet of the industry they are interested in—that students try their hand at live drawing, "maybe even volunteer at the local homecoming or draw for free at a daycare center." Having to work quickly with a model in front of you develops a sensitivity to gesture, to how the body leans and how weight is distributed, that's different from the skills you get "shading something for hours," Richmond explains. When you "go back to doing longer pieces, you've got an inner eye that sees things you missed before. It's great discipline for the developing eye."

4. THEY’RE NOT (NECESSARILY) OUT TO MOCK YOU.

Caricatures have been defined as "portrait with the volume turned up." But that doesn't mean they have to be mean-spirited. Richmond says, “Caricature is a depiction of someone in a humorous way, but at its best it has a narrative behind it—you’re pointing out something about their presence, not just making fun of their features.” He explains that he’s not examining someone’s face to find a nose or a chin or dimples to blow out of proportion, but "trying to understand who you are as a person and exaggerate that.” "I want to make [clients] smile or laugh," says CeCe Holt, who sketches at events and amusement parks, and is also business manager for the non-profit International Society of Caricature Artists (ISCA). "I never want to make anybody cry."

5. THEY DON’T SWEAT IT WHEN SOMEONE DOESN’T LIKE THEIR LIKENESS …
Just because caricaturists strive to capture your essence doesn't mean you're going to like it. People can be in denial about their appearance, with a radically different idea of their weight, for instance, or even whether they have freckles. In Holt’s experience, party guests usually don’t make a fuss about their caricatures, since they haven’t directly paid for them. But when the occasional amusement park patron kicks up a fuss, “I just say I’m sorry and move on to the next person.” Richmond is similarly blasé, pointing out that when a caricaturist is drawing a quick sketch for $15, the occasional bad portrait is bound to sneak in. "Sometimes they refuse to pay, or come back later and want their money back. Live caricature can be hair-raising, which is why I prefer working with art directors."

6. … BUT SOMETIMES CUSTOMERS RETALIATE.

Occasionally, customers do try to turn the tables. Ipecacxink, a caricature artist at a Midwest theme park, writes in a Reddit AMA about a boy she accidentally made very upset with her drawing. "I went to lunch right after I did it. Apparently while I was gone, he came back and drew a circle with spikey hair, glasses, and frowny eyebrows and a note that said, 'How do you like someone making fun of you?!' under it. He then placed it on my chair. It was hilarious. I saved it." At Sardi's—the Times Square tourist destination known for its wall of caricatures—some of the celebrities depicted have gotten mad enough to take down their pictures, the restaurant's owner told AMNew York. It used to be that the in-house caricaturist (who's paid in meals instead of money) would hand over unfinished versions to the subjects first, to get the seal of approval, before going on to later exaggerate their features. That's stopped, but these days the caricatures have become less humorous, and more like regular portraits—which helps keep the peace between the restaurant and its famous clientele.

Want to read more on caricaturists? Click the link Below

Source: Brief Facts About Caricaturists | Secrets of Caricaturist Artists

Edited December 4, 2022 by DarkRavie

Sign In

Fact of the Day

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

(Kirito)

(Kirito)

DarkRavie

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

Recently Browsing 0 members