Mental Floss Presents Instant Knowledge Read online

  KEYWORDS: whiteout, mistakes, and typewriters

  THE FACT: The woman behind Liquid Paper, Bette Nesmith Graham, wasn’t just a sloppy typist turned secretary extraordinaire. She’s also “Mom” to former Monkees member, Michael Nesmith (the tall one with the funny hat).

  It all started when Graham joined a typing pool in 1951. Recently divorced, she desperately needed the job to support herself and her as-yet-unprimatelike son. Problem was, typing wasn’t exactly her forte, and she became increasingly worried that her frequent errors would get her fired. Then inspiration struck. Graham filled a nail polish bottle with white tempera paint and took it to work. Whenever she made a mistake, she simply painted over it. Before long, the whole typing pool was indulging. As demand for what Graham first called “Mistake Out” grew, it began to distract her from her secretarial duties. In 1962, she was fired for using company time to write letters for her own business, but that turned out to be just the push Graham needed. Within six years, Liquid Paper was a million-dollar business, and Graham was laughing all the way to the bank.

  LORD OF THE (CIGAR) RINGS

  USEFUL FOR: barroom banter, making friends in cigar shops, and bringing up at Sunday school

  KEYWORDS: Cubans, smoking or, oh, my God!

  THE FACT: In the highlands of Guatemala, you’re likely to run in to members of the cult of Maximón, a Maya group that worships its cigar-chomping deity in a rather unusual way.

  Worshippers believe Maximón, also known as San Simon, is a powerful saint who possesses the ability to, among other things, cure illnesses and confront Christ. Different shrines and chapels in Guatemala have different effigies built to represent Maximón, but a few things are pretty consistent: His face is made from wood, he’s got a (lit) cigar hanging from his mouth, and he’s surrounded by bottles of liquor. In some places, he may be nothing more than a wooden box with a cigarette sticking out of it; in others, he might be sporting sunglasses or a bandanna. Either way, if you see him, just be sure you have the proper offering. In exchange for blessings, he accepts cigarettes (Payaso brand are his favorite) and most any rum (although he’s partial to Venado).

  LOSING A BET

  (the tale of Stephen Hawking)

  USEFUL FOR: nerdy dates, academic gatherings, proving even geniuses make mistakes (and buy porn)

  KEYWORDS: physics, Penthouse, or Hawking

  THE FACT: One tiny mistake and the world’s most famous physicists ended up buying a subscription to one of the world’s raunchiest publications.

  Well known for authoring A Brief History of Time, the world-renowned theoretician has made his greatest contributions in the physics of black holes. He was also elected one of the Royal Society’s youngest fellows and selected to Cambridge’s Lucasian post, a professorship of mathematics once held by Isaac Newton. While all signs point to genius, that doesn’t mean Hawking is always right. Earlier in his career, he made a bet with Kip Thorne of Caltech that Cygnus X-1 did not contain a black hole. (The prize was a subscription to a racy magazine.) In 1990, when Hawking decided the evidence against him was overwhelming, he conceded in a waggish manner: He had a friend break into Thorne’s office and steal the recorded terms of the bet—Hawkings signed his defeat, then snuck it back in for Thorne to find later. In the following months, Thorne also received his promised issues of Penthouse.

  THE LOTTO

  (Founding Father style)

  USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, convenience store lines, convincing ultrapatriotic Americans that the Powerball isn’t immoral (at least according to the Framers)

  KEYWORDS: Founding Fathers, lucky numbers, or Powerball

  THE FACT: Despite what you may think about lotteries, early American leaders often turned to them to raise a buck or two.

  It’s completely true! Displaying the astute politicians’ aversion to direct taxation, John Hancock organized several lotteries, including one to rebuild Boston’s Faneuil Hall. Ben Franklin used them during the Revolutionary War to purchase a cannon for the Continental Army. George Washington ran a lottery to pay for a road into the wilds of western Virginia. And Thomas Jefferson wrote of lotteries that “far from being immoral, they are indispensable to the existence of man.” Of course when he wrote it, he was trying to convince the Virginia legislature to let him hold a lottery to pay off his debts.

  LOVE LETTERS

  (to a pigeon)

  USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, chatting up scientists, and making small talk whenever you and your loved ones are kicking pigeons in the park

  KEYWORDS: AC/DC, true love, or pigeons

  THE FACT: Who knew that Nikola Tesla, one of physics’ greatest minds, had such a penchant for chicks (we’re talking about the feathered kind)?

  Tesla dreamed up AC current, won technical disputes with Edison, had ideas stolen from him by Marconi, and designed the Tesla coil (that lovely spinning thing you find sparking light in every mad scientist’s lab). But even more intriguing than all of this were his peculiarities. Nikola Tesla’s personal life was one of crippling obsessions: washing his hands endlessly, counting every item on a dinner table before tucking in, and maintaining a hatred for earrings and other round objects. But perhaps most unusual was his fondness for pigeons. Tesla was so smitten by one bird in particular that when it passed away, he wrote, “Yes, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me…When that pigeon died something went out of my life…I knew my life’s work was over.”

  instant personalities

  Race car driver DICK TRICKLE is a perennial Winston Cup loser (he’s never won the event despite 300-plus career attempts through 2004), though he clearly isn’t too focused on his driving. Dick once requested a lighter be installed in his car so he could smoke mid-race.

  Author VICTOR HUGO had an unusual solution for writer’s block. He had his servant take away his clothes with strict orders not to return them for several hours. Left buck naked, and with nothing else to do, Hugo was forced to return to his pen and paper.

  STEPHEN HAWKING was famous among his schoolmates for being terrible with electronics. He once attempted to turn an old television into an amplifier and gave himself a 500-volt shock.

  THE MAD HATTER

  (a slightly more gangsterish one than Alice met)

  USEFUL FOR: costume parties, impressing your history teacher, inciting mob nostalgia with your friends in Witness Protection

  KEYWORDS: nicknames, gangsters, or fancy hats

  THE FACT: One of history’s strangest nicknamed mafiosos in the world, Albert “Lord High Executioner” Anastasia was also dubbed “The Mad Hatter” for his love of fancy fedoras.

  As the whole “Lord High Executioner” name suggests, Al wasn’t exactly a man to be messed with. In the early 1920s, Anastasia was sentenced to death for killing a fellow longshoreman. But he was granted a retrial and the conviction was reversed when four of the witnesses “disappeared.” And that was just at the start of his career. After helping to kill crime boss Joe Masseria, Anastasia was made head of Murder, Inc. by new boss Lucky Luciano, and was dubbed the Mob’s “Lord High Executioner” by the press. And while the name stuck, his position didn’t, as Anastasia eventually fell out with the other bosses. On October 25, 1957, Anastasia was shot six times while getting a haircut. As one New York paper put it the next day: “He Died in the Chair After All.”

  MARQUIS DE SADE

  USEFUL FOR: barroom banter, bachelor parties, and generally impolite company

  KEYWORDS: sadism, sadomasochism, and de Sade

  THE FACT: How great would it be to have sadism named after you? Of course, you’d have to go to certain lengths, as the Marquis definitely did.

  Essentially pawned off by his family, the Marquis de Sade was married to a woman for the money. Choosing to fulfill the “for worse” part of the whole marriage vow deal, he immediately began to busy himself (quite publicly) with prostitutes, and with a sister-in-law. Of course, de Sade’s mother-in-law didn’t like that, and she had him imprisoned. So he spent 1
4 years in jail, including being condemned to death in the town of Aix for his sexual practices. Yet somehow he got out of that one. Then he was imprisoned again in 1777, and again for six years at the Bastille in Paris in 1784. Imprisonment gave him lots of time to keep churning out the vigorous pornography that made him famous. In fact, the Marquis spent his last 12 years in the insane asylum at Charenton, where he wrote and directed plays starring the staff and inmates.

  MASTICATION

  (it’s not a dirty word)

  USEFUL FOR: dinner parties, cocktail parties, and parties where you get stuck at the kids’ table

  KEYWORDS: chew your food

  THE FACT: Also called “the Chew-Chew Man,” American importer and art dealer Horace Fletcher gained a huge following when he began donning a white jacket, and lecturing and writing about nutrition. His 1890s theme: Chew.

  So what made him so popular? Fletcher advised that nothing should be swallowed unless it could be reduced to liquid first by chewing. Supported by studies that found chewing every morsel 32 times could be beneficial for weight loss (it slowed down the rate of eating, at the very least), Fletcher claimed such adherents as novelist Henry James and industrialist John D. Rockefeller. Health reformer Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was also a devotee of “Fletcherizing” for a while, and even made up a “chewing song” for patients. Of course, keeping to the philosophy wasn’t all roses. Many Fletcherizers spit out anything they could not chew to liquid, which eliminated a lot of dietary fiber and led to constipation.

  MATZO BALLS

  (you should probably pass over)

  USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, barroom banter, and daring anyone to repeat the feat

  KEYWORDS: Matzo, Passover, dreidl, or all you can eat

  THE FACT: It ain’t easy keeping kosher. Especially for contestants in Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen Charity Matzo Ball Eating Contest (where even the name’s a mouthful).

  The contest is a charity fund-raiser for the Interfaith Nutrition Network by a New York–area deli chain. The 2004 record holder is Eric “Badlands” Booker of Copaigue, Long Island, who ate 20 1/4 matzo balls in five minutes and 25 seconds. If that doesn’t sound like a lot, you should know that these matzo balls were roughly the size of tennis balls. Oy! The winner gets a trophy and a $2,500 gift certificate to a stereo store, while runners-up get various prize packages, all of which involve tickets to a New York Islanders game. Umm…all that matzo for an Islanders ticket? We’re thinking we’ll pass.

  MERCEDES-BENZ

  (and the women who really love ’em)

  USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, nerdy dates, and making small talk at Mercedes-Benz dealerships

  KEYWORDS: anytime you hear the word R-E-S-P-E-C-T spelled out in song

  THE FACT: Apparently, the Mercedes-Benz as a status symbol doesn’t just cross highways, it crosses cultures as well. Case in point: the Nanas women of Togo in Africa.

  The Nanas represent a stunning rags-to-riches story, overcoming illiteracy and cultural barriers when they cornered the lucrative cloth trade. After acquiring loans and making a few sharp investments, these women now conduct multimillion-dollar international transactions. In fact, the Nanas’ have expanded their businesses to hair salons, bakeries, restaurants, and real estate. What’s the Nanas’ status symbol of choice? The Benz, of course. So many of the Nanas drive around in them, in fact, that the most successful are known as Nana-Benz. The Nanas, however, aren’t the only group in Africa to incorporate the Mercedes moniker into their name. The WaBenzi, a powerful and elite class of people in many African nations, got its name because of its members’ favorite car. WaBenzi loosely translates to “people of Mercedes-Benz.”

  MICE

  (and men)

  USEFUL FOR: barroom banter, irritating members of PETA, and chatting up Australians

  KEYWORDS: mice, Fear Factor, or sushi

  THE FACT: Sure, the MTV show Jackass spawned a lot of moronic copycats, but two hungry fellas in Brisbane, Australia, win the prize for trying to down a live mouse.

  It’s disturbingly true. Participating in a contest at Brisbane’s Exchange Hotel in which they were dared to eat the rodents live, the winner’s grand prize was a vacation package worth a handsome $346. Both men chewed the tails off, and the “winner” actually chewed his mouse whole and spit it out. Needless to say, the RSPCA, Australia’s version of our own SPCA, wasn’t thrilled about the stunt and got the Queensland police on the participants’…um…tail. If caught, the winner will face fines of $75,000 and two years in the pokey. Where there will no doubt be plenty of big, fat, edible rodents for snacking on.

  MICROWAVES

  (and the guy you should thank for ’em)

  USEFUL FOR: movie theater chatter, making small talk while waiting for your popcorn to pop, and impressing anyone who really loves their microwave

  KEYWORDS: I really love my microwave

  THE FACT: If it weren’t for the candy bar in Percy Spencer’s pocket, it might have been years before we got the kitchen appliance.

  Radar and microwave technologies developed during World War II were credited with helping to change the tide in the battle in Europe. But after the war, scientists like Percy Spencer stumbled across all sorts of new applications for the technology. Percy, who was working for Raytheon at the time, happened to be in the path of powerful radiation emitted from a magnetron (ouch), when he noticed that the candy bar in his pocket had melted. He then put popcorn kernels in front of the device and watched in fascination as the popcorn popped. He also demonstrated cooking an egg from the inside out (don’t do this at home, they tend to explode!). Of course, using low-density microwave energy to cook is now commonplace, and Spencer’s use of popcorn as an early experimental substance was prescient—today the United States produces 500,000 tons of popcorn, most of which is cooked in microwave ovens.

  MILK

  (it does a reputation good)

  USEFUL FOR: barroom banter, fraternity halls, wherever someone is carrying a funnel and a six-pack

  KEYWORDS: got milk, milk mustache, or really anytime the word milk comes up

  THE FACT: Before civil wars ravaged Sudan, unmarried Dinka tribesmen used to compete in extreme milk-drinking competitions to strut their stuff for eligible females.

  The goal was for the men to gulp down endless gallons of the stuff and refrain from exercise in an effort to become as fat as possible. Supposedly, this showed the single ladies that a bachelor had enough cattle to drink all this extra milk. Of course, this isn’t the only case where excessive weight is associated with stature. Various cultures throughout history, from South Asian to Polynesian societies, have valued obesity as an indicator of the lush life. Dinka men, however, are generally quite tall and thin (basketball star Manute Bol being one of the more prominent), and some men would gain so many unfamiliar milk pounds so quickly that they were known to topple over upon rising from the competition.

  MONA LISA

  (gone missing)

  USEFUL FOR: museum dates, chatting with bitter Italians, and giving tours at the Louvre

  KEYWORDS: Leonardo da Vinci, Italian pride, or bumbling art heist

  THE FACT: While the Mona Lisa’s probably pretty well protected today, there used to be a time when you could walk into the Louvre and just pluck it off the wall. In fact, somebody did.

  In 1911, an Italian workman named Vincenzo Peruggia walked into the gallery, took the painting off the wall, and carried it out. Not exactly the high-minded cat burglary you might imagine, since security was practically nonexistent. Of course, it did take officials about two years before they located Old Mona buried in a trunk in Vincenzo’s cheap lodging in Florence. So what was the working man’s motive? Not money apparently. Vinnie claimed that since the painting was by an Italian, Leonardo da Vinci, it was part of Italy’s national cultural heritage, and he was, in true patriotic spirit, simply taking it back to where it belonged: Florence. The painting was returned to the Louvre shortly thereafter.

  MONOGAMY
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  (a.k.a. A Tale of Two Georges)

  USEFUL FOR: impressing your history teacher or date, or arguing that monogamy and true love actually might not be myths

  KEYWORDS: mistress, low fidelity, or royal romance (sort of)

  THE FACT: While most royalty has a real problem with the whole “staying faithful” thing, a couple of Georges were apparently cast from a different mold.

  From harems to courtesans, it can make you dizzy to think about all the women on the side royal men have taken a “liking to.” Oddly enough, though, there have been a few kings who wanted desperately to be faithful to their beloveds. Take England’s King George II (1683–1760) for example. Old George was happily married to his wife, Queen Caroline, but he took a mistress just to maintain his reputation. After all, a mistressless king could be seen as weak or, worse still, impotent. His son, George III, however, broke that streak of monarchial infidelity when he married the notoriously homely Princess Charlotte Sophia in 1761. Seeing her for the first time, George is said to have winced in disgust, but the two came to love one another immensely (and frequently—they had 15 kids), and George III was never unfaithful.