Surprising Facts About Every U.S. President

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Author Tony Dunnell

September 18, 2025

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Since the establishment of the office in 1789, 45 people have served in 47 presidencies. Each president has brought their own brand of political discourse to the role, and historians tend to remember these leaders primarily for their major historical achievements and policy decisions.

But behind the presidents’ political legacies lie plenty of lesser-known details we don’t hear about as often, whether it’s a past life as an executioner, a penchant for skinny-dipping, or a fierce dislike of broccoli. Here is a surprising fact about every U.S. president.

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George Washington

George Washington’s second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1793, was the shortest ever at less than two minutes long and only 135 words. (The average length of an inaugural address is 2,350 words.)

John Adams

John Adams was the first U.S. president to inhabit the White House. He moved into the unfinished and largely unfurnished residence in November 1800, with only six rooms completed.

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Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson helped popularize ice cream, French fries, and macaroni and cheese in America. He brought recipes from Europe that his staff prepared for guests at the White House.

James Madison

James Madison was the shortest president. He measured 5 feet, 4 inches (163 centimeters) tall and is estimated to have weighed about 100 pounds.

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James Monroe

Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, was named after James Monroe, making it the only capital city outside the U.S. named for an American president.

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams had a daily routine that involved early morning nude swims in the Potomac River. He maintained his habit of swimming in the Potomac into his late 70s.

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Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was involved in at least a dozen duels during his lifetime (some put the number as high as 100), most of which were resolved without bloodshed. But Jackson did kill one opponent and was shot twice himself.

Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren was the first U.S. president who spoke English as a second language. He grew up in a Dutch community in upstate New York, and his first language was Dutch.

William Henry Harrison

After only one month in the White House, William Henry Harrison became the first president to die in office, serving the shortest tenure in U.S. presidential history.

John Tyler

John Tyler fathered 15 children with two wives, more than any other president. His first child was born in 1815, when Tyler was 25, and his last in 1860, when the former president was 70.

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James K. Polk

Some of James K. Polk’s contemporaries considered him to be a rather boring man. This likely wasn’t helped by his wife, Sarah, who banned hard liquor and dancing at the White House.

Zachary Taylor

In 1848, the Whig National Convention nominated Zachary Taylor as president of the United States. Letters were sent to Taylor requesting his acceptance, but he didn’t respond — he had instructed the local post office not to deliver his mail to avoid postage fees, and didn’t get official word of his nomination for weeks.

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Millard Fillmore

Millard Fillmore came from a large, poor family and received little formal education until he was 18. When he became president, he and his wife, Abigail, established the first permanent library in the White House.

Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce was the first U.S. president to recite his inaugural speech entirely from memory — all 3,336 words of it.

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James Buchanan

James Buchanan never married and remains America’s only bachelor president.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent. His invention was designed to buoy and lift boats over shoals and obstructions in rivers.

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Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson was supposed to be assassinated on the same night as Abraham Lincoln, as he was serving as Lincoln’s vice president at the time. But his would-be assassin, George Atzerodt, lost his nerve and got drunk instead.

Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant’s real name was Hiram Ulysses Grant. He wound up with the moniker we know today due to a mistake by his benefactor on his application form to West Point, which he was never able to correct.

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Rutherford B. Hayes

As part of his “Great Western Tour” in 1880, Rutherford B. Hayes became the first president to visit the West Coast while in office.

James A. Garfield

When President James A. Garfield was shot by an assassin on July 2, 1881, he was attended to by Charles B. Purvis — the first Black physician to treat a sitting president.

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Chester A. Arthur

Chester A. Arthur appreciated the finer things in life. His administration spent $30,000 (around $2 million today) lavishly refurbishing the White House, and his love of clothing — he reputedly owned 80 pairs of trousers — earned him the nickname “the Gentleman Boss.”

Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland was the only president to officially serve as an executioner. As the sheriff of Erie County, New York, he performed the role of hangman on a handful of executions.

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Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison was the first president to have electric lighting installed in the White House, but he and his wife Caroline were afraid to touch the light switches for fear of electrocution.

William McKinley

William McKinley’s favorite pet was a double yellow-headed Mexican parrot that he named Washington Post and taught to whistle “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

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Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt was disappointed with his official presidential portrait by artist Théobald Chartran, which his family jokingly said made him look like a “mewing cat.” Just before the end of his presidency, Roosevelt had the painting removed from the White House and burned.

William Howard Taft

In 1910, William Howard Taft became the first U.S. president to throw the ceremonial first pitch of a baseball season.

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Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson is the only U.S. president to be buried in Washington, D.C. He is interred at the Washington National Cathedral.

Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding was involved in a number of extramarital affairs. He wrote more than 100 lustful letters to his mistress Carrie Fulton Phillips.

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Calvin Coolidge

Considering it to be good for his health, Calvin Coolidge had his head rubbed with petroleum jelly every morning while he ate his breakfast in bed.

Herbert Hoover

While living in China, Herbert Hoover and his wife were caught up in the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising against foreigners that occurred in 1900. While they were trapped during the Siege of Tientsin, Hoover took a leading role in the defense, building barricades around residential areas.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

FDR suffered from a mild case of triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13. He didn’t like Friday the 13th, wouldn’t travel on the 13th day of any month, and avoided hosting 13 guests at a dinner party.

Harry S. Truman

The “S” in Harry S. Truman’s name doesn't stand for anything — it’s simply the letter “S” and not an initial for a middle name. According to Truman, the letter was chosen as a compromise between the names of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

In 1954, Dwight D. Eisenhower had a putting green installed outside the Oval Office — but squirrels kept digging holes in it. Growing increasingly irate, he had his groundskeepers live-trap the squirrels, which were then released in nearby Rock Creek Park.

John F. Kennedy

When JFK and his crew were stranded on an island during World War II, they carved a rough rescue message onto a coconut shell. Kennedy later had the coconut turned into a paperweight, which sat on his desk throughout his presidency.

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Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson owned an amphibious car, which he used to prank people. Exclaiming to all on board that the brakes had failed, he’d head straight into a lake — at which point the terrified passengers would learn that the car could actually float.

Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon was a talented musician. He played five musical instruments — saxophone, violin, clarinet, accordion, and piano — and even composed a piano concerto.

Gerald Ford

While still in his late 20s, Gerald Ford worked as a fashion model. He even made it onto the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Jimmy Carter

During a fishing trip in 1979, President Jimmy Carter was “attacked” by a swamp rabbit. He was in a small boat when the agitated rabbit swam toward him, possibly trying to escape a predator. The press had a field day with the story, dubbing it the “killer rabbit” or “banzai bunny” incident.

Ronald Reagan

Over the course of seven summers, the young Ronald Reagan was a lifeguard at Lowell Park on the Rock River. During that time, he saved 77 lives — a number he kept track of by cutting a notch in a log each time he pulled someone from the water.

George H.W. Bush

George H.W. Bush had a passionate dislike for broccoli. While reports that he banned it from the White House and Air Force One may have been exaggerated, Bush is on record as having said, “I'm president of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli.”

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Bill Clinton

In 1963, when he was just 16 years old, Bill Clinton shook hands with President John F. Kennedy — and the moment was captured on video.

George W. Bush

During his senior year of high school in the 1960s, George W. Bush was the head cheerleader at Phillips Academy in Massachusetts.

Barack Obama

As a child, Barack Obama spent four years living in Indonesia. His family pets included a large turtle and an ape named Tata — and his stepfather secretly bred crocodiles in the house.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s Secret Service code name is Mogul, while Melania Trump is Muse. Both code names were selected during Trump’s first term as president.

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Joe Biden

While he was a student at the University of Delaware, Joe Biden was put on academic probation for a prank in which he sprayed the dorm director with a fire extinguisher.

5 Life Lessons From Albert Einstein

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Author Nicole Villeneuve

September 18, 2025

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Most people know Albert Einstein as the face of genius, but there was much more to this famous figure than his groundbreaking work in physics. The German-born, Nobel Prize-winning scientist was curious, compassionate, and principled, and he thought deeply about what it means to live a purposeful, ethical life. These weren’t just abstract ideas — they were guiding principles that informed much of what he did and spoke about. Here, distilled from the many nuggets of wisdom Einstein shared over his 76 years, are five life lessons we can all take to heart.

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Imagination Is the Key

When asked about the process behind his scientific discoveries in a 1929 interview, Einstein credited a perhaps surprising trait: imagination. “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” he told The Saturday Evening Post. “For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination encircles the entire world.”

Einstein’s famous thought experiments — including picturing himself racing alongside a beam of light when he was 16 years old — showed that visualizing the impossible could help unlock new scientific truths. Other pursuits also gave his imagination room to meander. Playing violin often helped him work through complex problems, and sailing, which he loved but did not exactly excel at, gave him time to let his quiet mind wander.

For Einstein, imagination wasn’t an escape from science but a key component to his breakthroughs. Facts played an important role, certainly, but it was all that daydreaming that first led him into the unknown.

Stay Curious

For Einstein, curiosity wasn’t just about asking questions (although he did plenty of that), but also about remaining open to change and new perspectives throughout life. “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious,” he famously said. That openness helped him question long-held assumptions about the universe, and in turn he upended ideas of absolute space and time with his theory of relativity; reimagined gravity; and engaged critically with emerging quantum theory, investigating its limits while refining his own views when needed.

Einstein’s curiosity extended beyond science, too. He drew insights from philosophy, literature, music, and social issues, showing that learning could happen anywhere. He believed that education could — and should — be indefinite as long as we keep asking questions and embrace the unexpected.

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Strive To Be More Valuable Than Successful

In a 1955 interview, Einstein cautioned against measuring life by status or titles. “Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value,” he said to Life magazine. “He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives.”

Einstein lived this principle by using his influence to advance causes beyond physics, such as speaking out against racism in the United States, advocating for peace, and guiding generations of younger scientists through his teaching. Even his scientific contributions followed this ethic: He was driven less by personal acclaim than by a desire to expand humanity’s understanding of the universe.

“Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty,” Einstein wrote in a 1947 letter to an admirer. “It stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things.” Indeed, the famous scientist struggled with his fame, referring to it in a 1922 letter to his friend as “buffoonery.”

Follow Your Intuition

Einstein often trusted his instincts even before he had the research to back them up. “I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am,” he told The Saturday Evening Post. Those leaps of faith, tested rigorously later, were what prompted his most famous ideas, such as the theory of relativity.

Intuition also guided his personal choices: When a traditional academic path was difficult to navigate at first, he instead worked at the Swiss Patent Office, carving out quiet hours to get lost in his thoughts. Einstein didn’t worry about intuition’s lack of scientific proof. To him, it was an intrinsic part of the process — the spark lighting the way into unexplored territory.

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Have the Courage To Question Authority

Einstein’s most radical discoveries began with doubts, a hallmark of his rebellious streak. Why should time be fixed? Why must space be absolute? Even at a young age, his independent mind clashed with the rigid expectations of school. Later, his refusal to accept conventional wisdom drove breakthroughs that overturned physics as we knew it. “Blind respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth,” he famously said.

This same spirit shaped Einstein’s public life. He vocally condemned militarism and nationalism, often at a personal cost — he was watched closely by the FBI for years. To him, questioning authority was not about defiance for its own sake, but about choosing truth over tradition. Authority demands obedience, but progress, a hallmark of Einstein’s life, happens when someone dares to ask why.

Why Do We Eat Cake on Our Birthday?

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Author Bess Lovejoy

September 17, 2025

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Few traditions feel as universal as gathering around a frosted cake, lighting candles, and singing “Happy Birthday.” While the ritual seems timeless, the story of why we eat cake on our birthdays stretches back thousands of years — winding through ancient temples, Roman banquets, German children’s parties, and American kitchens.

Cakes as Sacred Offerings

The word “cake” comes from the Old Norse kaka, but cakes in the ancient world looked quite different from today’s airy, sugar-laden desserts. Early cakes were dense, breadlike creations sweetened with honey, enriched with eggs or cheese, and flavored with nuts, seeds, or dried fruits such as raisins or figs. Archaeological and textual evidence shows that cakes were baked in Mesopotamia more than 4,000 years ago, and the Roman writer Cato described cakes wrapped in leaves and served at weddings and fertility rites.

But cakes weren’t just food — they were often sacred offerings. The Greeks presented honey cakes and cheesecakes to their gods, sometimes decorated with candles. One common offering to Artemis, goddess of the moon and the hunt, was the amphiphon, a round cheesecake topped with glowing candles meant to mimic the moon. Romans, too, baked cakes for religious purposes, including the libum, a mixture of cheese, flour, and egg baked on bay leaves as an offering to household gods. In these early forms, cakes linked the human and divine, symbolizing gratitude, fertility, or cosmic cycles.

Birthdays Enter the Picture

Though cakes were plentiful, birthdays were only inconsistently celebrated in antiquity. While there’s some evidence for these annual celebrations in ancient Sumer, they weren’t common in ancient Greece. The Romans were the first to mark personal birthdays, though only for men — women’s birthdays weren’t celebrated until the Middle Ages. Roman citizens honored relatives and friends with feasts, and men turning 50 received a special cake made with wheat flour, nuts, honey, and yeast.

Still, birthday cake traditions were limited and inconsistent during ancient times. For centuries, cakes remained associated with weddings, festivals, and offerings to the gods rather than private anniversaries.

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The German “Kinderfeste”

The modern birthday cake owes its clearest debt to 18th-century Germany. There, children’s birthdays were marked with Kinderfeste — festive gatherings that included a sweet cake crowned with candles. Each candle represented a year of life, plus one extra for the year to come, a tradition that still survives. The candles were lit in the morning, replaced throughout the day, and finally blown out in the evening after dinner. Much like today, children were encouraged to make a wish as the smoke carried their hopes skyward.

This ritual blended ancient practices, such as Greek candlelit offerings and Roman birthday cakes, into something recognizably modern: a sweet centerpiece, flames to mark the passage of time, and the magical moment of blowing out candles.

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From Luxury to Everyday Treat

Even with Kinderfeste in Germany, birthday cakes weren’t for everyone, as the food was considered a luxury treat. For most of history, cakes required expensive ingredients such as refined sugar, fine flour, and butter. They were labor-intensive to make and decorated with painstaking artistry. In the early 19th century, American cookbook author Catharine Beecher suggested apple bread pudding as a child’s birthday treat — simple, hearty, and inexpensive. However, children’s birthday parties weren’t common celebrations in the U.S. until after the Civil War.

The Industrial Revolution played a decisive role in democratizing cake. As ingredients became cheaper and more widely available, bakeries could mass-produce cakes and sell them at affordable prices. And for home cooks, birthday cakes reached new heights of extravagance by the early 20th century. In 1912, the popular Fannie Farmer Cookbook included a full-page photo of a “Birthday Cake for a Three-Year-Old,” complete with angel cake, white icing, candied rose petals, sliced citron leaves, and sugar-paste cups for candles. These elaborate confections reflected both rising prosperity and a more ambitious form of cake decorating.

Birthday Cake’s Symbolism

Today’s birthday cakes are often simple — such as a frosted sheet cake with a name piped across the top (a tradition that began around the 1940s) — but the symbolism has a long and rich history. Cakes mark abundance, indulgence, and festivity. Candles represent the passage of time, each flame a year lived, each puff a wish cast into the unknown. The act of gathering around the cake, singing together, and celebrating life’s milestones connects us across centuries to ancient rites of gratitude and hope.

From moonlit cheesecakes for Artemis to a 3-year-old’s angel cake in Fannie Farmer’s kitchen, birthday cakes tell a story about how humans celebrate time, community, and the sweetness of life. Every slice is part of a lineage that is both sacred and ordinary — proof that sometimes the simplest rituals carry the deepest history.

6 Retro Photos From Hollywood’s Golden Age

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Author Timothy Ott

September 11, 2025

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Spanning from roughly the 1920s to the early ’60s, Hollywood’s golden age begat some of film’s most glamorous stars, classic quotes, and enduring scenes. Indeed, this era of moviemaking from the greater Los Angeles area was a time when the very idea of “Hollywood” as an idealized alternate reality was crystalized in the public consciousness.

While we now know that life wasn’t always so rosy behind the red carpet photo shoots and studio gates, that concept of old, glamorous Hollywood retains a strong emotional pull as a place where dreams were realized. Here’s a look at six photos that capture some of the defining faces, events, and achievements of the era.

King Kong Movie Poster

Promotional posters have been around since the inception of the motion picture industry, with full-color prints noting the leading men, women, and, in this case, creatures to be seen in the project being highlighted. King Kong (1933), of course, was a landmark film of its era, thanks in part to production techniques that included the pioneering usage of stop-motion photography and creation of an original score.

While the movie’s promotional material effectively showcased the terrible power of its titular monster without being particularly groundbreaking, American film posters soon exhibited more innovative styles of collage and minimalism. And unlike the largely anonymous artists of the early 20th century, illustrators such as Bill Gold and Saul Bass enjoyed acclaim for their work in this particular field during the golden age of Hollywood.

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Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy

Audiences have long delighted in the sparks-generating tension of romantic comedies, and no on-screen couple pulled it off better than the golden age duo of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. From their initial pairing starring as co-workers in Woman of the Year (1942) to their final go-round portraying parents in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), Hepburn and Tracy brought out the best in each other across their nine movies together. Their chemistry was rumored to have fueled a real-life romance that lasted from their first movie until Tracy’s death in 1967, with the married actor supposedly refusing to divorce his wife due to his strict Catholic beliefs.

Hattie McDaniel Receives Her Oscar

For better or worse, the films and pageantry of Hollywood have served as a reflection of the ambitions, fears, and prejudices of society throughout the years. This is perhaps best exemplified by the 1940 Academy Awards, which saw Hattie McDaniel become the first Black actor to nab a win, in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance in Gone With the Wind (1939).

Yet McDaniel was only allowed into that year’s ceremony in the segregated Cocoanut Grove nightclub by way of a special favor from ownership, and even then she was forced to sit in the back of the room, away from the table with her white co-stars Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. It took two dozen years before Sidney Poitier became the second Black Oscar winner, for his leading role in Lilies of the Field (1963), and an additional 19 years for Louis Gossett Jr. to become the third, for his supporting effort in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982).

Marilyn Monroe’s and Jane Russell’s Handprints

As with the Academy Awards, the imprinting of hands and/or feet in wet cement at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre serves as a marker of top-tier success in the movie industry. The tradition is said to have sprung from an accident; silent film star Norma Talmadge supposedly stepped in new cement before the opening of what was then Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 1927, inspiring owner Sid Grauman to make a formality of such activity with the hand and footprints of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in April.

Over the years, a few stars have added a distinct touch to the proceedings: Betty Grable left the imprint of her leg in 1943; George Burns supplied one of his cigars in 1979; and jokester Mel Brooks added a prosthetic sixth finger for a handprint in 2014. Marilyn Monroe even dotted the “i” in her name with an earring during her 1953 dual ceremony with Jane Russell to celebrate the release of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, although it was carved out by an opportunistic thief a few days afterward.

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Orson Welles on the Set of Citizen Kane

From George Cukor and John Ford to Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, Hollywood’s golden age was marked by boldface-name directors who packed the star power to rival that of the era’s A-listers. The same standing briefly applied to Orson Welles, a former stage actor who rocketed to fame with his panic-inducing radio adaptation of War of the Worlds in 1938, before directing one of the all-time cinematic masterpieces with Citizen Kane (1941), as seen in the photo above.

The mercurial Welles soon grew disillusioned with Hollywood, however, and he flitted in and out of the industry’s embrace while continuing to direct and star in signature films including The Lady of Shanghai (1947) and A Touch of Evil (1958). Although he never again reached the towering heights of Citizen Kane, Welles left behind a record as one of the greats of his era thanks to innovative techniques such as extended takes and “deep focus” filming.

MGM Studio Lots

The golden age of Hollywood was ruled by the all-powerful studios where the movie magic was made. From 1930 to 1948, the combination of Hollywood’s “big five” studios — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and RKO Pictures — and “little three” — Universal Pictures, United Artists, and Columbia — accounted for a whopping 95% of films exhibited in the United States.

MGM, seen above in a photo from around 1945, was perhaps the most prominent of the bunch, and a rundown of its facilities showcases just how much effort went into sustaining the empire. Along with offices for its executives, directors, writers, and various casting, camera, and wardrobe departments, the Culver City-based studio had lots dedicated to indoor and outdoor sets, including a 63 million-gallon artificial lake, as well as vehicle storage, a zoo, and a nursery. However, Hollywood’s bosses lost their iron grip on the industry with the 1948 Supreme Court ruling that forced studios to divest from their movie theater businesses, eventually paving the way for more independent filmmakers and a new era of cinema.

The History of 6 Legendary White House Rooms

FDR in the Oval Office, 1934 — Credit: Universal History Archive/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Author Paul Chang

September 9, 2025

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Constructed between 1792 and 1800, the White House has been home to every U.S. president except the first: Though George Washington oversaw construction of the building, he never actually lived in it. But the White House’s 132 rooms and 18 acres are more than just a residence — the Pennsylvania Avenue mansion is a symbol of power that occupies a singular place in American history and popular culture. Here’s a closer look at six White House rooms where America’s presidents have lived, worked, and even played.

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Oval Office

Despite being the most famous room in the White House, the Oval Office was not part of the original building. In fact, the White House lacked a dedicated presidential office until Theodore Roosevelt constructed a “temporary” executive office building in 1902, known today as the West Wing. It contained the first presidential office — a rectangular room now known as the Roosevelt Room.

It was Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, who made the West Wing a permanent feature of the White House, holding a competition to select an architect to oversee its renovation and enlargement. The winning architect, Nathan C. Wyeth, doubled the West Wing’s size and constructed the Oval Office in its center. Wyeth’s vision for an office fit for the president took inspiration from another famous room in the White House: the Blue Room, which was also an oval shape due to George Washington’s aesthetic preferences. The Oval Office’s last major renovation took place in 1934 under Franklin D. Roosevelt, who moved the room to its current location in the southeast corner of the White House, overlooking the Rose Garden.

Situation Room

The Situation Room — sometimes referred to as the “nerve center” of intelligence operations at the White House — is technically a complex of connected rooms rather than a single space. The concept of a “War Room” containing telegraph systems and maps dates back to William McKinley’s presidency during the 1898 Spanish-American War. However, the Situation Room as we know it today was built in 1961 by John F. Kennedy in the aftermath of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Frustrated by an inability to receive real-time military information, Kennedy decided that the White House needed a dedicated intelligence and communications center. Since then, the Situation Room has been critical to presidents’ handling of pivotal moments in American history, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in 2011.

Lincoln Bedroom

Despite its name, the Lincoln Bedroom was never actually used by Abraham Lincoln as a bedroom. Rather, it was an office and meeting area. The room has been called the Lincoln Bedroom since 1945, when Harry S. Truman had it decorated with Lincoln-era furniture, including the original desk upon which the 16th president drafted the Emancipation Proclamation.

Today, the room remains a bedroom and contains a copy of the Gettysburg Address, handwritten and signed by Lincoln, as well as a painting depicting enslaved people awaiting news of the Emancipation Proclamation. Rumored to be one of the most supernatural rooms in the White House, the Lincoln Bedroom has been the site of reported encounters with Lincoln’s ghost, notably by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, First Lady Grace Coolidge, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Map Room

A precursor to the Situation Room, the Map Room was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II to monitor battle operations around the world. After the outbreak of the war, National Geographic donated special wall-mounted “map cabinets” to Roosevelt, which contained maps organized by hemisphere, region, and theater of operation. These documents were regularly updated by cartographers, enabling the president to have the most up-to-date information. The room was staffed 24/7, and was used to communicate with world leaders including Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Chiang Kai-shek. Today, the Map Room functions as a sitting room that has been used to host guests, including the Dalai Lama.

Family Theater

Even presidents need a place to unwind. The White House Family Theater was created in 1942 when Franklin D. Roosevelt had a cloakroom known as the “Hat Box” converted into a 42-seat screening room. Since then, presidents have used the theater to enjoy films with family and friends, and as a space to practice speeches. Ronald Reagan, himself an actor, watched an impressive 363 films while in office, surpassed only by Jimmy Carter, who watched 480. Richard Nixon was such a fan of the war movie Patton that he had to refute rumors that the film inspired his decision to invade Cambodia in 1970. And Bill Clinton once said, “The best perk in the White House is not Air Force One or Camp David or anything else. It’s the wonderful movie theater I get here.”

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Bowling Alleys

The first White House bowling alley was constructed in the basement of the building in 1947 as a birthday gift to Harry S. Truman when he turned 63. Truman’s first bowl knocked down seven out of 10 pins, one of which is now on display at the Smithsonian. Truman later had the lanes moved from the White House to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door, where White House employees formed a bowling league in 1950 — Secret Service agents, household staff, groundskeepers, and more competed in tournaments across the country. Bowling returned to the White House under Nixon, who had a one-lane alley constructed below the North Portico of the White House in 1973. An avid bowler, Nixon reportedly played every week and had a high score of 232.

Unlocked: A Brief History of Keys

Lock and key in France, 1950 — Credit: Gaston Paris/ Roger Viollet via Getty Images

Author Timothy Ott

September 4, 2025

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Well before there was a need to enter individual units of an apartment building or secure clothes inside a gym locker, people sought to keep thieving hands away from their stores of grain or precious jewels. As a result, locks and keys have been around for a large chunk of recorded history.

While both have undergone numerous alterations in accordance with ever-updating technologies, the story of keys is perhaps more personal to the human experience as the portable component that has accompanied us on our journeys over the years. Here’s a look at how these pronged keepsakes have changed since they first surfaced in the ancient world.

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The First Keys

According to Eric Monk’s Keys: Their History and Collection, the oldest known lock is a wooden specimen unearthed from the ruins of the Palace of Sargon in Dur-Sharrukin (modern-day Khorsabad), near the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. As a similar version was found displayed on frescoes at the Karnak temple complex in Egypt, this style of “Egyptian lock” is believed to be in the neighborhood of 4,000 years old.

This early form of security entailed sliding a wooden board through a slot across a door, with movable pins above the slot dropping through corresponding holes in the board to keep it bolted in place. The key for this type of lock was another long piece of wood, sometimes measuring more than 2 feet, with pegs on the end to push the pins back through the holes and allow the board to be released from the bolting position. While these locks were originally fitted to the outside of a door, a hole cut next to the lock enabled a person to reach through and operate the lock from the inside.

Greek and Roman Innovations

The ancient Greeks, meanwhile, developed a different system in which the lock was mounted on the inside of the door. Unlocking from the outside again involved reaching through a hole, with a sickle-shaped key used to turn the bolt. As with the Egyptian models, these keys were large and were often carried by being slung over the shoulder.

A noticeable difference to methodology arrived with the Romans, who began developing metal locks and bronze keys. Romans employed the use of "wards," which were obstacles built within the locks that could only be bypassed by keys of specific shapes. This led to the development of teeth and cut-out shapes within the "bit," the end of a key that engages the bolt.

The Romans also popularized the use of small keys that fastened to a ring and could easily be carried in the palm of the hand. These keys were typically used for boxes that stored valuables within a home and as such were used to signify the wearer's affluence.

Medieval Touches

Key ornamentation progressed to a remarkable degree through the long period of the Middle Ages, which eventually saw bronze keys phased out in favor of iron. While some medieval keys were small, others surpassed 9 inches in length. This served the same purpose as the Roman ring keys, to project the wealth and prestige of the owners of such magnificent instruments, with the added benefit that these plus-size keys were less likely to be lost than tinier versions.

Early medieval bits featured a cutout cross or another simple cleft to bypass a built-in ward, but were eventually fashioned with teeth and other irregular shapes. The handle, or "bow," also underwent a series of stylistic changes, from the loops and ovals of the eighth century to the kidney shape, often intricately designed, of the 15th century. By this time, many keys were also embedded with a "collar" to stop them from being pressed too far into holes.

By the 17th century, bows were sometimes designed with animal motifs, initials, or a coat of arms. Ceremonial keys also soon came into vogue, including the gilded "chamberlain's keys" that once served a functional purpose in European royal courts but evolved into ornaments for special occasions.

Industrialization and Mass Production

As mentioned in Keys: Their History and Collection, the attention to craftsmanship failed to solve an enduring problem: Most locks were capable of being picked by a person with the dexterity and patience to make the effort. This sparked a focus on stronger security measures in the second half of the 18th century, and the revival of ancient Egyptian methodology with English locksmith Robert Barron's introduction of a twin-tumbler lock in 1778.

Six years later, English inventor Joseph Bramah unveiled an even stronger lock that featured spring-loaded sliders spaced around a pin. A small, cylindrical key embedded with notches corresponding to the height and depth of each slider engaged the pin, enabling the key to turn.

While inventors on both sides of the Atlantic competed to produce the strongest locks over the first half of the 19th century, their creations were too expensive for the general public to afford. That meant old-fashioned (and easily pickable) warded locks remained commonplace around homes, to be locked and unlocked by hefty iron keys.

However, the industry changed for good after the invention of the Yale lock. Patented by Linus Yale in 1844 and perfected by Linus Yale Jr. over the next two decades, this lock required the insertion of a flat, serrated key that raised a series of spring-loaded tumblers to varying heights.

The Yale products became prototypes of the types of keys that remain widely in use today, and with the invention of specialized machinery by the end of the 19th century, the manufacture of locks and keys moved into an era of mass production that made these items more affordable.

Nowadays, keys for homes and valuables are typically made from materials such as nickel silver, brass, and steel. But the development of key cards in the 1970s marked a turn away from metal, and innovations in biometrics have hinted at a future in which fingerprints and facial recognition technology become the norm for entry.

Ultimately, physical keys may wind up being a relic of the past, much the same way as those clunky old door openers from Egypt and Greece are to us today.

The Oldest Dances in the World

Gene Kelly in “Summer Stock” — Credit: Bettmann via Getty Images

Author Timothy Ott

September 3, 2025

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As Gene Kelly noted in the classic 1952 musical Singin’ in the Rain, sometimes people just gotta dance. Whether it’s an impromptu shaking of the hips or a complex routine dashed off by a professional like Kelly, dancing is a gift available to people of any skill level who feel inspired to move their limbs to a beat. And although many of us prefer to display our rhythmic limitations in private, dancing is unquestionably a social activity, and has been from time immemorial.

While most traditional dances seem old-fashioned to us nowadays, many well-known forms, including the polka, foxtrot, and waltz, are relatively modern creations from the past one to two centuries. Other dances, however, are far older, with roots that hearken back to the world’s formative civilizations.

Determining which dance forms are the oldest is an inexact science, since many morphed and were incorporated into other styles as they shimmied across cultures and eras. Nevertheless, here’s a look at some of the oldest dances in human history.

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Grass Dance and Other Indigenous Rituals

Some Indigenous cultures today proudly display moves learned from their ancestors to celebrate deities and mark the cycles of life. Although their traditions date back thousands of years, potentially making them the oldest dances known to humans, the preponderance of oral storytelling over written records in these cultures renders it impossible to determine just how old these dances are.

Native Americans, who first set foot in North America as many as 23,000 years ago, are known in part for the array of dances performed in communal powwow gatherings. One of the older examples is the grass dance, said to have originated with the Omaha people in the Northern Plains, in which performers stomp their feet and twirl to the thumping beat of a drum.

The Aboriginal people of Australia, with a history that dates back some 75,000 years, also have a communal gathering known as a corroboree, a ceremonial combination of dancing, singing, and narration to relate the origin stories of the Dreamtime (Aboriginal mythology). Their dances include the Warren Jarra, which entails the continuous motion of pivoting bent legs inward and outward, and the Ngukum, with participants waving leaves to simulate fending off mosquitoes.

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Classical Indian Dances

In Central India, the discovery of what appears to be dancing figures amid the Mesolithic-era cave paintings of the Bhimbetka rock shelters underscores the long history of dance on the subcontinent. While it's unknown what particular moves the artist was documenting, the survival of the Naṭyashastra, a Sanskrit treatise on art that may date back to at least the third century BCE, offers better insight on early Indian dances.

Spawned in Southern India, Bharatanatyam was originally a Hindu temple dance performed by solo women. Broken down into the divisions of nritta (technical dance), nritya (expressive dance), and natya (storytelling), Bharatanatyam is characterized by squatting legs and counter-rhythm footwork, its performances lasting up to two hours.

From the eastern part of the country, Odissi also originated as a temple dance performed by women. Compared to Bharatanatyam, its movements are generally slower and subtler, and feature more of the elaborate hand gestures known as mudras.

Kathak developed among nomadic storytellers of North India, so this dance is also strongly built around narrative principles. Not limited to either gender, performers showcase balance and grace with an upright posture and techniques that include chakkars (spins), tatkar (foot strikes), and paltas (patterns). Unlike the country’s other native dances, which date back more than 2,000 years, Kathak came into its modern form by way of combined Hindu and Muslim influences.

Hula, Dragon Dance, and Siva Samoa

In Hawaii, residents have been performing the hula for centuries. This world-famous dance, which involves the swaying of hips and corresponding wavelike arm movements, comes with an array of backstories that tie its roots to differing regions and mythological figures. While such folklore makes hula’s origins nearly impossible to pinpoint, The Encyclopedia of World Folk Dance estimates the dance dates back to around 300 CE.

The encyclopedia also points to a similar dance from a neighboring geographical region with even earlier beginnings. The Siva Samoa, introduced by the Lapita people around 800 BCE, is perhaps the oldest dance of the Polynesian islands. Mainly performed by women at social gatherings, the Siva Samoa incorporates side-to-side swaying, graceful arm movements, and facial expressions to relay the emotions of its performer.

From China, the dragon dance has endured as a tradition of Chinese New Year since the Han dynasty in the third century BCE. Initially performed as a means to worship ancestors and pray for rain, this good luck dance requires the use of multiple performers to coordinate the swirling and sweeping motions of a multipart dragon puppet to the rhythms of cymbals, gongs, and a drum.

Dabke and Belly Dancing

Considering Mesopotamia in the modern-day Middle East is known as the “cradle of civilization,” it follows that some of the world’s oldest dances were nurtured in this region. One such dance is the dabke, or dabkeh, which, according to The Encyclopedia of World Folk Dance, can be traced back to the Canaanites or Phoenicians around 2000 BCE.

Performed by a group of people in a line or circle, the dabke is an energetic dance marked by stomping, kicking, and twirling items such as handkerchiefs. While the dabke has increasingly assumed the status of a protest dance in recent years, it remains a means of celebration at festivals and weddings across Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

Like the hula, the belly dance is a widely recognized performative art with no consensus origin story. One starting point can be found in the Indus Valley in 3000 BCE, where midwives helped prepare expectant mothers with abdominal exercises. Migrating to the Middle East and North Africa, belly dancing took on differing names and variations of the torso-focused thrusting and shaking that distinguished it from other dances. Belly dancing has endured as a highly developed form of expression, and is often credited as the oldest known dance in the world.

6 Rich Facts About the Gilded Age

Delmonico's, circa 1890 — Credit: Underwood Archives/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

Author Kristina Wright

September 3, 2025

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The Gilded Age didn’t last long — just a few decades from the 1870s to around 1900 — but it left an outsized impact on American history. This was the age of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller; of massive fortunes built on steel, oil, and railroads; and of families such as the Astors and Vanderbilts showing off their wealth in palatial “summer cottages” by the sea.

Beneath the glitter and gold, however, the era was marked by deep inequality, brutal child labor, and sharp racial divides. While the upper class flaunted luxury, most Americans faced grueling work, poverty, and discrimination — and these realities shaped the nation as much as the gilded façade.

The clash of glamour and grit, extravagance and unrest, keeps the stories of the Gilded Age surprisingly fresh today. Here are six fascinating facts about the era that you might not know.

Mark Twain Gave the Gilded Age Its Name

The phrase “Gilded Age” came from satirists, not historians. In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner published The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, a novel lampooning political corruption, land speculation, and society’s obsession with wealth. The word “gilded” describes a thin layer of gold over something far less valuable — so the phrase was a critique of the greed and superficiality in the decades after the U.S. Civil War.

At the time, wealthy elites didn’t use the term. Many saw themselves as a kind of American aristocracy, where vast fortunes signified refinement, progress, and even natural superiority. By the 1920s and ’30s, however, historians and social critics embraced Twain’s label, expanding it to describe the era from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century, capturing both its dazzling wealth and the deep social inequities beneath the surface.

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“Dollar Princesses” Helped Rescue Britain’s Nobility

As American fortunes rose, many British aristocratic families were cash-poor but land-rich. Enter the “dollar princesses”: American heiresses whose wealth revitalized English estates with an influx of much-needed funds. Consuelo Vanderbilt’s 1895 marriage to the Duke of Marlborough brought in $1.6 million (around $60 million today) to restore Blenheim Palace, while Jennie Jerome’s $250,000 dowry (more than $9 million today) helped pave the way to her 1874 marriage to Lord Randolph Churchill (Winston Churchill’s father). These enormous dowries helped to maintain estates, pay staff, and fund the lifestyle of the nobility.

By some estimates, more than 450 American heiresses married into European nobility, making wealth a decisive factor in transatlantic unions. In fact, there were so many marriages between “dollar princesses” and the British aristocracy that at one point they accounted for roughly a third of the titles in the House of Lords.

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The “Four Hundred” Defined High Society

During the Gilded Age, New York society was shaped by the notion of the “Four Hundred”— the supposed number of people who truly mattered in the city’s elite circles. The phrase emerged in the late 1880s, when social arbiter Ward McAllister declared that about 400 individuals could fit into Caroline Astor’s ballroom, and therefore only that select group counted as New York’s high society. Because Astor was the undisputed gatekeeper of high society, being invited to her events meant you were part of New York’s inner circle.

The New York Times fueled the frenzy in February 1892 by publishing an actual list of names.. Compiled by McAllister himself, the list reflected his assessment of who had the right pedigree, wealth, social connections — and, most importantly, Astor’s approval. Balls, dinners, and exclusive clubs enforced those boundaries, making the Four Hundred both a coveted status marker and a symbol of the rigid hierarchy of Gilded Age society.

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The Gilded Age took networking to an entirely new level, with business deals and matchmaking at the center of every glittering event. Few Gilded Age parties matched Alva Vanderbilt’s 1883 masquerade ball. Held in her newly built Fifth Avenue mansion, the affair welcomed more than 1,000 guests to a dazzling $250,000 spectacle — more than $6 million today. Nearly $65,000 was spent on champagne alone, with an additional $11,000 going to flowers. The guests, dressed as royalty, animals, historical figures, and mythological creatures, filled the ballroom in a swirl of silk, jewels, and elaborate masks, creating one of the most theatrical evenings New York had ever seen.

But the event was about more than extravagance. By persuading Caroline Astor to attend, Alva secured what the Vanderbilts had long been denied: acceptance into the city’s most exclusive social circle. Old-money families had scoffed at the newly wealthy industrialists, excluding them from Astor’s famed “Four Hundred.” Alva’s ball was designed to flaunt wealth, taste, and class in a way that even Mrs. Astor could not ignore. Later parties, such as the Bradley-Martin Ball of 1897, might have surpassed it in cost and controversy, but Alva’s masquerade became legendary as the moment that “new money” dazzled its way into history.

Black High Society Built Its Own Culture

During the Gilded Age, Black Americans built their own vibrant high society despite segregation. Like the Astors and Vanderbilts, prominent families such as the Downings and Van Hornes maintained homes in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island, embracing titles such as “the colored aristocracy” or “Black 400.” Education was central to building this elite status and degrees were earned from both historically white universities such as Harvard and Yale and historically Black colleges including Howard and Fisk, with those credentials serving to launch careers in law, medicine, teaching, government service, real estate, and small business. Newspapers such as The New York Globe and The Colored American celebrated their achievements, while churches and fraternal organizations such as the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows nurtured this rising professional class.

Shut out of white society circles, the Black elite created their own social networks, hosting balls, literary salons, and dinners in order to build personal and professional networks. This parallel high culture had its own standards of refinement, influence, and sophistication — helping families build wealth and establish legacies across generations, despite systemic racial barriers.

Tenements Were the Real Face of New York

For every mansion on Fifth Avenue, countless tenement buildings housed immigrant and working-class families. A typical building had four to six stories with multiple three-room apartments per floor, each around 300 to 400 square feet and typically occupied by as many as 10 people. Ventilation was poor in these buildings, but sanitation was even worse. In some neighborhoods, dozens of families shared a single outhouse in the alley. With rent around $10 to $14 a month (up to $550 today), children as young as 8 often worked long hours in factories, shops, and street trades to help support their families.

Meanwhile, the city’s wealthiest residents lived in mansions with indoor plumbing, multiple bathrooms, running water, and early heating. Journalist and social reformer Jacob Riis captured the contrast in photographs, showing what life looked like for those who built the Gilded Age’s wealth but reaped little of it. His stark images, along with the work of other reformers and activists, helped draw attention to urban poverty and spurred the housing and labor reforms of the Progressive Era, a period of political reform and social progress leading up to the 1920s.

Which Ancient Philosopher Are You?

Socrates lecturing in prison — Credit: PRISMA ARCHIVO/ Alamy Stock Photo

Author Bess Lovejoy

August 27, 2025

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Ever wondered which great mind from the ancient world you’d click with at a symposium — or at least, whose philosophy you’d share? While we can’t all spend our days debating under olive trees or meditating in mountaintop monasteries, we can tap into the timeless wisdom of the ancients. From Greece to India to China, these thinkers shaped how humanity has wrestled with life’s biggest questions.

Read on to see which of the six philosophical giants — three from the East, three from the West — matches your own worldview.

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Confucius: The Harmony Builder

This Chinese sage emphasized morality, respect, and proper conduct, believing that a harmonious community begins with each individual fulfilling their role. For Confucius (551-479 BCE), ethics and etiquette weren’t stuffy rules — they were the glue holding families, friendships, and nations together. His wisdom suggests that cultivating kindness and order in daily life can ripple outward to shape the entire world, one thoughtful action at a time.

You might be Confucius if:

You believe rules and traditions exist for a reason.
You value respect for elders and the wisdom of the past.
You think a healthy society starts with strong families and ethical leaders.

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Laozi: The Flow Master

If you think forcing things only makes them harder, Laozi (circa sixth century BCE) is your kindred spirit. The legendary author of the Tao Te Ching taught that the best way to live is in harmony with the Tao — the natural flow of the universe. He championed simplicity, patience, and noninterference, believing that strength often comes from yielding, like water wearing down stone. Laozi’s philosophy whispers that the less you cling, the more life unfolds in your favor — and that sometimes doing nothing is the wisest move of all.

You might be Laozi if:

You’d rather take the scenic route than fight traffic.
You believe in working with nature rather than against it.
You’ve been accused of being too chill (and you’re fine with that).

Nāgārjuna: The Master of the Middle Way

A Buddhist philosopher, Nāgārjuna (circa 150-250 CE) developed the doctrine of śūnyatā, or “emptiness,” meaning that nothing has an independent, permanent essence. This wasn’t nihilism — it was a call to let go of rigid thinking and live with compassion and balance. If you think that clinging to extremes only leads to trouble, Nāgārjuna might be your philosophical twin. He believed reality is interdependent and constantly changing, so the wisest path lies in the “Middle Way,” avoiding rigid views on either side. Nāgārjuna’s work invites you to step lightly through life, seeing everything as both real and not entirely solid, like walking across a bridge made of mist and knowing it can still carry you.

You might be Nāgārjuna if:

You think labels and categories oversimplify reality.
You’re comfortable with paradox.
You seek liberation from suffering — not just for yourself, but for others too.

Socrates: The Questioner

If you’re the kind of person who answers every question with another question, you might relate to Socrates (470-399 BCE). This Athenian thinker believed that true wisdom came from recognizing your own ignorance, and he used relentless questioning — the “Socratic method” — to help others uncover their own beliefs and assumptions. To him, conversation was a tool for transformation, not just chitchat.

You might be Socrates if:

You ask “why?” at least five times in every conversation.
You’d rather debate than make small talk.
You suspect certainty is overrated.

Plato: The Idealist

If you often find yourself wondering about the perfect version of everything — justice, love, even chairs — you might feel an affinity for Plato (427-347 BCE). A student of Socrates, he believed that the world we see is just a shadow of a higher reality filled with perfect “Forms.” For him, philosophy was about turning away from illusions and seeking the truth behind appearances. Plato’s ideas encourage you to look beyond what’s in front of you and strive toward the ideal, even if you never quite get there, because the pursuit itself can be transformative.

You might be Plato if:

You’re always searching for deeper meaning.
You love talking about abstract concepts such as justice, beauty, or the nature of the soul.
You can’t stop wondering if our world is just a shadow of a better one.

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Aristotle: The Realist

If you like your life advice to come with a detailed plan and a few charts, you’re probably most like Aristotle (384-322 BCE). A student of Plato and tutor to Alexander the Great, Aristotle was all about studying the natural world, human behavior, and logic to figure out how to live well. He believed in the “golden mean” — a balanced life between excess and deficiency — as the path to virtue. Aristotle’s work suggests that if you want to flourish, you need to think practically, observe carefully, and keep your moral compass calibrated.

You might be Aristotle if:

You like practical wisdom more than lofty ideals.
You think virtue is a habit you build, not a state you magically achieve.
You enjoy classifying things — whether it’s plants, moral virtues, or pizza toppings.

Are the ‘Jurassic Park’ Dinosaurs Realistic?

“Jurassic Park,” 1993 — Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd/ Alamy Stock Photo

Author Nicole Villeneuve

August 27, 2025

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When Jurassic Park premiered in June 1993, it wasn’t just another summer blockbuster. Many of us still remember sitting in the theater, popcorn in hand, in awe as a shockingly lifelike brachiosaur appeared. The dinosaur moved, ate, and roared across the screen with a realism we’d never seen before.

Director Steven Spielberg worked closely with paleontologists such as Jack Horner to base the film in modern scientific understanding, but as Horner himself has said, “We weren’t trying to make a documentary.” Today, more than 30 years and six sequels later, the question is still on our minds: Are Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs more science or spectacle?

T. Rex and Raptors

The Tyrannosaurus rex was the undisputed star of the original film. Speaking with NPR recently, paleontologist Matt Lamanna called its depiction “pretty awesome,” with its size, shape, and most behaviors reflecting what paleontologists understand today. But one of the movie’s most famous lines — “He can’t see us if we don’t move” — suggests the predator’s vision is based solely on movement, which isn’t quite true. Fossils show that the T. rex had forward-facing eyes, and the shape of the dino’s skull means it likely had excellent depth perception. In fact, scientists think it may have had among the best eyesight of any dinosaur.

More recent discoveries also suggest the T. rex, along with most dinosaurs, may have had feathers. While it’s likely that earlier Tyrannosaurus species had more significant plumage, T. rex, which lived later in the Cretaceous Period, could still have had feathers along its back.

Feathers — or the lack thereof — play an even bigger role with velociraptors, perhaps the most exaggerated dino in the franchise. In reality, these dinos were covered in feathers and only about the size of a turkey. The film also gave the raptors down-facing hands, but paleontologists say that their palms would have faced each other (as would a T. rex’s), as theropods were known as clappers, not slappers.

Jurassic Park’s sneaky, scaly raptors were actually based on their larger cousin deinonychus. Some details were on point, though: According to fossil records, the raptors’ sickle-shaped claws were accurate, and like the movie versions, real velociraptors were indeed thought to be smart, fast, and ferocious, though probably more solitary than the pack hunters that terrorized the cast.

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More Fiction Than Fact

Other creative liberties were taken with the dinos in the original Jurassic Park. The Dilophosaurus, for instance, was one of the 1993 film’s most memorable creatures despite being only partially similar to the real thing. The movie did keep the dinosaur’s distinctive twin skull crests, but the scene-stealing frilled neck and venom-spitting were purely fictional.

Later Jurassic World films also introduced entirely new species: Hybrids such as the Indominus rex, the indoraptor, and most recently, the malformed Distortus rex and Mutadon — a combination of a pterosaur and a velociraptor — from 2025’s Jurassic World Rebirth, mix multiple dinosaurs together purely for entertainment.

The dinosaurs’ voices throughout the franchise were also Hollywood creations. The T. rex’s terrifying roar? Sound designer Gary Rydstrom made it from layers of baby elephant squeals, alligator growls, and other animal noises. Scientists think the real predator most likely would have made deep, low-frequency rumbles that might be felt more than heard.

An Evolving Scientific Understanding

Jurassic Park deeply shaped how people imagined dinosaurs — inaccuracies and all. But the park’s dinosaurs were never meant to be exact reconstructions; they’re lab-built hybrids, after all, patched together with other species’ DNA. Compared to previous depictions, though, the portrayals in the 1993 film were groundbreaking, turning dinosaurs from largely imaginary reptiles to dynamic animals (and, of course, iconic movie monsters).

Over the years, the films in the franchise have begun to flirt with updated paleontological understandings of the animals, too. In 2022, Jurassic World Dominion finally gave us a feathered pyroraptor, a detailed feat of practical and digital effects that helped bring an otherwise unseen prehistoric world to life.

Surprising Facts About Every U.S. President

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Andrew Johnson

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Chester A. Arthur

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William Howard Taft

Woodrow Wilson

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Herbert Hoover

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Harry S. Truman

Dwight D. Eisenhower

John F. Kennedy

Lyndon B. Johnson

Richard Nixon

Gerald Ford

Jimmy Carter

Ronald Reagan

George H.W. Bush

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George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump

Joe Biden

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