The Fascinating History of Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada sign

Author Mark DeJoy

March 14, 2024

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Since the middle of the 20th century, Las Vegas has been known as the capital of the American id. Gambling has long been at the center of its appeal, as nicknames such as “Sin City” and “Lost Wages” suggest. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is the city’s well-known slogan, while others have remarked, “Las Vegas is where losers come to win, and winners come to lose.”

Rising up from the Nevada desert, the city’s built environment is so extravagant that it’s difficult to imagine a time when its spectacle did not exist, fully formed. Let’s go back and trace the origins of this uniquely American city.

A Desert Oasis

Even though Las Vegas occupies a unique place in American culture, its metropolitan origin was sparked by the same thing that gave rise to many other U.S. cities: the development of the railroad. The area that includes present-day Nevada became a United States territory with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the U.S. war with Mexico. Despite its location in the basin of the Mojave Desert, the site of what is now Las Vegas was a sort of oasis — a valley that included a water source in the form of artesian springs.

The water source was the selling point for railroad magnate and U.S. Senator William Clark. In 1902, he bought 2,000 acres of land and water rights in order to create a waypoint for the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad he incorporated to connect those cities. The railroad line through Nevada began construction in 1904, and the following year, Clark auctioned off parcels of his land, which was located east of the railroad tracks.

Around the same time, civil engineer John T. McWilliams was attempting to build a township west of the railroad tracks. Though he was working with far less acreage than Clark — 80 acres to Clark’s 2,000 — the development provoked competition and intensified Clark’s efforts to build his township. Clark offered refunds on the $16 train fare to town in order to attract buyers. Newspaper advertisements promised, “Get into line early. Buy now, double your money in 60 days,” though accounts differ on which of the two were commissioning that ad.

Ultimately, McWilliams couldn’t really compete. After all, Clark owned the water rights and far more land, and he had a major stake in the railroad. On September 5, 1905, a fire almost completely consumed McWilliams’ townsite, and ensured that the competition between the two was short-lived; development would be concentrated west of the railroad tracks. Clark formed the Las Vegas Land & Water Company with his partners, and vowed, “I will leave no stone unturned and spare myself no personal effort to do all that lies within my power to foster and encourage the growth and development of Las Vegas.”

Gambling, Divorce, and the Hoover Dam

Clark’s dramatic statement might sound like a natural lead-up to building the bombastic city we know today. But that’s not quite what happened. Over the next 25 years, Las Vegas settled into an existence as a quasi company town, with railroad and mining as the main industries and a population of about 2,300. Clark sold his share of the railroad to Union Pacific in 1921, living in retirement for four more years until his death at age 86.

The 1920s were a tumultuous decade for Las Vegas nearly from the outset. In 1921, Union Pacific cut 60 jobs in the wake of its acquisition of the railroad. President Warren G. Harding’s incoming administration also meant new appointments to the Railroad Labor Board, and the board approved a series of wage cuts for railroad workers. In the meantime, a post-World War I downturn in mining further impacted Las Vegas. Then, in what is largely viewed as a retaliatory move, Union Pacific moved its repair shops out of Las Vegas and to Caliente, Nevada, costing hundreds of jobs.

With a dire economic outlook impacting the entire state, Nevada revisited the legalization of gambling, which had been legal from its statehood in 1869 up until 1910. With greater public support for relegalizing gambling than previous efforts had, a bill to legalize “wide open” gambling passed in both the state Assembly and Senate, and on March 19, 1931, Governor Fred Balzar signed it into law. That same year, divorce laws were loosened to permit anyone with a six-week residency in the state to legally divorce. And just one year earlier, construction had begun on the Hoover Dam, bringing an influx of thousands of workers to the area, many of whom would take the short trip to Las Vegas to try their luck with the newly legalized games. With this confluence of events, the Las Vegas we know today began to take shape.

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Organized Crime and the Strip

The decriminalization of gambling made Las Vegas an attractive destination to experienced gambling operators, some of whom were running criminal enterprises in other states. One such figure was the archetypal crooked cop Guy McAfee, a Los Angeles vice squad officer who fled to Las Vegas to escape prosecution for running gambling and prostitution rings — the exact vice he was supposed to be policing. Arriving in town in 1938, he bought the Pair-O-Dice Club on Highway 91 and renamed it the 91 Club, delaying its grand opening to 1939 in order to coincide with Ria Langham's six-week residency for divorcing Clark Gable.

McAfee was responsible for two enduring pieces of Las Vegas culture: He opened the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street, ushering in an era of grandiose casinos, and he is also credited with nicknaming Highway 91 “the Strip.” The Golden Nugget opened in 1946, about a year after the Nevada Legislature created the first casino license stipulating a 1% tax rate on gross gaming revenue in excess of $3,000.

The lucrative gaming industry began to attract heavier organized crime players beyond McAfee. Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel arrived in Las Vegas intending to create a base of operations for the notorious Syndicate, which, at the time, was led by Meyer Lansky during a period when Salvatore “Lucky” Luciano was in prison. Using funds from the Syndicate, Siegel became the primary stakeholder in the construction of a casino on Highway 91 to rival the Golden Nugget. Siegel wanted it to depart from the Old West aesthetic of most casinos of the time, and instead be patterned after the tropical resorts the Syndicate backed in Havana, Cuba. He dubbed it the Flamingo, and hoped to set a new standard for opulence in line with Siegel’s own worldview. “Class, that’s the only thing that counts in life," he once said. “Without class and style, a man’s a bum, he might as well be dead.”

Lavish attention to detail and poor business management contributed to enormous cost overruns, and bad luck compromised the Flamingo’s opening and its ability to quickly recoup costs. Maybe because of the money, maybe for a number of other possible motives that are debated to this day, Bugsy Siegel was gunned down while reading the newspaper in a Beverly Hills mansion on June 21, 1947. The murder was a national sensation, covered in tabloids and TIME magazine alike. LIFE magazine ran a gruesomely iconic full-page photo of the crime scene in its article about the murder. The case, Crime Case #46176 in the Beverly Hills Police Department, is still open and unsolved.

In a tellingly quick matter of minutes after Siegel’s murder, other Syndicate bosses took over the Flamingo. The resort eventually became profitable — so much so that the Syndicate began building more casino-resorts on the Strip. Organized crime had taken hold in Las Vegas, and the era of the swanky, entertainment-oriented hotel-casino was born. The mob invested in more casinos; the Sands Hotel and Casino opened in 1952 and brought in the “Rat Pack” (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford) for a high-profile residency. The Dunes, Riviera, and New Frontier opened in 1955; the Tropicana followed in 1957, and the Stardust opened a year later. Each had ties with organized crime syndicates from around the country.

The Fall of the Mob

Despite the sensational murder of Bugsy Siegel, the mob’s involvement in casinos, hotels, restaurants, and other Vegas businesses expanded, and more gangsters arrived in the city throughout the 1960s and ’70s. But in the late ’60s, billionaire Howard Hughes bought a series of mob-connected casinos — the Desert Inn, the Sands, Castaways, Frontier, the Silver Slipper, and Landmark — that shifted the balance of casino ownership in the city from mob-connected to corporate-owned. In 1969, the Nevada Legislature promoted corporate ownership of casinos, and in 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (commonly known as RICO), which aided the U.S. Justice Department in cracking down on organized crime.

During the ’70s, high-profile car and restaurant bombings between rival gangs unsettled the city to the point of attracting the attention of the FBI. The Nevada Gaming Commission and the Nevada Gaming Control Board refocused on organized crime, and Governor Mike O’Callaghan made it a point of emphasis. A RICO case focused on mobster Anthony Spilotro and Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, whose connections ran from Chicago mob families to others throughout the Midwest. By 1981, Spilotro’s operations had been broken up, and the mob was all but finished in Las Vegas.

Credit: Frank Edwards/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

The Rise of the Corporate Mega-Resort

Billionaire businessman Kirk Kerkorian bought the Flamingo in 1967, and in 1969, he opened the massive International Hotel. It was the largest hotel in the country, with 1,500 rooms and a 4,200-seat showroom. For its grand opening, he brought in Barbra Streisand, and then followed that by bringing in Elvis Presley for a famed residency — 837 consecutive sold-out performances over seven years — that set an enduring record. The same year, Kerkorian bought Hollywood’s venerable MGM Studio, and set out to build a themed resort in Las Vegas based on the production house.

With all of the buying and building, Kerkorian incurred enormous costs, so to help balance the ledger, he sold the Flamingo (and later the International Hotel as well) to the Hilton Hotel Corporation. The success of the Flamingo Hilton caught the attention of other major hotel corporations, such as Sheraton and Holiday Inn, and they too began opening casino-hotels in the city. In 1973, Kerkorian opened the MGM Hotel-Casino, which eclipsed the International Hotel in grandeur, boasting 2,100 rooms, eight restaurants, two showrooms, and the (at the time) world’s largest casino. It was the largest resort in the world, and Las Vegas’ first mega-resort.

During the rest of the ’70s and into the ’80s, development on the Strip stagnated. But Las Vegas itself was growing: From 1985 to 1995, the city’s population nearly doubled, increasing to around 368,360. Using junk bonds in 1989, developer Steve Wynn reinvigorated the Strip by building the most ostentatious mega-resort yet: the Mirage Resort and Casino. A 29-story Y-shaped tower with 3,044 rooms, a 1,500-seat showroom, and waterfalls, it also had a simulated volcano that would “erupt” every 15 minutes after sundown. That same year, Kerkorian announced plans for a new MGM Grand, which was completed in 1991 and took the mantle as Las Vegas’ largest casino, with even more over-the-top touches including a lion zoo and heavyweight boxing arena.

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An Entertainment Capital

The 1990s were a transitional era in Vegas, as many of the midcentury casino icons were razed in favor of constructing new family-friendly mega-resorts, representing a commitment toward broader entertainment tourism, rather than singular gambling. The Sands was imploded and replaced by the Venetian; similarly, the Dunes was replaced by the Bellagio, and the Hacienda was replaced by Mandalay Bay Resort. In true Las Vegas fashion, each implosion was a spectator event. The Hacienda implosion was even scheduled at 9 p.m. on December 31, 1996, in order to coincide with the new year on the East Coast. Most of the casino implosions were televised, and the videos can still be viewed on local TV news channel websites.

Today, Las Vegas continues to broaden its scope. Professional sports leagues have ended their historical aversion to placing teams in the city, as seen by the NHL awarding the expansion team the Las Vegas Golden Knights in 2017, the WNBA’s San Antonio Stars relocating to Las Vegas and becoming the Aces in 2018, and the NFL’s iconic franchise the Raiders relocating to Las Vegas in 2020. Major League Baseball’s Athletics are likely to follow. Las Vegas is now known as a city with an excellent fine-dining scene, with a number of chefs up as semifinalists for 2024 James Beard Awards. And the only place in town the mob exists now is in a museum.

5 Essential Films About the Vietnam War

On set of “Apocalypse Now”

Author Michael Nordine

March 14, 2024

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War movies have existed for as long as cinema itself, with 1898’s 38-second Tearing Down the Spanish Flag beginning a tradition that continues to this day. And while World War II has likely inspired more films than any other conflict, the latter half of the Vietnam War took place during an especially fruitful period in the movie industry: the director-driven New Hollywood era, a time when young, ambitious filmmakers were given unprecedented control over their work. As this era was largely youth-driven, it naturally follows that some of its most important movies were about a watershed event in American history that younger audiences had on their mind whether at the movies or elsewhere — especially those who had to register for the draft.

The list of filmmakers who responded to that growing sense of disenchantment includes Michael Cimino, Francis Ford Coppola, and Stanley Kubrick, all of whom contributed to the canon of great movies about the Vietnam War. Here are five of the very best.

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The Deer Hunter (1978)

The first thing to know about The Deer Hunter is its cast, led by Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, and John Cazale — who only appeared in five films throughout his too-short career, all five of which were nominated for Best Picture. The second is how heartbreaking it is. As personal as it is political, The Deer Hunter begins in a small Pennsylvania town before shifting the action to Vietnam, where three close friends from that tight-knit community meet tragically different fates. Not all the tragedy takes place onscreen: Cazale’s scenes were shot first, as he was dying of cancer when production began; the studio wanted to replace the actor, but both Cimino and Steep (who was in a relationship with Cazale) threatened to leave if they did. He didn’t live to see the completed film.

He likely would have been proud if he had, as The Deer Hunter is a powerful reminder that war doesn’t always end on the battlefield. It won five of the nine Academy Awards it was nominated for — including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Walken — and was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1996.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

“My film is not about Vietnam,” Francis Ford Coppola famously said of his long-in-the-making Apocalypse Now. “It is Vietnam.” As quite possibly the most acclaimed filmmaker of the 1970s, having previously directed the first two Godfather movies as well as The Conversation, Coppola had a commitment to the project that led to astronomically high expectations. Production nearly spiraled out of control, and Coppola later remarked that “we were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane.”

A loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now follows a disenchanted Army captain (Martin Sheen) who’s been given the unenviable task of assassinating a rogue colonel (Marlon Brando) whose fanatically loyal troops concur with his assessment that he’s become a kind of god. What follows is strange, harrowing, and unforgettable. Though initial reviews were divided, Apocalypse Now won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Its reputation has only grown with time, and the film is now regarded as one of the greatest war movies ever made.

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Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

War comedies are few and far between for self-evident reasons — the subject matter doesn’t exactly lend itself to laughter — but there are some exceptions. Good Morning, Vietnam is among the most notable, not least because of Robin Williams’ performance as a DJ for the Armed Forces Radio Service. He raises the morale of troops just as he raises the ire of higher-ups, making him both a folk hero and a problem to be solved. Williams, playing the real-life Adrian Cronauer, improvised many of the radio broadcasts that serve as the film’s centerpiece, earning him a Golden Globe and his first Oscar nomination.

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

The poster says it all: a helmet with “born to kill” written next to a peace sign. Only Stanley Kubrick could make a movie like Full Metal Jacket, a Vietnam epic that begins with the most disturbing portrayal of boot camp you’ll ever see and ends with traumatized soldiers singing the “Mickey Mouse March.” Kubrick, whose nonpareil filmography includes everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining to Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange, read Gustav Hasford’s 1979 novel The Short-Timers twice in 1982 before deciding to adapt it — a process that included just the sort of extensive research for which the meticulous filmmaker was known.

Divided into two sections — the first at basic training, the second in Vietnam — Full Metal Jacket introduced the world to R. Lee Ermey, a former drill sergeant whose haunting performance became the measuring stick for all such characters past and present.

Da 5 Bloods (2020)

Movies about the Vietnam War aren’t as common today as they were in the 1970s and ’80s, when the conflict was either still ongoing or fresh in the memory. But Spike Lee has never cared what was en vogue, and Da 5 Bloods — about a group of Black soldiers who return to Vietnam to exhume the treasure they buried there during the war — is a highlight of his uniquely impressive filmography. That’s thanks in large part to standout performances from Delroy Lindo and Chadwick Boseman (in one of the Black Panther star’s final roles before his untimely passing), who bring the director’s vision to vibrant life.

A Brief History of UFO Sightings

UFO newspaper headline

Author Tony Dunnell

March 14, 2024

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UFOs aren’t just a modern phenomenon: If we look back through history, we find that people have reported seeing unidentified flying objects since ancient times. In classical Greece and Rome, the philosopher Plutarch wrote of flaming spears and shields that moved in formation in the heavens; the historian Livy told of a “phantom navy” seen shining in the sky; and the writer Julius Obsequens told of golden spheres of fire that flew through the air. It’s only far more recently, however, that the idea of UFOs as an indication of extraterrestrial life has become established in the wider public consciousness — whether we believe in visitations from little green men or not.

Scientifically and statistically speaking, there’s a rational argument to be made for the existence of intelligent species in the universe apart from ourselves. When it comes to UFOs, however, the question is whether these species have actually crossed the vast expanse of space to visit Earth. This is where things get complicated. As the scientist Enrico Fermi posited in his famous Fermi paradox, if there are other civilizations spread throughout the galaxy, then why haven’t we heard from them? Scientists continue to tackle the question, with theories such as the “Great Filter” (that alien civilizations have existed but were wiped out) and the “zoo hypothesis” (that extraterrestrial life exists, but is choosing not to contact Earth). Then there are the ufologists and budding Fox Mulders out there who argue that the aliens are already here — that UFOs are spacecraft from other worlds, and the truth is out there for anyone willing to accept it.

The modern history of UFOs is, of course, full of tantalizing details that have convinced many to believe that actual UFOs of the extraterrestrial variety have visited Earth and continue to do so. According to recent polling, 42% of Americans believe in UFOs, and most of these Americans believe that unidentified flying objects are alien spacecraft visiting Earth from other planets or galaxies. Here are some of the most pivotal events in the history of UFOs — events that have helped convince many people that aliens are indeed among us.

Kenneth Arnold and the Flying Saucers

On June 24, 1947, a private pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying close to Mount Rainier in Washington state when he saw nine shiny, circular objects flying in formation. Each object was about 100 feet across, and each one flew at what he estimated as about 1,200 miles per hour (roughly twice as fast as any known aircraft at the time). The report was soon picked up by the Associated Press, which described Arnold’s strange sighting of “nine bright saucer-like objects.” The story then exploded across the United States, with the new term “flying saucers” on everyone’s lips. Just like that, the modern age of UFO sightings had begun.

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The Roswell Incident

Ten days before Kenneth Arnold saw his flying saucers, a rancher named W.W. “Mac” Brazel and his son were driving across their ranchland about 80 miles northwest of Roswell, New Mexico. They came across a patch of land in the desert strewn with rubber strips and metallic-looking, lightweight fabric. Baffled, they returned home. It wasn’t until weeks later on July 4 that they returned to collect the debris—unaware of the nationwide flying saucer fervor that had recently begun—which they then delivered to the local sheriff. From there, things escalated quickly, and the case passed up through the military ranks until it reached the commander of the Eighth Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas. Then, the Air Force made a curious decision. Rather than admit the true nature of the wreckage — it was a crashed Air Force balloon that was part of the secretive Project Mogul — they released an extraordinary press release stating they had recovered a “flying disk.”

Naturally, the story spread like wildfire. The Air Force soon tried to backtrack, stating that it was actually a weather balloon carrying a radar target, but the damage had been done. To this day, conspiracy theories permeate the so-called Roswell incident, which in some accounts has been embellished to include recovered gray aliens and extraterrestrial technology.

Project Blue Book

Following Kenneth Arnold’s flying saucer sighting, the Roswell Incident, and the general furor surrounding UFOs that began in the late-1940s, the United States Air Force launched a systematic investigation into unidentified flying objects. Known as Project Blue Book, it was the first large-scale government investigation into UFOs. Formed in 1952, the project investigated 12,618 reported sightings that occurred between 1947 and the project’s termination in 1969. Most of the cases were found to be caused by weather balloons, swamp gases, meteorological events, or temperature inversions. But more than 700 Project Blue Book entries could not be explained by investigators. In the end, the project appeared to be a refreshingly open examination of UFO phenomena, as it was open to the public and not conducted in secret, yet it ultimately provided even more fodder for the ufologists.

The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill

On a September night in 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were driving along an empty country road in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. All was normal, apart from a strange light in the sky that appeared to be following them. When they stopped, the light — which Betty described as a “spinning disk” — came closer until it was right above them. They drove off in a panic, dazed and groggy from the experience, and when they arrived home they realized that the journey had taken two hours longer than it should have. Two years later, they finally talked publicly about the incident. As media interest grew, the Hills underwent hypnosis, revealing further details about their supposed abduction: a flying disk, gray beings, metal tables, and bodily probing. The story was turned into a bestselling book and later a movie (The Interrupted Journey and The UFO Incident, respectively) which helped establish the incident as the archetypal abduction case.

The Rendlesham Forest

In 1980, United States Air Force personnel stationed at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, England, saw a series of strange lights in the nearby Rendlesham Forest. The first sightings occurred on the night of December 26. When Air Force security guards went to investigate, they saw what one of them described as a red, oval, sunlike object in a clearing in the woods, which then lifted up through the trees and shot back toward the coast. Over the next couple of days, servicemen went back into the forest to investigate further. They found impressions on the ground in a triangular shape as well as burned and broken trees. Then, in the early hours of December 28, things got even stranger. The deputy base commander described how a flashing light seemed to descend upon him and his colleagues, and how three bright objects hovered just above the horizon, occasionally emitting streams of light down to the ground. The Rendlesham Forest incident, often referred to as “Britain’s Roswell,” remains an extremely strange case — and one of the most famous UFO sightings in history.

The Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

In 2020, the Pentagon officially released three short UFO videos shot from U.S. Navy fighter jets showing “unidentified aerial phenomena” (“UAP” now being the government’s preferred term for UFOs). The videos had been released previously by a private company, but this was the first time the Pentagon officially acknowledged their existence. Naturally, these videos garnered a great deal of media and public attention, which in turn prompted the Pentagon to take the whole UFO/UAP situation more seriously. For the first time since Project Blue Book, a major investigation was launched, culminating in the unclassified “2022 Annual Report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.” The report covered 510 cataloged UAP sightings from branches of the United States military. Of those, 171 remained “uncharacterized and unattributed,” with some described as demonstrating “unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities.” It’s certainly an intriguing turn of events, and people are once again looking to the skies in search of UFOs.

Why There Are So Many French Words in English

French lesson on chalkboard

Author Nicole Villeneuve

March 12, 2024

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English is one of the most predominant languages in the world, spoken by about 400 million people as their native tongue and by more than a billion others as a second language. Shaped by various linguistic influences over many centuries, English traces all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European language, which linguists believe originated in Eurasia around 4500 to 2500 BCE. It evolved into the Old English spoken by the Germanic tribes of Northern Europe, and transformed after the Norman Conquest of England — one of the most significant turning points in the evolution of the English language. While the Germanic languages remain foundational elements of English, the French influence is surprisingly strong. Here’s how so many French words found their way into the modern English language — making French one of the easiest languages for an English speaker to learn on platforms such as Babbel.

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The Norman Conquest

On October 14, 1066, William I of Normandy — known to history as William the Conqueror — invaded and defeated England in the Battle of Hastings. The Normans introduced a new ruling class; William was crowned king of England on December 25, 1066, and Norman nobility replaced King Harold II’s Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. The takeover marked the beginning of Norman rule and a major shift in English society — including its language.

The Normans, who were of Viking descent but had settled in the Normandy region of France, spoke Old Norman (a dialect of Old French), which largely derived from Latin. Following William’s conquest, and for the next 300 years, Old French — at that point known in England as Anglo-Norman — became the primary language spoken by English monarchs, elites, and government officials. Latin was also used, typically by the church and intellectuals, and it served as the primary language of written record. English, however, remained the primary language of everyday people, and over time, it started to become infused with the language of their rulers.

Thousands of French Words

This period of linguistic amalgamation gave rise to the language known as Middle English. From around 1250 to 1400, a distinct new dialect began to take shape in England. Writing styles were heavily influenced by the French (or Latin) writing conventions; pronunciations shifted, and a substantial influx of French vocabulary cemented itself into the English language. It’s estimated that, during Norman rule, some 10,000 French words were adopted into English; about three-fourths of them are still used today. Given the English language is always changing and evolving, there is no real consensus for how many English words exist, but some linguists would estimate around 1 million words, roughly 30% or more of which come from French. The French influence remains so pervasive, it’s estimated that English speakers without any French language education may already know around 15,000 French words.

What French Words Are Still Used in English?

The influence of the French language on the development of modern English is still strongly felt. Words used today that originated with the Norman Conquest range from everyday terms used in law (“justice,” “attorney,” “judge”), government (“regime,” “parliament”), and the arts (“ballet,” “oeuvre”), to food (“beef,” “cuisine”) and fashion (“petite,” “chic”). Of course, given the Normans’ prestige, it’s no surprise that words such as “duke,” “countess,” “throne,” and, on the other end of the status spectrum, even “servant” are also of French origin.

French has influenced more than just the modern English vocabulary, however. It also changed pronunciation in many ways — such as not pronouncing a final unaccented “e” on a word, as well as how “g” now sounds in words such as “mirage.” Grammar and spelling were impacted, too: For instance, titles such as “consul general” retained the French manner of following a noun with the adjective, while words such as “queen” and “should” were spelled as “cwen” and “scolde” in Old English, until the French influence changed the language landscape forever.

England’s Latin, Old French, and Middle English trilingualism remained common until around the 15th century, when London and its dialect gained visibility in literary works from the likes of William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer. It ushered in a new phase of the language known as Early Modern English, which is closely related to the English we know today.

Whether it’s French or another language you’re interested in, Babbel can transform your language-learning journey. Become a confident speaker in just three weeks with Babbel's quick and engaging 10-minute lessons.

Surprising Dating Etiquette From the 1950s

Couple sharing a soda pop

Author Nicole Villeneuve

March 7, 2024

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The world of dating has undergone significant changes throughout history, from arranged couplings in ancient Egypt to medieval courtship to the modern-day use of technology to find a partner. In the 1950s, dating was governed by a set of traditions and rules that reflected a postwar society that emphasized stability and conformity, and was largely influenced by the era’s adherence to traditional gender roles. Men were expected to take the lead, covering the bills and demonstrating chivalry, while women were held to standards of modesty and femininity.

Though they may feel antiquated compared to more recent moves toward gender equality, independence, and a rejection of rigid cultural norms, the conventions that defined dating in the ’50s are fascinating to look back on. Here are some of the rules that defined dating etiquette in the 1950s.

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Women Didn’t Order for Themselves

The dynamics of a dinner date were markedly different in the 1950s. In a recovered ’50s article from British magazine Woman’s Own, a guide titled “How To Behave in a Restaurant” outlined a number of rules that applied to all male-female relationships, “whether he is your father, brother or boyfriend.” Women were expected to be demure and reserved, telling their male counterparts — the protectors and providers — what they wanted and allowing the man to place the order with the wait staff on their behalf.

Going out for dinner, while it did happen, wasn’t the default date at the time, especially for younger people: Group dates at sporting events, dances, or movies were the preferred way to get acquainted without spending too much time in private or spending too much money.

Men Were Expected To Pick Up the Check

Given various advancements in gender and socioeconomic equality throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, it’s no longer assumed that a man will pay for everything on a date. And while some old-fashioned opinions on the matter linger today, in the 1950s, it wasn’t even a discussion — the man was expected to foot the bill.

Men were seen as the primary breadwinners, as far fewer women were employed outside the home. The act of paying for a date symbolized their role as providers and proved their financial stability, and it was considered the gentlemanly thing to do. In her 1989 dating history book From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in 20th-Century America, author Beth L. Bailey concluded that for young girls at the time, a date “was not the event, was not the companionship, was not even being seen with the boy. A date meant being paid for.”

Family Approval Was of the Utmost Importance

In modern dating, seeking approval from friends and family doesn’t usually happen until things begin to transition from the “casual” stage to the “exclusive” stage. But 1950s dating was less of a private affair; it was a social event that often involved spending time with friends, and, most importantly, introducing a date to the girl's family.
Familial approval was imperative at the time; as Marion S. Barclay's 1950s Teen Guide to Homemakingstated, “It is a good idea to have your family meet and approve of the people you know.” The guide also stated that a potential date should be “punctual,” typically coming to the home and ringing the doorbell before departing on a date. Consistent with the etiquette of the time, this common ritual added a layer of formality to dating — one that contrasts sharply with contemporary practices.

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Women Were Discouraged From Eating Certain Foods

The arbitrary gendered ideals men and women were expected to uphold during 1950s courtship extended even to what women should and shouldn’t eat. If a date took place at a restaurant, women were encouraged to eat foods that wouldn’t make a scene.

"Fruits cause some embarrassment in restaurants,” read a ’50s dating guide from Woman's Own. “Cherries should be put in the mouth whole, and the stones carefully placed on to a spoon. Plums and other large fruits with stones should be dissected in the dish and the stone placed at the side."

Other potentially problematic foods, such as celery and cheese, could be eaten by hand as long as they were cut into small pieces first. These prescriptive recommendations reflected the broader cultural idea of a refined woman and served to reinforce the gender norms that characterized the era.

“Going Steady” Was the Ultimate Goal

“Going steady” was a hallmark of 1950s dating. This term meant that a couple had agreed to date each other exclusively, taking a major step toward a more serious relationship — often with the intent to marry. Couples abided by specific rituals to symbolize their commitment, often exchanging class rings or letterman jackets if of school or college age.

Despite the era’s formalities, the concept of going steady wasn’t exactly beloved by all: Parents often worried their teenagers weren’t dating around enough and were settling down too quickly by committing to one person exclusively. They also feared that going steady would cause teenagers to become physically intimate more quickly than if they were going on one-off casual dates. As average marriage ages gradually rose and attitudes toward sex and dating shifted throughout the 1960s and 1970s, “going steady,” like many of the decade’s dating rules, began to fall out of favor.

Meet Victoria Woodhull, the First Woman to Run for President

Victoria Woodhull

Author Kristina Wright

March 7, 2024

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Born in 1838 in Homer, Ohio, Victoria Claflin Woodhull was an outspoken and controversial figure whose legacy as a trailblazer for women’s rights, gender equality, and sexual freedom endures to this day. Not only was she a suffragist and women’s rights advocate, but she also was the first woman to run for President of the United States — at a time when women still didn’t have the right to vote. What’s more, she and her sister, Tennessee (Tennie) Claflin, became the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street and founded a newspaper together.

Despite a tumultuous childhood and a first marriage at age 15 (to Canning Woodhull, a 28-year-old doctor with whom she had two children), Woodhull went on to carve her path in history by embracing unconventional beliefs, including spiritualism and free love, while advocating for the rights of women, laborers, and the poor. Her journey from her rural Ohio home to Wall Street and beyond is as unexpected as it is interesting. Here are five facts about America’s first female presidential candidate.

Credit: MPI/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

She Supported the Free Love Movement

After divorcing Canning Woodhull, who was an alcoholic and a neglectful husband, Victoria Woodhull kept her married name and became a supporter of the free love movement. She endorsed the idea that decisions about romance and sexuality should be left to the individual, and that women should be able to choose when, or if, to marry. The movement also supported destigmatizing divorce in order to make it easier for women to leave abusive marriages, a goal that aligned with Woodhull’s desire to escape her own difficult first marriage. In 1871, Woodhull gave a speech at New York City’s Steinway Hall called “The Truth Shall Set You Free.” In it, she said, “I have an inalienable, constitutional, and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please, and with that right neither you nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere.”

She Worked as a Clairvoyant

Though she led a highly accomplished life, Woodhull received very little formal education as a child. Her father was a con man and the family made a living as traveling performers, selling homemade remedies and medicines and telling fortunes. During her marriage, Woodhull needed to earn money to supplement the household income and, in addition to more traditional jobs, she took work as a clairvoyant healer, claiming to be able to cure illness through a variety of natural and psychic remedies. It’s hard to know for sure how much of the business was an act and how much she really believed in her abilities; ever since childhood, Woodhull had claimed to be able to connect with dead spirits.

After her divorce, Woodhull continued to earn money telling fortunes and offering “magnetic healing,” often working and traveling with her sister Tennie. It was through her work as a healer during the Civil War that Woodhull met her second husband, James Harvey Blood, a Union Army veteran. While her marriage to Blood lasted only a few short years — “The grandest woman in the world went back on me,” Blood said after their divorce — another connection she made through her work as a clairvoyant, with railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, yielded a literal treasure.

Credit:Heritage Images/ Hulton Archive via Getty Images

She Was the First Woman Stockbroker on Wall Street

Thanks to valuable stock tips from Vanderbilt, Woodhull and her sister were able to amass more than $700,000 (around $16 million today), which they used to start their brokerage firm, Woodhull, Claflin, and Company, in 1870. As the first financial firm on Wall Street owned and operated by women, the company was a shocking novelty, and the press took to calling the sisters the “Bewitching Brokers” and “Queens of Finance.” The sisters went on to found a newspaper, Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, which gave Woodhull another platform to support her causes of free love, political reform, and women’s rights. The paper also published the first English translation of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

Credit: PhotoQuest/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

Her Presidential Candidacy Boosted the Cause of Women’s Rights

Woodhull’s run for President in 1872, 50 years before women gained the right to vote, may have seemed like a publicity stunt to many. Lacking the financing to mount a proper campaign, she forged ahead anyway, running on the Equal Rights Party ticket. She campaigned on a platform of women’s suffrage, an eight-hour workday, welfare for the poor, the nationalization of railroads, the regulation of monopolies, and other reforms.

It was, in the end, a symbolic campaign more than anything. Woodhull’s chosen running mate, civil rights activist Frederick Douglass, never even acknowledged the nomination. Though Woodhull’s loss was all but a certainty, the fact that she hadn’t reached the minimum age of 35 required to run for President would have rendered her ineligible even if she had achieved a majority of the votes. Ultimately, the Woodhull-Douglass ticket received a negligible number of votes, and the race resulted in the reelection of incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant.

Credit: Library of Congress/ Corbis Historical via Getty Images

She Spent the Last Half of Her Life in England

Even though she was technically ineligible to be elected President, Woodhull stands as the first woman to declare her interest in running for the highest office in the United States. But by the time the 1872 election ended, her radical beliefs and brash actions had started to impact her political reputation. Despite their initial support of Woodhull, women’s suffrage leaders, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, began to distance themselves from her, signaling the end of Woodhull’s political aspirations. Twice-divorced and facing bankruptcy, Woodhull expatriated to England with her sister in 1877. The move may have been encouraged by the heirs of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who died the previous year. Woodhull built a new life for herself in England, where she married her third husband, banker John Biddulph Martin, and was generally welcomed into aristocratic society.

Woodhull spent the remainder of her life continuing to advocate for suffrage and women’s rights, but she distanced herself from spiritualism and the free love movement. From 1892 to 1901, she and her daughter, Zula, published the journal Humanitarian, which featured a progressive agenda that offered commentary on literature, culture, science, spirituality, and politics. Woodhull also promoted the popular Victorian-era idea of eugenics, selective reproduction designed to eliminate disabilities, diseases, and other traits in the human species. Her interest in what was then called “stirpiculture” likely came from the fact that her son, Byron, had profound developmental disabilities that she attributed to her husband’s alcoholism and her own age and inexperience. Today, however, the practice of eugenics is associated with Nazi Germany and racist beliefs, further complicating the legacy of this controversial activist.

The Most Intriguing Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Author Mark DeJoy

March 7, 2024

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Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics have long captured the imaginations of scholars and casual observers alike, and efforts to translate them date back to the ninth century CE. Yet hieroglyphics remained mostly indecipherable until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799. Early progress was made by English polymath Thomas Young in the 1810s, and French linguist Jean-François Champollion completed a breakthrough translation that he presented in Paris on September 27, 1822.

The accuracy of Champollion’s translation was a watershed moment that enabled a greater understanding of hieroglyphs, leading to deeper and wider-ranging study. In 1927, English Egyptologist Alan Gardiner published the reference work Egyptian Grammar, which included an appendix compiling the major hieroglyphs and their meanings, known as Gardiner’s Sign List, a reference standard still used today.

You don’t need to have a complete understanding of exactly how hieroglyphs function amid the rules of grammar in order to find them fascinating, though. Many symbols represent items that in turn provide glimpses into life in ancient Egypt and its advanced state as a civilization. The following hieroglyphs do just that — and we’ll use the names and reference points from Gardiner’s list to help illuminate them.

Y6: Board Game Piece

The hieroglyph numbered Y6 in Gardiner’s Sign List is a simple pointed oblong shape that isn’t especially visually compelling. But it represents a board game piece (in Gardiner’s text, a “draughtman” for a “draught board”), and there’s something undeniably intriguing about a hieroglyph that proves board games existed thousands of years ago. The piece depicted in this hieroglyph was either for a game called senet net hab (usually referred to as senet), or for a game called twenty squares.

Senet was a spiritually significant game, as “senet net hab” translates to “game of passing through.” The game is thought to represent the progression from life to the afterlife. Queen Nefertari’s tomb contains a painting depicting her playing senet against an invisible opponent; King Tutankhamun was buried with at least five senet boards.

U37: Razor

Shaving may not be an activity you’d immediately associate with ancient Egypt, but hieroglyph U37 depicts exactly that: a razor used for grooming. Depictions of shaving indicate that it was primarily undertaken by the upper class, while lower classes wore their hair untrimmed. The razors themselves were not very sharp; they were most commonly made of flint for a majority of ancient Egyptian history.

A59: Man Threatening With a Stick

An illustration of threat and potential violence, hieroglyph A59 is usually defined contextually as “to drive away.” Along with the more militaristic hieroglyphs A10-15, this glyph is reminiscent of ancient Egypt’s tendency toward corporal punishment and intimidation, a relatively little-discussed aspect of the civilization. While we know that Egypt was a punitive society, and its laws were decreed by the pharaoh, we do not know what the actual Egyptian code of law was: Artifacts have been found documenting legal transactions, but no documents describing an overarching legal code remain in existence.

A36: Man Kneading and Straining Into a Vessel

A somewhat cryptic-looking hieroglyph at first glance, the figure leaning over a pot represents a brewer straining beer into a vessel. Beer was an integral part of ancient Egyptian culture, both as a part of the everyday diet, and as a celebratory indulgence during religious festivals. It was also important sustenance for workers — builders of the pyramids of Giza were rationed 1.3 gallons of beer each day, which equates to approximately 10 pints. There’s even clear evidence that beer in ancient Egypt was brewed to industrial-level scale. In 2021, the excavation of a roughly 5,000-year-old brewery was completed, revealing a compound that scientists estimate could produce around 20,000 liters per batch.

The beer of ancient Egypt was much sweeter than we’re accustomed to today. It was made without hops (which didn’t become a standard ingredient until the Middle Ages) and flavored with fruits such as dates, as well as a mix of herbs and spices that seem closely approximated by the modern za'atar spice mix. Of course, flavor is subjective, but those who have attempted to recreate the Egyptian beer have reported that it tastes surprisingly good.

D35: Arms in Gesture of Negation

This is an example of a hieroglyph that can have several different meanings, depending on the context. It can function as a negative modifier in a sentence, or as a preposition. It can also express concepts of unknowingness, such as forgetfulness or ignorance. But in some instances, it can function as a representation of a very specific thing: the spleen. This usage is the most intriguing for its indication that the ancient Egyptians had an advanced understanding of internal anatomy.

The Egyptians, in fact, had an advanced understanding of medicine overall. We know that they practiced surgery, diagnosed and treated diseases (even cancer), and used various plants and minerals for therapeutic measures. As this hieroglyph suggests, they also documented their medical practices, and compiled various disease remedies and findings in a number of different papyrus collections, the most famous of which is known as the Ebers papyrus. Though there was also a distinct element of folk magic mixed in, the legacy of Egyptian medicine lives in modern medical practices.

D64: Hand With Palm Down

There is some disagreement around the interpretation of hieroglyph D64. Some interpret it as simply a hand with the palm down, while others have a more gruesome take: a severed hand. There is evidence that it was an ancient Egyptian war custom to take the hands of vanquished enemy combatants as trophies to present to the pharaoh. This practice served a dual purpose of tallying defeated foes and, on a more spiritual level, preventing them from “raising their hands” against Egypt again in the afterlife.

U13: Plough

The plough hieroglyph also means “seed,” and the overarching symbolism points toward farming. Ancient Egyptians were among the earliest practitioners of agriculture, and there is evidence that suggests farming in the region may have occurred as early as 7,000 years ago. Villages in the Nile valley were raising pigs, sheep, and goats, and cultivating crops such as emmer wheat, barley, cotton, and flax. The ancient Egyptians used the emmer wheat to bake breads that were primarily shaped like flatbreads, or rolled into a conical shape (depicted by hieroglyph X8).

5 Fascinating Details That “Oppenheimer” Left Out

Cillian Murphy in “Oppenheimer”

Author Michael Nordine

March 7, 2024

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Oppenheimer was one of the most successful films of 2023, and with good reason. Christopher Nolan’s account of the “father of the atomic bomb” is a meticulous biopic and gripping thriller all at once, with its depiction of the Trinity nuclear test ranking among the most awe-inspiring visual spectacles in cinema history. After grossing an eye-popping $960 million at the box office as part of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, the movie dominated the 2024 Oscars, winning seven awards including for Best Picture, Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), and Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.).

The film didn’t tell the whole historical story, however — no single movie could — and some of the details that were omitted are as compelling as the ones that made it into the final cut. Here are five of them.

The Nuclear Fallout From Los Alamos

Developing and testing nuclear weapons is a dangerous affair, especially for the people living downwind of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team conducted their top-secret research. “Some people thought it was the end of the world,” said Paul Pino of Carrizozo, New Mexico, located some 40 miles south of Los Alamos, in an interview with NPR after the film’s release. “They thought, the sun’s coming up on the wrong side of the world.” Oppenheimer portrays the testing site as essentially barren and desolate, which isn’t exactly accurate.

The Trinity test itself was conducted 200 miles from Los Alamos in the more remote Tularosa Basin, but even that region was hardly unpopulated: Half a million people lived within 150 miles of the explosion, many of them Indigenous and Hispanic peoples, and these “downwinders” have been called the world’s first victims of nuclear fallout. These groups have reported high rates of heart disease and cancer, not to mention their cattle’s hair getting burned off and their land being covered in white dust in the wake of the actual explosion. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was passed in 1990 to address some of these concerns, but many of those affected say its parameters are too narrow and they’ve been left in the cold.

Oppenheimer and Einstein’s First Meeting

In one of the film’s best, most memorable sequences, Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein meet at Princeton University sometime in 1947 to discuss the trumped-up congressional hearings Oppenheimer is being subjected to. Though it’s mentioned that they’ve known each other for decades in this (likely fictional) conversation, we don’t actually see the origins of their professional relationship. That meeting of the minds began at the California Institute of Technology in 1932, when “Oppie” was a faculty member and Einstein visited the prestigious university. The two are said to have disagreed and debated many times throughout the next few decades, but they always respected one another.

Where the Manhattan Project Was First Discussed

Not much about the Bohemian Club is known to outsiders, which is entirely the point. An all-male private club, it has counted the likes of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Mark Twain, and Clint Eastwood among its members since it was founded in 1872. It was at Bohemian Grove, the group’s 2,700-acre restricted campground in Monte Rio, California, that Oppenheimer met with nuclear physicist Ernest Lawrence and the heads of the S-1 Executive Committee on September 13, 1942, to first discuss what became known as the Manhattan Project.

The club was left out of the film, perhaps because its inclusion could have lent a conspiratorial air to the proceedings that would have raised more questions than it answered. The Bohemian Club’s motto is “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here,” and its annual Cremation of Care ritual — in which members dress in robes, a 40-foot owl is constructed, and a body is burned in effigy to symbolize that outside concerns shouldn’t be dwelled on — is eyebrow-raising to say the least.

Oppenheimer’s Second Affair

The bizarre love triangle involving Oppenheimer, his wife Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, and his lover Jean Tatlock, a psychiatrist, adds personal intrigue to the largely political thrills depicted in Oppenheimer — especially in the wake of Tatlock’s suicide, for which Oppenheimer considered himself responsible. That didn’t stop him from stepping outside his marriage yet again, however, the second time with Office of Strategic Services (OSS) psychologist Ruth Sherman Tolman. Though the movie briefly hints at their affair, it certainly doesn’t tell the full story: Their relationship continued long after the war and had a profound effect on both of them, to say nothing of Kitty.

Credit: Central Press/ Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Oppenheimer’s Death

Though it’s told in a nonlinear fashion, Oppenheimer’s chronological end is in 1963, when its subject receives the Enrico Fermi Award from President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly a decade after having his reputation tarnished in the wake of World War II. “I think it is just possible, Mr. President, that it has taken some charity and some courage for you to make this award today,” he told Johnson upon receiving the award. (The film’s actual final scene is a flashback to 16 years earlier, when the chilling end of Oppenheimer’s conversation with Einstein is revealed.)

Oppenheimer, who smoked as many as 100 cigarettes a day and weighed only 115 pounds at the height of the Manhattan Project, was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1965 and died at the age of 62 on February 18, 1967. His memorial was attended by more than 600 mourners, and his wife Kitty dropped his cremated remains in the sea near their beach house on Saint John in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Unusual Foods People Used To Eat All the Time

Cream chipped beef toast

Author Mark DeJoy

February 28, 2024

Love it?218

In American culture, food is a lot like slang and pop music, in that it’s changed drastically over the years. Several American foods from the past come from a time of such different cultural, technological, and generational sensibilities that it can be hard to imagine encountering them today, let alone understanding their appeal. The following foods were once popular staples in the U.S. — but they might be difficult items to convince modern diners to try.

Credit: Vineyard Perspective/ Shutterstock

Poke Salad

Not to be confused with the differently pronounced Hawaiian dish of marinated raw fish, poke salad (sometimes spelled “salet” or “salud”) was made of pokeweed, a wild leafy green that has grown in Appalachia for centuries. It was a simple dish containing the boiled leaves and stalks of pokeweed, along with bacon grease, and its preparation was crucial: Pokeweed is poisonous, so boiling the plant at least twice (with new water each time) was necessary to render the greens safe to eat.

Because of the abundance of wild pokeweed and its association with toxicity, poke salad was primarily eaten in impoverished communities, and it endured as a staple well into the 20th century. In 1969, Tony Joe White’s hit song “Polk Salad Annie” positioned the dish as an emblem of rural toughness and resourcefulness in the face of poverty. Nowadays, the easier-to-prepare and similarly seasoned collard greens have endured in place of poke salad, though there are some who predict that the local foraging movement may lead to a resurgence of cooking with pokeweed.

Turtle Soup

Turtle soup remains a delicacy around the world, particularly in China and Singapore, and it was a mainstay of fine dining in the U.S. from the colonial era through the mid-20th century. Sometimes described as a clear consommé with large diced turtle meat, other times a tomato-based broth thickened with a medium-dark roux, it was nearly always served with a glass of sherry to add to the dish. Turtle soup was once so prestigious that it was served at Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, and it was a favorite of President William Howard Taft. It also reliably appeared on menus throughout the country, including New York’s storied Delmonico’s.

Though the dish’s popularity was long and its pedigree high, its decline was quick, caused by a confluence of factors. Prohibition meant the sherry that provided a key seasoning flourish was no longer available. The rise of factory farming consolidated America’s meat production to beef, chicken, and pork, due to the easier processing methods involved with those meats. Anthropomorphic turtle characters appeared in the media and created an unintended perception shift against the idea of eating turtles. And finally, the green sea turtles the dish was originally made from were classified as endangered in 1973. Turtle enthusiasts switched to the more abundant snapping turtle, but turtle soup was all but nonexistent as a fine dining item by the 1980s.

Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast

Creamed chipped beef on toast was a breakfast food, also known as S.O.S. — an acronym for a profane (and even less appetizing!) name for the dish. This meal was made from sliced dried beef (a sort of bovine-based textural equivalent of pepperoni or salami) simmered in white gravy until softened, and then ladled over a piece of toast. The ease of preparation and long shelf life of its protein made it an ideal military ration — it appears in U.S. Army cooking manuals from as early as 1910 — as well as an easy meal for households seeking frugality. This made S.O.S. particularly popular in the 1930s and ’40s during the Great Depression and World War II, when conservation was front of mind. In the middle of the 20th century, S.O.S. was a standard menu item at most diners, but it began fading with the rise of nutrition consciousness around the 1970s — perhaps because it’s neither a health food nor as indulgent as the comparable biscuits and gravy.

Limburger Sandwich

Another 20th-century diner staple, the Limburger sandwich was a classic deli sandwich (read: a cold sandwich) of Limburger cheese and raw onion on rye bread. Limburger cheese was one of the five main cheeses produced in the U.S. during the late 19th and early 20th centuries (in addition to Swiss, brick, cheddar, and American cheese), and it was known to a point of infamy for its foul aroma. It was the subject of gags by Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges, and earlier, Mark Twain compared its odor to that of a corpse in his short story “The Invalid’s Story.”

Considering the already off-putting smell of Limburger cheese, the question may not be why a sandwich of raw onion and Limburger cheese is no longer popular, but rather, why was it ever popular? Perhaps its sharp taste was enough for the appeal, odor be damned. Or maybe eating it represented a sort of machismo similar to the spicy wings of today (with pungency instead of heat). In any case, changing tastes and the odorless convenience of sliced American cheese relegated the Limburger sandwich to a strictly regional rarity in parts of Wisconsin.

Vinegar Pie

Vinegar pie is commonly placed in the category of “desperation pie” (or “make-do pie”), a Depression-era dessert made with basic pantry ingredients substituting for traditional ingredients that may have been unavailable or too expensive. Other examples of “desperation pie” include eggless sugar cream pie, green tomato pie, and oatmeal pie, which mimicked custard pie, apple pie, and pecan pie, respectively. In that context, the acid from the vinegar pie’s namesake ingredient would be a resourceful replacement for lemon.

The origin of vinegar pie wasn’t the Depression, though. A recipe for it appeared in Colorado’s The Herald Democrat as early as 1905, in cookbooks such as Maud C. Cooke’s Three Meals a Day starting in 1892, and in the 1874 compendium The Home Cook Book of Chicago. The dessert was around enough that perhaps there was more to it than sheer utility. In recent years, James Beard Award-winning chef Chris Shepherd revived vinegar pie at his Houston, Texas restaurant Underbelly, and it became the restaurant’s signature dish, with an appealingly contemporary presentation. But Underbelly closed in 2018, and with it, the vinegar pie reverted back to obscurity.

Why Is an Academy Award Called an “Oscar”?

Oscar statuettes

Author Nicole Villeneuve

February 27, 2024

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One of Hollywood’s most famous figures stands at just 13.5 inches tall, weighs only 8.5 pounds, and goes by just one name: Oscar. The famous golden statuette is awarded annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is one of the highest honors in the film industry. Like a lot of old Hollywood lore, there have been competing stories through the years about how the little gold statuette — officially named the Academy Award of Merit — got its human nickname. Here are some prevailing theories on how this prized statuette came to be known as “Oscar.”

Credit: Santi Visalli/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

The Birth of the Little Gold Man

The first Academy Awards ceremony took place in May 1929 in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and introduced the gold-plated, solid-bronze statuette that has been an iconic Hollywood image ever since. Motion picture art director Cedric Gibbons designed it, and sculptor George Stanley brought to life the knight holding a crusader’s sword, standing on a reel of film. The film reel’s five spokes represent the original five branches of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: actors, directors, producers, technicians, and writers.

Why Do We Call it an “Oscar”?

Although the Academy Awards and its traditional statuette have been around since 1929, the Oscar name wasn’t officially adopted by the academy until 1939. The exact origin of the nickname, however, is fairly murky. One widely circulated legend attributes the moniker to the academy’s first librarian and eventual executive director, Margaret Herrick. According to the story, in 1931, Herrick saw one of the statuettes on an executive's desk and said it reminded her of her Uncle Oscar. A newspaper reporter who happened to be nearby overheard Herrick, and the nickname stuck. (There are some inconsistencies in the story, however; Herrick later claimed the name Oscar came from an inside joke with her husband). Another popular, though unlikely, theory is that the actress Bette Davis said in a 1936 Academy Awards acceptance speech that the statuette’s backside resembled that of her then-husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson. And yet another oft-repeated legend is that Hollywood gossip columnist Sidney Skolsky coined the term when he used it in a 1934 story about Katharine Hepburn’s first Academy Award for Best Actress.

Credit: Andrew H. Walker/ Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images

The Award for Naming the Oscar Goes to…

According to Bruce Davis, who spent 20 years as the academy’s executive director, the Oscar nickname began to make its way through the Hollywood community sometime between 1930 and 1933 — predating Bette Davis and Sidney Skolsky’s use of the term. Davis suggests someone else entirely deserves credit for inventing the Oscar alias: a woman named Eleanore Lilleberg. Lilleberg was an academy secretary and office assistant during the award's early days, and part of her duties included managing the statuettes before the ceremony. Stories have occasionally surfaced that she jokingly called the award “Oscar,” which Davis claims is the true origin of the name. While researching his book The Academy and the Award, he came across an autobiography by Lilleberg’s brother, California artist Einar Lilleberg, at the tiny Lilleberg Museum in Green Valley, California. Einar’s text claimed that his sister referred to the awards as “Oscar” in honor of a Norwegian army veteran she knew in their hometown of Chicago. Einar described the veteran as, like the famous statuette, always "standing straight and tall."

Credit: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images

How the Academy Awards Became “the Oscars”

Since 1939, 10 years after the first Academy Awards, the AMPAS has accepted and used “the Oscars” name as the official shorthand for its annual ceremony. In 2013, for the 85th annual Academy Awards, the show dropped the lengthy original title and simply went with “the Oscars.” Neil Meron, who co-produced the 2013, 2014, and 2015 ceremonies, said the rebrand was an attempt to modernize the show. “We're not calling it the 85th annual Academy Awards, which keeps it mired somewhat in a musty way,” he said. "It'll be like the Grammys. The Grammys don't get a number, and neither will the Oscars." The colloquial new name remains in use to this day.

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