The Strangest Suggestions From Old Advice Columns

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Author Kerry Hinton

June 19, 2024

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Websites such as Reddit, Quora, and JustAnswer have ushered in what The New Yorker recently called the “age of peak advice.” But people have long had a fondness for the old-fashioned advice column. The anonymity of the forum allows answer-seekers to sidestep embarrassment and participate in a virtual confessional. The advice column gained popularity in the U.S. in the late 1890s, catering mainly to women with a focus on social interactions, matters of the heart, and childcare. Marie Manning’s 1889 “Advice to the Lovelorn” column in the New York Evening Journal set the standard, incorporating the tone of conduct books for young women, which were popular in Britain in the 18th century, into its responses.

The majority of advice columns were written by women, but the publishing apparatus was controlled by men, leading to questions and replies that often reflected the sexist views of a patriarchal society. Countless columns reinforced the need for women to assume traditional gender roles such as marriage, homemaking, and child-rearing, while topics such as sexual orientation and adultery were rarely viewed with empathy or nuance.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, women known by the pen names Dorothy Dix, Abigail Van Buren (of “Dear Abby” fame), and Ann Landers (Van Buren’s twin sister!) became the most well-known and trusted advice-givers in America. Of course, social attitudes and customs have changed significantly over the decades, as has our understanding of science, and thus some of the advice that writers doled out seems pretty strange today. Here are five questionable tips from advice columns of yesteryear.

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Too Much Excitement Causes Baldness

Although modern medicine has identified some of the root causes (pun intended) of baldness, the science behind hair loss was much more nebulous in the mid-20th century. Letter writer “B.C.D.” asked in a 1959 issue of The London Weekly Magazine why more men than women seemed to go bald. The response was a little thin: “The hair of men more commonly falls off than that of women as they become bald from the greater excitement which their pursuits occasion.” Tell that to professional football player Mack Hollins.

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Chemistry Is a Fun Way To Pass the Time

In an 1862 issue of The London Journal, readers were presented with a letter from “Harriet,” who was looking to find a way to “pass the dull evenings in the country.” The column dissuaded Harriet from pursuing activities such as books and music, which may have bored her, especially since she seemed cheerless. The suggestion? Science! According to the columnist, chemistry was “very popular with ladies who find time hanging heavily on their hands.” Was this response documenting an actual trend or making an inside joke that citizens of the 21st century don’t get? We may never know.

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Simply Ignore Your Husband

This particular piece of advice might not get the support of modern couples counselors. In a 1943 edition of The Winnipeg Evening Tribune, advice columnist Virginia Vane counseled “Mrs. S,” a happily married woman whose husband had more interest in the morning paper than connecting with her. Mrs. S explained that despite removing the curlers from her hair and “wearing a dress plus a good morning smile,” Mr. S remained unfazed and neglectful. Vane suggested a tit-for-tat response. “It might be wise to try ignoring him,” she wrote. “He’ll always read at breakfast so why don’t you ask him for the other half and read yourself. You’ll no doubt feel better.”

Women Should Never Be Ill

In the October 12, 1895 edition of Isle of Man Times, the “Advice to Wives” column prescribed nine rules for women, reinforcing the attitude that they should be selfless providers of childcare, cleaning, and meals. Like many advice columns from this era, it suggested that women were expected to put their husbands first, even at the risk of health and general happiness. “Don’t mope and cry because you are ill, and don’t get any fun; the man goes out to get all the fun, and your laugh comes in when he gets home again and tells you about it — some of it,” it stated. “As for being ill, women should never be ill.”

7 Things That Are Much Cheaper Now Than They Used To Be

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Author Nicole Villeneuve

June 19, 2024

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Despite what feels like the constantly rising costs of modern life, the prices of some essential commodities such as gas and eggs have actually remained relatively stable compared to dollar values and wages in the past. Other items, meanwhile, have actually become much cheaper over time, even when accounting for inflation. Innovations in technology, increased competition, and improvements in manufacturing and logistics are most often the reason for these surprising price drops. Here are seven everyday items that are much cheaper now than they were in decades past.

Clothing

In the mid-20th century, the average American family spent about 10% to 12% of their household income on clothing. Today, that figure has dropped to around 3%. It’s not because people are buying less: The average person buys about 70 new apparel items a year, compared to approximately 25 items per person in 1960. So why are people spending so much less?

Starting in the 1970s and into the 1990s, most U.S. clothing production moved overseas, where labor costs are lower and production output is higher. Those savings were passed onto consumers, and as fast-fashion brands proliferated, Americans had more options at lower prices than ever before. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average, a woman’s dress cost $50 in 1960. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $530 today — not unheard of, but far above prices at the most popular clothing retailers today.

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Bananas

Bananas have been a staple fruit in the American diet for decades, and while they’re one of the cheapest and most popular fruits in the supermarket now, they started out as a luxury item. Bananas first became available in the U.S. following the Civil War. At the time, they sold for about 10 cents a piece — that’s about $3 per banana today.

The price of the tropical fruit has hovered between 50 and 60 cents per pound for the last 20 years — a significant drop from its early cost. Most bananas sold in American stores are imported from faraway places including Guatemala and Honduras and require cooling containers for shipping. Despite these barriers, labor costs remain low, and banana importers sell only one variety, the Cavendish, meaning the fruit can be harvested in abundant volumes and ripen at the same time. That helps keep production and shipping efficient, and the cost to consumers low.

Televisions

It’s no surprise that as technology improves and becomes more efficient, prices come down. But one consumer electronics category stands out from the rest for its drastic price cuts: televisions (even as they get bigger and bigger). When RCA debuted its first color TV set in 1954, the 15-inch screen came with a $1,000 price tag. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, that would be more than $11,600 today. By comparison, a 65-inch, high-definition smart TV might set you back less than $500 today, and while that’s neither the high nor low end of the current television market, it’s a good indicator that TVs are much more affordable than they used to be.

There are several reasons for the major price cuts over the years, including increased competition and advancements in manufacturing (especially the process of cutting several screens out of a larger sheet of “mother glass”). But there’s another factor keeping TV prices low: Consumers’ viewing data is being collected and sold to advertisers. This “post-purchase monetization” often results in targeted ads on smart TVs, and while it may offer affordable TV prices and accurate targeted viewing recommendations, the feature can be disabled for a more anonymous viewing experience.

Airfare

It may feel like airfare has surged in recent years due to increased fuel prices and airport taxes, yet airline tickets — fees included — have actually become much more affordable over time. Commercial air travel used to be a luxurious experience available only to the wealthy. It wasn’t until President Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978 that competition opened up, flight paths and schedules increased, and airline prices began to come down. In 1941, an average flight from Los Angeles to Boston would have cost more than $5,000 in today’s money (and taken an excruciating 15 hours); now, a nonstop, one-way flight from Los Angeles to Boston commonly costs around $300 and takes about six hours. And an average domestic round-trip airfare is about $400 in the U.S.

Washing Machines

Household appliances have seen many technological advancements over the years, and while high-end luxury products are still out of reach for the average consumer, other appliances have become much more affordable over the years. The price of washing machines, an invaluable addition to modern life, has changed significantly from the 1950s to today. In 1959, a Kenmore washer was advertised in Sears’ “Wish Book” Christmas catalog for $209.95. (The matching dryer was listed at $169.95.) Today, that amount inflates to more than $2,200 — a $1,600 difference from a basic $500 to $600 top-loading Kenmore machine today. That’s a happy trend, lest we have to wash our increased amount of clothing by hand.

Toys

Although it may not feel like the case to modern parents, toys are cheaper — and more plentiful — today than in decades past. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows significant deflation on toys over the past 30 years, a trend primarily resulting from increased reliance on inexpensive overseas production and more competition both from toy brands and from major retailers. Considering today’s popular toys, from Squishmallows to STEM gadgets to LEGO sets, prices average out at about $50. That is not too different from the $25 Cabbage Patch Kids of the 1980s (about $70 today), or the $8 Rock'em Sock'em Robots of the 1960s (about $80 today), but the current cost of similar toys is much less than those inflated costs. Today, you can get a modern Rock'em Sock'em set for under $30, or a standard Barbie doll for about $12 — much less than an average Barbie from the 1994 JC Penney catalog, which, at $15, would cost more than $30 today.

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Aluminum

Once considered a precious metal more valuable than gold, aluminum became drastically cheaper in the late 19th century. Although it’s the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, it wasn’t always easy to extract from its ore. After the Hall-Héroult smelting process was developed in 1886 by two different scientists — Charles Martin Hall in Ohio and Paul-Louis-Toussaint Héroult in France — it became easier to isolate aluminum, which revolutionized its production.

In 1884, when the element was still rare and expensive, the United States used 6 pounds of it atop the Washington Monument. At the time, aluminum cost about $17 a pound — that would be more than $500 per pound today. Within a few short years, thanks to Hall and Héroult’s new process, the price of aluminum plummeted; today, the metal is worth about $1.15 a pound, and is most commonly used in everyday aluminum cans.

Why Was Marco Polo Important?

Author Mark DeJoy

June 17, 2024

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While Marco Polo is best known in modern popular culture as the namesake for a children’s swimming pool game, the Venetian explorer was a crucial figure in world history in the years leading up to the Renaissance. His popular book, commonly called The Travels of Marco Polo — though it was originally titled Livre des Merveilles du Monde (Book of the Marvels of the World) or Devisement du Monde (Description of the World) — was a lavish description of his journey through Central Asia and China in the late 13th century.

Polo’s travelogue was much more than an account of the paths he took across the globe; he also described the people and environments he encountered along the way. By doing so, he introduced his European audience to Asian cultures that were previously unknown to them, and planted the seeds of the modern era’s global perspective. But the book was also filled with exaggerations, supposed run-ins with mythical creatures, and supernatural events. Those aspects, combined with a dearth of historical records to corroborate some of Polo’s more tangible claims, have led some scholars to doubt that he ever made it to China at all. Let’s make some sense of this famed explorer and his influential book.

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The Court of Kublai Khan

Marco Polo came from a family of Venetian merchants, though historians disagree on whether they actually attained the level of wealth and status commonly attributed to them. Around 1260, his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo set out on a long journey of their own through the Mongol Empire, which at the time encompassed modern-day Mongolia as well as China under the rule of Kublai Khan, who founded China’s Yuan dynasty. The journey ended in Shangdu, also known as Xanadu (modern-day Inner Mongolia), the summer palace of the emperor. Niccolò and Maffeo were granted an audience with the emperor, and upon their departure, Kublai Khan instructed them to return to Shangdu with 100 priests and oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. They arrived back in Venice around 1269, and set out on the return trip to Shangdu two years later, this time with Marco joining them — but with only two of the requested 100 priests. Marco was around 17 or 18 years old at the time.

Over the next three years, the Polos traveled by land back to Shangdu. The route took them through the historic cities of Acre, Baghdad, Hormuz, Kashgar, Karakorum, and Khan Bhalik in modern-day Israel, Iraq, Iran, and China. Along the way, the two priests abandoned the journey, so with the exception of the requested holy oil, the trio arrived at the emperor’s court empty-handed. Perhaps because of this debt, the Polos spent the next 17 years under the employ of Kublai Khan, though it’s unclear whether they remained for the entire duration purely by choice. During that time, Marco was sent throughout Central Asia by Kublai Khan, and given a stamped metal passport to identify him as a special envoy to the emperor.

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A Prisoner’s Account

When Polo returned to Venice, war had broken out with the Republic of Genoa. After joining the war effort, he was captured by Genoans during a naval battle and imprisoned. It was in the Genoese prison where he met the writer Rustichello of Pisa, to whom he dictated the stories that would comprise The Travels of Marco Polo.

The book recounted the approximately 23 years that Polo spent traveling to Kublai Khan’s court, throughout Asia as special envoy, and back to Venice. He described the customs of the ruling family, including their funeral traditions, the common homes he encountered across the empire (lightweight, felt-covered huts), and the typical Mongol diet of horse meat and milk. The book also discusses marriage customs and religion, conventions of war, the justice system, and, perhaps most famously, the paper money used by the empire, which was novel at the time. Contrary to popular belief, though, Polo was not responsible for introducing pasta to Italy, as the dish appeared in Europe before his return from Asia. However, he did reintroduce forgotten spices, such as ginger.

There were also plenty of exaggerations in Polo’s account. He claimed that Kublai Khan’s hunting outfit contained a team of 20,000 dog handlers and 10,000 falconers, and described new year celebrations with a parade of 5,000 elephants and more than 100,000 white horses given to the emperor as gifts. He even told of encounters with sorcery-wielding wizards, weather-controlling astrologers, feasts that included levitating wine glasses, and evil spirits haunting the Gobi Desert — claims that are products of a superstitious era.

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The Book’s Impact

When The Travels of Marco Polo was published around 1300, most Europeans knew very little about other civilizations. Similarly, the Mongol Empire in modern-day China thought of itself as chung-kuo, or the center of the world. Polo’s book was enormously popular, and printed in multiple languages, including French, Italian, and Latin. But most readers at the time took the account as fiction — the book was sometimes known as Il Milione, a moniker with an unclear origin that some suggest meant “the million lies.”

Eventually, however, Polo’s descriptions began to be used as a cultural bridge between the East and West, and helped inspire Europe’s Age of Exploration. Christopher Columbus brought a copy with him during his expeditions more than a century later. And some of the book’s seemingly outlandish claims have since been revealed not as lies but rather as mischaracterizations, such as Polo’s recounting of a unicorn sighting, which was likely actually a rhinoceros, an animal he wouldn’t have been familiar with.

To this day, Polo remains something of a historical enigma. No original manuscript of his book exists, though even an original artifact would constitute secondhand information, since the book was dictated by Polo to Rustichello. Marco Polo scholar and philologist Eugenio Burgio has been working with a team to reverse-engineer the various existing translations of the book into an English-language text as close to the original version as possible, with an intended publication date later in 2024. Until then, what we have are translations of translations of an oral account, which brings to mind another children’s game: telephone.

How and When Did People Start Making Glass?

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Author Kristina Wright

June 13, 2024

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The typical home contains dozens of items made of glass, from canning jars in the pantry to decorative knickknacks on the mantel to the windows and doors that insulate our living spaces and filter light. Despite the surge of plastic products following World War II, this delicate translucent material has maintained its essential place in our homes and daily routines.

Historically, the glass items that we now take for granted were highly coveted luxuries, accessible for a time only to the rich and royal. The evolution of glassmaking has transformed the material from an exclusive work of art to an ubiquitous aspect of modern living. But when — and how — did humans first learn to make this valuable, versatile material?

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What Is Glass Exactly?

To understand how glass is made, we must first understand what glass is and how it’s different from other materials. Rather than a single, uniform substance, glass is an unusual state of matter that looks like a solid but acts like a liquid. The formation of glass occurs when a molten substance is cooled so rapidly that its atoms are unable to organize into the latticelike crystalline structure characteristic of a solid. Likewise, these atoms also lack the ability to move randomly, as they would in a liquid. Because of the unusual properties of its atoms, glass is in a distinctly unique category of its own, neither fully solid nor fully liquid, referred to as a rigid liquid or an amorphous solid.

While we typically think of glass as a human invention, it also occurs naturally. Lightning strikes, meteorite impacts, volcanic eruptions, and even some sea creatures can produce natural glasses that are similar in composition to human-made glass. Natural glass is formed when silica-rich sand or rocks are heated to high temperatures and rapidly cooled. Examples include obsidian, created by the rapid cooling of volcanic lava; tektites and impactites, formed by the impact of meteorites; fulgurites, created by lightning striking sand; and even the siliceous (silica) skeletons produced by certain types of sea sponges and algae.

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Glassmaking Is Thousands of Years Old

Ancient glass was made from three primary ingredients: sand (silicon dioxide or silica), an alkali oxide (typically soda ash or natron), and lime. When combined and heated to 2,400-2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, the ingredients fused to form glass.

The earliest evidence of glassmaking includes objects such as beads, pendants, and inlays that were cast in open molds, but glass may have initially occurred as an accidental byproduct in the workshops of Bronze Age metalworkers and ceramicists. While archaeologists have found glass artifacts produced by the Egyptians and Phoenicians dating back to the second millennium BCE, current theory suggests that the first human-made glass dates back even further, to Mesopotamian craftsmen during the third millennium BCE, some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.

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The Birthplace of Glassmaking

Researchers have long debated the birthplace of glassmaking, in part because glass products, as well as the raw materials used for the glassmaking process, such as blocks of colored glass called ingots, were frequently exchanged along trade routes. But advances in archaeology and chemistry have helped researchers better pinpoint the origins of glassmaking to ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).

Situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Mesopotamia was well suited for trading its glass materials and glassmaking knowledge. By the second millennium BCE, artisans had developed sophisticated techniques to shape glass and create vessels. One such method, called core forming, involved creating a hollow vessel by covering a mud core with glass and then removing the hardened mud. Core-formed objects have been found in Mesopotamia, as well as Egypt, where glassmaking also flourished.

Glass trading between Egypt and Assyria was mentioned in the Amarna Letters, a set of cuneiform clay tablets dating to the 14th century BCE that were excavated in the ancient desert city of Amarna, in modern-day Egypt. Not surprisingly, chemical analysis of glass excavated in Amarna found the glass was of Mesopotamian origin. Similarly, the presence of cobalt glass beads in Scandinavian Bronze Age tombs has provided evidence of a complex trading system linking Mesopotamia and Egypt with the Nordic Bronze Age cultures. These findings highlight the extensive trade networks of the ancient world, and demonstrate the far-reaching influence of Mesopotamian glassmaking, even as other cultures began to adapt and develop their own glassmaking methods.

Were Medieval People Always Dirty?

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Author Tony Dunnell

June 13, 2024

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It’s no secret that medieval Europe had some issues when it came to public health. Towns were particularly unsanitary places due to the absence of sewage systems and the practice of throwing trash and human waste into the streets. These crowded areas were notoriously stinky. It’s perhaps for this reason that a common misconception exists regarding medieval people: that they were always dirty and paid little attention to personal hygiene. This stereotype is particularly prevalent in regard to the peasantry, who are often portrayed in popular culture as thoroughly unclean and rife with all manner of parasites, plagues, and putridity.

But were the Middle Ages really so dirty? While it’s true that the vast majority of people in that era had no access to anything near our 21st-century standard of hygiene, they knew the importance of keeping clean. Towns and villages were typically built near sources of fresh water, or were supplied by wells or, in the case of some larger cities such as London, by water carried in through lead pipes. People, therefore, could — and in many cases would — bathe on a regular basis. Indeed, there are numerous literary references and works of art from the medieval period that depict people taking baths, which for many was part of a daily routine.

Basic Hygiene in the Middle Ages

Contrary to the image of the unwashed medieval peasant, even the most underprivileged members of society practiced basic hygiene. They typically had a jug, basin, or trough of water from which they regularly washed their hands and face. It was common to wash one’s hands before and after meals, especially since hands were still the primary instrument for eating. (The use of forks was not commonplace in Europe until the 18th century.) People also brushed their teeth regularly. Out in the countryside, fresh hazel twigs were used as toothbrushes, and when those weren’t available, people used linen cloths. There was no toothpaste, but sea salt and ground herbs such as cloves were used while brushing to help keep mouths fresh and teeth clean.

Bathing at Home and in Public

Wooden bathtubs were typically found in the houses of wealthier members of society, who would bathe fairly regularly. Commoners in rural areas didn’t always have bathtubs, but would take dips in the river, or — when nothing else was available — a handy horse trough. Since many citizens worked in sweaty manual labor, they bathed quite frequently, often every day. In the towns, bathing was done at public baths, which were especially common during the late Middle Ages. These bathhouses were often connected to bakeries, using excess heat from the ovens to warm the water. Medieval public baths weren’t for the shy, as men and women bathed naked together. Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the amount of nude flesh on display, bathhouses often had an illicit side to them, doubling as brothels.

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Don’t Forget the Soap

Yes, people used soap back in the medieval period. Soap was available as a trade good in Europe as early as the ninth century CE, and could also be made at home. Numerous soap-making recipes exist from the Middle Ages, often including ingredients such as ashes from an oak tree, tallow (animal fat), lime (heated to become quicklime), salt, and flour. The soap was scented using fresh herbs such as sage and thyme. Shampoo didn’t exist, so most people simply washed their hair with water. The more well-off citizens, however, washed their hair with a mixture similar to soap, made from ashes and egg whites and scented with herbs and flowers. People also brushed their hair with combs, but not only for cosmetic reasons. Fine-toothed combs were used as delousing implements, specifically designed to remove lice from the hair.

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Doing the Laundry

Of course, taking a nice bath is fairly pointless if all your clothes stink. Medieval people were well aware of this and tried to keep their clothing clean. While heavier outer garments might have received only an occasional brushing, undergarments and household linens were frequently laundered. Advice books from the Middle Ages recommended that underwear should be changed every day. Those who could afford it sent their laundry to a washer, who scrubbed and beat the dirt out of linens in a large wooden tub or in the river. To help clean and deodorize fabrics, a plant called soapwort, or herbs such as marjoram, could be added to the water. And to keep those whites nice and bright, people washed their linens in chamber lye — a mixture that included wood ash and urine, the latter carefully gathered from chamber pots.

All the Presidents in Age Order

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Author Nicole Villeneuve

June 11, 2024

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The ages of U.S. Presidents have varied significantly over the years, changing with voting demographics and shifting societal attitudes toward age. Younger presidential candidates have been seen as symbols of change and energy, appealing to young voters or people seeking a fresh perspective. Older candidates have often brought decades of experience and a sense of maturity. Here is a full list of the ages of the U.S. Presidents at the time of their inauguration, listed from oldest to youngest, spanning an almost 40-year age difference, from 42 to 78.

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Over 70

When 46th President Joe Biden was sworn in on January 20, 2021, he became the oldest U.S. President to date, at 78 years and 61 days old. Just four years prior, the second-oldest President, Donald Trump, was sworn in at 70 years and 220 days old. He was about 15 years older than the overall average presidential age of 55. Biden’s term punctuated a trend of increasingly older Presidents: The average age of Presidents elected between 1875 and 1899 was 53, whereas the average age between the late 1990s and today is 63. When the Founding Fathers signed the Constitution in 1787, they set 35 years as the minimum age to run for President; at the time, it was seen as a mature age due to lower life expectancy in the 1700s. Meanwhile, the oldest national leader in the world today is Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, at 91. To date, just two U.S. Presidents have been over 70 years old when inaugurated.

– Joe Biden (46th President) — 78 years, 61 days
– Donald J. Trump (45th President) — 70 years, 220 days

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Over 60

More than 20% of U.S. Presidents were elected while in their 60s. Ronald Reagan, who was 69 at his first inauguration in 1981, faced public scrutiny for his age during both election campaigns, something that had not commonly been seen up until then. The concerns didn’t seem to matter much: Reagan went on to serve two terms and completed his presidency just shy of 78 years old. The shortest-serving U.S. President, William Henry Harrison, was just over 68 years old when he assumed office in 1841, but his term was cut short just a month later when he died of what is now believed to have been typhoid. Harrison was, at the time, the oldest President to serve in the Oval Office, and he held that record for 140 years until Reagan was elected. Of the first 10 American Presidents, just three were over 60; of the most recent 10, half were over 60. Here are the 10 U.S. Presidents who were in their 60s when they were inaugurated.

- Ronald Reagan (40th President) — 69 years, 348 days
- William Henry Harrison (9th President) — 68 years, 23 days
- James Buchanan (15th President) — 65 years, 315 days
- George H.W. Bush (41st President) — 64 years, 222 days
- Zachary Taylor (12th President) — 64 years, 100 days
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (34th President) — 62 years, 98 days
- Andrew Jackson (7th President) — 61 years, 354 days
- John Adams (2nd President) — 61 years, 125 days
- Gerald R. Ford (38th President) — 61 years, 26 days
- Harry S. Truman (33rd President) — 60 years, 339 days

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Over 50

Almost half of Americans surveyed by Pew Research in 2023 said that someone in their 50s was the ideal age for a President. It makes sense, then, that 55 is indeed the average age at inauguration — though only four Presidents were that exact age when sworn into office. They were Benjamin Harrison in 1889; Grover Cleveland, the only President to serve two nonconsecutive terms, at his second inauguration in 1893; Warren G. Harding in 1921; and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1963. George W. Bush, part of one of only two father-son presidential duos, was 54 years old when he was sworn in as the 43rd President in 2001. His father, George H.W. Bush, was 10 years older than that when he was sworn in as the 41st President 12 years earlier in 1989. Of the 25 Presidents inaugurated in their 50s, three also died in their 50s while in office: 29th President William Harding, 25th President William McKinley, and 16th President Abraham Lincoln. Here is the list of Presidents who took office in their 50s.

- James Monroe (5th President) — 58 years, 310 days
- James Madison (4th President) — 57 years, 353 days
- Thomas Jefferson (3rd President) — 57 years, 325 days
- John Quincy Adams (6th President) — 57 years, 236 days
- George Washington (1st President) — 57 years, 68 days
- Andrew Johnson (17th President) — 56 years, 107 days
- Woodrow Wilson (28th President) — 56 years, 66 days
- Richard M. Nixon (37th President) — 56 years, 11 days
- Grover Cleveland (24th President) — 55 years, 351 days
- Benjamin Harrison (23rd President) — 55 years, 196 days
- Warren G. Harding (29th President) — 55 years, 122 days
- Lyndon B. Johnson (36th President) — 55 years, 87 days
- Herbert Hoover (31st President) — 54 years, 206 days
- George W. Bush (43rd President) — 54 years, 198 days
- Rutherford B. Hayes (19th President) — 54 years, 151 days
- Martin Van Buren (8th President) — 54 years, 89 days
- William McKinley (25th President) — 54 years, 34 days
- Jimmy Carter (39th President) — 52 years, 111 days
- Abraham Lincoln (16th President) — 52 years, 20 days
- Chester A. Arthur (21st President) — 51 years, 349 days
- William H. Taft (27th President) — 51 years, 170 days
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd President) — 51 years, 33 days
- Calvin Coolidge (30th President) — 51 years, 29 days
- John Tyler (10th President) — 51 years, 6 days
- Millard Fillmore (13th President) — 50 years, 183 days

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Over 40

Despite the minimum age of 35 required for the job, no one in their 30s has ever been elected President of the United States. John F. Kennedy remains the youngest elected President in U.S. history; he was 43 years, 236 days old at his 1961 inauguration. Although Theodore Roosevelt was younger, at 42, when he took office, his presidency was assumed, not voted on, after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. Roosevelt remains the youngest person to ever become President. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both defeated candidates more than 20 years their senior in 1992 and 2008, respectively. Clinton was inaugurated at the age of 46 in 1993 (George H.W. Bush was 68 at the time), and Barack Obama was first inaugurated in 2009 at the age of 47 (his opponent, John McCain, was 72). Here are the nine Presidents inaugurated in their 40s.

- James K. Polk (11th President) — 49 years, 123 days
- James A. Garfield (20th President) — 49 years, 105 days
- Franklin Pierce (14th President) — 48 years, 101 days
- Grover Cleveland (22nd President) — 47 years, 351 days
- Barack Obama (44th President) — 47 years, 169 days
- Ulysses S. Grant (18th President) — 46 years, 311 days
- Bill Clinton (42nd President) — 46 years, 154 days
- John F. Kennedy (35th President) — 43 years, 236 days
- Theodore Roosevelt (26th President) — 42 years, 322 days

7 Things People Used To Eat for Dessert

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Author Kristina Wright

June 11, 2024

Love it?281

Much like fashion trends, culinary tastes have changed over time, and once-common dishes have given way to new ingredients, easier preparation methods, and more refined recipes. Desserts, in particular, have seen a rise in popularity over the centuries. Originally served alongside savory items on the dinner table, sweet dishes were moved to the final course of the meal in 17th-century Europe, and cookbooks dedicated to dessert recipes started appearing around the same time.

The affordability and availability of sugar during this era was largely responsible for this culinary shift, due to the work of enslaved people on colonial plantations in the Caribbean. As chocolate, coffee, and tea were introduced to Europe, demand for the sweet stuff increased as well. Sugar, which had previously been used sparingly as a preservative or to sweeten savory dishes, became the main ingredient in new recipes, leading to an endless array of possibilities for cakes, pies, and other sweet treats.

Here are seven old-fashioned desserts that were once commonly served, but are rarely seen today. While some of these foods may seem familiar as the recipes have been updated over the years to accommodate modern tastes, others are reminders of different times in history when people made do with what they had.

Credit: Warren Price Photography/ Shutterstock

Mincemeat Pie

Dating back to Europe’s medieval era, mincemeat pie (or mince pie) was a finely chopped mixture of meat — traditionally mutton — along with dried fruit and spices. The spices and natural fruit sugars helped preserve the food as well as overpower the flavor of meat on the verge of spoiling. By the end of the Victorian era, the primary ingredients of mincemeat pies were fruit, spices, and beef suet, a hard animal fat. While they’re not very common in the U.S. today, mincemeat pies are still a popular Christmas dessert in the U.K., and vegetarian pies are readily available.

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Tomato Soup Cake

The earliest recipe for tomato soup cake dates back to 1922, and some accounts say the dessert was popular among Irish immigrants in New England. The can of condensed tomato soup the recipe calls for yields a moist red-orange cake that doesn’t taste like tomatoes at all, thanks to the cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg in the mix. This unusual spice cake was popular through the 1930s and 1940s, when Depression-era and wartime shortages called for culinary creativity. People sought out affordable substitutes that could stand in for pricier ingredients (such as tomatoes) without sacrificing flavor. In the 1940s, the Campbell Soup Company began experimenting with variations on the tomato soup cake recipe and, in 1960, printed a version on its tomato soup label — the first recipe to appear on a soup can.

Shoofly Pie

Shoofly pie is a molasses-based pie with a crumbly, streusel-like topping. No one knows for sure how the pie got its name, but it might be from the fact that its sweet and sticky surface tends to attract flies, or from an early brand of molasses called Shoofly Molasses. According to some sources, the recipe for shoofly pie dates to 1876, originating with a crust-free molasses cake called centennial cake that was served to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Other sources attribute the recipe to the German immigrants of Pennsylvania Dutch country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who may have used molasses in a variation of an older British recipe known as a treacle tart. This sweet and crumbly pie is still popular among the Amish and Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Carrot Pudding

Before carrot cake, there was carrot pudding. A recipe in the 1591 English cookbook A Book of Cookrye describes carrot pudding as a savory pudding made of chopped liver, breadcrumbs, spices, dates, and sugar that is then stuffed inside a hollow carrot. By the 18th century, carrot pudding had evolved into a sweet dessert baked in a pastry shell, similar to pumpkin pie. Another variation called steamed carrot pudding was made with shredded carrots and potatoes and steamed in a gelatin mold.

Fruitcake

Fruitcake dates back to the ancient Romans, who made a mash of barley, dried fruit, honey, and wine to sustain their soldiers in battle. During the early medieval era, it evolved into European yeast breads such as stollen and panettone, which were packed with candied citrus and alcohol-infused dried fruits. The cakelike version that became popular in the U.S. arrived with the British colonists. Preserving fruits for winter fruitcake involved cutting fruit into small pieces, boiling it in sugar syrup, tossing it in granulated sugar, and allowing it to dry. These candied fruits could then be baked in a spiced cake batter. There are dozens of variations on fruitcake, with some recipes calling for the cake to be baked weeks in advance and then brushed weekly with liquor or simple syrup. Though fruitcake is still around, it’s rarely made anymore and ranks as one of the least popular holiday desserts.

Credit: The National Trust Photolibrary/ Alamy Stock Photo

Jumbles

Also known as “jumbals” or “jumballs,” jumbles are a type of butter cookie that predates the modern sugar cookie. Historians believe the recipe originated in the Middle East and may have been introduced to Europe by Muslims in Spain and Portugal before it was brought to the New World by 16th-century explorers. Made from butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, jumbles were flavored with rosewater or spices, and then shaped into thick rounds or knots before being baked or boiled. Because they traveled well and could be stored for months, they remained popular for centuries, with dozens of recipe variations. Four jumble recipes, including “lemon jumbals” and “almond jumbals,” are included in Martha Washington’s family cookbook, Booke of Cookery.

Credit: Tee / Stockimo/ Alamy Stock Photo

Vinegar Pie

Though it was a popular Depression-era dessert, vinegar pie dates back to the 19th century. Mimicking the tartness of lemons, this sweet and tangy pie could be made all year long by substituting apple cider vinegar for citrus, which was expensive when out of season. As one of several so-called “desperation” or “make-do” pies, vinegar pie could be made from a handful of staples that home cooks usually had on hand. Other desperation pies included buttermilk pie, chess pie, and even water pie.

What Was Earth’s Population Through History?

Illustration of human population — Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt

Author Tony Dunnell

June 6, 2024

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Today, it’s hard to imagine our entire planet populated by fewer people than we currently find in a single major city. And tens of thousands of years ago, it would have been shocking — and quite possibly terrifying — to imagine a world in which humans had built settlements as vast and crowded as those that exist today.

Population growth has, for the most part, been a long and steady process. But while it took most of human history for the population to reach 1 billion, it took only a little more than 200 additional years to hit 8 billion. Because of this rapid growth, the face of our planet and the influence that we’ve had on it have shifted massively in the last few centuries. Where it will all lead is an open question. But one thing is certain: People are currently living longer than ever before, and as things stand, the population will only continue to grow. Here’s a rundown of the world’s population throughout history, from prehistoric times to the present day.

Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt

Prehistoric Times

Historians believe that around 55,000 early humans walked the Earth some 1.2 million years ago. By the end of the last ice age — about 20,000 years ago — the population had risen to about 1 million members of Homo sapiens. Over the next 15,000 years, as human societies improved, the population increased more rapidly. By 5000 BCE, the world population was at least 5 million, and some estimates go as high as 20 million. But even that higher number is still less than the present-day populations of cities such as São Paulo, Shanghai, and Tokyo.

Antiquity

Classical antiquity — the period that saw the original Olympic Games and the first of Homer’s epic poems — began in the eighth century BCE. During this time, the global population was an estimated 50 million to 100 million. By 1 CE, the estimated population was at least 170 million. A significant chunk of this population was soon controlled by Rome. The Roman Empire reached its height in 117 CE, comprising all the land from Western Europe to the Middle East, with a total population between 50 million and 90 million people.

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages, or medieval period, lasted from around 500 CE to 1500 CE, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance era in Europe. The greatest growth occurred in Europe during the high Middle Ages, when developments in agriculture, the rise of cities, and a decrease in invasions helped the population swell from 35 million to 80 million between 1000 CE and 1347 CE. Then disaster struck. Between 1347 and 1351, the “Black Death” (bubonic plague) ravaged the continent, killing some 20 million people — at least 30% of Europe’s entire population. It took until the 16th century for the population of Western Europe to once again reach pre-1347 levels.

Globally, the worldwide population during the medieval period is estimated to have been at least 190 million in 500 CE, rising to around 425 million by 1500 CE. One of the greatest dents in the global population outside of Europe was caused by the Mongol invasion of China. Beginning in the early 13th century under the command of Genghis Khan, the war led to the deaths of tens of millions of people — at the time, the global population was around 360 million.

Renaissance Era

The Renaissance period in Europe spanned from the 15th century to the early 17th century, and can be seen as the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity in the West. The era saw a demographic shift as European powers colonized much of the Americas. Trade routes and colonies were founded, and nations began to engage in empire building. The worldwide population grew from around 350 million in 1400 to about 545 million in 1600 — a significant amount, but nothing compared to what was to come next.

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution changed nearly every aspect of human society. Previously, birth rates and death rates were both very high, keeping the global human population comparatively stable. But when the Industrial Revolution began around 1760, improvements in technology, agriculture, medicine, and sanitation brought about a massive population growth spurt. In Western Europe, with people living longer and infant mortality on the decline, the population doubled during the 18th century from around 100 million to almost 200 million, and doubled again in the 19th century to roughly 400 million. Globally, a population landmark was reached in 1804 when the number of humans on Earth reached 1 billion for the first time.

Today — and Beyond

It took many thousands of years for the human population to reach 1 billion. But once that figure was reached, the growth rate became mind-boggling — and a source of concern due to the potential overpopulation of our planet. By 1950, the global population reached an estimated 2.5 billion. Today, the number of humans stands at a staggering 8 billion — and is currently growing by more than 200,000 people each day. According to the United Nations, the global population is expected to increase by nearly 2 billion in the next 30 years, and could peak at around 10.4 billion in the mid-2080s.

What Did Court Jesters Actually Do?

Musician and court jester — Credit: duncan1890/ iStock

Author Nicole Villeneuve

June 6, 2024

Love it?84

Court jesters are frequently portrayed as cartoonish figures dressed in colorful pointed hats and jangling bells. Though their qualities have often been caricatured over time, court jesters were indeed real, and they played a significant role at courts across Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance era.

The roots of the court jester can be traced back to the comedic actors, or balatrones, of ancient Rome. Due to Rome’s periodic censorship crackdowns on these outspoken actors, many became roving performers, traveling throughout the empire in search of new audiences and opportunities. These roving comics may have helped lay the groundwork for medieval jesters, and contributed to the growing popularity of comedic folly across Europe.

Historical references to what we now know as jesters became more frequent between the 12th and 15th centuries. At the time, they were commonly known as “fools”; the word “jester,” from the Middle English “gestour,” meaning “entertainer,” became more common throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. The jester’s primary function was to serve and entertain royalty through stories, music, juggling, acrobatics, magic tricks, and other humorous acts. One famously funny figure even made a living out of flatulence. In the late 12th century, King Henry II of England gave a fool named Roland le Petour (Roland the Farter) 30 acres of land for visiting the royal court each year on Christmas Day to jump, whistle, and, yes, fart.

While the jester’s clownlike reputation speaks to its primary role as a playful performer, their position at court was more complex. They not only entertained with great skill, but also were often intelligent and trusted advisers who could critique political decisions, social norms, and behaviors of the nobility under the guise of humor — a significant departure from the “fool” image they have in contemporary culture. Jesters were also expected to assist with household chores and partake in more serious matters, including accompanying soldiers to the battlefield in times of conflict. Beyond their entertainment duties for the troops, they would also be tasked with distracting the opposition, and delivering sometimes-dangerous messages across enemy lines.

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One of the jester’s most distinctive features is their unique clothing, but it wasn’t always as flamboyant as depicted today. In the early medieval period, they often wore hooded hats with donkey ears, then later, a monk’s cowl draped over their head and shoulders. By the 1600s, jesters were more likely to be seen in what’s now regarded as the iconic pointed hat, the jagged tunic, bells, and a scepter (known as a bauble).

While the role was most often fulfilled by men, there were also female jesters. Mathurine de Vallois, who served in the French court for Henry III, Henry IV, and Louis XIII, was known for her elaborate Amazonian costume. Jane Foole, also known as Jane the Fool, is another well-known jestress who served the English court during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I. While information on Jane is scarce, depictions in portraits show her outfitted not in typical jester clothing, but in nice, if plain, attire; she is also shown with a shaved head and a tight-fitting cap, an unusual style for women at the time.

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By the 17th century, the role of court jesters began to evolve. Live theater was in the midst of a boom, and jesters largely transitioned from court entertainers to theater actors and comedians. Notable performers included Richard Tarlton, beloved jester of Queen Elizabeth I, who not only became an accomplished actor, but also is believed to have inspired Yorick, the fictional jester of the king of Denmark referred to in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. By the 18th century, even as they continued to appear in popular culture, jesters all but died out as a court institution in Europe. As court performers transitioned to earning their own livelihoods and fame, they helped pave the way for generations of comedians, performance artists, and satirists to come.

Is the Lost City of Atlantis Real?

A depiction of Atlantis — Credit: Chronicle/ Alamy Stock Photo

Author Nicole Villeneuve

June 6, 2024

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The lost city of Atlantis has been a source of intrigue and curiosity for centuries. The enigmatic sunken island, however, is not a vanished land awaiting discovery so much as an enduring myth.

The story of Atlantis first appeared in Plato’s dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias,” written around 360 BCE. The Greek philosopher described Atlantis as a sophisticated civilization that became corrupt under its own might, angering the gods and causing the city to disappear underwater. Despite the legend’s intrigue, no historical or archaeological evidence has ever confirmed the existence of Atlantis. Instead, it is widely regarded as a fictional allegory used by Plato to explore themes such as power, virtue, and society.

According to Plato’s myth, Atlantis was an island of demigods located beyond the Pillars of Hercules (in the modern-day Strait of Gibraltar), which in Greek mythology represent the boundary of the known world. The half-god, half-man Atlanteans let their greed surpass their ethics, and as they pushed to conquer more territory, the gods sent catastrophic earthquakes and floods that sank Atlantis into the ocean within about a day. While Plato's account is widely considered a philosophical allegory for his ideas about the ideal state and moral decay, some have taken the story literally, sparking centuries of speculation and searches for the so-called lost civilization.

So why is Plato’s fable often taken as historical fact? The belief that Atlantis really existed is widely attributed to 19th-century American writer and congressman Ignatius L. Donnelly (who also went on to write a book aiming to prove that English philosopher Francis Bacon was the true author of William Shakespeare’s plays). In his 1882 book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Donnelly argued that the mythical island described by Plato was not only real but also the cradle of all ancient civilization. Donnelly’s idea captured the imagination of the public, and while it has since been debunked as pseudoscientific, it inspired additional research and theories over the years.

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One such theory links Atlantis to the disappearance of the architecturally and artistically advanced Minoan civilization that lived on the Greek islands of Crete and Thera (modern Santorini) around 3000 BCE to 1100 BCE. A catastrophic earthquake resulting in a volcanic eruption and subsequent tsunamis most likely contributed to the end of the Minoans, and, some think, align with Plato’s account of a sudden disappearance of a thriving civilization.

Proponents of the Atlantis myth also point to an underwater discovery known as Bimini Road as evidence of the ancient city. Discovered in 1968 off the coast of North Bimini, an island in the Bahamas, the submerged rock formation consists of a series of rectangular limestone blocks whose symmetry and layout appear to be human-made. Despite the attention the diving discovery received at the time, carbon dating concluded that the Bimini stones were a natural geological occurrence created by erosion.

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Other, more far-fetched theories speculate that Atlantis may have been located on Antarctica before it was covered in ice, or that it was a large continent in the Atlantic Ocean that became submerged due to geological shifts — or because of the Bermuda Triangle, another “mystery” that is actually a persistent myth. Yet another theory suggests the Atlantis tale is a retelling of real ancient floods such as the deluge of Mediterranean seawater into the Black Sea around 5600 BCE.

Though most modern scholars and archaeologists consider Atlantis to be imaginary, that hasn’t lessened the allure of the legend, and believers continue to hunt for proof of the existence of this storied ancient civilization.

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Tomato Soup Cake

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Carrot Pudding

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Jumbles