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Frederick Douglass was once the most photographed American.

  • Portrait of Frederick Douglass
Portrait of Frederick Douglass
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Author Michael Nordine

January 22, 2026

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Frederick Douglass once said, “It is evident that the great cheapness and universality of pictures must exert a powerful, though silent, influence upon the ideas and sentiment of present and future generations.”

He would know: The abolitionist, author, and civil rights leader was the most photographed American of the 19th century, having sat for more portraits than the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Thomas Edison. There are more than 160 pictures of Douglass taken during his lifetime, reflecting his unique stature in America’s cultural fabric.

Born into slavery in 1818, Douglass escaped at age 20 and later wrote that in freedom he “lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life.” He saw photography as a great leveler, a means of presenting himself in a dignified manner that undercut any preconceived notions his critics and peers might have of him. He illustrated this idea in his 1861 speech “Lecture on Picture,” saying, “The humbled servant girl whose income is but a few shillings per week may now possess a more perfect likeness of herself than noble ladies and court royalty.” 

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John Quincy Adams was the first president to be photographed.

In March 1843, John Quincy Adams did something historic: had his picture taken. He did so at artist Philip Haas’ studio in Washington, D.C., sitting for a portrait captured via daguerreotype, the first successful photography format. Adams’ single term as president had ended in 1829, and at the time he was photographed he was representing Massachusetts in the House of Representatives. Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, said upon acquiring the daguerreotype that Adams having his portrait taken “confirms that in many ways America was born modern; embracing not only new government ideals but also the latest technologies that helped its leaders to become accessible to the public.” 

Ronald Reagan had a space-based defense plan known as Star Wars.

  • Reagan addressing the Nation on the National Security Defense Initiative
Reagan addressing the nation on the National Security Defense Initiative
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Author Michael Nordine

January 22, 2026

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Before there was Space Force, there was Star Wars. No, not the sci-fi franchise set in a galaxy far, far away, but the space-based defense plan proposed by Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983. Officially known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the program received its mocking nickname when Senator Ted Kennedy lambasted it as a “reckless Star Wars scheme.” Intended to defend the United States from the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons, SDI relied on futuristic technology that didn’t yet exist. Chief among them was a laser system that could theoretically zap intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) out of the sky before they reached their target.

In announcing the program, Reagan called on the scientists who first developed nuclear weapons to “turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” With hundreds of Soviet missiles aimed at America, the president wanted to neutralize the threat of those weapons of mass destruction. More than $30 billion was spent on the Star Wars initiative over the next decade, but the critics who dismissed it as overambitious proved right. SDI never came to fruition and was officially canceled by Bill Clinton in 1993.

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Ronald Reagan took advice from an astrologist during his presidency.

To hear her tell it, Joan Quigley didn’t just advise President Ronald Reagan on his schedule — she also convinced him to take a softer stance on the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. Perhaps not surprisingly then, the astrologist, who wrote a memoir about her experience offering advice to both the president and the first lady, received pushback from others within the administration, including Reagan’s chief of staff, the coincidentally named Donald Regan. The extent of Quigley’s influence depends on whom you ask, however. First Lady Nancy Reagan dismissed claims of their reliance on the astrologist in her own 1989 memoir, My Turn, which Quigley saw as a betrayal — albeit one she was able to foresee. “Struggle has been in my charts,” she told a reporter in 2014, saying she knew to “expect no gratitude” from the Reagans.

Only two people have received the Presidential Medal of Freedom twice.

  • Presidental Medal of Freedom
Presidental Medal of Freedom
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Author Michael Nordine

July 25, 2024

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Alongside the Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award in America. An average of roughly 10 awards per year have been bestowed since the honor was first created by John F. Kennedy in 1963 (though some presidents award more medals than others), and only two people have received more than one: Ellsworth Bunker and Colin Powell. The former, a career diplomat who served six different U.S. presidents as the ambassador to Argentina, Italy, India, and South Vietnam, received his in 1963 and 1967, both of them with distinction — an additional level of veneration reserved for approximately 8% of recipients. 

Powell, meanwhile, earned his awards in 1991 and 1993, the second with distinction. He received the first from George H.W. Bush and the second from Bill Clinton, both of whom he served under as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; he had previously been Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser and later became secretary of state for George W. Bush. While presenting Powell with his first medal at the end of the Gulf War, the elder President Bush said, “Your commitment and good counsel, your deep compassion for every one of the thousands of men and women under your command, will always be remembered.”

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The criteria to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom are quite broad.

The president can award the Presidential Medal of Freedom at their discretion, with no real guidelines determining eligibility. An official White House statement explains it’s reserved for “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private endeavors.” Unsurprisingly, the list of recipients is wide-ranging. Eight former and future presidents have been awarded the medal, as have more than 600 other people, including Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Fred Rogers, John Paul II, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou, Yo-Yo Ma, Martin Luther King Jr., Jonas Salk, Norman Rockwell, Walt Disney, Helen Keller, and all three Apollo 11 astronauts (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins). Then there’s Dolly Parton, who, true to record-setting form, declined the award — twice.

‘Lord of the Flies’ was rejected as many as 21 times and was almost never published.

  • “Lord of the Flies” book
"Lord of the Flies" book
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

January 22, 2026

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Sometimes a novel just needs to find the right editor — even novels that go on to exalted positions in the literary canon. When author William Golding finished his harrowing allegorical novel Lord of the Flies in 1953, he spent a lot of time and postage distributing it to publishers. His manuscript was returned over and over — according to some sources, including Golding’s obituary in The New York Times, as many as 21 times. 

The last publishing house to receive the novel, Faber and Faber, also initially marked it for rejection; the reader assigned to it called the work “absurd,” “dull,” and “pointless.” But a young editor at the firm named Charles Monteith, needing something to read on the train, grabbed it off the slush pile and realized its potential.

Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of preadolescent boys stranded on a desert island after their plane is shot down while evacuating them from Britain during a fictional war. Over the course of the novel, the micro-society the children create devolves into violence. It was Golding’s spin on the 1857 children’s novel Coral Island, an adventure tale about three extremely pious shipwrecked boys. Golding came to believe after his time serving in the British navy in World War II that everyone had the potential for evil inside them, and he wanted that to be the main conflict of his story.

Golding’s original manuscript, titled Strangers From Within, initially led with more detail on the war, the evacuation, and how the boys became stranded. But Monteith, like the previous reader at Faber and Faber, found it dull. The original story also had prominent religious themes that didn’t make it into the final draft. The end result was a secular book that picks up right when two of the main characters meet on the beach after the crash. That revised version went on to be a staple of high school reading lists, and Golding went from a pile of rejections to winning the Nobel Prize in literature.

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Stephen King threw “Carrie” in the trash.

Lord of the Flies inspired generations of authors interested in stark narratives about human nature, and Stephen King was among them. His first published novel was Carrie, a high school horror story that became a cultural touchstone. But when King started writing the book, he threw his work in the trash after the first few pages. His wife found the pages, read them, encouraged him to keep going, and offered to help him write about teenage girls. Though the novel helped launch him to literary superstardom, King was never fully satisfied with Carrie — but he was a fan of the 1976 film adaptation, which he called “terrific.”

Shoelaces are older than most civilizations.

  • Oldest leather footwear
Oldest leather footwear
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

January 14, 2026

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Shoelaces might seem like a modern convenience, but the basic idea of fastening footwear with laces is far older than most civilizations. The world’s oldest known leather shoe, complete with intact laces, dates to around 3500 BCE, during the Copper Age (between the Stone Age and Bronze Age). 

Archaeologists discovered the ancient shoe in 2008 inside Areni-1, a cave complex in Armenia. The remarkably stable, dry conditions there had preserved organic materials that would normally decay. (The thick layer of sheep dung atop the shoe likely also helped.) Fashioned from a single piece of cowhide and shaped specifically for the wearer’s right foot, the shoe features leather laces threaded through eyelets — a design so practical that similar construction methods survived in Ireland until the 20th century. When the artifact was unearthed, parts of the laces were still visible, astonishing the research team.

That puts shoelaces only slightly younger than the earliest known human civilizations. Ancient Mesopotamia emerged around 4000 BCE, with the earliest Sumerian city-states taking shape in the fertile lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The beginning of the ancient Egyptian civilization appears to date to roughly the same period, although archaeological research in both regions is ongoing. Every other major civilization — from the Indus Valley to ancient China and the cultures of the Americas — arose centuries or millennia later.

That means humans were tying their shoes before they were building pyramids (starting around 2700 BCE) or inventing writing (around 3300 BCE). Modern civilization would take thousands more years to arrive, but the humble shoelace was already doing its job. You might say humanity started out on the right foot.

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The Knights Templar banned shoelaces.

The Order of the Knights Templar may be famous today for crusades, treasure myths, and supposed secret rituals, but in real life, they were sticklers for rules. Lots of rules. Their governing document, known as the Rule of the Templars, was first written in 1129 and laid out 68 strict regulations covering nearly every detail of daily life. It reflected the order’s vows of poverty, chastity, and — above all — obedience. Among its more surprising prohibitions: shoelaces. This particular rule explicitly banned pointed shoes and laces, declaring them “abominable things” associated with pagans. Templars were expected to wear plain, functional footwear, just as their habits were meant to be unadorned and free of vanity. Shoelaces weren’t the only forbidden indulgence, though. The rules also outlawed board games such as chess and backgammon, sharply restricted contact with women (including mothers and aunts), limited clothing materials, and required mostly silent meals. For the Knights Templar, devotion meant discipline — and apparently, tying your shoes crossed the line.

At the height of the Berlin Airlift, a plane landed in Berlin every 30 seconds.

  • Berlin Airlift of 1948
Berlin Airlift of 1948
Credit: Everett Collection Historical/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Kerry Hinton

July 17, 2024

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The first major international crisis of the Cold War began on June 24, 1948, known as the Berlin Blockade. After World War II, the German capital was divided into four occupation zones, controlled by the U.S., U.K., and France in the western part of the city, and the Soviet Union in the eastern sector. But tensions began to rise when the U.S. and U.K. combined their zones to form “Bizonia,” which the Soviets were concerned would pose a threat by concentrating power in West Berlin. This concern deepened in June 1948, when the Western Allies introduced a new currency, the deutsche mark, into Bizonia and the French zone without consulting the Soviet Union. In response, the Soviets issued their own currency, the ostmark, and blocked all rail, road, and water access to Berlin’s other three zones. More than 2 million civilians lost access to food, medicine, fuel, and electricity due to the blockade. 

Two days later, the United States and Britain initiated a counterblockade to prevent rail traffic from reaching East Berlin. They also found a way around the roadblocks: They took to the skies. So began the Berlin Airlift, also known as Operation Vittles, a 15-month air campaign to deliver food, fuel, and other supplies to West Berlin. Over the course of the operation, pilots and their crews made more than 270,000 air drops to the city. At the height of the airlift in the spring of 1949, an Allied supply plane landed in West Berlin an average of every 30 seconds. The Berlin Airlift was so successful that Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin lifted the blockade in May 1949, realizing the Western Allies could continue their supply missions indefinitely. The operation is now considered the largest humanitarian airlift mission in history.

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Air traffic control was instrumental to the Berlin Airlift.

During the Berlin Airlift, the greatest danger to pilots was the sheer amount of air traffic on the approach to Berlin. Landing planes in short intervals increased the potential for disaster on the tarmac, and the majority of casualties during the operation were due to accidents. The issue reached critical mass on a day that flight crews dubbed “Black Friday,” when a three-aircraft crash was narrowly avoided. In response, the commander of the airlift instituted new protocols to improve runway safety. Pilots were required to follow the direction of air traffic controllers on the ground, who used radar and other tools to ensure planes could safely take off and land 24 hours a day, and in almost any kind of weather. The new guidelines immediately reduced the potential for accidents, increasing the number of daily flights into Berlin.

Croquet was an Olympic sport.

  • The 1900 Olympic croquet tournament
The 1900 Olympic croquet tournament
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Author Michael Nordine

January 13, 2026

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As the sport of breaking taught many viewers in 2024, some events only make it to the Olympics once. Among the more surprising athletic endeavors to receive that honor is croquet, which made its Olympic debut — and, it turned out, only appearance — at the 1900 Summer Games in Paris. A lot of unusual and short-lived events were held that year, including ballooning, water motorsports, and live pigeon shooting. Though usually associated with wealth and leisure today, croquet is believed to have originated with French peasants in the 13th century; the current form of the game traces back to England and Ireland in the 1830s.

As for why croquet appeared at the Olympics just once, well, only one spectator bought a ticket, and an official report from the 1900 Olympics claimed that the game had “hardly any pretensions to athleticism.” All 10 of the sport’s Olympians hailed from France, making it the only country to have medaled in croquet. Gaston Aumoitte won in both the singles (one ball) and doubles categories, with Georges Johin as his partner in the latter, and Chrétien Waydelich took home the gold in the singles (two balls) category.

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The Olympics went on hiatus for 1,500 years.

The first Olympic Games took place in — you guessed it — Olympia, Greece, in 776 BCE. The Games were contested every four years for a full 12 centuries, but that came to an end in 393 CE, when Roman Emperor Theodosius I forbade all pagan activities. It took a millennia and a half for the games to be revived in 1896 in Athens, following a conference featuring 79 delegates from nine countries that formed the International Olympic Committee (IOC). A total of 241 athletes representing 14 countries competed in 43 events, though the modern Olympics weren’t immediately successful. World’s fairs were far more popular at the time, and it wasn’t until the 1924 Games in Paris that the endeavor truly found its footing due to increased media exposure and better funding. More than 1,000 journalists were present to cover those Games, including live radio coverage for the first time, and the number of countries competing increased from 29 to 44.

New York City once had miles of hidden underground mail tubes.

  • Pneumatic tube, New York City
Pneumatic tube, New York City
Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc./ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Timothy Ott

January 13, 2026

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In October 1897, construction of a high-speed network designed to service an ever-expanding city was underway beneath the streets of Manhattan. No, it wasn’t the subway; that would take a few more years. This was a pneumatic tube mail system, developed using engineering principles that dated back more than two centuries and had already been put to the test with working models in London, Paris, and Philadelphia.

Built by the Tubular Dispatch Company and leased to the U.S. Post Office Department, the New York City system was powered by rotary blowers and air compressors that shot steel mail-carrying canisters through cast-iron tubes at speeds of approximately 30 mph. The tubes were largely installed between 4 and 6 feet underground, with a noticeable outlier following the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, while the canisters they supported measured approximately 2 feet long by 8 inches in diameter. The network eventually connected 23 post offices through 27 miles of tubing, its early success paving the way for systems in Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis.

As one might suspect, a canister would occasionally get stuck, shutting down that particular pathway until it could physically be removed. But a bigger problem was the exorbitant costs that came with the endeavor, an issue that became more pronounced as the network continued circulating the same volume of mail even as the need for a larger, faster system increased with the growing population. Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield finally put the kibosh on New York City’s mail tubes in late 1953, reasoning that the addition of two trucks would be just as effective and far cheaper to maintain, and this once-futuristic service was left to become a hallmark of the city’s past.

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A pneumatic system was briefly used to power a precursor to the subway.

Approximately 30 years before mail canisters began zipping beneath the Big Apple, inventor and magazine publisher Alfred Ely Beach acquired a permit to begin constructing his own pneumatic mail system. However, Beach’s real goal was to develop a subterranean network of trains, and he unveiled the fruits of his labor to a surprised public in February 1870.  This preliminary system featured two stops, at Manhattan’s Warren Street and Murray Street, with a 100-horsepower fan blowing an 18-passenger car through a 312-foot brick tube between the stations. The ride was generally considered a smooth one, and some 400,000 customers shelled out more than 25 cents for the experience during its first year. But while Beach finally managed to obtain approval for expansion in 1873, the onset of an economic depression that year slowed investment to a halt. New York City dwellers would have to wait another three decades for the perks of a nonpneumatic, electric motor-powered subway to arrive.

Albert Einstein hated wearing socks.

  • Albert Einstein at his Princeton home
Albert Einstein at his Princeton home
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

January 14, 2026

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Albert Einstein’s outside-the-box thinking didn’t just lead to groundbreaking scientific thought — it also gave him his fair share of quirks. Among his most notorious eccentricities was his outright rejection of socks. Look closely at full-body portraits of the scientist and you’ll notice bare ankles above his wingtip shoes and a general preference for sandals. 

Einstein’s secretary noted that he didn’t even put on socks for a meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As he once wrote to his future wife Elsa, “Even on the most solemn occasions, I got away without wearing socks and hid the lack of civilisation in high boots.”

The explanation Einstein gave to both biographer Antonina Vallentin and photographer Philippe Halsman for his lack of socks was that he really didn’t like the holes his big toes made in them. But his letters reveal a deeper love for barefootedness. While spending eight weeks by the Baltic Sea in 1918, Einstein wrote to a colleague that he wanted to stay barefoot back home in Berlin. (According to biographer Albert Fölsing, it wasn’t until Einstein moved to the United States in 1933 that he started going barefoot full time.)

Overall, Einstein’s missing socks were part of a broader philosophy, one that scoffed at standard etiquette, didn’t put much stock in appearance, and valued simple things. When a photographer at Princeton asked about the socks, Einstein joked, “It would be an awful situation if the containers were of better quality than the meat.” And he told family friend Peter Bucky, “It is my feeling that the less that I can get along with in daily life, such as automobiles and socks, the freer I am from these drudgeries.” Bucky also noted that Einstein would read Emily Post’s Etiquette and laugh.

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Albert Einstein was a staunch pacifist.

Throughout his life, Albert Einstein condemned war, militarism, and nationalism, even when doing so was unpopular. After World War I, he became an outspoken pacifist, criticizing the League of Nations for not prioritizing an end to warfare. He encouraged civil disobedience and called on those eligible for military service to refuse, regardless of a war’s cause. His views shifted when the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany, but he still advocated for less destructive intervention.

In 1939, Einstein signed a letter warning Franklin D. Roosevelt about the destructive potential of uranium, which led to the Manhattan Project, America’s effort to be the first to develop atomic weapons, ultimately resulting in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The devastation weighed heavily on Einstein, who called the letter “one great mistake in my life.” The scientist spent the rest of his life advocating for nuclear disarmament. 

There are presidential M&M’s that are given out to guests.

  • Presidential M&M’s on Air Force One
Presidential M&M's on Air Force One
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Author Michael Nordine

January 14, 2026

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Flying on Air Force One would be memorable for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the opportunity to procure a box of presidential M&M’s. The candies come in just three colors — red, white, and blue — in boxes roughly the size of a cigarette packet; the package features the presidential seal and current leader’s signature on one side and a flag-bearing M&M character on the other. The prestigious snack has been given out to guests since 1988 as a replacement for actual cigarettes, which presidents including John F. Kennedy gave to members of the press and other guests on Air Force One. 

Ronald Reagan, a former smoker, switched to candy instead of cigarettes as part of the administration’s “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign. He initially opted for jelly beans (which he loved), but also requested custom boxes of M&M’s from Mars, Inc. in 1988. That year, First Lady Nancy Reagan saw the Moscow Summit as an opportunity to both ban smoking on Air Force One and use candy as a diplomatic tool. After arriving in the Russian capital, the first lady took boxes of M&M’s off Air Force One and gave them to schoolchildren. They’ve remained a presidential gift ever since, with Bill Clinton being the first to add his signature to the box and offering peanut M&M’s as an option.

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M&M’s were the first candy in space.

The 1980s were a big decade for M&M’s. In addition to being chosen as an official presidential candy, they also became the first candy in space when astronauts brought the “candy-coated chocolates” (as NASA labels them) aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981. They were chosen not just for taste but also for practical reasons: M&M’s are eaten whole, meaning they won’t leave crumbs that can float through zero gravity and get lodged in the crevices of important instruments; they’re also harder to lose due to their bright colors. “When you’re talking about a chocolate bar that you have to bite or break, a piece could fly off,” space historian Jennifer Levasseur explained on the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum website. “Anything you can eat in daily life that could leave crumbs behind is potentially bad news for the spacecraft.”

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