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Listerine was originally a surgical antiseptic.

Vintage Listerine ad
Credit: © The Reading Room/Alamy
Author Michael Nordine
May 7, 2026

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When chemist Joseph Lawrence developed Listerine in 1879, he didn’t have bad breath in mind. Inspired by surgeon Joseph Lister, who pioneered antiseptic medicine, Lawrence formulated and sold the product bearing Lister’s name as a surgical antiseptic. Other applications for his invention that failed to catch on in the marketplace include floor cleaner, hair tonic, dandruff cure, deodorant, and “beneficial remedy” for such diseases as dysentery, diphtheria, smallpox, and gonorrhea. Eventually, Lawrence licensed the product to Jordan Wheat Lambert, a local pharmacist in St. Louis, and it was he who began selling it to dentists in 1895 as a mouthwash and disinfectant.

Listerine first became available as an over-the-counter mouthwash in 1914, but it didn’t achieve widespread popularity until the following decade, and minor changes to the formula were made over time. That was when Lambert’s son began an aggressive marketing campaign that pitched Listerine as the cure for chronic halitosis, better known as bad breath. 

Bad breath wasn’t a major social concern at the time, but as authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner wrote in Freakonomics: “Listerine changed that. As the advertising scholar James B. Twitchell writes, ‘Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis.’ In just seven years, the company’s revenues rose from $115,000 to more than $8 million.” The next time you’re feeling self-conscious about your breath, you can think of mouthwash as both the source of, and solution to, your problem.

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Surgery was almost banned before Lister’s ideas took off.

As you might imagine, surgery was an incredibly dangerous affair before surgeons decided to start washing their hands. The germ theory of disease had yet to be accepted in the mid-19th century, and doctors reacted with condescension and outrage to the idea that they could be exacerbating the very problems they were trying to solve. So many surgical patients died from septic complications, in fact, that there was talk of banning the practice in English hospitals. That changed thanks in part to Queen Victoria. Lister was called upon to drain an abscess growing under her armpit, a simple procedure he performed with his own antiseptic method using carbolic acid. “Because she allowed him to do this operation,” The Butchering Art author Lindsey Fitzharris told NPR, “she kind of gives her blessing to the antiseptic techniques and germ theory by default.” Lister was later knighted for his pioneering work in antiseptic surgery.

The baby boom caused a nationwide diaper shortage.

Woman tying a baby's diaper, 1955
Harold M. Lambert/ Archive Photos via Getty Images
Author Nicole Villeneuve
March 6, 2025

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Living in America during World War II often meant going without everyday necessities. At the end of the war, ration restrictions were lifted, but the U.S. still found itself in short supply of a crucial item: diapers. The country was in the nascent stages of a postwar baby boom, and as the young population surged with soldiers returning home and starting families, cloth diaper production remained in its wartime slowdown. 

Government agencies such as the War Production Board (WPB) denied the diaper shortage and said manufacturing was on pace to meet the demand. But textile insiders said otherwise, claiming that after the war, manufacturers had shifted looms away from diaper cloth to make more profitable cotton fabrics. The National Institute of Diaper Services blamed government officials who were not fathers and therefore didn’t understand infant needs, while retailers said shipments were not arriving quickly enough. On top of everything else, diaper prices were on the rise. Ultimately, frustrated parents and caregivers were left navigating the consequences.

The shortage wasn’t entirely unexpected. Diaper services — which, before the advent of disposables, collected soiled diapers and delivered fresh ones — were already under strain before the baby boom was in full swing. In 1943, wartime fuel rations made it difficult to run delivery trucks, and with many women working in war industries, fewer families had the time or resources to wash diapers at home. In June 1946, John K. Jones, president of the National Institute of Diaper Services, introduced a new folding technique in an attempt to help families cope with the ongoing shortage. Known today as the “kite fold,” it involved folding the corners of a diaper to create extra thickness in the center, making the diaper more absorbent and thus ideally able to last longer than a traditional triangle fold. The diaper shortage made headlines across the country for years, but by 1947, mention of it had tapered off.

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Sugar was the first and last food rationed in the U.S. during World War II.

After the U.S. entered World War II, many goods, including food, were rationed to ensure military troops and manufacturers had enough supplies, and to enforce fair distribution among civilians. Sugar was the first food placed under rationing, mainly because of supply shortages: Before the war, the U.S. imported most of its sugar from the Philippines, but that supply was cut off after Japan occupied the islands in 1941. At the same time, cargo ships that once transported sugar were, like many things at the time, prioritized for military use.  Even after the war ended in 1945, low crop yields and the rebuilding of trade networks meant that sugar remained in short supply. The U.S. government continued rationing sugar for two years, finally lifting restrictions in 1947 — making sugar not only the first but also the last food to be restricted during World War II.

Victorian doctors prescribed beards. 

Bearded man, late 19th century
Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
August 14, 2025

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The well-coiffed men of the Victorian era wore finely tailored suits, trim waistcoats, and fancy statement hats. These men also, in contrast to their generally prim and proper aesthetic, sometimes had truly impressive beards. The Victorian “beard movement,” which started around 1850, was partially about looking manly and rugged — especially after British soldiers came back from the Crimean War unshaven in 1856. But beards were also, according to some medical professionals at the time, a way to ward off disease.

At the time, many doctors endorsed the miasma theory of disease, which (incorrectly) held that illnesses such as Britain’s common cholera outbreaks were caused by bad air. (To be fair, rampant air pollution was making people sick, just not in ways that scientists understood at the time.) Facial hair, some reasoned, could provide a natural filter against breathing in so-called “miasms.”

“[T]he moustache is emphatically nature’s simple respirator, while the hair covering the jaws and throat is intended to afford warmth and protection,” one doctor wrote in the Edinburgh Medical Journal in 1861. Clergymen and other public speakers were particularly encouraged to have beards to protect their voices.

Beards started losing popularity by the 1880s. Changing standards of masculinity played a role, but the medical justification was also weakening as microbial biology and germ theory took hold. Beards, it turns out, can hold a lot of microbes.

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Mustaches used to be mandatory in the British army.

Most U.S. soldiers have to be clean-shaven while on duty. But for decades in Great Britain, soldiers were forbidden from shaving their upper lips. In the first half of the 19th century, facial hair was increasingly popular for several reasons, including its supposed medical benefits. And in the 1860s, mustaches went from popular to mandatory in the British army. Regulations stated that “moustaches are to be worn, and the chin is to be shaved (except by pioneers, who will wear beards also). Whiskers, when worn, are to be of moderate length.” The regulation fell apart during World War I for a few logistical reasons, including difficulty putting on a gas mask over a mustache.

The first known use of ‘OMG’ was in a letter to Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill, 1939
Credit: Evening Standard/ Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Author Darren Orf
November 15, 2023

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Winston Churchill’s remarkable life was filled with genuine “OMG” moments, from withstanding the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during the First World War to leading Britain through World War II as prime minister. Churchill held a front-row seat to many history-defining moments, even including the little-known origin of the term “OMG” itself. 

The expression “OMG,” an acronym for “oh my god,” became popular as early internet lingo during the 1990s. But the first known use of the acronym actually dates back to a letter written to Churchill in 1917, while he was serving as first lord of the admiralty in the British navy. The letter was written by John Arbuthnot Fisher, who, as first sea lord (the navy’s highest ranking officer), often quarreled with Churchill.  In the 1917 missive, Fisher wrote, “I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis [table] — O.M.G. (Oh! My God!) — Shower it on the Admiralty!!” Sadly for the linguistically hip Fisher, neither Churchill, the navy, nor the British people adopted his clever quip. It wasn’t until the arrival of the internet age some 70 years later that the “OMG” acronym exploded in popularity. 

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“LOL” originally meant “little old lady.”

Language evolves over time, and the same can be said of time-saving acronyms, including the ubiquitous “LOL” (most commonly understood to mean “laugh out loud”). The acronym is now a go-to response when a joke, meme, or photo elicits some measure of mirth (though many keep “ROFL” in their back pocket for those truly hilarious moments). But the oldest use of “LOL” actually dates back to the 1960s and had a very different meaning: Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Herb Caen used the acronym in his book Only in San Francisco to mean “little old lady.” In the book, Caen wrote, “A traffic officer bellowed at an LOL who didn’t seem to know which way to turn her car.” Caen, who spent most of his career at the San Francisco Chronicle, also coined the term “beatnik,” referring to the counterculture inspired by Beat Generation writers such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.

Toothpaste used to be radioactive.

Young girl brushing her teeth
Credit: © E. HIBBS—ClassicStock/Alamy
Author Michael Nordine
April 30, 2026

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As with many world-changing discoveries, people initially went a bit overboard with radioactivity. The atomic process that causes radiation was discovered by Henri Becquerel in 1896 and studied further by Marie and Pierre Curie in the following years. And while radiation exposure is now known to be highly lethal, in the early 20th century, products with radioactive properties were believed to be beneficial to one’s health. 

One such item was Doramad, a toothpaste made by the German company Auergesellschaft, which used traces of thorium (a radioactive element) in its teeth-cleaning formula. Advertisements urged customers to “protect yourself by using the biologically active, radioactive, Doramad toothpaste.” (If this ad didn’t make you want to brush your teeth, what would?) 

Doramad’s packaging included the description, “Special biological healing effects by radium rays. A thousand times medically prescribed and recommended.” And the back of the tube claimed the following: “What does Doramad do? Through its radioactivity, it increases the defenses of teeth and gums. The cells are charged with a new vigorous life energy, which inhibits bacteria in their destructive ability. Hence the exquisite prevention and healing effect on gum diseases.” 

Radioactive elements were thought to have beneficial health properties at the time, including for teeth; we now know that the opposite is true, of course. Doramad was sold from the 1920s until the end of World War II, by which point the dangers of radiation were better understood — including by scientists on both sides of the conflict attempting to develop a nuclear bomb.

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The ancient Egyptians made toothpaste out of salt, mint, and pepper.

It wasn’t just their attitudes toward cats that made the ancient Egyptians ahead of their time. They also concocted what one scribe at the time described as a “powder for white and perfect teeth” made of rock salt, mint, dried iris flower, and pepper. Heinz Neuman, a dentist who tried the ancient toothpaste at a dental conference in Austria, told The Telegraph that it “was painful on my gums and made them bleed as well, but that’s not a bad thing, and afterwards my mouth felt fresh and clean.” He added that the recipe “would have been a big improvement on some of the soap toothpastes used much later.”

In 1932, Australia declared a ‘war’ against emus (and lost).

Wandering Outback emus
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Author Michael Nordine
November 21, 2023

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Australia is known for its unique wildlife, not all of which is friendly. In 1932, the country received a harsh reminder of that when a drought caused some 20,000 emus to move inland in search of water during their breeding season, disrupting farmers’ crops in the process. The ostrich-like birds had already had their classification downgraded from “native species” to “vermin” despite being endemic to Australia and appearing on its coat of arms alongside the kangaroo, and this mass migration made them public enemy No. 1. The government sent in World War I veterans to assist the beleaguered farmers, and though they were outfitted with machine guns, they soon found themselves overwhelmed by their flightless foes. Emus are fairly imposing, to be fair — among all bird species, only ostriches and cassowaries are larger. 

“The machine-gunners’ dreams of point-blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated,” observed D.L. Serventy, an Australian ornithologist. “The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month.” In other words, the emus emerged victorious in what’s now known as the Great Emu War. The birds were simply too much trouble to get rid of, and though they suffered heavy casualties, they still thrive Down Under.

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Emus lie awake for a while before falling asleep.

Anyone with a pet knows that cats, dogs, and other animals tend to fall asleep right away (lucky them). Not the emu, which spends up to 20 minutes getting into the right position before finally nodding off. That’s according to The Sleep of the Emu author Klaus Immelmann, a zoologist who observed emus and ostriches at the Frankfurt Zoological Garden over the course of 10 consecutive nights. Though they get ready for bed as soon as the sun goes down, and exhibit “preliminary drowsiness” described by Immelmann as “remarkably suggestive of a late-at-night reader in a comfortable armchair,” emus often jerk back awake just before falling asleep and rise as many as eight times a night. 

One ancient wonder only stood for about 55 years.

Colossus of Rhodes statue
ClassicStock/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Bennett Kleinman
November 21, 2023

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Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Colossus of Rhodes stood for the shortest period of time — roughly 55 years. Sources vary as to the exact number, but what’s certain is that the statue existed for a mere blip in the annals of history. (By comparison, the Great Pyramid of Giza has stood for more than 4,500 years.) The Colossus’ creation dates back to the siege of the Greek island of Rhodes in 305 BCE, when the Macedonian ruler Demetrius I led an ultimately futile attempt to capture the city and harbor. As his army abandoned its efforts the following year, they left behind their supplies and equipment, which the city later sold off for profit. With this unexpected windfall, Rhodian officials commissioned a celebratory statue of the Greek sun god Helios, the patron god of Rhodes. 

Greek sculptor Chares of Lindos was tasked with building the colossal 108-foot-tall statue; he began around 292 BCE, and the work lasted for 12 years. Though the sculpture’s exact location is unknown, it’s believed to have stood on the harbor’s eastern side, and was likely made of iron and stone coated with bronze. The Colossus stood triumphantly for five decades, but it fell around 226 BCE when an earthquake struck the region and toppled the great wonder. Its remnants were scattered around until 654 CE, when invading Arabian forces gathered and sold what remained of the statue. There was so much debris that it’s said to have taken more than 900 camel loads to transport.

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The marathon was inspired by an ancient Greek battle.

The origin of the marathon race dates back to the Greco-Persian Wars of the fifth century BCE and the ancient Battle of Marathon, though the commonly told origin story is likely a myth. According to the legend, a messenger named Pheidippides ran 25 miles between Athens and the city of Marathon to spread the news of a Greek victory in the battle. That myth is likely a combination of two events that actually occurred. In 490 BCE, over the course of several days, Pheidippides ran nearly 300 miles from Athens to Sparta and back to gather additional forces to defend against a Persian attack. The Athenians won the Battle of Marathon days later, and marched 25 miles back home from Marathon to defend against a potential second attack. That march was conflated with Pheidippides’ initial run in retellings of the battle that were written centuries later, including Robert Browning’s 1879 poem “Pheidippides.” The myth inspired French archaeologist Michel Bréal to propose a similar event for the 1896 Athens Olympics. The first Olympic marathon featured 17 runners traversing a 24.8-mile course between the Marathon battlefield and the city of Athens. 

The Colosseum used to be a housing complex.

Exterior of the Colosseum
Credit: © bauhaus1000—iStock Editorial/Getty Images
Author Michael Nordine
April 30, 2026

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Gladiators haven’t fought in the Colosseum since 404 CE, when Emperor Honorius I put an end to the bloodsport for good. But the iconic structure itself didn’t go away with the battles, of course, and has had many functions in the nearly two millennia since, serving as a cemetery, place of worship, tourist attraction, and even a housing complex. 

Friars belonging to the Santa Maria Nova convent rented out the Colosseum for more than five centuries beginning in 800 CE, building stables, workshops, and sewage pipes made from terra cotta. Their tenants represented a cross-section of Roman society and included everyone from aristocrats to humble shopkeepers. Not until a massive earthquake struck Rome in 1349 CE did they abandon the historic landmark, which has since been repurposed many times over.

The era of gladiators lasted even longer, a roughly 650-year span that began in 264 BCE. Their slow decline in popularity was due to many factors, including how costly the fighters were to maintain, but a changing of the religious guard is what ultimately did the games in. The rise of Christianity heralded the end of gladiators, as religious leaders objected to the violent spectacle. Constantine I technically abolished them in 325 CE, a ruling that apparently went unheeded until Honorius I ended the games yet again.

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Not all gladiators were enslaved.

Though you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you learned most of what you know about gladiators from, well, Gladiator, some combatants were there of their own volition. This was rarely the case for the first several centuries that spectators filled the Colosseum to see enslaved people and prisoners of war fight each other, but by the first century CE, the life of a gladiator had a certain glamour to it. Many were the celebrities of their time and even had their own merchandise. Some were former soldiers looking to put their skills to good (i.e., profitable) use, while others were members of the upper class who wanted to test their mettle.

Cats helped win an ancient battle.

Cat on ancient ruins
Credit: Harri Küünarpuu/ Moment via Getty Images
Author Michael Nordine
November 8, 2023

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Even the most dedicated ailurophile will admit that felines can be vicious when tested, but cats didn’t help the Persians win an ancient battle because of their sharp claws. Rather, the Persians emerged victorious against Egypt in the 525 BCE Battle of Pelusium by using cats, ibises, and other animals the Egyptians considered sacred as hostages. According to the Greek historian Polyaenus, the Egyptians dared not fire their arrows when their Persian opponents held cats aloft in front of them, allowing the latter to take the city of Pelusium with relative ease. This decisive victory led the First Persian Empire (also known as the Achaemenid Empire) to take the pharaoh’s throne for Cambyses II, beginning the 27th Dynasty of Egypt under Achaemenid rule.

Cats are hardly the only animal to grace the battlefield with their presence throughout history. Elephants and horses are perhaps the beasts of burden most famous for their wartime contributions, but camels, dogs, pigeons, oxen, and even bears have seen combat, too. There are various monuments and memorials to their service across the world, as well as the Dickin Medal, an honor first bestowed by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) in 1943. Initially created for animals who served Britain in World War II, it has been given to 32 messenger pigeons, 38 dogs, four horses, and, yes, one very good cat.

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Cats aren’t nocturnal.

Everyone with a cat knows that felines love running around at night, especially when their humans are trying to sleep. Despite that, cats aren’t actually nocturnal — they’re crepuscular, meaning they’re most active during dusk and dawn. The reason they prefer these times of day has to do with their hunting instincts, as their eyes are well attuned to low-light conditions that allow them to see their prey while remaining hidden themselves. And because cats are descended from desert hunters, dusk and dawn are also favorable due to cooler temperatures. This doesn’t stop them from sleeping all day, of course, but they’re always ready to wake up in an instant — an adaptation that helps keep them safe from predators and alert to opportunities for tiny prey.

The Statue of Liberty’s pedestal is taller than the statue itself.

Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor
Credit: © bauhaus1000—iStock/Getty Images
Author Michael Nordine
April 30, 2026

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Lady Liberty stands a total of 305 feet tall, but the statue itself accounts for less than half of that — at 154 feet, the pedestal is actually slightly taller than the statue (151 feet). By more than doubling Lady Liberty’s height, the pedestal allows her to be seen from farther away as people enter New York Harbor and all it represents.

Inside the pedestal’s lower level is a plaque inscribed with “The New Colossus,” a sonnet written by the poet Emma Lazarus that includes the famous lines: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Officially known as “Liberty Enlightening the World” and donated to the United States by France in 1884, the iconic landmark was created by French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi.

The Statue of Liberty weighs in at 440,000 pounds, including 176,000 pounds of copper, and was itself copper-colored until it gradually turned green due to exposure to the elements over the course of several decades. The idea for the statue came from Édouard René de Laboulaye, a historian and abolitionist who wanted to commemorate the end of slavery. He first conceived of the monument in 1865, meaning it took more than 20 years for his idea to be funded, built, shipped, and reassembled in America; Laboulaye himself died in 1883, shortly before its completion. 

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The Statue of Liberty’s pedestal was crowdfunded.

Though the statue itself was paid for by the fine people of France, the pedestal was America’s responsibility. It cost about $250,000 (around $8.5 million today), and no one could agree on where that princely sum should come from. Grover Cleveland, then governor of New York, wouldn’t allow state funds to cover the cost, and Congress failed to pass a funding package. This being nearly a century and a half before the likes of Kickstarter, Americans had to get creative in the crowdfunding campaign that followed. Emma Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus” as part of the effort, and Joseph Pulitzer decided to print the name of every single donor — of which there were more than 160,000 — in his newspaper The New York World. Had the effort failed, Lady Liberty might have ended up in Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, or Baltimore, all of which offered to pay for the pedestal in exchange for the statue being relocated to their fair city.

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