Archives: Facts

Custom post type for facts

Flying cars have existed since 1949.

Moulton Taylor Aerocar
Credit: © richard neville/Alamy
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
April 17, 2026

Love it?

The 21st century has seen a lot of ideas that sound like the stuff of science fiction become reality, including self-driving cars, bionic limbs, and real-time language translation devices. But one futuristic invention straight out of The Jetsons actually existed before that classic sci-fi series even aired: flying cars.

The first prototype of what was called the Aerocar was completed in 1949, the brainchild of pilot and former naval engineer Moulton Taylor. It wasn’t the first airplane-car hybrid ever built, but unlike its predecessor, the Airphibian, which had to leave its wings behind to hit the road, the Aerocar could tow all its equipment along. The conversion process took less than 15 minutes.

Taylor staged the Aerocar’s first test flight for investors in December 1949 in Longview, Washington. He pulled up to the demonstration driving the Aerocar in its road configuration, drove a couple of miles away to Kelso, Washington, and then flew it back. The investors were delighted, but the car was ultimately a commercial failure. After it was certified by the Civil Aeronautics Administration in 1956, Taylor managed to build only six units and never found a path to mass production, although Ford considered taking it on.

Still, the invention attracted a good deal of attention at the time, and was featured in glossy magazines and television programs. The design evolved through four models (Aerocar I-IV), with most of the six cars produced being the Aerocar I. Two of the six Aerocars produced went on to modest fame: One featured prominently in the sitcom The Bob Cummings Show, which ran from 1961 to 1962, and another was used for weather reporting by a radio station in Portland, Oregon, from 1962 to 1963.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

Hopping cars have existed since 1917.

Before the Aerocar could fly, the Curtiss Autoplane had to hop. Developed by engineer Glenn Curtiss and billed as “an aerial limousine,” the Autoplane made its debut on display at the 1917 Pan-American Aeronautics Exhibition. When it came to actually testing the thing, however, it never achieved more than a few “hops” — briefly lifting off the ground for short periods, but not achieving sustained flight. Still, catching any air at all is pretty good for 1917.

Medieval scholars say 536 CE was the worst year to be alive.

World globe
Credit: Random Person/ Unsplash
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
November 27, 2024

Love it?

If you’re ever despairing about the state of the world, you can — at least, according to some scholars — be thankful it’s not the year 536 CE. To be fair, it’s medieval scholars, not 21st-century ones, who called 536 CE the worst year to be alive. But hear them out, because it sounds pretty bad. That year, a massive volcano erupted, historians believe, filling the air with volcanic ash. Of course, the majority of people affected by the disaster had no idea what was happening — they just knew it was very suddenly very dark for a very long time. The sun didn’t shine in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia for 18 whole months — or as the Byzantine historian Procopius put it, “The sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year.” 

That summer, temperatures dropped more than 30 degrees in parts of Europe and Asia (it even snowed in China), so crops failed, leading to widespread famine, starvation, and economic stagnation. Many people who were literate wrote about this at the time — the sun disappeared overnight, after all — but academics didn’t take the accounts seriously until the late 20th century. In 1983, a volcanic eruption was theorized to be the source of the darkness, and researchers examining tree rings in Ireland in the 1990s noted a severe temperature drop occurred in the sixth century. In 2018, researchers published a study pointing to a volcano as the likely culprit after analyzing ice cores drilled from glaciers.

Historian Michael McCormick told Science that 536 CE wasn’t just the worst year up until then, but “the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive.” The climate still hadn’t recovered five years later when the first bubonic plague broke out, wiping out up to half the population of the Eastern Roman Empire. Two more eruptions in the 540s certainly didn’t help matters, either. The Late Antique Little Ice Age, as the period is known, lasted more than a century, clearing up between 660 CE and 680 CE, depending on the location.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

The eruption of Mount Tambora caused a year with no summer.

When Indonesia’s Mount Tambora erupted in April 1815, the resulting sulfur dioxide, ash, and dust blocked the sunlight and lowered global temperatures to the coldest in centuries. The following year, Europe and North America saw unusually chilly and wet conditions during summertime, leading 1816 to be known as the “year without a summer.” Even though the volcano erupted more than a year earlier, the volcanic ash was ejected into the upper atmosphere and carried around the planet by the jet stream, continuing to impact weather conditions. 

Helen Keller met 13 presidents.

JFK meeting with Helen Keller
Credit: © Circa Images—Glasshouse Images/Alamy
Author Michael Nordine
April 16, 2026

Love it?

The more you learn about Helen Keller’s life, the more remarkable it seems. The first deaf and blind person in the U.S. to earn a college degree, she also co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920 and met every president from the time she was 7 years old until her death more than 80 years later. 

The 13 leaders in question were Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. She met the same number of presidents as Queen Elizabeth II, who met every commander-in-chief from Truman to Joe Biden with the exception of Johnson. LBJ even awarded Keller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 1964. At the ceremony, he described her as “an example of courage to all mankind” who “has devoted her life to illuminating the dark world of the blind and the handicapped.” 

Indeed, Keller often entreated the presidents to advocate for blind people, such as in 1947, when she wrote Truman a letter asking if he would “be so gracious as to send the blind of Japan a message of good-will warm from the heart of America whom you represent.”

By the Numbers

Did you know?

Helen Keller and Mark Twain were close friends.

A lot of quotes attributed to Mark Twain weren’t actually spoken by him, but this one was: “Helen Keller is fellow to Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, Homer, Shakespeare, and the rest of the immortals... She will be as famous a thousand years from now as she is today.” The feeling was mutual: “He [Mark Twain] has his own way of thinking, saying and doing everything,” Keller once wrote. “I can feel the twinkle of his eye in his handshake. Even while he utters his cynical wisdom in an indescribably droll voice, he makes you feel that his heart is a tender Iliad of human sympathy.”

The two became close friends after meeting at a luncheon held in Keller’s honor in 1895, and remained so until Twain’s death 15 years later. Built on mutual admiration and respect, their relationship spanned Keller’s college years (which Twain persuaded a friend to sponsor after learning of her financial hardships) and the death of the writer’s wife.

During the French Revolution, most of the country did not speak French.

Maximilien Robespierre
clu/ Shutterstock
Author Darren Orf
December 7, 2023

Love it?

In the early years of the French Revolution, a revolutionary named Henri Grégoire conducted a survey of language throughout the fledgling republic and discovered a concerning truth: Most people living in France at the time didn’t actually speak French. On June 4, 1794, Grégoire reported the results of his survey to the revolutionary assembly, stating that there were no more than 3 million French speakers (11% of the population), and even fewer who were able to write it. In fact, the language was spoken more in the Netherlands and German states than it was in some parts of France.

Instead, a majority of French people spoke local dialects — for instance, a large southern population spoke Occitan, a Romance language influenced by Latin. This was seen as particularly embarrassing for the revolutionary cause, as three years earlier, diplomat Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand declared that “the multitude of corrupt dialects, the last remnants of feudalism, will be forced to disappear: necessity dictates so.” Grégoire’s survey only added fuel to the fire. Little more than a month after the survey, the revolutionary administration declared that “no public act may be written (or registered) other than in the French language, in any part of the territory of the Republic.” Luckily, France’s linguistic multiculturalism survived the prescriptive onslaught, and regional languages such as Occitan and Basque flourish to this day. 

By the Numbers

Did you know?

Bread played a major role in igniting the French Revolution.

While the cause of the French Revolution is complex and multifaceted, one of the major grievances against the French crown was the availability of bread. To put it mildly, bread was a staple of the daily diet of a typical 18th-century French citizen. In fact, bread was so central to French society that the king became known as “le premier boulanger du royaume,” or “the first baker of the kingdom.” It’s estimated that 60% to 80% of a typical wage-earner’s family budget went to buying bread alone. Yet as France’s population increased throughout the 18th century, the monarchy implemented disastrous regulatory policies while neglecting to increase domestic production of bread. Then, disaster struck when a severe winter in 1788 delivered low crop yields, sending the price of bread soaring. With most of the French population living without sufficient access to bread, anger fomented in rebellion. On July 14, 1789, a band of Parisians stormed the Bastille in search of arms and also grain for making bread, marking the start of the French Revolution.

A Roman emperor renamed every month of the year after himself.

Commodus fighting as a gladiator
Credit: © Sunny Celeste—imageBROKER/Getty Images
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
April 16, 2026

Love it?

Ancient Roman emperors did a lot of wild things while they were in power. Nero built a spinning dining room with an ivory ceiling. Elagabalus played elaborate pranks on his dinner guests. And Commodus, who ruled from 177 CE to 192 CE, named every single month of the year after himself. 

To come up with 12 separate names, Commodus (whom you may remember from the fictionalized portrayal in the 2000 film Gladiator) used his numerous imperial titles. Some of them came from his lineage, but others he bestowed upon himself, resulting in: Amazonius, Invictus, Felix, Pius,⁠ Lucius, Ælius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus, Romanus, and Exsuperatorius. 

“Exsuperatorius” meant “all-surpassing conqueror.” “Amazonius,” according to the historic text Historia Augusta, honored Commodus’ mistress Marcia, whom he thought of as an Amazon woman. And “Herculeus” was chosen because the emperor liked to picture himself as the mythological figure Hercules. 

These month names fell out of use after Commodus was assassinated, but they were legitimately used to express dates while they were in effect. Of course, Commodus wasn’t the first Roman emperor to name a month after himself — even today, July and August are named after Julius Caesar and his heir Augustus—but none went quite as far.

In addition to the months of the year, Commodus renamed the entirety of Rome after himself, calling it Colonia Commodiana (Commodus’ Colony). It’s no surprise that toward the end of his reign, he had the Roman Senate declare him a god.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

“Commode” used to mean something very different.

When you hear the word “commode” today, you probably think of a toilet — but that’s a relatively modern use. Starting in the late 17th century, the French term actually referred to a very fancy French headdress. The headdress trend supposedly started when a mistress of King Louis XIV tied her hair up with a garter while hunting. The name likely came from the adjective “commode,” which meant “easy or convenient.” That ease and convenience was ultimately lost, though: What started as a simple accessory became increasingly ornate and eventually grew so tall that the garment had to be supported by wire frames.

Beer was banned in Iceland for nearly 75 years, until 1989.

Icelandic flag with beer mug
Credit: Golden Brown/ Shutterstock
Author Michael Nordine
November 21, 2024

Love it?

If you wanted to drink beer in Iceland between 1915 and 1989, you’d have to break the law to do so. The alcoholic beverage was banned in the small Nordic country for nearly 75 years, with the prohibition period beginning five years earlier than it did in the U.S. The ban followed a 1908 referendum that received 60% of the vote, indicating most of the country was initially in favor of prohibition. At first, all alcohol was forbidden, but wine became legal again in 1922 and all spirits except beer followed suit in 1935. Beer, however, remained forbidden for another half century. 

Though all alcohol consumption was frowned upon at the time, beer was especially out of favor because Icelanders associated it with their fiercest rival: Denmark, from whom they were struggling to gain independence (a victory they didn’t fully achieve until 1944). Imbibing lagers and ales was therefore considered unpatriotic, a sentiment that took decades to fizzle out. The beer ban ended on March 1, 1989, a date that has been celebrated as Bjórdagur (“Beer Day”) ever since.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

About 60% of Iceland’s population lives in or near Reykjavik.

Reykjavik isn’t just Iceland’s capital and most populous city — it’s home to nearly two-thirds of the entire country’s population. Approximately 382,000 people live in Iceland, about 60% of whom are in the capital region and 123,000 of whom are in Reykjavik proper. The capital region includes the nearby municipalities of Kópavogur, Garðabær, Mosfellsbær, and Hafnarfjörður. At 39,768 square miles, Iceland itself isn’t exactly small; it’s the world’s 18th-largest island and roughly the same size as Ohio. But outside of the capital area, it’s very sparsely populated. 

Michelangelo hated painting the Sistine Chapel.

Detail of the Sistine Chapel
Credit: © agcreativelab/stock.adobe.com
Author Michael Nordine
April 9, 2026

Love it?

You might not love your day job, but you probably don’t dislike it as much as Michelangelo disliked his. The iconic Renaissance artist famously despised painting the Sistine Chapel, which took him four years to complete (1508 to 1512) and nearly broke his spirit in the process. 

“I am not in the right place,” he wrote in the last line of a sonnet to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia after a year of work. “I am not a painter.” History may disagree — the Sistine Chapel is among the most revered works of art in the world — but the physical ailments he endured clearly took their toll.

Michelangelo is said to have suffered an enlarged thyroid, cramped thighs, a tight chest, and a knotted spine while creating his magnum opus. In the same poem, he described the project as “torture” and noted, “My brush / above me all the time, dribbles paint / so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!” 

Michelangelo devised a scaffolding system so he could paint the ceiling while standing, but it only helped so much. The Sistine Chapel is more than 5,000 square feet, and it seems that the artist — who considered himself a sculptor above all else — spent much of his time on the project believing he’d bitten off more than he could chew. At least he got centuries and centuries of acclaim out of it.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

The Sistine Chapel includes a self-portrait.

“The Last Judgement,” an addition to the Sistine Chapel that Michelangelo began working on a quarter-century later, depicts the second coming of Christ and God’s final judgment of all humanity. It’s also believed to depict Michelangelo himself, who included a self-portrait in the guise of St. Bartholomew, a martyred saint who was flayed (skinned alive). Michelangelo is portrayed as Bartholomew’s skin, which the saint holds in his left hand as he ascends to heaven. Was the artist comparing his own agony to that of a martyred saint, or did he merely include the self-portrait as a personal flourish? It’s unlikely we’ll ever know.

Tom Hanks is related to Abraham Lincoln.

Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia," 1993
History Facts
Author Michael Nordine
November 21, 2024

Love it?

Tom Hanks has played historical figures such as Walt Disney and Mister Rogers throughout his illustrious career, but he’s never been a president — not even the one he’s related to. As if he weren’t already enough of an American icon, the Oscar-winning actor is also a distant relative of Abraham Lincoln. Honest Abe’s mother was named Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and through her, the president and actor are third cousins four times removed. Though Hanks has never depicted his distant relative on film, he did narrate National Geographic’s 2013 docudrama Killing Lincoln, based on the book of the same name.

Everyone’s favorite everyman isn’t the only actor related to a president. Brad Pitt and Barack Obama are ninth cousins, Richard Gere is the sixth cousin four times removed of James Garfield, and Marilyn Monroe and George H.W. Bush were ninth cousins once removed, among others. Most surprising of all: Richard Nixon and James Dean, whose public personas couldn’t be more different, were seventh cousins once removed.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

Tom Hanks owns more than 250 typewriters.

Stamps and coins have inspired many a collector over the years, but Tom Hanks doesn’t get out of bed for anything less than a typewriter. He has no fewer than 250 of them — as revealed in the 2017 documentary California Typewriter — 90% of which are in perfect working order. “What thrills me about typewriters is that they are meant to do one thing and one thing only,” he said during an interview conducted for the film, “and with the tiniest amount of effort, and maintenance, it will last a thousand years.” His obsession began in 1978, when he attempted to get a poorly made typewriter fixed and was instead sold a Hermes 2000 for $45. He even wrote a collection of short stories called Uncommon Type, with each tale featuring a typewriter.

The Egyptian pyramids were older to the Romans than the Romans are to us.

Credit: Europeana/ Unsplash
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
November 14, 2024

Love it?

From a vast distance, it’s easy to mentally group ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Rome, and Greece all together. They all have fascinating divine pantheons, ruins that still define our landscape, and surprisingly advanced technology. But they existed and thrived at very different points in history. Ancient Egypt dates all the way back to around 3000 BCE, whereas ancient Rome lasted into the Middle Ages, falling in 476 CE. That’s a gigantic range of time. 

In fact, there’s more time between the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza (around 2575-2465 BCE) and the ancient Roman civilization than there is between ancient Rome and the present day. According to legend, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BCE, which means even to the very first Roman citizens, the Giza pyramids were more than 1,700 years old, whereas the fall of the Western Roman Empire occurred around 1,550 years ago.

Yes, ancient Egyptian civilization and ancient Rome famously overlapped. Cleopatra, who was born around 70 BCE, was deeply involved in Roman politics during her two-decade rule — including through her relationships with Roman statesmen Julius Caesar and Mark Antony — and Egypt eventually fell to the Romans around 30 BCE. But the iconic ancient Egyptian pyramids had been around for more than a millennium before Cleopatra, who was the last of the Egyptian pharaohs. The last pharaoh to be interred in a pyramid, meanwhile, was Ahmose, who reigned in the 16th century BCE. The Pyramids of Giza were even ancient to Ahmose; they were built in the 25th and 26th centuries BCE as tombs for the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

The Great Pyramid of Giza used to be shiny.

The towering, sandy structure we see today at the Giza pyramid complex is still impressive, but the Great Pyramid is missing its original finishing touches. When it was first constructed, the whole structure was cased in a layer of highly polished limestone, which needed a great deal of skill to cut for a smooth finish. Very few polished stones remain on the pyramid’s surface today; many were lost in earthquakes, and others were probably just repurposed for other buildings.

Ulysses S. Grant’s first name wasn’t actually ‘Ulysses.’

Ulysses S. Grant portrait
Credit: Ruslan Lytvyn/ Shutterstock
Author Bennett Kleinman
November 15, 2023

Love it?

Ulysses S. Grant, America’s 18th president, was born Hiram Ulysses Grant on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio, to Jesse and Hannah Grant. Though Hannah initially wanted to name her son after American diplomat Albert Gallatin, her father suggested the name Hiram and her mother proposed Ulysses. After much discussion, Jesse announced the boy would be named Hiram Ulysses Grant in an effort to please both grandparents. The future president lived the first 17 years of his life with the first name Hiram — until there was a clerical mistake at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Grant was nominated to West Point in 1839 by Ohio Congressman Thomas Hamer, who accidentally wrote Grant’s name in the application as “Ulysses S. Grant.” The confusion stemmed from the fact that Grant often went by Ulysses, rather than Hiram. To further complicate things, the application called for a middle initial, so Hamer added an “S” for Grant’s mother’s surname, Simpson. Grant made several efforts to correct the mistake, but the name stuck. Fellow cadets even referred to Grant as “Uncle Sam” because of his unintentionally patriotic initials. In an 1844 letter to his future wife Julia Dent, Grant wrote, “You know I have an ‘S’ in my name and don’t know what it stand for.”

By the Numbers

Did you know?

Grant embarked on a multiyear world tour after his presidency.

In the final years of his presidency, Grant’s reputation suffered due to various scandals that plagued his administration. After leaving office, he sought to distance himself from the issues back home by embarking on a multiyear world tour. On May 17, 1877, Grant and his wife Julia — accompanied by New York Herald reporter John Russell Young — departed Philadelphia for Liverpool, England. There they were greeted with raucous enthusiasm and treated as esteemed guests, even dining with Queen Victoria. The couple then visited Germany and met with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. They ventured further to Italy, Greece, Russia, Egypt, India, China, Vietnam, Japan, and other nations, and were welcomed fondly by each country they visited. Young relayed reports of the trip back to America, where readers were fascinated by their former president’s travels and began to view Grant more warmly. The former president finally returned to Philadelphia on December 16, 1879.

x