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Truman Capote and Harper Lee were next-door neighbors as kids.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" book
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Author Michael Nordine
April 9, 2024

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Harper Lee’s perennial classic To Kill a Mockingbird and Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel In Cold Blood were defining literary works of the 1960s and beyond, so it makes a certain kind of sense that their origins are closely entwined. In addition to being longtime friends, the two authors were also next-door neighbors as kids. Born in New Orleans, Capote moved to Monroeville, Alabama, at age 4. There, he met Lee — a girl two years his junior who became his protector from neighborhood bullies. It wasn’t long before Capote moved to New York City, but the two friends stayed close enough that each based fictional characters on the other: To Kill a Mockingbird’s Dill was inspired by Capote, while Idabel Thompkins, a tomboy in Capote’s debut novel Other Voices, Other Rooms, was based on Lee.

They were so close, in fact, that some believed Capote was To Kill a Mockingbird’s true author — a pernicious rumor that academics and historians have long dismissed. In fact, the runaway success of Mockingbird, which was a National Book Award finalist and won the Pulitzer Prize, led to severe jealousy on Capote’s part. Lee later wrote, “I was his oldest friend, and I did something Truman could not forgive: I wrote a novel that sold.” She helped Capote research In Cold Blood nevertheless, but was not thanked in the acknowledgments section, a slight that hurt her deeply.

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Lee and Capote’s friendship has been dramatized several times.

The long and turbulent relationship between Truman Capote and Harper Lee has been depicted in a number of films. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener played the two writers in 2005’s Capote, for which Hoffman won the Academy Award for Best Actor and Keener received a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Toby Jones and Sandra Bullock portrayed them in the following year’s Infamous (an adaptation of George Plimpton’s Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career). Both films are about the writing of In Cold Blood, a six-year process to which Lee contributed greatly by helping with research and accompanying Capote when he initially interviewed residents of Holcomb, Kansas, to get their perspective on the murders that inspired the book.

Coke cost a nickel for 70 years.

Boys drinking Coca-Cola, 1930s
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Author Michael Nordine
September 5, 2025

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A lot changed between the 1880s and 1950s — empires fell, airplanes took to the sky, and two world wars were fought. But one thing stayed the same: the price of Coca-Cola. A bottle of Coke cost a nickel in 1886, and so did a bottle of Coke in 1959. That’s largely because the Coca-Cola company itself wasn’t the one selling its flagship product. The soft drink was originally served exclusively at soda fountains until two lawyers named Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead secured the right to bottle coke on a large scale. 

Since the deal between Coca-Cola and the bottlers fixed the price of syrup at a low cost, Coca-Cola was only able to make money through a large volume of sales. The company blanketed the country in ads reading, “Drink Coca-Cola, 5¢,” which forced bottlers to maintain the low price and kept sales high. 

Between that marketing campaign and the fact that vending machines selling Coke were only equipped to accept nickels, the price stayed the same until inflation increased it by a penny in the 1940s, with the last nickel Coke being sold in 1959. Though cans and plastic bottles are now far more common, you can still find 24 bottles of Coke for about $35. 

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Coca-Cola was initially marketed as a ‘brain tonic.’

There’s a good chance that the first customers to buy Coca-Cola in 1886 were looking for more than just a refreshing drink. The now-ubiquitous soft drink created by John Stith Pemberton was initially marketed as an “intellectual beverage” that contained “the valuable TONIC and NERVE STIMULANT properties of the Coca plant and Cola (or Kola) nuts.” The drink was initially advertised as “the ideal brain tonic for discriminating people.” This early marketing promised that Coke was a “cure for all nervous conditions” that “relieves fatigue.” This was part of an ongoing trend at the time: patent medicines, which were dubious concoctions brewed and sold by people claiming to have medical knowledge. Most of these products had no such benefits, while others were actively harmful. And while Coke didn’t live up to its own medicinal claims — especially since it did indeed include small amounts of cocaine until 1904 — its continued popularity shows that it is at least refreshing.

Abraham Lincoln grew his famous beard because of an 11-year-old girl.

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln
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Author Nicole Villeneuve
April 8, 2024

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Abraham Lincoln is lauded for his steadfast leadership in a time of tumult, but the 16th president evidently also had an impressionable side: One of his defining physical traits, his iconic beard, was grown at the suggestion of an 11-year-old girl. In the fall of 1860, as Lincoln campaigned for the presidency, he received a letter from one Grace Bedell of Westfield, New York. In her letter, Bedell expressed her excitement for Lincoln’s political aspirations but suggested that he might gain even more support if he grew some facial hair. 

“I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are,” she wrote. “I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be president.”

In a letter dated October 19, Lincoln wrote back to Bedell. “Having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affection if I were to begin it now?” he asked. Yet by the following January, the recent president-elect indeed had a beard growing in. The next month, in February 1861, a bearded President Lincoln made a stop in Westfield and met Bedell in person. As he continued to make his way via train to Washington, D.C., his facial hair filled in, and by the time of his March 1861 inauguration, he was the first U.S. president with a full beard.  

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Disneyland employees were banned from growing beards until 2012.

Perceptions of and even rules about facial hair have changed throughout history. It wasn’t until as recently as 2012 that Disneyland and Disney World employees were allowed to grow beards — and only as recently as 2000 that they were given permission to grow mustaches, despite Walt Disney himself famously sporting one. The ban on facial hair was put into place when Disneyland first opened in 1955. When the rule changed in 2012, Disney stated that beards and goatees must remain shorter than a quarter of an inch long. The most recent update, in 2021, removed all mention of facial hair length to the Disney Look employee appearance guidelines, stating only that it should be groomed and well maintained. Other long-running rules were relaxed, too: Visible tattoos are now permitted except on the face, head, or neck, and two earrings can be worn per ear.

Twinkies were originally banana-flavored.

Twinkies and packaging
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
September 4, 2025

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For as long as most people can remember, Twinkies have gone virtually unchanged: The treat is a space-age yellow sponge cake filled with a sweet-tasting artificial vanilla creme. But this wasn’t always the case. At the very beginning, Twinkies were banana-flavored. Even more surprising, they were made with real bananas.

Back in 1930, the Continental Baking Company’s Hostess brand produced a strawberry shortcake-themed, tube-shaped snack cake. It was available only during strawberry season, so the equipment went unused for the rest of the year. Bananas, which in the U.S. were all imported, weren’t season-specific, so Continental employee James A. Dewar had the idea to make cakes with real banana filling when strawberries weren’t available.Twinkies — named for an advertisement Dewar saw for “Twinkle Toe Shoes” — were a big hit. But Hostess ran into a supply problem during World War II, when bananas were rationed. The company tested a few fruit-flavored alternatives but eventually settled on vanilla, despite concerns within the company that the flavor was too boring and artificial. The snack cakes became more popular than ever, and the flavor stuck. Hostess did eventually bring back banana Twinkies, but real bananas never returned.

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Banana flavor predated bananas in the United States.

Banana-flavored confections became available in the United States in the 1860s, but the vast majority of Americans didn’t know what bananas actually tasted like until at least the 1870s. This is because artificial banana flavor, which is mostly a chemical called isoamyl acetate, was never actually intended to taste like bananas. In fact, in the U.K., it was marketed as pear flavor, but pear cultivars in the United States didn’t smell the same.

Many Americans had seen photographs of banana trees, but very few had a frame of reference for what bananas actually tasted like. So chemical companies started marketing it to Americans as banana flavor. Bananas do have some naturally occurring isoamyl acetate, but the bananas sold in U.S. stores today have far less of it than bananas in the past.

Vermont was once an independent republic.

Old Constitution House in Vermont
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Author Michael Nordine
April 8, 2024

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Not everyone wanted to be part of the United States when the Revolutionary War broke out. Vermont, for instance, declared itself an independent republic from 1777 to 1791, due in part to ongoing disputes with neighboring New York, which claimed the land as its own. The future Green Mountain State adopted its own constitution and operated as a de facto independent country. After briefly being called New Connecticut, the region eventually settled on the name State of Vermont, but was also known as the Vermont Republic. In addition to having its own currency and postal service, Vermont abolished slavery on July 2, 1777 — the first American territory to do so. (Vermont at one point toyed with the idea of joining the Province of Quebec in the early 1780s before ultimately deciding against it.)

Though the Vermont Republic wasn’t officially recognized by the U.S., it was largely left to its own devices. No less an authority than George Washington advised against military action in 1783, in part because the country was “very mountainous” and its citizens were “a hardy race, composed of that kind of people who are best calculated for soldiers.” Vermont eventually settled its differences with New York and voted to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1791, officially joining the new nation.

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Vermont has a folkloric lake monster.

Cryptid enthusiasts who’ve gone searching for the Loch Ness Monster, only to leave Scotland without proof of Nessie’s existence, would do well to extend their search to Vermont. Deep in the waters of Lake Champlain, a similar sea beast is said to lurk: Champ, who’s been sighted in the lake since at least the early 18th century. That was when the Indigenous Abenaki and Iroquois began seeing what was described as either a massive sea snake or horned serpent, named Gitaskog by the Abenaki. The legend persists to this day — both Vermont and New York even went so far as to pass resolutions protecting Champ in the early 1980s.

Britain once skipped 11 days in September.

Calendar reform under Pope Gregory XIII
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
September 3, 2025

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Designing a yearly calendar is tricky, since solar days, lunar months, and solar years don’t completely line up. The Gregorian calendar, established by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and used today throughout the Western world, aligns calendar dates with the seasons by splitting a solar year into 12 parts — not tied to the cycles of the moon — and adding an extra day every four years (with some exceptions). But making the switch to this calendar from its predecessor, the ancient Julian calendar, led to some clunky timekeeping — such as Britain skipping a whole 11 days in September 1752.

Because the Julian calendar under-calculated a solar year by roughly 11 minutes, it gradually got out of sync with the actual seasons. The discrepancy wasn’t noticeable at first, but by Gregory XIII’s papacy in the 16th century, Easter had drifted 10 days from the date the Catholic Church intended it to be celebrated. To remedy this, the pope adjusted the leap day formula and anchored the calendar by tying March 21 to the spring equinox.

Catholic-dominant areas of Europe, such as Italy, adopted the adjusted calendar within a year, and the rest of Europe eventually followed suit, albeit some countries more slowly than others. Britain, for instance, waited nearly 200 years to make the switch, and by that time, the two calendars were 11 days out of sync. In order to align with the Gregorian calendar, Britain skipped 11 days in the year 1752, following September 2 with September 14.

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The year 1751 was just 282 days long in Britain.

Before Britain implemented the Gregorian calendar, the new year started on March 25. The first New Year’s Day on January 1 was in 1752, but because the previous year still started on March 25, 1751 ended up being only 282 days long — the shortest year in English history. Interestingly, the tradition of beginning the year in March hasn’t completely disappeared: Even today, tax years in the U.K. start in the spring.

The Eastern Roman Empire fell just 39 years before Columbus sailed to America.

Byzantine emperor troops
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
April 3, 2024

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We tend to think of the Roman Empire as an entirely ancient time period. Yet while the Western Roman Empire fell in the fifth century CE, leaving it firmly in the ancient world, the eastern half of the empire kept going for another millennium — as late as 1453. Emperor Diocletian divided Rome at the end of the third century BCE, believing the empire had become too big to be ruled by just one monarch. The western half encompassed Europe and Northern Africa, and the eastern half covered the Middle East. As the west faltered, the east stayed strong, largely thanks to in-demand exports such as spices. In 395 CE, the Eastern Roman Empire split off entirely, and it eventually even took back some former Western Roman territory.

Historians often refer to the Eastern Roman Empire as the Byzantine Empire, but that term wasn’t used until after it fell; the citizens of the empire still thought of themselves as Romaioi, or Romans. The capital was Constantinople (now Istanbul in modern-day Turkey), named after Emperor Constantine I. As Constantine was the first Christian emperor of Rome, the Byzantines adopted Christianity as the state religion. But they also embraced their heritage from ancient Greece, and in the seventh century CE, Greek replaced Latin as the empire’s official language. 

In the 11th century CE, the Byzantine Empire faced escalating threats from both sides — the Crusades caused tension with Western Europe, and the Turks destabilized Anatolia, the point where Asia meets Europe. The empire fell in 1453 when Ottoman Turks breached the walls of Constantinople after a 55-day siege, toppling the last vestiges of the long-powerful Roman Empire. By then, Europe was in the early stages of the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration. Christopher Columbus set sail to the Americas in 1492, just 39 years later.

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The Byzantines used a mysterious precursor to napalm.

The Byzantine Empire was able to defend Constantinople for centuries using a devastating incendiary material known as “Greek fire,” an ancient precursor to modern chemical weapons. Invented in the seventh century CE, the fiery substance was typically deployed in bombs via catapult or sprayed from a siphon mounted on the bow of a ship. Once ignited, it could even burn on water; it could only be extinguished with sand or vinegar. The exact formula of Greek fire was an exceedingly well-kept secret that eludes historians even today — although it was probably a petroleum-based substance, and likely contained chemical elements such as sulfur or calcium oxide, also known as quicklime.

The lowest Social Security number ever issued was 001-01-0001.

U.S. Social Security Card
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Author Michael Nordine
August 28, 2025

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You might have trouble remembering your Social Security number, but Grace D. Owen probably didn’t. Not long after applying for the program on November 24, 1936, the Concord, New Hampshire, resident received the lowest number ever issued: 001-01-0001. It wasn’t the first Social Security number, however — that would be 055-09-0001, which happened to be on top of the first block of 1,000 cards and was issued to John D. Sweeney Jr. of New Rochelle, New York. Social Security Board Chairman John G. Winant, the former governor of New Hampshire, was originally set to receive 001-01-0001, but declined, as did John Campbell, who served as Boston’s regional representative at the Federal Bureau of Old-Age Benefits, the precursor to the Social Security Administration. (SSNs were distributed geographically beginning in the Northeast, but started with New Hampshire rather than Maine specifically to honor Winant.) 

It was then decided to give the lowest number not to a government official involved with the program but rather to the Granite State’s first applicant, which happened to be Owen. Social Security numbers were initially distributed through post offices, 1,074 of which served as “typing centers” where the cards themselves were made. All of this was made possible by the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, which was part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

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Social Security is the largest program funded by the federal government.

The federal government spent $6.9 trillion in fiscal year 2024, $1.5 trillion of which went to Social Security. That accounts for a full 21% of the federal budget, making it the largest program funded by the federal government. Though health care accounted for a higher portion overall (24%), the $1.7 trillion the government spent on it went to four different insurance programs: Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace subsidies. Defense spending made up another 13% of the federal budget, or $872 billion.

Rio de Janeiro was once a European capital.

Rio de Janeiro, 19th century
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Author Rachel Gresh
April 3, 2024

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The seaside city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was once the capital of Portugal, making it the only European capital in history located outside of Europe. So how did the seat of a powerful European empire end up thousands of miles away on the other side of the world? Like so many things in Europe’s geopolitical history, it has to do with Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1807, Napoleon invaded Portugal during the early days of the Peninsular War, an attempt by France to control Spain and Portugal. The Portuguese prince regent, Dom João, immediately fled the capital city of Lisbon and set sail for Brazil, a Portuguese colony at the time, taking refuge in the colonial capital of Rio de Janeiro with his family, nobles, and trusted advisers. 

Dom João transformed his new home into a bona fide political capital, outfitting the city with all necessary offices to run an empire, including a Supreme Court, Royal Mint, and Council of State. He also established the Bank of Brazil, one of the world’s oldest continuously operating banks. When Napoleon suffered his famous final defeat at Waterloo in June 1815, it ended his threat to Portugal, but the royals remained in Brazil, and six months later, Dom João designated the dominions of Portugal as one empire under the “United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves.” Brazil was given equal status to Portugal and was no longer considered a colony, and because Rio was the home of the monarchy at the time, it became the capital city of the entire kingdom. 

The prince ascended the throne as King John VI in 1816 and remained in Brazil until 1821, when he was forced to return to Lisbon due to civil unrest. His son Dom Pedro was tasked with presiding over Brazil. Around this time, the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon urged the monarchy to restore Brazil to its former dependent colonial status and for Dom Pedro to return to Portugal. In direct defiance, he remained abroad, as declared in his speech “Fico” (“I Am Staying”). He proclaimed Brazil’s independence on September 7, 1822, and was crowned emperor on December 1; Rio de Janeiro served as the capital city of the newly independent country until 1960, when the city of Brasília took its place.

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Portuguese colonists brought Carnival to Brazil.

Brazil’s Carnival is the world’s most famous display of samba dancing, bringing together dance schools from around the country for lively annual performances. This tradition is now a staple of Brazilian culture, as millions of revelers take to the streets in feathered costumes to parade, sing, and, most notably, dance. The earliest recorded examples of the festival date to 1723 in Rio de Janeiro, where Portuguese colonists brought their tradition of holding pre-Lenten festivals to the colonial city. These early celebrations were ballroom-style parties featuring costumes, music, and entertainment, derived from an old, possibly pagan Portuguese festival called Entrudo. The festival evolved over the centuries, and today, Carnival is a fusion of traditions from several cultures, including those of the Indigenous people of Brazil, Portuguese immigrants, and the descendants of enslaved Africans.

Play-Doh was originally a wallpaper cleaner.

Violet Play-Doh
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Author Bess Lovejoy
August 28, 2025

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Once upon a time, Play-Doh wasn’t for playing — it was for cleaning wallpaper. Back in 1912, the Cincinnati-based Kutol Products Company made a soft, doughy compound designed to lift soot from walls. It worked like a charm… until homes switched from coal heat to cleaner fuels around 1950, and suddenly nobody needed it. Kutol’s future looked bleak until inspiration struck in an unlikely place: a nursery school.

Joseph McVicker, whose family ran Kutol, had a sister-in-law, Kay Zufall, who ran a community nursery school in New Jersey. Zufall had read about making holiday decorations from wallpaper cleaner and thought it could be perfect for the children at her school. She found a supply at the local hardware store, and the kids loved it. The pliable, nontoxic dough was easy to mold, didn’t crumble, and could be used over and over.

Sensing a golden (or at least dough-colored) opportunity, McVicker rebranded the product as Play-Doh in 1956, launching it in red, yellow, and blue shades. (Hence the name of the new company formed to market the product: Rainbow Crafts.) Department stores such as Macy’s and Marshall Field’s quickly stocked it, and TV appearances on Captain Kangaroo and Romper Room sent sales soaring. By 1960, the Play-Doh Fun Factory — a gizmo that extruded the dough into spaghetti strands, stars, and more — cemented the toy’s status as a playroom essential.

Today, Play-Doh is a full-blown franchise owned by Hasbro, with themed sets from My Little Pony to Star Wars, plus spin-offs including Play-Doh Slime, Cloud, and Foam. More than 3 billion cans have been sold worldwide — not bad for a product once headed for the trash heap of history.

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Play-Doh cans used to feature a pixie on the label.

When Play-Doh first hit shelves in the mid-1950s, its cans showed cheerful children at play. But soon a whimsical mascot appeared: the Play-Doh Pixie, a pointy-eared figure somewhere between Elmer Fudd and Peter Pan. By 1960, he had evolved into “Play-Doh Pete,” a boy in an artist’s smock and beret, ready to spark kids’ creativity. Over the decades, Pete’s style changed with the times — slimming down, brightening up, and eventually trading his beret for a baseball cap. Though his look has shifted, Pete remains a colorful reminder of the brand’s playful, make-anything spirit.

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