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Abraham Lincoln approved a balloon corps during the Civil War.

  • Hydrogen gas air balloon
Hydrogen gas air balloon
Stocktrek Images, Inc./ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Bennett Kleinman
January 10, 2024

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In 1861, shortly after the start of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln authorized the creation of an aerial surveillance organization known as the Union Army Balloon Corps. Before the war, balloonists were usually carnival performers, but that all changed thanks to aeronaut Thaddeus S.C. Lowe. On July 11, 1861, Lowe was invited to demonstrate his ballooning skills for the president, who hoped to use hot-air balloons for aerial reconnaissance missions in the war.

During his demonstration, Lowe ascended 500 feet into the air and relayed a telegraph about what he saw to Lincoln’s staff. After the successful showcase, Lincoln offered Lowe the role of chief aeronaut in the Balloon Corps, which formally began operations that October. The purpose was to gather intel about the Confederate Army’s location and relay it to Union troops on the ground, who could then fire on the army from a great distance without even seeing the enemy. The fleet grew to include seven balloons, some of which were tethered to barges in the Potomac River that effectively served as early precursors to the modern aircraft carrier. Though the surveillance proved strategically beneficial, many Union officers, including General George B. McClellan, were concerned about the safety of the balloons. Lowe ultimately resigned his post on May 7, 1863, and the Balloon Corps were dissolved shortly thereafter.

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Bugs Bunny was named an Honorary Marine.

The title of Honorary Marine was formally established in 1992, and has since been awarded to fewer than 100 people, including comedian Bob Hope and actor Gary Sinise. But decades earlier, the distinction was unofficially bestowed upon a different breed of entertainer: Bugs Bunny. In 1943, the legendary cartoon character starred in the animated short Super-Rabbit, in which he joins the Marines and sings their official song, the “Marines’ Hymn.” The actual Marines were so flattered by the portrayal that Bugs was inducted as an honorary member soon after, and the organization even issued the character a set of official dog tags and registration papers. Throughout the remainder of World War II, Bugs Bunny was “promoted” several times, rising to the rank of master sergeant before being “discharged” after the war.

There used to be a 3-cent U.S. coin called the “trime.”

  • An 1853 3-cent coin
An 1853 3-cent coin
Credit: Julia Hansen/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Nicole Villeneuve
April 24, 2025

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One of the lesser-known coins in the history of U.S. currency is the 3-cent silver piece known as the “trime.” In 1851, Congress lowered the cost of mailing a letter from 5 cents to 3 cents to compete with private mail carriers, and simultaneously authorized the creation of the 3-cent trime to simplify postage transactions. Before that, carrying or making change with copper cents and half cents was impractical, since the coins were disproportionately heavy and large for their low value.

At the same time, the California gold rush, which peaked in 1849, had flooded the U.S. economy with gold, decreasing its value relative to silver. Coins such as the dime, quarter, and dollar were 90% silver at the time, and became worth more than their face value. They began disappearing from circulation as people started hoarding, melting down, and selling the silver coins. The trime, however, was 75% silver and 25% copper, making it the rare U.S. coin that was actually worth more in your pocket than it was melted down.

Designed by the U.S. Mint’s chief engraver James B. Longacre, the trime was one of the smallest American coins ever minted, at just 14 millimeters in diameter. Its obverse featured a six-pointed star with a shield, surrounded by the words “United States of America” and the year it was made. The reverse showed the Roman numeral “III” inside a decorative “C,” with 13 stars representing the 13 original colonies. 

At first, the tiny trime did its job — it made buying stamps easier and it circulated widely. But the coin was so small it often got lost, and its alloy tarnished easily, eventually earning it the undesirable nickname “fish scales.” Its popularity waned, and after being replaced by a nickel 3-cent coin following the Civil War coin shortage, the trime barely resurfaced in circulation. It was officially discontinued with the Coinage Act of 1873. 

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The first official U.S. coin said “Mind Your Business” on it.

In 1787, the United States was still in its infancy and was figuring out, along with many other things, its national currency. That year, Congress approved the first official U.S. coin for circulation: the Fugio cent. The copper coin, believed to have been designed by Benjamin Franklin, came with a curt piece of advice: “Mind Your Business.” It wasn’t meant as a slight: Taken together with the picture of a sundial and the Latin word Fugio, meaning “run” or “flee,” it’s been interpreted to mean “time flies, so take care of your affairs.” The reverse side of the coin featured 13 linked rings representing the 13 colonies becoming united as a nation, surrounding the motto “We Are One.” The Fugio cent was made by a private contractor for just one year; in 1792, the Coinage Act was passed and the U.S. Mint was established.

In 1908, there was a car race from New York to Paris.

  • Thomas Flyer in Manchuria, 1908
Thomas Flyer in Manchuria, 1908
Credit: Bettmann via Getty Images
Author Nicole Villeneuve
April 24, 2025

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In the early 20th century, when automobiles were in their infancy, the idea of driving long distances was still ambitious. But that was precisely the challenge of the 1908 New York to Paris race, a bold, 22,000-mile competition that spanned three continents during the dead of winter. On the morning of February 12, six teams representing four countries — France, Germany, Italy, and the United States — gathered in front of 250,000 spectators in Times Square in New York City. The cars and their teams, made up of drivers, mechanics, and journalists, departed at 11:15 a.m. The American Thomas Flyer car quickly pulled into the lead. Behind it came Italy’s Zust, Germany’s Protos, and three entries from France — a Motobloc, a De Dion, and a Sizaire-Naudin (the latter broke down and dropped out of the race after just 96 miles). 

The ambitious plan was for the teams to reach San Francisco within 22 days; from there, a ship would take them to Alaska, where they would drive across a presumably frozen Bering Strait into Siberia, continue across Russia and Europe, and finally reach Paris. But the race didn’t exactly take place as planned. The cars took twice that time to reach the West Coast, and the spring thaw made the Alaskan route too difficult. Competitors were instead rerouted to Seattle, shipped across the Pacific to Japan, and then shipped again across the Sea of Japan to Vladivostok, Russia.

Along the way, drivers endured blizzards, sandstorms, and nearly impassable roads — if there were roads at all. Mechanical problems, personnel changes, and visa delays also caused setbacks. In the end, just three of the original six cars completed the journey. On July 30, the Thomas Flyer finally reached Paris. A police officer initially refused to let the car proceed with its broken headlight, but a passerby offered up a bicycle light. Though the Protos had technically arrived three days earlier, organizers issued a penalty for shortcuts taken along the way. So at 6 p.m., after a 169-day journey, the American car officially won the great race.

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Thomas Edison and Henry Ford developed an electric car together.

Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's friendship has been well documented, and along with their shared vacation homes and camping trips, the two collaborated on new technology together. In January 1914, Ford confirmed to The New York Times that he was working with Edison on a low-cost, long-range electric vehicle. Edison worked to design a durable battery that was also lightweight, and Ford planned to manufacture the cars in a new plant to be run by his son, Edsel Ford. 

At least two known prototypes were built: a tiller-steered design with batteries under the seat, and a second design that incorporated elements from the Model T along with a different motor position and an extra bank of batteries. Despite high expectations, the project never went to market. Edison’s nickel-iron batteries were still too big and inefficient, and refinements to it were quickly outpaced by improvements in fuel engines and infrastructure. By the 1920s, Ford and Edison had quietly abandoned the idea.

Lord Byron’s daughter Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer.

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Ada Lovelace portrait
IanDagnall Computing/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Bennett Kleinman
December 19, 2023

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Long before laptops and smartphones, a 19th-century Englishwoman named Ada Lovelace created what many consider to be the world’s first computer program. Lovelace was born in 1815 to famed poet Lord Byron and philanthropist Annabella Milbanke Byron, though she never had a relationship with her father and was raised alone by her mother. Annabella became fearful that Ada would inherit her artistic father’s perceived “insanity,” and so she encouraged Ada to study grounded disciplines such as logic and math. Lovelace grew fond of those pursuits, and developed a keen interest in the inventions of English mathematician Charles Babbage, whom she met in 1833. Babbage told Lovelace of his plan to create a complex calculating machine known as the Analytical Engine — the precursor to the modern computer — and Lovelace was eager to contribute to the project.

In 1843, Lovelace was asked to translate a French account of one of Babbage’s lectures overseas, and Babbage encouraged her to expand the paper with her own thoughts. In August of that year, Lovelace published the 66-page translation, which included 41 pages of appendices containing additional theories and formulas. The most famous of these notations is “Note G,” which has been deemed the world’s first computer program. In this table, Lovelace determined how the machine could theoretically calculate a sequence of rational numbers known as Bernoulli numbers. Though the machine was never built, and thus was never able to successfully execute Lovelace’s calculations, the theory laid the groundwork for the future of computer programming.

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The oldest known analog computer was discovered in an ancient Greek shipwreck.

The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient device built between 205 and 60 BCE that sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean aboard a shipwreck in the first century BCE. The corroded remains were recovered in 1901, though the mechanism broke into three pieces upon its removal from the water. Given the advanced wear, it wasn’t until 1905 that the relic was first theorized to be some sort of ancient analog computer. Teams examined the series of complex dials and gears, which were operated by turning a small crank. As research progressed, it was determined that the Antikythera was used to calculate astronomical positions of the sun, moon, and planets; users could enter a past or future date and turn the crank to make astronomical predictions. This discovery sent shock waves through the scientific community, which previously believed this technology hadn’t been invented until the 14th century.

One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World might not have existed.

  • Depiction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Depiction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Credit: North Wind Picture Archives/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Timothy Ott
April 17, 2025

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According to the 2,000-year-old writings of Greek historians such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, the ancient city of Babylon (in modern-day Iraq) boasted tiered terraces of exotic plants of all types that towered several stories above onlookers from the ground. Said to have been created in the sixth century BCE by King Nebuchadnezzar II for one of his wives, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were considered an awe-inspiring sight and a triumph of engineering, and as such have been accorded a spot among the celebrated Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

However, there are a couple of glaring problems with that story. One is that there is no conclusive evidence among the ruins of Babylon that such a garden ever existed, nor the irrigation system needed to maintain it amid the desert landscape. Also, the breathtaking accounts of the foliage were all composed well after the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE; there are no contemporary descriptions of the Hanging Gardens, even though other achievements of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign were recorded at the time. As such, one popular argument holds that the legendary Hanging Gardens were merely a product of the overactive collective imagination of ancient thinkers.

There is a plausible alternative to that theory: An extensive tiered system of vegetation did exist, but was built a century earlier by the Assyrian King Sennacherib in the city of Nineveh, some 300 miles to the north. Unlike in Babylon, there is evidence of an aqueduct system through the mountainous terrain around Nineveh that delivered water to the site, while surviving relief panels from the city’s royal palace feature displays of a lavish garden. As to how the renowned Greek academics could have gotten the locale wrong, they simply may have conflated the two older kingdoms from a similar region with overlapping cultures. It’s possible that yet-to-be uncovered evidence will provide more conclusive proof of Nebuchadnezzar’s green thumb, but in the meantime, it may be more accurate to refer to this ancient wonder as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh.

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Historians didn't agree on the list of the ancient wonders.

Today, it’s well accepted which historic marvels are listed among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. But the ancient historians who initially inspired this who’s who of monuments were not in unanimous agreement as to which ones belonged. 

The Greek poet Antipater of Sidon was among those who celebrated the walls of Babylon, while the Roman poet Martial championed the inclusion of the Roman Colosseum. The spread of Christianity influenced later writers who waded into the debate, with the sixth-century Gallo-Roman bishop Gregory of Tours naming Noah's Ark and Solomon's Temple among his seven choices. According to the authors of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it took another millennium before the various preferences crystallized into one cohesive group, with the great minds of the Renaissance helping to permanently establish the select seven for successive generations to marvel over.

 The loudest known sound was the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano.

  • Krakatoa erupting, 1883
Krakatoa erupting, 1883
Credit: Classic Image/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Darren Orf
January 11, 2024

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On May 20, 1883, Krakatoa, a volcano on Rakata Island in Indonesia, erupted with a force never seen — or heard — on Earth. Some 1,300 miles away, residents of islands in the Bay of Bengal reported hearing a series of blasts “resembling those of artillery.” Even farther away, reports from islands in the western Indian Ocean recorded a “distant roar of heavy guns.” As the speed of sound is around 767 miles per hour, Krakatoa’s loud awakening took four hours to reach the distant island of Rodrigues (near Mauritius) roughly 3,000 miles away — and it still delivered sounds as loud as a gun blast.

At an estimated 310 decibels, the eruption of Krakatoa is the loudest sound ever recorded in human history. In fact, Krakatoa was so loud that for those in close proximity, the sound of the eruption wasn’t a sound at all. That’s because at 194 decibels, acoustic vibration transforms into a shock wave of a sonic boom, and the Krakatoa shock wave was so massive, it circled Earth four times before finally dissipating. For a full five days, weather stations around the world experienced spikes in pressure every 34 hours — approximately how long it takes for sound to circumnavigate the globe. The Krakatoa eruption was one of the most powerful in history, due to a buildup of pressure in the magma chamber. It delivered the equivalent force of a 200-megaton bomb — four times as powerful as the largest-ever thermonuclear explosion, Tsar Bomba, which produced the loudest human-made sound in history. 

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A massive volcanic eruption in 1815 created a “year without summer.”

Krakatoa wasn’t the only globe-spanning eruption that took place in Indonesia in the 19th century. In April 1815, Mount Tambora, located on Sumbawa Island, exploded and spewed ash some 36 miles into the air, reaching the stratosphere. As this ash, made of sulfur dioxide, circled the globe, it combined with water and formed sulfuric acid, which had the unfortunate side effect of preventing some of the sun’s rays from reaching Earth. This plummeted global temperatures by up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, and caused climate abnormalities in the West that led to what’s known as “the year without summer.” In the U.S., New England’s summer was so unseasonably cold that rivers and lakes as far south as Pennsylvania remained frozen even in July. 

Charlie Brown is named after a real person.

  • Charles Schulz with drawing of Charlie Brown
Charles Schulz with drawing of Charlie Brown
Credit: GL Archive/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Timothy Ott
April 17, 2025

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In 1950, a Minnesota art teacher granted permission for his co-worker, budding cartoonist Charles Schulz, to use his name for a character in a new comic strip. Taken aback by a sample drawing of the character, Charlie Brown asked, “Can’t you make him look a little more like Steve Canyon or Superman?”

Indeed, the soon-to-be-famous child protagonist of Peanuts looked nothing like the godlike Superman, and he also bore little resemblance to the young man who lent his name to the endeavor. Brown, a teacher at Art Instruction Schools in Minneapolis, did not sport a prominently bald head, nor did he own a wardrobe of zigzag-patterned shirts. Furthermore, unlike the sometimes sullen character who drew the ire of peers, the real Charlie Brown was outgoing and well liked. 

Yet the flesh-and-blood version insisted there were more similarities to the pencil-and-ink creation than initially seemed, as his cheerful exterior masked a deep-seated insecurity. “Like Charlie Brown, when I get distressed or depressed I go into bed and pull the covers over my head,” he told the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1979. “I’ve been known to stay there three or four days.”

Brown wasn’t the only Art Instruction Schools employee to see their name surface in Peanuts, as fellow teachers Linus Maurer and Frieda Rich had their monikers incorporated into the strip, too. There was also a petite redheaded woman in the accounting department named Donna Mae Johnson, who dated Schulz long enough to consider a marriage proposal from the cartoonist, before running off with another suitor. While a “Donna” never appeared in Peanuts, the specter of the heartbreak frequently returned in the form of shy Charlie Brown’s unrequited love interest, the mysterious Little Red-Haired Girl.

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Charles Schulz created other comic strips after "Peanuts."

From 1947 into 1950, Charles Schulz drew the weekly cartoon series Li'l Folks, essentially a Peanuts prototype with (nonrecurring) children characters and a dog that resembled Snoopy. But Schulz developed other comics, too — even after hitting it big with Peanuts. It's Only a Game, a strip syndicated from late 1957 into early 1959, revolved around the foibles of adults competing in activities such as golf, bowling, and bridge; although credited solely to Schulz, much of the artwork was delegated to his old Art Instruction Schools colleague Jim Sasseville. Additionally, Schulz churned out a single-panel strip titled Young Pillars from 1956 to 1965. Created for Youth, a religious magazine, Young Pillars featured the artist's telltale sketching and wit, albeit with jokes coming from wholesome teenagers who were devoted to the tenets of a church-centered life.

Michelin began reviewing restaurants to boost tire sales.

  • Michelin Guide, France
Michelin Guide, France
Credit: Alexandre ROUSSEL/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Nicole Villeneuve
January 10, 2024

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A Michelin star is one of the highest honors in the culinary world, signifying exceptional quality in a restaurant’s cuisine. The coveted rating is considered the authority on fine dining around the world, but the Michelin Guide started as little more than a driver’s roadside companion. In the late 19th century, brothers André and Édouard Michelin founded the Michelin tire manufacturing company in Clermont-Ferrand, France. At the time, the automobile industry was still on the rise, with only around 3,000 cars on the road. In 1900, as a way to promote more automobile travel and, in turn, boost tire sales for their company, the Michelin brothers launched the Michelin Guide. The free book included relevant information for motorists such as maps, tire repair tips, and listings of fuel retailers, accommodations, and places to eat. 

As the guide evolved, so did its approach to evaluating dining establishments. Readers showed interest in the restaurant and hotel information, and in the 1920s, Michelin began hiring critics to anonymously assess and review restaurants at length. The famed “star” system debuted in 1926; at first, rankings consisted only of a single star, but by 1931, the three-star system still used today made its debut. A single star denoted “a very good restaurant,” two stars signified “excellent cooking worth a detour,” and three stars represented “exceptional cuisine worth a special journey.” To date, Michelin has sold more than 30 million copies of its guidebooks, and chefs who have been on the receiving end of a star have said that the prestige does indeed increase business. Michelin, however, doesn’t disclose whether the guides are profitable to the company, nor just how many tires the guides have helped it sell.

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Karl Benz’s wife, Bertha Benz, took the world’s first road trip.

Karl Benz (of Mercedes-Benz fame) is well known for being an automobile pioneer. As his business partner, his wife Bertha Benz also deserves accolades, as well as a more adventurous automotive claim to fame. In August 1888, Bertha and her teenage sons secretly embarked on the first long-distance automobile journey when they took Karl's motorized vehicle, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, without his knowledge. Bertha left a note for Karl, and took the kids to visit her mother, traveling about 60 miles from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany. Along the way, she improvised necessary repairs — including using a hat pin to unclog a carburetor — and stopped at a pharmacy in Wiesloch to fuel up with Ligroin, a cleaning agent that worked as fuel. The trip was a success, and proved the automobile was on its way to being road-ready for the masses. Bertha’s road trip route was commemorated as the Bertha Benz Memorial Route in 2008, and in 2016, she was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.

Citizen Kane was a financial flop until a rerelease 15 years later.

  • Orson Welles in “Citizen Kane”
Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane"
Credit: Allstar Picture Library Ltd/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Michael Nordine
April 17, 2025

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The 1941 film Citizen Kane is often cited as the greatest movie of all time, topping the lauded once-per-decade Sight and Sound poll in 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992, and 2002 before finally being dethroned by Vertigo in 2012. It received nine Academy Award nominations, winning Best Screenplay while famously losing Best Picture to John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley, and has influenced nearly a century’s worth of filmmakers. It also attracted no shortage of controversy, as director and star Orson Welles’ feature debut was clearly inspired by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who did everything in his power to prevent the movie from being seen. As a result of his successful (and devious) efforts, Citizen Kane was initially a financial failure, losing RKO Pictures some $150,000 (about $3 million today).

It wasn’t until the film was rereleased 15 years later, after Hearst’s death, that the movie got its due. This was partially thanks to the critical acclaim the film received upon its initial release and in the years that followed. Cahiers du Cinéma co-founder André Bazin called Citizen Kane “a revolution in film language,” and John O’Hara of Newsweek wrote that “your faithful bystander reports that he has just seen a picture which he thinks must be the best picture he ever saw.” With Hearst out of the picture and more than a decade’s worth of glowing reviews, the controversy that overshadowed the film’s initial release had more than subsided by the time Citizen Kane was rereleased.

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One of Welles’ final roles was in “Transformers: The Movie.”

Welles had an illustrious career both behind and in front of the camera, directing such classics as The Magnificent Ambersons and F for Fake after Citizen Kane, in addition to appearing in the likes of A Man for All Seasons and The Third Man. His penultimate appearance was a voice role in 1986’s Transformers: The Movie, in which he played the villainous Unicron. It wasn’t exactly a passion project for Welles: “I played the voice of a toy,” he said in an interview conducted five days before his death. “Some terrible robot toys from Japan that change from one thing to another… I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I'm destroyed. My plan to destroy Whatever-it-is is thwarted and I tear myself apart on the screen.” Welles took the job, as well as several commercials, to finance his own filmmaking projects. Transformers: The Movie was released 10 months after Welles died, initially failing both critically and financially before developing a cult following of its own.

Ancient bakers used bread stamps to prevent forgery.

  • Italian bread stamp
Italian bread stamp
Credit: Guido Paradisi/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
April 17, 2025

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In ancient Rome, most people didn’t have their own ovens. This included some bakers, which put them in a tricky spot since bread was strictly regulated. Government officials would carefully inspect the weight, size, and cost of the loaves, and nobody wanted to get punished for someone else’s substandard bread. So to distinguish their goods, bakers put their dough in the oven with a bronze brand on top, which would leave an indent on the finished product — not unlike a maker’s mark on ceramics. Some of these ancient loaves were uncovered at Pompeii, the markings perfectly preserved in the volcanic ash.

While bread stamps were in particularly wide use in ancient Rome, the Romans didn’t invent the practice. Clay bread stamps have been found in various regions of Europe dating to at least the Neolithic Period. Many stamps were decorative, particularly for religious rituals. Early pagans used stamped bread as offerings to gods or to ask for blessings. In some cases, decorative bread could stand in for a more expensive sacrifice, such as an animal.

One stamp from the Byzantine Empire was used to mark bread as kosher. Orthodox Christians also began stamping bread for the Eucharist (including Holy Communion) or for saints’ feast days. Today, bread stamps aren’t as common, but they’re still a key part of some traditional bread-baking, such as obi non in Uzbekistan. Stamped bread or wafers are also widely used for the Eucharist in Christianity, and home bakers occasionally use stamps for Instagram-worthy sourdough.

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Ancient Romans visited fast-food counters.

Ancient Romans didn’t have fine dining restaurants like we have today, but they did have businesses comparable to bars, inns, and even fast-food restaurants. Thermopolia were snack counters that served hot food to go. These establishments kept cold foods such as lentils, nuts, and meats in jars embedded in the counter, and the food was then scooped out and heated up for customers. A modern replica of a thermopolium — though without actual food service — opened to the public in Pompeii in 2021.

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