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Einstein was the inspiration for Yoda.

  • Yoda, Star Wars Episode V
Yoda, Star Wars Episode V
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Author Bennett Kleinman
August 23, 2023

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From their unparalleled wisdom to their wispy white hair, physicist Albert Einstein and Jedi master Yoda have quite a bit in common — and that’s no coincidence. In fact, the real-life scientist helped influence the physical look of the beloved Star Wars character. When Yoda was being developed for 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars creator George Lucas hired special effects artist Stuart Freeborn to bring the character to life. By chance, a picture of Einstein happened to hang in the studio where Freeborn worked on the early Yoda puppets. The wrinkled look around Einstein’s eyes eventually made it into Yoda’s final design, coupled with features from Freeborn’s own likeness.

While we all recognize Yoda today, the character almost looked entirely different, and nearly Smurf-like. As seen in The Empire Strikes Back Sketchbook, published in 1980, early concept art for Yoda depicted the great Jedi master as a lanky, blue creature with a long white beard and a pointed hat akin to a garden gnome. Another sketch showed the creature with a handlebar mustache, not quite fitting for the Star Wars universe. Other characters also underwent vast transformations from their original sketches; Chewbacca was originally a tall, thin, and hairy lemur-like creature, whereas Ewoks had long legs like an ostrich. 

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Chewbacca and Indiana Jones were inspired by the same real-life dog.

Star Wars and Indiana Jones are two of the most beloved movie franchises of all time, and both were the brainchild of visionary filmmaker George Lucas. In developing some of his most popular characters, Lucas took inspiration from real life, including his pet dog, Indiana. While he was writing the first Star Wars movie, Lucas’ beloved Alaskan malamute often sat by his side, and frequently plopped down in the front seat next to Lucas on drives, as if the long-haired, larger-than-life dog were his copilot. Inspired by his loyal canine, Lucas decided to create a large, shaggy sidekick for the heroic character Han Solo (portrayed by Harrison Ford), and thus Chewbacca was born. But the dog’s influence extended far beyond the Star Wars universe. In 1978, Lucas sat down to develop his new film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and when asked if he had a name for the main character, he once again looked to his trusted companion. Lucas initially pitched the name “Indiana Smith,” though he suggested “Jones” as an alternative surname, which eventually stuck. Later, in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the character reveals he took the nickname “Indiana” from his fictitious pet dog, a line that pays homage to Lucas’ real-life pup.

Before instant photos, Polaroid created goggles for dogs.

  • Wartime dog with goggles
Wartime dog with goggles
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Author Nicole Villeneuve
August 23, 2023

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Inventor Edwin Land is often referred to as the “original Steve Jobs.” The founder of Polaroid made a lasting impact on the photography world with the introduction of instant photos in 1948. But even before that, Polaroid experimented with other innovative products, all based on Land’s plastic-sheet light polarizers, patented in 1933. Researchers from General Motors, General Electric, and Kodak were intrigued by the possibilities of polarizer sheets, and Land pioneered a groundbreaking 3D movie process. Kodak became his first customer in 1934, buying the product to use in camera filters, and the following year, American Optical began buying polarizer-laminated sunglass filters, which Land had long thought would be helpful to reduce headlight glare while driving.

Despite Land’s momentum, Polaroid, like many other American companies in 1940, altered its strategy and production to assist World War II efforts. The U.S. government’s Office of Scientific Research and Development recruited Land and his company, and working with the National Defense Research Committee, they created a slew of Polaroid products using polarizer technology for military use: aerial survey equipment, tank telescopes, gunsights, flight training machines, and infrared night viewing devices, to name a few. Among the most commonly used objects that came out of this wartime production were goggles; Life magazine even noted in a February 1944 issue that “every U.S. fire-control instrument is equipped with filters and every second man in combat wears filter goggles. Most of these are produced by the Polaroid Corp.” The goggles weren’t just for humans, either: Polaroid produced special goggles to keep debris out of the eyes of dogs and mules, wartime companions who fulfilled countless important roles on the battlefield, including guarding, rescuing, and transporting materials and even soldiers.

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Polaroid warned people not to shake their pictures after the Outkast song “Hey Ya!” came out.

When Atlanta hip-hop group Outkast released their song “Hey Ya!” in August 2003, one lyric in particular stuck in listeners' ears and imaginations: “Shake it like a Polaroid picture.” Rapper André 3000 was talking about dancing, and he was referencing the long-held belief that you were supposed to shake a Polaroid photo to help it develop. The instant photos did, at one time, have a finish that needed time to dry, but the modern version develops behind a plastic coating. After the song’s popularity soared, Polaroid even offered guidance to users on its website: “Rapid movement during development can cause portions of the film to separate prematurely, or can cause 'blobs' in the picture,” the company warned. André 3000, when later asked about the iconic lyric, admits it wasn’t that deep. “In rap, lyric writing is what comes to mind, that was just the visual I had,” he said. “And you're apparently not even supposed to do that.”

Wagon wheel tracks from the Oregon Trail are still visible.

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Oregon Trail Wagon
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
August 17, 2023

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In the grand scheme of world history, the Oregon Trail era wasn’t all that long ago, and the physical marks the wagons left behind are still very much visible in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and, of course, Oregon. More than 300 miles of impressions left behind from heavy wagons can still be seen, sending modern-day travelers back in time to the mid-1800s, when hundreds of thousands people made the treacherous journey to America’s West Coast.

The famed path from Missouri to Oregon pushed through many different types of terrain, so each collection of tracks is unique. Some are wide, shallow indentations worn down in soft earth, while others still show individual wheel tracks. In harder terrain, such as sandstone, deep, angled impressions are still visible, some up to 5 feet deep. In a few places, the tracks tell their own story: Ash Hollow State Park in Nebraska still shows deep erosion from a hilly stretch of trail where travelers had to lock their wheels to keep from going too fast along the steep grade.

Following the tracks can give modern-day road trippers a sense of the route that settlers took westward; helpfully, several highways are in roughly the same place as the original trail, so you never have to miss a historic park or roadside marker. Along I-84 in Oregon, even the rest areas have interpretive signage and, occasionally, yet more wheel tracks to transport you back in time.

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The wagons weren’t for passengers.

Travelers along the Oregon Trail very rarely rode in their wagons. Walking alongside the wagon both allowed it to carry more weight and, perhaps surprisingly, made the journey more comfortable — walking 2,000 miles may be difficult, but try riding in a wagon full of cargo along rough terrain with absolutely no suspension for that long. Even the drivers guided their oxen from the ground. Despite being on foot, a wagon party could travel 20 whole miles on a good day.

The Nixon administration tried to deport John Lennon.

  • John Lennon and Yoko Ono
John Lennon and Yoko Ono
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Author Michael Nordine
August 17, 2023

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You don’t have to imagine Richard Nixon trying to deport John Lennon, because it actually happened, in 1972. The 37th President of the United States was no fan of the former Beatle, whose ballad “Give Peace a Chance” became a rallying cry among anti-Vietnam War activists who believed the best way to end the conflict was to make Nixon a one-term commander in chief. This was highly irksome during Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign, and the famously vindictive leader responded by sending the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) after Lennon, under the pretense that he had been allowed into America improperly since he’d been charged with a marijuana-related misdemeanor in England in 1968.

Their efforts were unsuccessful, in part because Lennon had a little help from his friends. Artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Leonard Bernstein, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Updike wrote letters on behalf of Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono. The administration kept pushing for deportation despite the “let them stay in the USA” campaign, and even after Nixon won reelection in a landslide. A year after Nixon resigned in disgrace, a three-judge panel ruled in the musician’s favor, writing in its ruling that “Lennon’s four-year battle to remain in our country is testimony to his faith in this American dream.”

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John Lennon hated his singing voice.

Despite being one of the most influential and beloved musicians in history, John Lennon hated the sound of his own voice. In addition to telling biographer Ray Coleman, “I can’t say I ever liked hearing myself,” Lennon requested that Beatles producer George Martin “do something” to his voice to make it sound different, even going so far as to ask him, “Can’t you smother it with tomato ketchup or something?” According to Martin, Lennon “had an inborn dislike of his own voice which I could never understand, as it was one of the best voices I’ve heard.” Millions upon millions of fans agree.

Two months of the year are named after Roman rulers.

  • Julius Caesar & Augustus
Julius Caesar & Augustus
Credit: calvio/ iStock, Benoit Bruchez/ Shutterstock
Author Michael Nordine
July 10, 2024

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In addition to frequently being the hottest months of the year, July and August share etymological origins: Both are named after Roman rulers. July is named in honor of Julius Caesar, while August is named after his successor and adopted heir, Augustus. Born Gaius Octavius in 63 BCE, Augustus was Caesar’s grandnephew on his mother’s side and became the first Roman emperor following his great-uncle’s assassination. Ancient Rome’s influence on the calendar can also be seen in just about every other month: January is named after the god Janus, February comes to us from a purification festival known as Februa, March is named in honor of Mars, June is named for the goddess Juno, and September, October, November, and December had the same names in the Roman calendar. (The names initially corresponded to the months’ position in the 10-month calendar.)

These are all found in the Gregorian calendar, which most of the world has been using for centuries. It succeeded the Julian calendar first introduced by none other than Caesar himself in 46 BCE. The Gregorian calendar was formed because the Julian calendar slightly overestimated a solar year as lasting 365.25 days, which eventually led to a discrepancy of 10 days. Pope Gregory XIII decided to do something about it in 1582 — leading to October 4 being followed directly by October 15 that year. Time may not be a flat circle, but it’s occasionally open to interpretation.

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The Gregorian calendar differs from a solar year by 26 seconds.

Our current calendar solved the major issues brought about by its predecessor, but it isn’t perfect — in fact, it differs from a solar year by 26 seconds. That’s resulted in a discrepancy of a few hours from when it was originally implemented nearly 500 years ago, but by the year 4909 that difference will have grown to a full day. Because the Gregorian calendar is 26 seconds longer than the solar year, correcting the error will require a day being repeated — perhaps a problem for whoever the pope happens to be some 2,900 years from now.

High heels used to be for men.

  • Baroque high heel
Baroque high heel
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Author Fran Hoepfner
August 18, 2023

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Long before the days of stilettos and pumps, kitten heels and wedges, high-heeled shoes were worn by men. As far back as the 10th century, Persian soldiers and emissaries wore heels when riding, battling, or traveling to faraway lands. These heels weren’t for show, however; they were for function. When a soldier wore heeled boots on a horse, he was able to better steady himself and generate more balance both for riding and fighting. Persian soldiers were also able to stand upright in their stirrups, positioning their feet so the space between the heel and the sole was snug in the stirrup, which gave them an advantage in battle.

Once heels made their way to Europe in the 16th century, their purpose was much more akin to how we think of these shoes today. Men in the French, Spanish, German, and Russian courts wore heels to project height and physical stature in order to intimidate rivals and foreign diplomats in court. Over the course of the next 200 years, men’s heels got shorter and stockier — making the shoes better for balance and walking, and less of an ornate fashion statement. By the 18th century, high heels faded out of fashion for men, who started to favor less flamboyant clothing and accessories. When women started to wear high heels, the goal was to hide as much of the foot as possible beneath a long skirt. The peeking toe suggested a small foot, showing daintiness. Though sneakers are far more popular than heels today, the concept of the “platform sneaker” suggests that the ethos of the high heel is not yet a thing of the past. 

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Red soles and heels date back to the 17th century.

Red-bottomed shoes are most often attributed to the contemporary fashion designer Christian Louboutin, yet footwear with red soles and heels dates all the way back to 17th-century France and England. King Charles II’s coronation portrait from 1661 displays him wearing red-soled heels, known as the “French style,” which were popular in England during that time. Red was a popular color for royalty due to the pricey nature of the dye, and the color came to symbolize power and masculinity.

Harry S. Truman’s middle initial doesn’t stand for anything.

  • Vintage Truman stamp
Vintage Truman stamp
Credit: manley099/ E+ via Getty Images
Author Darren Orf
August 15, 2023

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Serving as the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman guided the country out of World War II after the death of his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and prepared America for the geopolitical battle ahead: the Cold War. Today, Truman is regarded as one of the nation’s best Presidents, and yet most people probably can’t tell you what his middle initial stands for — because it doesn’t stand for anything. When the future President was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri, his parents couldn’t decide which of Truman’s grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, to honor with their son’s middle name. Instead, they chose a simple “S” — without a period — for Truman’s middle initial. This atypical name caused some confusion during Truman’s presidential inauguration in 1945, when Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone assigned a middle name to Truman while swearing him into office. He asked the future President to say, “I, Harry Shipp Truman,” but Truman repeated the words with one alteration: “I, Harry S Truman.” Despite the President’s insistence, the name is now officially styled with a period following the middle initial. 

Strangely, Truman isn’t the only U.S. President with an unconventional “S” middle initial. Ulysses S. Grant — whose birth name was Hiram, though he went by his middle name, Ulysses — also has an “S” middle initial that stands for nothing. Unlike Truman’s ambiguous tribute to his ancestors, Grant’s “S” was a simple clerical error. In 1839, Congressman Thomas Hamer nominated Grant to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Believing Ulysses to be Grant’s first name and at a loss for his middle initial, Hamer wrote in “S” as a stand-in for the cadet’s mother’s maiden name, Simpson. When Grant arrived at West Point, he tried to get the error fixed, but to no avail, and the “S” eventually even appeared on his diploma. The error proved prophetic — after all, U.S. Grant is a pretty good name for any future President.

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Mark Twain helped Ulysses S. Grant publish his memoir.

In 1884, while nearing the end of his life, former President U.S. Grant was hard at work on his memoirs in the hope of leaving something behind for his family, as a failed business venture had left them in financial ruin. A publishing house offered 10% royalties on the book, but famed writer Samuel Clemens — known by his pen name, Mark Twain — arrived at Grant’s home on 66th Street in New York City to make a better offer. Instead of 10% of the sales, Twain promised 70% of the total profit to Grant and his family if he used a publisher owned by the nephew of Twain’s wife. Grant died only a few days after he finished writing in the summer of 1885, and his memoir became an instant bestseller. In early 1886, former First Lady Julia Dent Grant received a check for $200,000 based on the book’s success — at the time, it was the largest royalty check ever written. 

Women couldn’t wear pants on the Senate floor until 1993.

  • Carol Moseley Braun
Carol Moseley Braun
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Author Nicole Villeneuve
August 15, 2023

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Carol Moseley Braun holds the distinction of being the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, and in 1993, she also helped bring about another victory for equality: a rare rule change in the Senate that updated the dress code from its outdated, gendered restrictions to better align with the times.

Before becoming a senator, Moseley Braun was used to wearing pantsuits during her tenure in the Illinois legislature, where rules were more relaxed. One morning in early 1993, not long after she was sworn in as a Democratic senator, she chose an Armani pantsuit to wear to work. “I walked onto the floor of the Senate, and the gasps were audible,” she later said. The dress code — which required women to wear dresses or skirts with a jacket — was enforced primarily by peer pressure, as well as the whims of the Senate doorkeepers who allowed people into the chamber. 

Female aides initially tried to challenge the dress code in 1972, but their request was reportedly ignored. By 1993, thanks to an increasing number of women senators, the tide began to shift. After Moseley Braun’s unintentionally bold move, Senator Barbara Mikulski did the same. (Although no official Senate record confirms which senator first wore pants on the floor, most available information suggests it was Moseley Braun.) Female staffers, journalists, and other senators soon began advocating for an official allowance to wear pants. Shortly after, Senate Sergeant at Arms Martha Pope issued an amendment to the dress code, allowing “coordinated pantsuits” as part of the acceptable attire for women — a major win in what’s been called the “pantsuit revolution.”

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The U.S. started allowing babies on the Senate floor in 2018.

In April 2018, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution allowing senators to bring their children under the age of 1 onto the Senate floor during votes. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, played a significant role in this historic decision. Just days before, Duckworth herself made history as the first U.S. senator to give birth while in office, and she had already been advocating for a rule change — a rarity in the Senate — so she could continue her governmental duties while caring for her newborn. “Whether you are a woman or a man… you should be able to bring that child on to the floor and continue to do your job,” she said at the time. Ten days after giving birth, Duckworth became the first senator to cast a vote on the Senate floor with her baby cradled in her arms.

Thomas Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb.

  • Swan’s carbon pencil lamp
Swan's carbon pencil lamp
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Author Darren Orf
August 15, 2023

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Thomas Edison is the brilliant mind behind many inventions: the automatic telegraph, the phonograph, and the kinetograph, to name a few. The world-changing invention he’s most often associated with, however, is the incandescent lightbulb. There’s just one problem: Edison didn’t actually invent it. He was the first to produce a practical and commercially viable incandescent lightbulb, but the science behind the lightbulb had been around for more than a century before Edison took a crack at it in 1879. 

Back in March 1761, English scientist Ebenezer Kinnersley wrote in a letter to Benjamin Franklin that he successfully got a wire so “red hot” that it gave off light. This is known as “incandescence” and is the science inside every incandescent lightbulb. Kinnersley’s discovery was far removed from the lightbulbs we use today, but laid the foundation for the technology to develop in the coming decades. In 1841, English scientist Frederick de Moleyns scored the first patent for an incandescent lamp, though the lamp’s platinum filaments were too expensive and unreliable to be practically usable. Then came Joseph Swan, yet another English scientist, who created the first lightbulb with a carbon filament in 1878. Although still highly inefficient, these bulbs were at least better than the soot-spewing gas that lit up cities at the time, and they kicked off the switch to electric lighting. 

Although Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb, it can certainly be argued that he perfected it — something he did often with inventions throughout his career. In 1879, Edison realized that higher electrical resistance was needed for lightbulbs to last longer; he tested more than 6,000 materials and finally settled on carbonized bamboo. Within the year, Edison’s bulbs could last between 600 and 1,200 hours, showing the world that electric lighting was economically possible.

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Thomas Edison created the predecessor to the cat video.

Thomas Edison was a man ahead of his time — and in the case of cat videos, a full century ahead. After inventing the kinetograph, a kind of proto-film camera, in 1891, Edison got to work making a series of short films showing off his new creation. One featured a trapeze artist; another, an employee sneezing (Edison found the need to copyright that one). But one of the more adorable films, created in 1894, was “The Boxing Cats,” which, just as it sounds, starred two fuzzy felines wearing cat-sized boxing gloves in a cat-sized boxing ring. It was filmed at Edison’s Black Maria film studio in New Jersey some 100 years before funny videos of cats became an internet phenomenon. The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

Abraham Lincoln’s only hobby was “cats,” according to his wife.

  • Lincoln and his family
Lincoln and his family
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Author Darren Orf
August 3, 2023

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The White House has a long history of family pets, some more exotic than others. The first furry friends in the executive mansion belonged to its first presidential residents — John and Abigail Adams — who had two dogs named Juno and Satan. Teddy Roosevelt owned an entire menagerie during his term, including guinea pigs, snakes, birds, several horses, and many other animals. But few Presidents had quite as much affection for their pets as Abraham Lincoln did for his cats, Tabby and Dixie. 

Both Tabby and Dixie were gifted to the President by William Seward, his secretary of state, and the two kittens lived at the White House (likely along with other strays invited by the commander in chief). Many anecdotes from government officials, family, and friends speak to Lincoln’s unyielding affection for his feline friends. Caleb Carman, a friend of the President’s, once said that Lincoln could “talk to [cats] for half an hour at a time.” Lincoln himself, known for his sharp wit, once quipped that “Dixie is smarter than my whole Cabinet!” And supposedly, the President was even distracted at the 1865 Siege of Petersburg during the Civil War due to the nearby meowing of kittens. But the anecdote that most cements Lincoln’s ailurophilia into history comes from his wife, Mary Todd. When asked if her husband had any hobbies, she had one simple reply: “Cats.”

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The musical "Cats" is based on a book of poems by T.S. Eliot.

You may think that Andrew Lloyd Webber, the musical mind behind the Tony Award-winning Cats, would be a feline fanatic. But not so much. In interviews leading up to the show’s debut in London’s West End theater district, the British composer was quoted as saying he felt “quite neutral” about cats, and that the only cat he ever liked “was an old Siamese who was fond of Tchaikovsky.” So where did he find the inspiration for the musical? Cats is actually based on a body of work by poet T.S. Eliot, who himself very much loved the creatures. Published in 1939, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats collects poems Eliot originally composed for his godchildren, which explore the curious complexity of feline psychology. In 1983, nearly 20 years after his death, Eliot won two Tony Awards, for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. His widow and collaborator Valerie Eliot received the honor in his place.

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