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Andrew Jackson’s parrot was kicked out of his funeral for swearing.

  • Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
Photo credit: Library of Congress/ Unsplash
Author Michael Nordine

June 9, 2023

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Before cats and dogs became the go-to, a number of U.S. Presidents had unusual pets. Thomas Jefferson had bear cubs, Calvin Coolidge kept a raccoon in the White House, and Theodore Roosevelt counted guinea pigs, a bear, and a hyena among his dozens of animals. That makes the fact that Andrew Jackson had an African grey parrot named Poll less odd, but what is strange is that the bird was kicked out of Jackson’s funeral for swearing. This knowledge comes to us courtesy of Samuel G. Heiskell’s book Andrew Jackson and Early Tennessee History, which quotes Reverend William Menefee Norment as observing: “Before the sermon and while the crowd was gathering, a wicked parrot that was a household pet got excited and commenced swearing so loud and long as to disturb the people and had to be carried from the house.”

Sadly, the good reverend didn’t detail the specifics of Poll’s outburst beyond saying that it was “excited by the multitude and… let loose perfect gusts of ‘cuss words,’” causing some to be “horrified and awed at the bird’s lack of reverence.” What became of Poll following the funeral is unknown, but it isn’t uncommon for African greys to outlive their owners — they’ve been known to live up to 60 years in captivity.

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Andrew Jackson may have been in over 100 duels.

Andrew Jackson was known to be as thin-skinned as he was quick-tempered, leading him to challenge many a foe to a duel — around 100, by some counts. Most of these confrontations involved little more than the combatants firing their guns into the air as a show of courage for not rejecting the initial challenge, but at least one turned deadly. It began when fellow horse breeder and longtime rival Charles Dickinson leveled a series of insults at Jackson (a dispute over a horse bet, among other things), and ended with Dickinson’s death on May 30, 1806. Jackson barely escaped with his own life, as Dickinson fired upon him and hit the future President near the heart. The bullet was never removed, and Jackson carried it with him for the rest of his life. 

Victorian-era women ate arsenic as a beauty treatment.

  • Arsenic on periodic table
Arsenic on periodic table
Credit: magnetix/ Shutterstock
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

March 27, 2024

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In the United States and Europe, a ghostly pallor was the height of fashion among Victorian-era women. Pale skin signaled high class, both because it meant that you never had to work in the sun and because wasting away from consumption, what we now know as tuberculosis, had become associated with beauty in certain affluent circles. In the late 18th century, wealthy women started romanticizing the extreme thinness, near-translucent skin, and rosy cheeks of those who suffered from the disease, an attitude that came to a peak in the mid-19th century. Tuberculosis, while devastating, brought out features that some already considered attractive, and beautiful women were, falsely, even thought to have been particularly vulnerable to the illness. Women chasing the fashion wore tight corsets and full skirts to show off their tiny waists and made their faces as pale as possible. And if they didn’t already have a ghostly complexion, they could get the look in other ways — such as through long-term arsenic exposure.

In 1851, a Swiss physician published a report in a medical journal about the “toxicophagi,” a group of people in modern-day Austria who routinely consumed arsenic; they knew it was poison, but thought they could develop an immunity to it by starting with small doses and gradually increasing the intake. The report’s author claimed that arsenic gave them great energy, sparkling eyes, and wonderful complexions, but noted that after long-term use, unsurprisingly, “most arsenic eaters end with an inevitable infirmity of the body.”

After the article was published, beauty writers told stories of women in Bohemia (modern-day Czechia) who bathed in “arsenic springs” as skin care. It became a popular treatment for women chasing a naturally wan look — as opposed to the “painted ladies” of the day, who used heavy makeup to appear pale. Arsenic-based “complexion wafers” started hitting store shelves; Dr. James P. Campbell’s Safe Arsenic Complexion Wafers promised relief from blemishes and “a deliciously clear complexion,” and were sold well into the 20th century. These wafers reportedly had a very low dose of the toxin, but because there is no such thing as “safe” arsenic, the wafers were still fatal for some consumers. Legitimate doctors warned against their use, and at least one physician in San Francisco worried that arsenic poisoning was going undiagnosed because women neglected to tell their doctors they were taking it. 

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Victorian women also rubbed mercury on their skin as a beauty treatment.

Arsenic wasn’t the only dangerous beauty compound to have widespread usage in the 19th century; lead-based white makeup was popular among women in the Victorian era, and ammonia factored into many skin care routines. Another popular trend was using mercury on your skin. Vermillion, a red pigment that’s a form of mercury, was used to tint lips and flush cheeks. A widely used skin cream that launched in the 1880s contained mercury until the 1930s. In the 1870s, a beauty writer with Harper’s Bazaar even recommended rubbing a compound that included mercury on your eyelids to encourage eyelash growth. At the time, mercury was found in many everyday items, and scientists had only identified mercury poisoning as a risk a decade earlier.

Limping was a fad in Victorian England.

  • Queen Alexandra
Queen Alexandra
Credit: Alpha Stock/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

March 13, 2024

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In Victorian-era Britain, few fashion icons were as influential as Alexandra of Denmark, aka Alexandra, Princess of Wales, who became Queen Alexandra in 1901 when her husband took the throne after the death of Queen Victoria. Alexandra married Prince Albert, later King Edward VII, in 1863, joining the royal family just as photography rose to prominence, and her style spread through Britain like wildfire. When she started wearing broad, elaborate, choker-style necklaces — supposedly to cover up a scar on her neck from childhood — they caught on, and stayed in fashion for the next several decades.

After the birth of her third child in 1867, the princess developed a severe case of rheumatic fever that left her with a stiff knee and a pronounced limp, and she sometimes used mobility aids such as walking sticks to get around. It was far from a style choice, but high-society ladies were so eager to imitate her that they even adopted her gait in a trend known as the “Alexandra limp.” At first, Alexandra’s able-bodied imitators wore mismatched shoes to get the walk, but eventually retailers took notice. Shops started stocking pairs of shoes with two different heel heights to capitalize on the limping craze. Sometimes a walking stick completed the look. Even at the time, the trend was considered in poor taste. “There must be a line at which even fashionable folly may be expected to stop short… at the caricaturing of human infirmity,” read a column published in the Scottish newspaper Courier and Argus. Ultimately, the Alexandra limp didn’t have the same longevity as thick chokers, and the trend passed quickly.

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Victorian dresses were sometimes decorated with real beetle wings.

Jewel beetles are treasured for their colorful, iridescent wings, which have been used to decorate textiles for centuries in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Beetle wing embroidery spread to Europe via trade routes in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and by the 1860s, beetle wings were being imported to Britain in the tens of thousands. One of the most famous dresses embellished with jewel beetle wings was created for the role of Lady Macbeth in an 1888 production of Macbeth at the Lyceum Theatre in London; the gown had wings embroidered all over the bodice, skirt, and sleeves, which shimmered under stage lights. Jewel beetle wings are still used in textiles today, and are harvested ethically after the insects complete their natural life cycle.

St. Patrick was originally associated with the color blue, not green.

  • St. Patrick illustration
St. Patrick illustration
Credit: duncan1890/ iStock
Author Bennett Kleinman

March 7, 2024

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Long before St. Patrick’s Day became synonymous with the color green, its namesake saint — and even Ireland as a whole — was more closely associated with various shades of blue. St. Patrick is often credited with spreading Christianity throughout Ireland, and he became known as the patron saint of the country. The earliest known depiction of the saint — found in a 13th-century French manuscript — shows him clad in a blue robe, and he was often associated with the cool hue. 

The color blue was also used to represent Ireland itself, starting with the actions of King Henry VIII in 1541. The English monarch declared himself king of Ireland and presented the Irish kingdom with a new coat of arms featuring a golden harp on a dark blue background — the first link between Ireland and the color blue. Two centuries later, in 1783, England’s King George III established the Order of St. Patrick in Ireland, whose members wore outfits in a shade known as “St. Patrick’s blue.” However, these symbols were imposed upon the Irish people by their English oppressors, and the color blue never reflected the true Irish identity. It wasn’t until the Irish Rebellion of 1798 that the Irish adopted the color green — a shade also embraced by nationalists during an earlier 1642 rebellion — as a symbol of national pride, replacing the old blue colors found in many Irish flags and emblems. Around this time, green was also introduced to St. Patrick’s Day festivities, and it became the standard hue of the holiday shortly after.

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The precursor to Halloween originated in Ireland.

St. Patrick’s Day isn’t the only holiday closely associated with Ireland, as Halloween can also be traced back to the Emerald Isle. The holiday was inspired by a pagan religious festival called Samhain, which was first celebrated by ancient Celts thousands of years ago. From October 31 until sunset on November 1 each year, the Celts gathered to mark the end of the harvest season and usher in the “dark half of the year.” They also believed that the barriers between the physical and spirit worlds broke down each Samhain, so revelers wore animal skins to scare off phantoms. This practice inspired the concept of “mumming” in the 16th century — an early precursor to trick-or-treating in which children dressed in costume and went door-to-door singing songs in exchange for tasty cakes. During the 19th century, Irish immigrants brought knowledge of these customs to America, which helped lay the foundation for the modern Halloween celebrations we see today.

Jimmy Carter was once attacked by a “swamp rabbit.”

  • Jimmy Carter in boat, 1979
Jimmy Carter in boat, 1979
Credit: Zuri Swimmer/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Michael Nordine

March 7, 2024

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Most Presidents are known to have favorite vacation spots when they need to temporarily escape the hustle and bustle of Washington, and for Jimmy Carter it was his farm in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. During one such getaway on April 20, 1979, however, the commander in chief was relaxing on a boat in a pond when what has since become known as the “killer rabbit attack” occurred. The swamp rabbit in question, which, according to The New York Times, was said to be “hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and its nostrils flared,” swam toward Carter until he shooed it away with his paddle. As unbelievable as the incident might sound — including to Carter’s own staff, whose skepticism stung him — it was photographed for posterity.

“It was a killer rabbit,” one skeptical staff member said upon seeing the picture. “The President was swinging for his life.” Carter himself downplayed the incident, describing his supposed attacker as “just a nice, quiet, typical Georgia rabbit” that was likely fleeing from a predator. The media had its fun with the offbeat story nevertheless. The Washington Post ran a front-page article titled “Bunny Goes Bugs: Rabbit Attacks President,” accompanied by a Jaws-style poster titled Paws, and the Associated Press published an even more sensationalized cartoon of the encounter. 

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Jimmy Carter reported seeing a UFO.

Ten years before his life-or-death experience with the “killer rabbit,” the future President of the United States had an even stranger encounter: He claimed to have seen a UFO. The sighting took place in 1969, while Carter was visiting the Lions Club in Leary, Georgia. In the report he filed four years later, he wrote that “a kind of green light appeared in the western sky. This was right after sundown. It got brighter and brighter. And then it eventually disappeared. It didn’t have any solid substance to it, it was just a very peculiar looking light. None of us could understand what it was.” Carter was an amateur astronomer with a strong knowledge of physics stemming from his time in the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarine program. He insisted that what he saw wasn’t Venus, as some skeptics suggested, and that 10 to 12 others witnessed it as well. He also vowed to encourage the government to release “every piece of information” about UFOs to the public if he were to become President, though he ultimately opted not to do so for fear that the information could have “defense implications” that might risk national security.

Doctors warned women of developing “bicycle face” from cycling in the 19th century.

  • 1800s woman cycling
1800s woman cycling
Credit: ZU_09/ iStock
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

March 7, 2024

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The modern bicycle — originally called a “safety bicycle” because it wasn’t as treacherous as a big-wheel penny farthing — was invented in the 1880s, ushering in the 1890s bike craze in America. Cycling was especially popular with women, as it offered a freedom they didn’t have before, such as easier means to travel where they pleased, go on unchaperoned dates, or skip church. Female cyclists also began wearing bloomers under skirts, which, in the eyes of some who disapproved, were a little too close to pants. The popularity of cycling (and its implications for women’s empowerment) caused something of a moral panic. Men weren’t immune — some religious leaders worried about physical exertion, competitiveness, and performance-enhancing drugs — but women got the bulk of the ire. Cycling,  some medical authorities claimed at the time, could lead to uterine displacement, or a new condition called “bicycle face.”

Descriptions and alleged causes of bicycle face varied; according to one magazine, a woman suffering from the malady would be “usually flushed, but sometimes pale, often with lips more or less drawn, and the beginning of dark shadows under the eyes, and always with an expression of weariness.” One physician said that those suffering from bicycle face have “an anxious look and an unwholesome pallor.” Others said that symptoms include a clenched jaw and bulging eyes. Nobody was immune to bicycle face, but women were considered much more susceptible. Theories as to the cause included overexertion from trying to keep the bike balanced, bad posture, or even a more spiritual cause: riding bikes on the Sabbath. Fortunately for cyclists, the crisis subsided in the early 1900s as the bicycle became more commonplace and hand-wringers turned their anxiety toward automobiles — and, naturally, “horseless carriage face.”

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Victorian doctors thought trains could damage the uterus.

Many doctors in Victorian-era England believed women had fragile constitutions, resulting in observations that seem silly today, including bicycle face. Trains were also cause for concern — steam-powered engines could travel up to 80 miles per hour by 1860, and some medical professionals believed that women’s bodies were simply not designed to go that fast. In 1862, one doctor speculated in the medical journal The Lancet that train travel could cause miscarriages; another wrote in the New England Medical Gazette in 1870 that if a woman began a rail journey the day before her period, it could cause menstrual irregularities that could damage or even displace the uterus.

A woman named “Diot Coke” was born in the Middle Ages.

  • Diet Coke bottles on ice
Diet Coke bottles on ice
Credit: Steve Cukrov/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Michael Nordine

February 27, 2024

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Roughly 600 years before a certain sugar-free soda was created, a newborn entered the world with a most bubbly name: Diot Coke. The woman’s existence was rediscovered many centuries later by George Redmonds of the British National Archives, who happened upon Ms. Coke while researching 14th-century names. His contention is that her first name was a diminutive version of “Dionisia,” which at the time was a rather popular name that evolved into “Denise,” while her last name was a corruption of “Cook.”

Though little is known about Diot — her hopes, her dreams, her beverage of choice — beyond the time and place (Yorkshire, England) in which she lived, plenty is known about the world’s most popular diet soda. Introduced nearly two decades after the initial low-calorie Coca-Cola product, Tab, which first entered the marketplace in 1963, Diet Coke eschewed sugar in favor of artificial sweeteners and originally carried the slogan, “Just for the taste of it, Diet Coke!” Tab was discontinued in 2020 after 57 years of production, but sales figures suggest Diet Coke won’t leave shelves anytime soon.

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7Up used to have a much longer name.

When it was first introduced just two weeks before the 1929 stock market crash, the soda now known as 7Up carried the much longer name of “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda.” Part of that ungainly moniker was owed to the fact that it contained the mood-stabilizing substance lithium citrate, and was marketed as a means of lifting one’s spirits and even curing hangovers. The name was shortened to “7 Up Lithiated Soda” before becoming simply “7Up” in 1936, and lithium was removed from the recipe in 1948 due to safety concerns. The origins of the 7Up name are still debated nearly a century later, and several theories have been proposed (and, usually, shot down): among them, that it originally contained seven ingredients, was sold in 7-ounce cans, and “Seven Up” has seven letters. As no official explanation has ever been given, the mystery lives on.

The world’s oldest film is two seconds long.

  • Louis Le Prince, 1880s
Louis Le Prince, 1880s
Credit: Svintage Archive/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Kerry Hinton

February 27, 2024

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Although Thomas Edison is often credited as the “father of motion pictures,” he wasn’t the first inventor to make a movie. In 1888, a French photographer named Louis Le Prince made his mark on cinema with a two-second, 24-frame celluloid film titled Roundhay Garden Scene, widely believed to be the oldest film in existence. This debut predated more well-known works such as Edison’s Monkeyshines (1889) and Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895) by the Lumière brothers.

In the late 19th century, Le Prince and dozens of other inventors were in a race to create and project moving pictures. Inventions such as the Phenakistoscope (Joseph Plateau, 1833) and the Zoopraxiscope (Eadweard Muybridge, 1879) were able to simulate movement, but they relied on images created with multiple cameras. In 1888, Le Prince patented his Single-lens Cine Camera, the first device to record and reproduce pure motion — arguably the first movie camera. In October that year, he used the groundbreaking device to shoot Roundhay Garden Scene in Leeds, England, where he had relocated with his family. The cast wasn’t brought on for its acting chops: It included Le Prince’s son (quite possibly cinema’s first nepo baby), parents-in-law, and a friend. The resulting film could be called one of the earliest examples of slow cinema: Four people walk in circles in front of a camera for 2.11 seconds. 

Sadly, before he could demonstrate his inventions to the public, Le Prince disappeared on September 16, 1890, after boarding a train in Dijon, France. He was never seen again, but his pioneering inventions give a glimpse of what else he could have accomplished. According to British filmmaker David Wilkinson, “He would have done what Edison and then the Lumieres did, but before them. He would have been known.” 

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Le Prince’s wife believed Thomas Edison kidnapped her husband.

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Whitley, Louis Le Prince’s wife, was convinced that Thomas Edison had kidnapped and possibly even murdered her husband in order to claim credit for Le Prince’s inventions. Edison filed a patent caveat for his Kinetoscope — which seemed to be a version of the movie camera invented by Le Prince — a few weeks after Le Prince’s disappearance, which increased her suspicions. Even though Le Prince’s son Adolphe later proved his father invented the motion picture camera, Edison is the one who became a household name, while Le Prince’s filmmaking contributions were largely lost to history.

In 1712, Sweden had a February 30.

  • Swedish flag
Swedish flag
Credit: fretschi/ Shutterstock
Author Bennett Kleinman

February 21, 2024

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February is normally the shortest month of the year, but in 1712, Sweden extended the month all the way to February 30. This calendrical anomaly occurred as the country awkwardly shifted between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, which had about a 10-day gap between them. Pope Gregory XIII had introduced the latter calendar in 1582 to fix large discrepancies between the solar year and calendar date that the Julian calendar had incurred. Nations around the world slowly adopted the new calendar, and Sweden finally opted to do so in 1700.

The year 1700 happened to be a leap year in the Julian calendar, but not in the Gregorian version, widening the gap even further; March 1 in the Julian calendar corresponded to the Gregorian March 12. Sweden planned to gradually switch to the Gregorian calendar by omitting 11 leap days over the course of 40 years, but that plan was derailed when leap years were still mistakenly observed in 1704 and 1708. By 1712, Sweden’s timekeeping was such a mess, the country planned to shift back to the Julian calendar starting on March 1. (It also wanted to ensure that Easter would be celebrated on a Sunday.) To accomplish this, Sweden added February 29 — as 1712 was already a leap year to begin with — plus an extra day, February 30, to make up for the leap day it had omitted back in 1700. The country finally made the permanent shift to the Gregorian calendar in 1753, bridging the 11-day difference by jumping from February 17 to March 1.

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Two of the 12 months of the year were named after real people.

The etymology behind the months of the year is somewhat varied, and only two were named for real historical figures. July and August are named for Julius Caesar and his great-nephew Augustus, the first Roman emperor. The summer months were previously known as Quintilis and Sextilis; Quintilis was renamed “Julius” in 44 BCE to honor Caesar after his death, and Sextilis was changed to “Augustus” in 8 BCE during Augustus’ reign. The former names — which translate to “fifth” and “sixth” in Latin — stemmed from a time when the Roman calendar was only 10 months long. January and February were added later to create a new 12-month calendar, but the names for the months of September, October, November, and December still correspond to the Roman numbers for seven through 10.

The “New York Times” logo originally had a period at the end.

  • The New York Times, 1942
The New York Times, 1942
Credit: Everett Collection Historical/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Bennett Kleinman

February 14, 2024

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When The New York Times ran its first issue on September 18, 1851, there was a period at the end of the now-iconic logo. However, after more than a century of use, that period was removed — in part to save money on ink. The company was initially called the New-York Daily Times before undergoing its first visual revamp in 1857, when its name changed to just The New-York Times. The masthead was modified even further in 1896, when the paper removed the hyphen from its logo. But it wasn’t until 71 years later that the period was finally axed as well.

Around the middle of the 20th century, the Times sought out ways to modernize its look. In 1967, art director Louis Silverstein redesigned the logo to appear stronger and more visually appealing, by making the thicker parts of the font even thicker and the thinner parts thinner. At the same time, he did away with the period at the end, which he believed made the overall logo look less sleek and more archaic. The change had an added financial benefit, too: Silverstein estimated that dropping the period would save roughly $600 in ink costs each year (around $5,500 today). The paper’s logo has remained largely unchanged since then, outside of slight modifications to the thickness of the lettering.

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New Year’s Eve in Times Square began as a celebration of "The New York Times."

On August 18, 1896, publisher Adolph Ochs acquired a controlling stake in the struggling New York Times. In an effort to revitalize the publication, he commissioned a new company headquarters located at the intersection of 42nd Street, Seventh Avenue, and Broadway in New York City — the heart of what is now Times Square. Ochs named the new building the Times Tower, and lobbied the city to rename the surrounding Longacre Square to Times Square after his company. The building officially opened on New Year’s Eve in 1904, an event celebrated with a fireworks display attended by some 200,000 people. This marked the first New Year’s Eve fireworks in Times Square, and another tradition followed shortly after: In 1907, Ochs organized the first Times Square ball drop at the company headquarters. 

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