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Michelangelo’s David was censored by Queen Victoria.

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Michelangelo’s David
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Author Bennett Kleinman

August 30, 2023

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The statue of David is among Michelangelo’s greatest masterpieces, but the sculpture isn’t without detractors. One such critic was none other than Queen Victoria, who reigned over England from 1837 until 1901, centuries after the original David was sculpted in 1504. In 1857, a plaster replica of the David was shipped to Great Britain as a gift to Victoria from Leopold II, the grand duke of Tuscany. While the queen accepted the diplomatic gesture with grace, she was, according to some anecdotal reports, left aghast by the statue’s blatant nudity. The work was sent to be displayed at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, where curators crafted a plaster fig leaf to obscure the reproductive organ that some found offensive. This leaf was attached with the help of “strategically placed hooks” that allowed it to be lowered in place in anticipation of any visits from female members of the royal family, as the statue otherwise remained uncensored. The leaf — a replica of which can still be found in the museum’s collection — was last used during the first half of the 20th century, leaving the replica of David fully nude as Michelangelo initially intended.

However, even the original David statue endured years of unceremonious censorship. Upon its unveiling in Florence in 1504, the sculpture was covered with a garland made of 28 copper leaves to cover its nakedness, and the garland remained around David’s waist until at least the mid-16th century. Concurrently, around the year 1541, the Vatican implemented a “Fig Leaf Campaign” to censor nudity in art that it deemed offensive. At first, the Catholic Church sought to cover up the naked figures in Michelangelo’s painting “The Last Judgment,” as well as similar works. Thankfully, many of these once-censored works of art have since been restored to their original condition.

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Michelangelo signed only one piece of art.

Many of Michelangelo’s works are so recognizable that you don’t need a signature to know their creator. In fact, Michelangelo never signed his art, except on one occasion. In 1499, the artist finished work on the Madonna della Pietà, a funeral monument depicting the Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus Christ. Michelangelo was just 24 years old, and the Pietà showcased his immense talent at a time when he still sought name recognition. However, according to biographer Giorgio Vasari, the piece was misattributed to a rival artist, leading Michelangelo to lock himself inside Old St. Peter’s Basilica with a chisel to inscribe his name across Mary’s sash, ensuring that nobody would make such a mistake again. And although the Pietà was the only piece of art Michelangelo ever signed, he was known to paint his likeness into other works. He drew at least one self-portrait in “The Last Judgment,” and recent theories suggest he may have even included a hidden depiction of his own face within “The Creation of Adam.”

During WWI, Americans called sauerkraut “liberty cabbage.”

  • Harvest of cabbage, WWI
Harvest of cabbage, WWI
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Author Kevin McCaffrey

August 15, 2023

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Americans have a long tradition of rebranding any foods that bear the name of a rival nation during times of conflict. When France refused to support the United States’ war in Iraq in 2003, for example, the cafeteria menus in three congressional office buildings in Washington, D.C., changed the name of French fries — which, by some accounts, were actually invented in Belgium — to “freedom fries,” and French toast became “freedom toast.”  

The U.S. pulled a similar move while at war with Germany during World War I: Sauerkraut’s German origins led Americans to rename the condiment “liberty cabbage.” Other foods that we think of as classically American yet bear the names of German cities were also affected. The word “hamburger” comes from Hamburg, Germany, so during the Great War it was rechristened “liberty steak.” The seemingly all-American hot dog, meanwhile, was called a “frankfurter” at the time, and as the connection to Frankfurt, Germany, couldn’t stand, it was rebranded “liberty sausage.” (The term “hot dog” is also sneakily of German origin, as it comes from “dachshunds,” aka “little dogs.”) And speaking of dogs, in 1917, the American Kennel Club changed the official name of German shepherds to “shepherd dog,” and in England the breed was renamed “Alsatian.”

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Anti-German sentiment in WWI also caused several towns to change their names.

The anti-German sentiment of World War I went beyond food names; it led to paranoia and xenophobia that had a serious impact on German Americans at the time. In 1918, South Dakota banned speaking German on the phone, as well as in groups of three or more people. By the early 1920s, 34 states had passed English-only requirements in schools. Meanwhile, many small towns across the U.S. permanently changed their names as a result of the war. Garland, Nebraska, was known as Germantown until World War I, when the town decided to rename itself after a local soldier. Berlin, Iowa, became Lincoln in 1918. And East Germantown, Indiana, changed to Pershing in honor of General John J. Pershing, though some residents continue to use the original name.

The U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition.

  • Bootleg liquor circa 1930s
Bootleg liquor circa 1930s
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Author Nicole Villeneuve

August 17, 2023

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It’s been dubbed the “noble experiment,” a name that came from then-President Herbert Hoover calling Prohibition “a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.” In January 1920, the United States banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of “intoxicating liquors,” a move made in the wake of temperance movements that sought moral and social reform throughout the 1800s — in spite of some failed attempts at similar regional programs around the country. 

Despite the ban, the demand for alcohol remained high. Bootlegging — illegal production, smuggling, and selling of liquor — thrived. Illegitimate drinking spots known as speakeasies flourished, with approximately 30,000 of them existing in just New York City alone by decade’s end. As the defiance against liquor laws intensified, authorities managed to mitigate smuggling from other countries; the bootleggers, however, responded by stealing massive quantities of industrial alcohol — used in automotive fluids, paints, and medical supplies — and refining it to make it drinkable (it became the country’s top source of liquor). Then, the U.S. government tried to beat the rum-runners at their own game. In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge’s administration mandated that manufacturers add even more dangerous chemicals to their industrial products — substances such as gasoline, formaldehyde, and the easily lethal methanol — to dissuade the underground industries and their customers.

The consequences were immediate — and in many cases, fatal. Consumption of alcohol continued despite fear of the additives, and some estimates claim the chemical additions caused around 10,000 deaths in the U.S. Public health officials, including New York medical examiner Charles Norris, lambasted the move. Eventually, the official end of the program came with the repeal of the 18th Amendment in December 1933, marking the end of Prohibition. 

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Organized crime started because of Prohibition.

Before Prohibition, organized crime was mostly limited to small gangs who were involved in petty neighborhood extortion and loan-sharking. When the 1920 ban on alcohol went into effect, mobsters became the key players in the illicit alcohol trade, procuring, producing, and selling liquor illegally all over the U.S. Profits got so big, so fast, that these once small-time criminals and mafias learned to be more “organized” than ever, hiring lawyers, accountants, truckers, and more to help run their illicit businesses. They also started working with other criminal groups, effectively creating underground syndicates. Powerful crime families led by figures such as Charles “Lucky” Luciano and the notorious Al Capone emerged, making millions of dollars in the process. The enormous profits fueled the growth and expansion of organized crime, which continued even after the repeal of Prohibition.

The Founding Fathers actually declared independence on July 2.

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Independence Hall
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Author Kevin McCaffrey

June 26, 2023

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Independence Day is celebrated in an explosion of fireworks in the U.S. every year on the Fourth of July, but America’s Founding Fathers actually voted to break free from Great Britain two days earlier, on July 2, 1776. The process began nearly a month before that, when the Second Continental Congress introduced a motion calling for independence on June 7, 1776. After weeks of debate, a five-person committee set out to write a statement in favor of breaking from Great Britain. The star-studded committee included future Presidents and longtime rivals Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, as well as Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert R. Livingston of New York. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress officially voted to declare independence. In fact, Adams was adamant that the ensuing celebrations should be held on the day of the vote: He wrote that July 2 would be “the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.” 

What actually happened on July 4, 1776, was that the Second Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, which was signed later by 56 leaders from across the colonies. The two days in between July 2 and July 4 were spent working on edits to the document. Almost a quarter of Jefferson’s original words were cut, much to his chagrin — he referred to the revisions as “mutilations.” On this point even Adams agreed with him, observing that “they obliterated some of the best of it.” 

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The current American flag was designed by a high school student.

In 1958, at a time when Alaska and Hawaii seemed likely to join the United States, a class at Lancaster High School in Ohio was tasked with creating a show-and-tell project related to American history. One student, Robert G. Heft, decided to make a new 50-star flag, spending 12 hours cutting out and sewing on stars in a pattern that included five rows of six stars and four rows of five stars. Alas, he received a lowly B-. Despite the negative reception, Heft gave the flag to local congressman Walter Moeller, who lived nearby and who promised to take Heft’s design to Washington, D.C. That promise paid off in a big way, as two years later Heft received a phone call from President Eisenhower himself. The President informed Heft that his design had been chosen for the new national flag. Heft’s creation was among an estimated 1,500 considered, and though many others featured a near-identical pattern, he ultimately received credit upon the flag’s adoption on July 4, 1960. In the wake of Eisenhower’s decision, Heft’s teacher retroactively raised his grade to an A. 

New England had a series of “vampire panics” in the 19th century.

  • Banning a vampire
Banning a vampire
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Author Nicole Villeneuve

June 2, 2023

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Vampires haunted our imaginations long before Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula popularized the vision of the blood-sucking monster we know today. They’ve existed as fearsome supernatural forces throughout centuries of folktales and superstitions in just about every culture across the globe — including the United States. In fact, in the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, many residents in rural Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont believed vampires were preying on their communities. The panic was fueled not only by superstitions, but also by a lack of understanding of medical science and infectious disease. 

In the early 18th century, what we now know to be tuberculosis began ravaging rural New England at epidemic rates, killing an alarming number of people. Victims became gaunt and pale, and often coughed blood, and some residents became convinced that vampires were at fault (though plenty of others remained skeptical). The bacterial lung infection is highly transmissible and at the time often consumed entire families, further fueling the belief that vampiric forces were returning to claim more victims. The vampires weren’t necessarily seen as corporeal beings, raising from the dead under the cover of night; according to author and folklorist Michael E. Bell, the belief was that vampires maintained a sort of spiritual connection with the families, and exploited it to drain their life force. 

In an attempt to stop the deadly spread, a vampire hunt took place throughout the region. Graves were exhumed and bodies were sometimes turned over or parts rearranged; other times, vital organs were removed and even burned, a practice believed to prevent the undead from rising from the grave and causing further harm. Roughly 80 cases of exhumation have been recorded between the late 1700s and 1892, though many more are presumed to have taken place. As outlandish as it may seem now, the New England vampire panic remains a relevant reminder that the monsters we create are often a reflection of our own fears, unknowns, and anxieties. 

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Rabies may have contributed to the vampire myth.

Just as tuberculosis and its symptoms were once misunderstood as an undead vampiric attack, it’s possible that another disease played an early role in vampire myths: rabies. Not only is rabies spread through biting — famously how vampires claim their victims — but some rabies symptoms can resemble the characteristics commonly associated with vampires in folklore. A sensitivity to light, a fear of water, and aggression are present in both, and it just so happens that during other vampire panics throughout history, there were simultaneous rabies epidemics. Although this theory does have some scholarly support, as of yet it remains unproven. 

King Louis XIV reportedly owned 413 beds.

  • Louis XIV at Versailles
Louis XIV at Versailles
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Author Bennett Kleinman

June 2, 2023

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With a reign totaling 72 years and 110 days, King Louis XIV held the throne longer than any monarch in the history of France — or the world, for that matter. The Sun King, as he was known, embraced opulence to a historic degree throughout his reign (from 1643 to 1715). Case in point: His majesty reportedly owned no fewer than 413 beds, which were considered status symbols at the time. Few people had the wealth, let alone space, to afford and display such a vast collection of luxurious furniture, but the French monarch was a uniquely ostentatious individual. The beds — 155 of which were characterized as boasting greater importance than the others — were dispersed throughout France’s various royal palaces for the personal use of Louis and his family. Mind you, these beds weren’t just meager cots, but rather ornately adorned furnishings with features such as fabrics from the far reaches of Persia (modern Iran) and China, as well as gold plating, high pillars, and intricate embroidery.

In 17th-century France, royal bedrooms were often treated like reception areas rather than private quarters. Thus, Louis XIV invited his many guests and dignitaries to stand behind a special railing in his bedroom while he held court. Lavish beds such as the one at the Palace of Versailles were frequently used by Louis for official business, and he would sprawl out atop the gilded linens during these stately meetings. It was considered a true honor for those guests to gaze upon Louis XIV as he dozed, and it was deemed particularly thrilling to watch the king fall asleep or wake up from his deep slumbers.

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Medieval King Edward I of England owned a portable bed.

Louis XIV’s hundreds of beds are far from the only royal slumber oddity. In 13th-century England, King Edward I traveled with a specially crafted portable bed that accompanied him throughout England. Though Edward’s original bed — which cost “11 shillings and a penny for timber, boards and sawn panels” — is long gone, an accurate re-creation is currently displayed in St. Thomas’s Tower in London. Edward I’s reign came to an end by 1307, but that was not the last England saw of royal portable beds. King George II commissioned a 54-piece traveling bed of his own in 1716, and even today, the British monarch reportedly travels with a specific bed of his liking. It’s said that a special orthopedic bed — not to mention a personal lavatory seat — is delivered wherever England’s reigning King Charles III goes.

There’s an ‘old’ Zealand.

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Province of Zeeland
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Author Michael Nordine

June 2, 2023

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Some “new” places have become so much more well known than their namesakes that most of us don’t even think to wonder what those namesakes are. New York is probably the most famous of these, but it’s hardly the only one. Case in point: There’s an “old” Zealand, and it’s nowhere near the “new” one. Dutch navigator Abel Janszoon Tasman first sighted New Zealand’s South Island (the larger of the country’s two main islands, also officially named Te Waipounamu) in 1642, and cartographers gave it the Latin name Nova Zeelandia (known as “Nieuw Zeeland” in Dutch) in honor of the maritime province Zeeland in the Netherlands. (The spelling was eventually anglicized to “New Zealand.”) 

Zeeland, the least populous of the Netherlands’ 12 provinces, is a group of islands and peninsulas located northwest of Antwerp, Belgium, and features a lion emerging from water on its coat of arms. It could hardly be farther away from the country named after it: The two are 11,000 miles apart, and the maximum distance between any two points on Earth is about 12,450 miles. New Zealand, meanwhile, continues to rank among the best countries in the world by several metrics — it’s No. 2 on both the Global Peace Index and Corruption Perceptions Index, among a number of other impressive rankings. It’s also in good company among other “new” places across the world, many of which mark a symbolic passage from the Old World to the new one.

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A town in New Zealand has the longest name of any place in the world.

Next time you find yourself lucky enough to visit New Zealand, try to make time for a quick trip to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu — the town with the longest name in the world, at 85 letters. It’s found on the east coast of the country, and, translated from Māori, means something like “the place where Tamatea, the man on the big knees who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as the land eater, he played the flute to his loved one.” You might not be able to pronounce it, but at least you can take a photo of the sign.

John F. Kennedy’s waffle recipe is stored in the National Archives.

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Waffle making ingredients
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Author Bennett Kleinman

August 23, 2023

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John F. Kennedy’s political legacy is still felt today, but the 35th U.S. president also made a lasting culinary impact. Though he delegated the actual cooking to others, JFK’s favorite waffle recipe was widely requested and shared during his time in office, and is now stored in the National Archives. The dish includes standard ingredients such as butter, sugar, and eggs, but mixes sifted cake flour with whipped egg whites to produce a light and fluffy texture that Kennedy enjoyed. The president, who was also fond of orange juice, poached eggs, and broiled bacon at breakfast, topped the waffles with hot maple syrup and melted butter to finish off the decadent treat. 

JFK’s waffle recipe is likely the most famous of any president’s, but Thomas Jefferson may have played a key role in waffles being popularized stateside. Culinary lore suggests it was Jefferson who helped ignite the waffle craze in the 1790s upon his return from France, when he arrived with four waffle irons in his luggage. Jefferson even reportedly served waffles to explorer Meriwether Lewis at the White House prior to the Lewis and Clark expedition, though some historians at Jefferson’s Monticello estate claim the founding father’s impact on colonial waffle culture was minimal. President William Howard Taft also openly expressed a love for waffles during his presidency, though was known to detest eggs and enjoyed a steak for breakfast almost every morning.

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Eggo began as a company that sold mayonnaise.

Eggo is best known for its patented brand of frozen waffles, but in the 1930s, the company began by selling an entirely different product: mayonnaise. In 1932, brothers Frank, Tony, and Sam Dorsa started a mayonnaise business operating out of their mother’s home. The trio adopted the name “Eggo” in reference to the fresh eggs they used to produce their creamy condiment. In the ensuing decades, the Dorsa brothers extended their product line to include potato chips and powdered waffle mix, though it wasn’t until 1953 that Eggo hit it big with a line of frozen waffles initially known as “Froffles.” As the first of its kind, the product was a big hit, though customers referred to the waffles as “Eggos,” forcing the company to abandon the Froffles portmanteau within two years. Realizing this was a moneymaking opportunity, Eggo pivoted away from the mayo that made it famous and focused on its now-beloved frozen waffles full time.

The man who discovered oxygen also invented seltzer.

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Fresh seltzer water
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Author Bennett Kleinman

August 24, 2023

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Chemist Joseph Priestley may not be a household name, but his discoveries impact most of our everyday lives. Born near Leeds, England, in 1733, Priestley not only invented carbonated water (plus the pencil eraser) during his career, but he also independently discovered the atomic element oxygen. Of these accomplishments, his creation of seltzer came first, in 1767, when he lived near a brewery and was fascinated by the gaseous vapors it produced. Priestley mixed sulfuric acid and chalk to form carbon dioxide (though he didn’t know what it was at the time) and used the compound to add bubbles to still water. Shortly thereafter, he earned the prestigious Copley Medal for his publication “Directions for Impregnating Water With Fixed Air.” The beverage was later named “seltzer” in honor of the natural springs found in the German town of Selters.

When it comes to oxygen, Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele actually studied the element in 1772, predating Priestley. However, Scheele’s findings weren’t published until 1777, allowing Priestley to conduct groundbreaking studies in the interim. On August 1, 1774, Priestley experimented by heating the red mercuric oxide of a candle to produce a then-mysterious colorless gas that was capable of supporting life. Two months later, Priestley presented his findings to French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who conducted tests of his own, which proved to be more thorough and scientifically accurate. Priestley pushed back on Lavoisier’s subsequent findings, instead embracing archaic scientific theories such as the existence of a fire-like element called phlogiston. Lavoisier persisted, however, and named the new gaseous element “oxygen,” after the Greek “oxy genes,” meaning “acid-forming.”

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Samarium was the first element named after a person.

Elements such as einsteinium and bohrium may have more famous eponyms, but the first periodic element named after a person was samarium. This rare earth metal — atomic number 62 — was discovered in 1879 after being isolated from the mineral samarskite, and was named for Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets, a Russian mining official who granted access to mineral samples for scientific research. Samarsky-Bykhovets passed away in 1870, nine years before the element was christened in his honor, but two other elemental namesakes were lucky enough to witness their own personal tributes firsthand. Seaborgium was named after Glenn Seaborg — winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize for chemistry — in 1997, just two years before Seaborg’s death. More recently, in 2016, the element oganesson was formally named after nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian, the only periodic table eponym alive today.

The U.S. President never had a “red phone” during the Cold War.

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Phone in the oval office
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Author Kevin McCaffrey

August 2, 2023

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The ominous “red phone” on the desk of the U.S. President has been portrayed in movies and political commercials, and even makes an appearance in Jimmy Carter’s presidential museum. There’s just one issue: It never existed. Not only was the Cold War-era emergency hotline between the U.S. and Soviet Union not a red phone, but it wasn’t a telephone at all. After a 1963 meeting in Geneva, a communication system was created that linked teletype machines to send written messages via transatlantic cable. The catalyst for the Washington-Moscow “nuclear hotline” was the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which led both the United States and the Soviet Union to fear a scenario in which they could not communicate quickly enough during an emergency, leading to nuclear war.

What’s more, the U.S. side of the hotline wasn’t even in the White House; it was installed at the Pentagon headquarters in Virginia on the other side of the Potomac. In 1986, the communication system was upgraded to high-speed fax, and in 2008 both sides shifted into the 21st century with email. In 2013, President Barack Obama’s administration added a new channel to the hotline to be used for communication specifically about cybersecurity. Technicians still test the hotline on an hourly basis, sending messages back and forth. As to where the red phone myth began, most evidence points to Hollywood. In 1964, two movies, Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe, referenced a “red phone” in the context of the Soviet government and a nuclear emergency. 

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At least seven U.S. Presidents have officially used the Washington-Moscow hotline.

The first official use of the Washington-Moscow hotline occurred during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, though the specifics of the communication are unknown. Richard Nixon used the hotline at least twice in an official capacity. Once was during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, and another time was during 1973’s Yom Kippur War, when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. Jimmy Carter contacted the Soviets via the hotline to protest the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Ronald Reagan used it frequently, even in nonemergency situations toward the end of the Cold War. George H.W. Bush used it during the Gulf War and George W. Bush did during the invasion of Iraq, and in 2016, Barack Obama used the communication channel to warn against Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.

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