by Will Pearson
mental_floss presents
instant knowledge
Edited by
WILL PEARSON
and
MANGESH HATTIKUDUR
Contents
For Immediate Release
The Amish
Antibiotics
Appetites
Arithmetic
Asparagus
Attila
The Babe
Baby Food
Baby Jumping
Baby Names
Bad Trades
Bank Robbery
Beards
Instant Personalities
Bertrand Russell
Blackjack
Bower Birds
Boxing
Brides
Buddy Rich
Burials
Buttered Toast
The Can Opener
Castration
Charles II
Cheese Rolling
Chemists
Instant Personalities
Chewing Gum
Clams
Clichés
Cockroaches
Coffee
Condiments
Conductors
Crossed Eyes
Cruise Control
Crusades
D-Day
Dali
Deadbeat Dad
Instant Personalities
Death
Diabetes
Dictators
Dinosaurs
Dispensers
Divinity School
Dixie Cups
Double Decaf
Downsizing
Elephants
The Elitist Dictionary
End of the World
Escalators
Instant Personalities
Eva Perón
Execution
Ex-Lax
Fan Clubs
Fishing
The Flashlight
Flirting
Foreskins
Forgeries
Formal Wear
Freemasons
Funeral Feasts
Gandhi
Genghis Khan
Germophobes
G.I. Joel
Instant Personalities
God Complex
Goldfinger
Gum Control
Hair Loss
Ham
Hangovers
Hitchcock
Horses
Human Meat
Imelda Marcos
Inflation
Instant Bacon
Instant Personalities
Interstate Highways
Ireland
Japanese Diets
Jefferson
Jell-O
Jesus’ Brothers
Jews
Kim Jong IL
Kitty-Cat
Klackers
Klutziness
Koalas
Instant Personalities
Kudzu
Language Arts
La-Z-Boy
Lemmings
Leonardo Da Vinci
Leona Helmsley
Licks
Lions
Liquid Paper
Lord of the (Cigar) Rings
Losing a Bet
The Lotto
Love Letters
Instant Personalities
The Mad Hatter
Marquis De Sade
Mastication
Matzo Balls
Mercedes-Benz
Mice
Microwaves
Milk
Mona Lisa
Monogamy
Moths
Mount Everest
Mount Rushmore
Instant Personalities
Napping
National Anthems
New Coke, Part I
New Coke, Part II
Nietzsche
Nixon
Nougat
Nuts
Objection!
Opus Dei
Oslo
Ozone
Paddle Ball
Instant Personalities
Paganini
The Paper Clip
Passenger Pigeons
Paternity
Perfume
Pet Rocks
Pets
Pez
Physicists
Polo
Ponzi Scheme
Popcorn
Popes
Porn
Instant Personalities
Port Royal
Pregnancy
Presidential Affairs
Pygmy
The Quadro
Quotes
Rats
Revenge
Richard III
Rock Paper Scissors
Roget
Roller Coasters, Part I
Roller Coasters, Part II
Instant Personalities
Ronald McDonald
Saddam
The Safety Pin
Saliva
Schopenhauer
Scopes (Monkey) Trial
Sea Monkeys
Shakers
Shakespeare
Sheep
Sibling Rivalry
Sliced Bread
Slot Machines
Instant Personalities
Soup
Southerners
Spanish Fly
Spoiled Milk
Squid
The Star-Spangled Banner
Stella (The Fella?)
Sudden Death
Telegraph
Teleprompters
Television
Thales of Miletus
Instant Personalities
Toads
Twinkies
Unenviable Pregnancies
Unshelled Nuts
Ussr
Vacuum Cleaners
Vacuums
Van Halen
Velcro
Velvet Revolution
Vodka
W. C. Fields
Instant Personalities
War
Webster
Wedding Traditions
Werewolf Syndrome
White-Fronted Parrots
Woodchucks
Work
World War III
The Worst
Wright
Xiuhcóatl
X-Dressing
X-Roads
The Yap
Yemen’s National Pastime
Zamboni
Zero
Also by mental_floss
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
—FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—
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We’re happy to tell you that you can still get knowledge the old way. mental_floss will always be the family-owned company you can trust for those delicious, slow-roasted facts you’ve grown to love. But after numerous taste tests and focus groups, we’ve realized that there’s an even better way to serve our most active readers—the ones rushing straight from one draining conversation to the next. Whether you’re racing to a cocktail party or the water cooler, a poker game or a United Nations bake sale (you know who you are, Kofi!), mental_floss’s Instant Knowledge is a full-bodied jolt for thirsty minds on the go.
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Will and Mangesh
THE AMISH
(especially those fond of the “devil’s dandruff”)
USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, whenever the electricity goes out, and anytime you’re in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: bikers, buggies, or blow
THE FACT: Amish youths experiencing some requisite angst have plenty of ways to rebel (like oh, say, flipping on a light switch!), but these two guys really went above and beyond.
In June 1998, two members of the conservative Old Order Amish sect in Pennsylvania were arrested for buying and selling cocaine. The men, both named Abner Stoltzfus but not related, had apparently been riding their horse and buggy to meet up with a motorcycle gang known as the Pagans (seriously) and then distributing cocaine at their community hoedowns (honestly, we’re not making this stuff up). Between 1993 and 1997, the wild and crazy pair reportedly purchased over $100,000 worth of cocaine.
ANTIBIOTICS
(a.k.a. Chicken Throat for the Soul)
USEFUL FOR: waiting rooms, chatting up scientists, and hitting on pharmacists
KEYWORDS: penicillin, Alexander Fleming, or chickens
THE FACT: Believe it or not, biologist Selman Waksman discovered a revolutionary antibiotic in the back of a chicken’s throat.
In the 1930s, Selman Waksman, working at Rutgers University, became interested in isolating antibiotics from fungi, hoping to find another “penicillin.” To aid his quest, he asked his colleagues to send him samples of any unusual species they encountered. One day a farmer came to see a Rutgers veterinarian with a sick chicken in tow. All of his chickens, he said, were suffering from the same kind of disease as the sample. The vet found that the bird had a fungal throat infection, and remembering Waksman’s request, he sent him a throat swab. From a culture of this fungus, Waksman eventually isolated streptomycin, an antibiotic that revolutionized the treatment of infections, particularly tuberculosis. So the next time you’ve got strep throat, make sure to thank a chicken for the cure.
APPETITES
(for construction)
USEFUL FOR: making small talk at the salad bar
KEYWORDS: iron stomach, all you can eat, or I’m so hungry I could eat a plane
THE FACT: Looking for inspiration when trying to down your mother-in-law’s meat loaf? Just consider the story of Michel Lotito, the French gent who once ate an entire Cessna 150.
Yes, that’s an entire plane we’re talking about, and the guy who did it goes by the nickname Monsieur Mangetout (French for “eats everything.” See what he did there?). Lotito engaged in the stunt to earn a place in the Guinness World Records (his actual record is for the Strangest Diet: 2 pounds of metal per day), but his iron stomach’s downed a lot more than just a plane. He’s also the proud eater of 18 bicycles, a bunch of TVs, a wooden coffin, and several supermarket shopping carts. Not to mention all the lightbulbs, razor blades, and other knickknacks he’s downed on variety shows. Looking for a reason why you shouldn’t try this at home (or with your home)? Well, Lotito’s got a natural advantage because his stomach lining is twice as thick as a normal person’s. He’s also aided by the fact that he’s French, which means he’ll eat just about anything if prepared right (escargot, anyone?).
ARITHMETIC
(you’re not the only one who hates it)
USEFUL FOR: irritating your math teacher, impressing your (other) liberal arts profs, or just plain comforting anyone who hates math
KEYWORDS: asymptote, parabola, or quadratic equations
THE FACT: Despite the fact that it can be applied to just about everything, there’s still no Nobel Prize given out for mathematics.
When dynamite inventor (that’s not a comment on his abilities; he really did invent dynamite) Alfred Nobel stipulated in his will that his fortune be used to establish a fund to award five annual prizes “to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind,” he mysteriously left out math. And all kinds of theories have popped up to explain the omission, most of which claim that Nobel hated all mathematicians because his wife was schtupping one on the side. Nope. The most likely reasons for Nobel’s ditching math are 1) He simply didn’t like math all that much, and 2) Sweden already had a big, fancy prize for mathematics, from the journal Acta Mathematica. Although math is still a Nobel bridesmaid, a prize for economics was added in 1968, thereby giving the extremely boring sciences their due.
ASPARAGUS
(and your tee-tee)
USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, explaining yourself at the urinal, and chatting up people from the Philadelphia Historical Society
KEYWORDS: kites, Ben Franklin or “I really, really have to powder my nose”
THE FACT: Who would have guessed that the genius who figured out that asparagus and unscented urine don’t always go together was none other than Ben Franklin?
Benjamin Franklin made many contributions to science, including bifocals, the Franklin stove, and lightning rods. But he was also the first to record that some people produced urine with a disagreeable odor after eating asparagus. You’ll be grateful to know that the smell has now been identified and due to sulfur-containing compounds produced when asparagus is metabolized. It seems, however, that not everyone can generate these compounds. A study examined the urine of 115 people who dined on the green vegetable, and only 46 produced the smell. Strangely, not everyone can smell it either.
ATTILA
(“the honey pie”)
USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, wakes, and proving too much lovin’ will actually kill a barbarian
KEYWORDS: lucky, truly blessed, or what a way to go
THE FACT: Attila the Hun, history’s perennial bad boy, was apparently also a perennial playboy. In fact, the guy actually died in the act.
The leader of the Huns, Attila somehow also found time to marry 12 women and father an unknown number of children. Despite his insatiable appetite, though, Attila probably should have kept that last relationship platonic. After all, it was on his wedding night in 453 CE that the middle-aged Hun burst an artery while celebrating his most recent installment of conjugal bliss. Burying him with vast treasures for the afterlife, his followers reportedly ensured that grave robbers would never find his burial place by diverting a tributary of the Danube, burying the body (in a gold coffin inside a silver coffin inside a lead coffin) under the exposed riverbed, and then diverting the water back to its original course to cover it. Of course, the captives who buried him were all killed afterward.
THE BABE
(a.k.a. the Sultan of Swat, the King of Crash)
USEFUL FOR: ballpark chatter, seventh-inning stretches, and anytime you’re watching The Sandlot
KEYWORDS: Sultan of Swat, King of Crash, Great Bambino, etc.
THE FACT: Home wasn’t the only plate at which George Herman “Babe” Ruth was a dominator.
This guy had a big appetite for everything—food, drink, women, you name it. In fact, the Sultan of Swat’s favorite breakfast was said to include a porterhouse steak, six fried eggs, and potatoes, all washed down with a quart mixture of bourbon whiskey and ginger ale. The Babe also had a certain fondness for hot dogs, downing between 12 and 18 one day in April 1925. Disgustingly enough, one of the Babe’s partially eaten hot dogs (now black and shriveled and nasty) is still on display at the Baseball Reliquary in Monrovia, California. And although Ruth became pretty hefty i
n the last few years of his career, the rumor that the Yankees adopted their famous pinstripes to make him look slimmer is false. The pinstripes first appeared in 1912, when the Yanks were still the New York Highlanders.
BABY FOOD
(now for eligible adults!)
USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, making small talk when visiting bachelor pads
KEYWORDS: single, singles, or what’s worse than New Coke?
THE FACT: No matter how well known your brand is, there are some markets you just can’t tap into…like trying to pitch baby food as grown-up chow.
At some point in time, almost every adult has tasted baby food and discovered that the stuff isn’t half bad. But that doesn’t mean people want to make a meal out of it. For some reason, Gerber had to learn that lesson the hard way. In 1974, the company released Gerber Singles, small servings of food meant for single adults, packaged in jars that were almost identical to those used for baby food. It didn’t take long for Gerber execs to figure out that most consumers, unless they were under a year old, couldn’t get used to eating a pureed meal out of a jar—particularly one depressingly labeled “Singles.” Baby food for grown-ups was pulled from the marketplace shortly after its birth.
BABY JUMPING
USEFUL FOR: baby showers, first birthdays, and making small talk at track-and-field events
KEYWORDS: jump, baby, or please jump my baby
THE FACT: In parts of northern Spain, newborns take part in a ceremony that’s disturbingly similar to an Evel Knievel stunt.
Several babies are placed on a mattress surrounded by members of the community while a man jumps over the length of the mattress. (We’re thinking they must have professional baby leapers over there.) The ceremony is based on the biblical story in which King Herod ordered all male babies in the area to be killed after hearing that a “new king” had been born in Bethlehem. Just as Mary and Joseph escaped with baby Jesus to Egypt, this Spanish ritual is meant to symbolize a similar experience for a child. By undergoing this and coming out unharmed, the babies are prepared for a safe passage through childhood.
BABY NAMES
(…you might not want to give your kid)