Month: December 2016

Winston Churchill had no time for silly military codenames. In a 1943 wartime memo on the subject of coining operation names, he cautioned: “Do not suggest the character of the operation or disparage it in any way, and do not enable some widow or mother to say that her son was killed in an operation called ‘Bunnyhug’ or ‘Ballyhoo.’” Understandable. However, military operations—British or otherwise—haven’t always followed these principles, and some of their names seem downright ridiculous. Although there’s rarely a (public) explanation of why the weird names were assigned, that doesn’t make them any less amusing. Here are just a few of the more memorable.

1. OPERATION DRACULA

Operation Dracula was the Allied South East Asia Command’s plan to reconquer the Burmese capital of Rangoon near the end of WWII. Part of the Burma Campaign, the operation was led by British and Indian forces via sea and sky to wrest the region from Japan, which had invaded in 1942. Begun in 1944 as an outgrowth of the earlier Plan Z, the mission was abandoned—maybe because the sun came up?—but then reinstated the following year. The British and Indian forces encroached on Rangoon as monsoon season began, only to find that the Japanese had skipped town a few days earlier, whereupon it was occupied by the Indian 26th Division without opposition.

2. OPERATION POWER GEYSER

 
This one was a counterterrorism effort that involved a group of 13,000 top-secret commandos who served as military security to support the 2005 U.S. presidential inauguration of George W. Bush. The elite troops carried state-of-the-art weapons as they lurked in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol while the inauguration went down. A Power Geyser, by the way, is a fighting move from the video game series Fatal Fury, where character Terry Bogard blasts the ground with his fist, thereby devising a field of explosive energy around him that sends his opponents flying.

3. OPERATION ALL-AMERICAN TIGER

 
Tigers are pretty boss by themselves, but what if you had not only an American one, but an ALL-American one? The U.S. military ended up giving this name to the November 2003 Iraq War mission to search and clear farms and villages around the Euphrates River in the Northern Iraqi town of Al -Qaim as they tried to capture a handful of insurgent leaders. They ended up detaining 12 men as a result, including a few who were on the American “Most Wanted” list. Not bad.

It’s fun to make up origin stories here, but this codename is actually no mystery. It stems from the nickname for the 82nd Airborne Division—“All-American”—and the “Tiger” squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, both of which launched the first phase of the plan. And for what it’s worth, it was specifically the 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment from within the 82nd who worked on this plan, and those guys have their own nickname: “The Devils in Baggy Pants,” plucked from the diary of a disgruntled Wehrmacht officer who was killed in WWII.

4. OPERATION BEASTMASTER

 
From the name, this one sounds like it absolutely, positively must have happened in the ’80s, but actually it was not until 2006 that Operation Beastmaster cleared three neighborhoods in the Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya—an area itself codenamed “IED Alley East.” Even though none of them used scimitars or were able to telepathically communicate with animals like in the movie, U.S. troops worked in tandem with the Iraqi Army to great success, leading the latter to uncover seven weapon caches as well as a deposit of roadside bomb-crafting supplies. The mission also resulted in the capture of an (unnamed) high-value target. Sounds like that beast got mastered.

5. OPERATION MINCEMEAT

 
Guess the British military managed to sneak this strangely named mission under Churchill’s nose somehow. Operation Mincemeat involved a decoy corpse—a possible (if gross) clue for the name’s origin. As Allied forces were preparing an attack on Sicily in 1943 during World War II, they wanted to convince the Germans that they were headed to Greece and Sardinia instead. So they took the body of Welsh laborer Glyndwr Michael, who’d died from eating rat poison, and planted some phony top-secret papers describing a plan to attack Greece and Sardinia on it, as well as a photo of a fake girlfriend, then let it float to an area off Spain where a particular Nazi agent was located. It worked perfectly. The plan was initially part of a memo containing possible ideas to lure German U-Boats toward minefields and was titled #28: A Suggestion (not a very nice one).

If this sounds like something from an old-timey detective pulp, well, there’s a reason for that. The scheme originally came from the mind of Ian Fleming, who later authored the James Bond books, back when he was an assistant to the head of British Naval Intelligence. Fleming confessed that he’d borrowed the idea of a dead body with false papers from a spy novel he’d once read.

6. OPERATION VIKING SNATCH

 
Despite what you might guess given some slang connotations here, Operation Viking Snatch—which attempted to stop a rash of weapons-smuggling during the Iraq War—was named and carried out within the last decade. The operation took place in September 2007. The name almost certainly derives from a snatch strap, which is a kind of tow rope used to pull bogged-down vehicles out of sand or mud, with Viking Offroad being a company that manufactures them—so, a Viking snatch strap. However, it can probably be assumed that whoever picked this codename was quite aware of its additional entendres and used it anyway.

7. OPERATION BEAVER CAGE

If you thought the last one sounded crass, there’s also this one. Operation Beaver Cage was a helicopter assault launched by the U.S. Marines upon on a Vietcong base in the very populous Que Son Valley, south of Da Nang. Lasting from late April through mid-May of 1967, the Marines walked away with 66 captured Vietcong soldiers and the operation was considered a success. No word on where exactly the name came from, but it’s worth pointing out that although beavers are native to North America and Eurasia, there are none to be found in the wild in Vietnam.

8. OPERATION SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD

 
Although it sounds like it’s an edict by the street captain to drive slowly when kids are at play, this endeavor—along with its little sister, Operation Safe Market—was actually a 2007 effort to make residential neighborhoods, marketplaces, and areas of traffic congestion safer for Iraqis to live and work in during the Iraq War. Basically, they were cracking down on car bombs, with additional measures to decrease general sectarian violence. Not much of a secret codename, but it’s kind of adorable.

9. OPERATION GRIZZLY FORCED ENTRY

 
The “forced entry” part makes sense, anyhow: In the summer of 2004, U.S. soldiers went out on a counterinsurgency raid in Iraq under this codename, busting into private homes to search and seize high-value targets. The guys they were looking for were suspected of attacking coalition forces, and the search was conducted in Najaf, a city just south of Baghdad. The grizzly bit is less clear, but the Americans might just have been flattering themselves.

10. OPERATION MAGNETO

 
Almost 20 years before the superhuman mutant of the same name was DIY-ing magnetic fields in the 1963 debut issue of X-Men, Allied forces were using this word during WWII to refer to a 1945 conference among Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, and FDR. While not strictly a military operation, the three leaders met in Yalta, USSR, in February of that year to discuss how to secure an unconditional surrender by the Germans (and also how to divvy up all the post-war geographical spoils). Operation Magneto, along with Operation Cricket, the prep meeting that happened few days prior, were collectively known as Operation Argonaut.

11. OPERATION TOENAILS

 
A part of the Solomon Islands, the isle of New Georgia was invaded by the WWII Allied forces over the summer of 1943, and they called it Operation Toenails. The reason behind the name seems to have been lost to history. This mission was the first major Allied offensive exacted in the Solomon Islands since New Georgia’s neighbor, Guadalcanal, had been secured the previous February, and it led to the subsequent capture of the rest of the Solomons, concluding with the island of Bougainville. This invasion was part of the two-pronged, equally-oddly named Operation Cartwheel, the group of attacks that the Allied troops conducted in order to first isolate and then descend upon the Japanese military base at Rabaul, on the Solomon island of New Britain.

12. OPERATION CHATTANOOGA CHOO-CHOO

 
The plan here was to systemically bomb German railways in 1944. Seems as though someone was like “Okay, we’re bombing trains. Okay, what’s a train-themed name that we can use that doesn’t actually have the word train in it? Or railway? In any known language?” “I’ve got an idea, sir. The Nazis will have no idea what a ‘choo-choo’ is.” This was a successful mission, by the way—the railways were extensively damaged, forcing Germany to scramble for laborers to repair them when there was already a huge labor shortage. Glenn Miller would be proud.

13. OPERATION FREQUENT WIND

 
Transpiring at the end of April 1975, Operation Frequent Wind was the wrap-up phase of the evacuation of American civilians and at-risk Vietnamese in Saigon prior to the Fall of Saigon, wherein the North Vietnamese Army showed up and took over. Hours after the mission ended, North Vietnamese tanks came crashing through the gates of the Independence Palace, and President (of two days) Duong Van Minh surrendered, signifying the end of the Vietnam War. One can guess at the codename’s origin here, considering it was a helicopter-based evacuation and that it was also tremendous—81 helicopters transported 7000 people to offshore aircraft carriers over the course of two days, making it the largest helicopter evacuation on record.

14. OPERATION LION CUB

 
Operation Lion Cub had two very important missions on December 21 and 24 of 2004—to commandeer a convoy full of toys to the villages of Wynott, Al Alam, and Al Owja in Iraq, where soldiers would hand them out to Iraqi children. The codename is perhaps a nod to the ancient symbol of Iraq, the Lion of Babylon. Family Readiness Groups in the U.S. and Germany had collected the toys over several months as part of a Christmas donation drive, and the operation received a very positive response from both the kids and their parents.

15. OPERATION GIMLET VICTORY

 
There’s not a whole lot of info out there on Operation Gimlet Victory, other than that it happened in 2004 during the Iraq War. There were a handful of other U.S. counterinsurgency operations with gimlet in their names—Operation Gimlet Crusader, Operation Gimlet Silent Sniper—that were staged in the city of Kirkuk during the same year, so one can assume that this one was, if not the victorious denouement of those operations, at least related to them. The name likely refers to the tool kind of gimlet and not the cocktail kind, but it still sounds like what happens after you slog through your tedious Friday at work and finally make it to happy hour.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council have just announced the creation of a new marine protected area for some of the ocean’s humblest heroes: deep-sea corals. The Frank R. Lautenberg Deep Sea Coral Protection Area will be off-limits for commercial fishing practices that affect the sea floor.

Sessile and stoic though they may be, corals are both crucially important and in need of our help. These fascinating animals—yes, corals are animals—provide beautiful living habitats for all kinds of organisms and serve as the foundation for marine ecosystems.

 
Corals are fragile and slow-growing, which makes them simultaneously more prone to injury and slower to recover; a dangerous combination in areas regularly visited by clumsy, bulky commercial fishing equipment.

Corals aren’t flashy, but they do still have their defenders. Among them was the late New Jersey senator Frank R. Lautenberg, who pushed the coral agenda hard during his five terms in office. It’s thanks to him that the Magnus-Stevenson Act includes provisions allowing regional fishery management councils to protect deep-sea corals through commercial fishing bans.

The new marine protected area stretches through more than 38,000 square miles of federal waters off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia—all regions where scientists have spotted or anticipate the presence of vulnerable deep-sea corals. The new protected area is the result of recommendations informed by enormous scientific efforts, including repeated deep-sea surveys by NOAA and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“Today’s action is historic not only because it creates the largest protected area in the U.S. Atlantic,” Joseph Gordon, manager, Mid-Atlantic ocean conservation for The Pew Charitable Trusts, said in a statement to mental_floss, “but because so many different groups and interests worked together to protect these fragile deep-sea corals. Healthy habitat supports ocean ecosystems and thriving fisheries, and this success stands as a challenge and inspiration for other fishery managers around the country.”

In the coming weeks, a fat man in a red suit may be shimmying down your chimney to leave presents (or, if you were naughty, coal) under your tree. Though you’re not likely to raise a fuss because the only thing Santa takes from your home is that plate of cookies, you might wonder: Is old Saint Nick actually breaking the law by coming into your house?

Continue reading “Are Santa’s Visits Legal?”

Of the many dual titles that exist in Hollywood, actor-musicians may be some of the most frequently encountered hyphenates. But for every individual who has shown genuine talent in both disciplines (see: Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Tom Waits, Zooey Deschanel, Mos Def, Liza Minnelli, and Jamie Foxx), there is, well, a Steven Seagal. Here are 15 well-known actors with all-but-forgotten musical careers.

1. EDDIE MURPHY

The 1980s were a very good decade for Eddie Murphy. In addition to being one of Saturday Night Live’s biggest stars, he was drawing huge crowds as a stand-up comedian, turning those comedy shows into iconic pieces of pop culture history with Delirious and Raw, and headlining some of Hollywood biggest blockbusters. In the midst of all this, he somehow found the time to try and launch a singing career and actually managed to produce two hits, 1985’s “Party All the Time” and 1989’s “Put Your Mouth on Me.” Rick James, who produced the former tune, was clearly a fan. Though it’s actually kind of catchy, it’s regularly been cited as one of the worst songs of all time.

2. ALYSSA MILANO

Having conquered the small screen as the star of Who’s the Boss?, Alyssa Milano set her sights on the music world and, at least internationally, actually had some success. Her 1989 album, Look In My Heart, turned out to be pretty big in Japan. Stateside, she was best known for singing the theme song to her workout video, Teen Steam. Though she told Paste Magazine that she’s never pulled out the old cassette tapes, she said that she has “watched a couple of the music videos, because my brother is in them with me. It was definitely ’80s pop, so it was just singing and dancing, all that stuff I love to do, but there’s nothing too outrageous. We were able to control all of that. It was like that bubble gum pop era… that Tiffany, Debbie Gibson era. Clean, good fun. I was 14 or 15, so I don’t really remember a lot of it.”

3. LEONARD NIMOY

In the late 1960s, one science fiction icon paid tribute to other sci-fi greats with a pair of albums that celebrated the genre with a lineup of songs with titles like “Alien,” “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Earth,” “Lost in the Stars,” and what is perhaps his most famous recording: “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” (see above), which appeared on his second album, Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy.

4. WILLIAM SHATNER

Though more of a spoken word artist than a full-on musician, Leonard Nimoy’s Star Trek co-star also made a bit of a splash on the music scene, beginning with his 1968 spoken word album The Transformed Man, where he gave well-known songs like “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” a Shatner-esque twist. He has recorded a handful of albums since, including 2013’s Ponder the Mystery.

5. STEVEN SEAGAL

In addition to his run as one of Hollywood’s best known action stars during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Steven Seagal has attempted a number of other careers: aromatherapy specialist, energy drink maker, law enforcer, and, yes, musician. Years after giving his music a part in a few of his own films, including Fire Down Below, Seagal released his first album, Songs from the Crystal Cave, which Sputnik Music described as “the Plan 9 From Outer Space of records.”

6. BRUCE WILLIS

Steven Seagal is far from the only action star to try his hand at music-making. In 1987, at the height of Moonlighting’s success, Bruce Willis released The Return of Bruno, an album that mixed pop music with blues and managed to produce a hit single, “Respect Yourself,” featuring The Pointer Sisters. The accompanying video (above) was appropriately cinematic. In 1989, he released a follow-up album—If It Don’t Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger.

7. JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT

Thanks to her early acting career on the variety show Kids Incorporated, Jennifer Love Hewitt has been singing for as long as she has been acting—and even sang backup on fellow Kids Incorporated co-star Martika’s hit 1989 song, “Toy Soldiers.” Though she released her first album, Love Songs, in 1992—when she was just 12 years old—it wasn’t until after she gained fame as an actress that her music career found some steam. “How Do I Deal,” a single she recorded for the soundtrack to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer in 1999, became her first song to chart. In 2009, it was reported that Hewitt was working on material for a country album; sadly, that has yet to surface.

8. JOEY LAWRENCE

Jennifer Love Hewitt wasn’t the only ’90s teen heartthrob to take a stab at a recording career. In 1993, at the height of Blossom mania, Joey Lawrence released his self-titled debut album, which included “Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix,” which became a bona fide hit around the world. In 2014, he told Queen Latifah that he was thinking about making a return to the music scene. Whoa!

9. JOE PESCI

Before he was an actor, Joe Pesci was a barber. In between, he attempted to mount a musical career—and didn’t do too badly at it. In his earliest days, he played guitar with several bands, including Joey Dee and the Starlighters (the band went through a few rotations, but Jimi Hendrix ended up playing the same gig as Pesci at a later point). In 1968, Pesci released a solo album as “Little Joe” called Little Joe Sure Can Sing!, on which he covered a handful of major hits—including several Beatles songs. In 1998, six years after My Cousin Vinny, he released an album in character called Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You.

10. DON JOHNSON

While his Miami Vice co-star Philip Michael Thomas was busy trying to become an EGOT, Don Johnson was making a foray into the music business as well. During the 1980s, he released two solo albums, and scored a major hit with “Heartbeat,” which made it all the way to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. His cover of Aaron Neville’s “Tell It Like It Is” (above) also managed to log some radio play.

11. MR. T

Mr. T made no secret about pitying the fools who didn’t take advantage of getting an education, and he released a series of videos on this very topic­—plus a 1984 rap album titled Mr. T’s Commandments, which basically implored kids to stay in school and to just say no to drugs.

12. MILLA JOVOVICH

Today, Milla Jovovich is best known as the ass-kicking hero of the Resident Evil movie franchise. But her first step into the spotlight came as a model, a career she began at the age of 9. She broke into acting as the star of a made-for-TV movie called The Night Train to Kathmandu, which premiered in 1988—the same year she began recording her first album. In a 1990 interview with Rolling Stone Australia, she described her style as “a mix between Kate Bush, Sinéad O’Connor, This Mortal Coil, and the Cocteau Twins.” Her first studio album, 1994’s The Divine Comedy, was well received by critics (Rolling Stone called it a “remarkable recording debut”). While she has continued to record since (her last single was released in 2012), acting has remained her busiest career.

13. BURT REYNOLDS

One year after infamously posing nude for Cosmopolitan, Burt Reynolds took another chance and released an album, Ask Me What I Am, and also put his pipes to use alongside Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Music fans didn’t seem all that interested.

14. COREY FELDMAN

If you’ve noticed ’80s star Corey Feldman’s name trending lately, it’s likely due to a couple of odd live musical performances he’s put on for the Today Show. And while the fallen star definitely began his career in front of the camera—he began landing some television roles back in the late 1970s—he did try to make a go of a musical career dating all the way back to 1992’s Love Left. And he’s still trying. Some people have called his latest album, Angelic 2 The Core, the year’s worst album. His prior attempts—both professionally, and one incredibly embarrassing performance he concocted for his ex-wife on an episode of his reality show The Two Coreys (above)—haven’t fared much better.

15. SHAQUILLE O’NEAL

Yes, Shaquille O’Neal is best known as a superstar athlete. But don’t try telling fans of Kazaam—or users of Icy Hot, Gold Bond, or the dozens of other products Shaq has endorsed over the years—that the man is not a consummate actor as well. In the early 1990s, Shaq added “rapper” to his repertoire and gave music fans the platinum album known as Shaq Diesel.

Winter may not be great for weather, but the cold months propel professional football into heavy rotation in living rooms and bars across the country. Take a look at 15 things you might not have realized about the most popular sport on television.

1. IT’S BEEN PLAYED EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK.

While Sunday is pro football’s flagship day and Monday and Thursday nights get in on the action, there have been a handful of pro games played on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, usually as a result of weather delays.

2. OVER A THIRD OF REPLAY REVIEWS ARE OVERTURNED.

There’s a good reason coaches challenge official calls by demanding instant replay: they stand at least a one in three chance of having the play overturned.

3. COWS ARE IMPORTANT TO THE GAME.

To make sure that easily gripped “pigskin” is in high supply, equipment makers turn to cows. One cowhide can make roughly 10 footballs. If the balls aren’t made of pig leather, why is it still referred to as pigskin? Early players used inflated pig bladders for game balls.

5. QUARTERBACKS CAN HAVE RADIOS.

Originally seen as a method of cheating, radio devices in quarterback helmets allow them to stay in touch with coaching staff during plays. Helmets are expected to get more tech upgrades in the near future, including sensors that can measure the force of an impact so players can leave games to avoid further injury.

6. JERSEYS DIDN’T ALWAYS HAVE NAMES.

In football’s early days, it could be very difficult to identify players. While numbers have always been used, it wasn’t until the 1960s that jerseys were produced with the last names of the wearers sewn on.

7. THE HOME TEAM HAS A BALL QUOTA.

While playing in a home stadium has its perks, it does come with some responsibilities: Home teams are expected to have 24 game balls on hand.

8. THE ACTUAL GAME IS PRETTY SHORT.

Television coverage of games can last hours, but the ball can actually be in play for as little as 11 minutes in a given game.

9. THE HUDDLE WAS INVENTED OUT OF NECESSITY.

Players that gather in a tight circle to discuss the next play are a product of a college player who was legally deaf and needed his teammates to pack in closely so he could hear them.

10. THE GAME FOUND AN EARLY HOME IN BASEBALL STADIUMS.

Because baseball was the country’s premiere sport long before football rose to prominence, several pro teams were without home stadiums and were forced to play in major baseball venues—sometimes for decades at a stretch. Today, only one pro team shares its stadium with a baseball squad.

12. THERE ARE SPECIAL BALLS FOR KICKING.

When a punter tees up a ball for a kick, he’s not using a conventional game ball. Known as “K-Balls,” these balls are a little slicker because they’re brand-new, a step that is taken to avoid kickers making any modifications to them. (Some enterprising players used to microwave the footballs to soften the leather.)

13. THOSE ARM BANDS ARE JUST THERE FOR LOOKS.

While some fans may think bicep bands sported by players aren’t a fashion statement, they have no practical use. Athletes use them to make their upper arm muscles “pop” more.

14. THERE’S NO TAUNTING.

Players that want to antagonize opponents shouldn’t go too far. The pro leagues have rules in place that make verbal taunting a penalty that can be called by officials. Celebratory spiking or spinning of the ball at an opponent is another recipe for a 15-yard penalty.

15. ONLY 500 PEOPLE WATCHED THE FIRST TELEVISED GAME.

Granted, it was in 1939, when few people had televisions. But for a sport that would eventually draw well over a hundred million viewers for its championship games, that’s still a pretty modest start.

Whatever your insurance needs, GEICO’s customer service will leave you so satisfied you’ll break into your own personal touchdown dance.

You’ve made your Christmas card list and you’ve checked it twice. Now comes the hard part: actually getting started. To shake up what could otherwise be a pretty tedious process, two brothers decided to put their own spin on the traditional holiday card using a machine they built from LEGO bricks, as Gizmodo reports.

Fourteen-year-old Sanjay Seshan and his 12-year-old brother Arvind recently debuted the Holiday Card Plott3r, a machine powered by a series of LEGO MINDSTORMS sensors, gears, and motors, which prints out holiday greeting cards and their corresponding envelopes. Operating much like a dot-matrix printer, the machine uses two markers to draw a festive image dot-by-dot. The robot features three designs—a snowflake, a Christmas tree, and Santa’s signature—while a connected machine slides out envelopes using a pair of wheels.

“LEGO MINDSTORMS is a great way to prototype real world machines. We have been interested in dot matrix printers for a while and wanted to build one ourselves using LEGO,” Sanjay and Arvind told mental_floss over email. “We have been working on different versions all year. We thought it would be fun to create a complete holiday-themed machine that automated the process of creating Christmas cards.” But, they note, “it can be modified for any occasion.”

Sanjay and Arvind are LEGO enthusiasts and budding engineers from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Together, they founded Ev3Lessons.com and Beyond The Instructions, websites and communities that encourage other kids to explore concepts like robotics and coding using LEGO blocks. The Seshan brothers are also part of “Team Not the Droids You Are Looking For” in the FIRST LEGO League, a competitive engineering league for children ages 9 to 16. Teams develop solutions for real-world problems using nothing but LEGO MINDSTORMS.

The Seshan brothers have made the design for their Holiday Card Plott3r project public, so others can build their own—and finally finish that Christmas to-do list.

[h/t Gizmodo]

Header/banner image courtesy of iStock 

From America to Australia, everyone wants to start the New Year off on the right foot. Here are 15 rituals from around the world that are said to ensure a forthcoming year filled with happiness, prosperity, love, and adventure.

1. LATIN AMERICA // CARRY AROUND AN EMPTY SUITCASE.

In many Latin American countries, New Year’s revelers with a case of wanderlust will set an empty suitcase by their front door (or even drag it around a room in circles, or around the block) to conjure an upcoming year filled with adventure and travel.

2. SPAIN // EAT 12 GRAPES AT MIDNIGHT.

Some people guzzle sparkling wine at midnight on New Year’s Eve, but in Spain (and in some Latin American countries, too), they stick with grapes until the clock is done striking the hour.  They’ll gobble 12 bits of fruit—one grape for each stroke of midnight—to ensure the next 12 months will be filled with luck.

3. ARGENTINA // EAT BEANS.

In Argentina, beans aren’t just prized for their fiber content—they’re also considered to be a lucky New Year’s Eve dish. Eating them right before midnight is said to provide job security for the coming year—perhaps the most responsible tradition on this list.

4. BELARUS // HAVE A ROOSTER PREDICT YOUR LOVE LIFE.

In Belarus, single women looking for lasting love sit in a circle, each with a pile of corn in front of her. A rooster is placed in the circle’s center, and the woman whose grain heap it pecks at first is believed to be the first of the bunch to get married.

5. CHINA // CLEAN THE HOUSE (BUT WATCH WHICH WAY YOU SWEEP THE DIRT).

The Chinese New Year (known as the “Spring Festival”) corresponds with the turn of the lunar-solar Chinese calendar, and technically isn’t celebrated until late January to mid- February. But just like in many Western countries, the occasion is marked with numerous traditions and superstitions. One good-luck custom is to clean your home from top to bottom as a way to usher out the prior year. But to ensure the good luck doesn’t accidentally get pushed out along with the bad, people sweep the home inward, collect the dirt, and dispose of it out the back door instead of the front one. And during the first two days of the New Year, homemakers aren’t supposed to clean their dwellings at all, to avoid sweeping away any lingering fortune.

6. DENMARK // THROW BROKEN DISHES AT YOUR NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE.

Most people toss broken dishes into the trash, but in Denmark, they dispose of them in a much more creative fashion. They save them, and on New Year’s Eve, they toss the shards at their friends’ and family’s homes as a gesture of good luck. (No word on whether they volunteer to clean up the mess after.) Danes (and Germans) with less-pugnacious personalities—or simply weaker throwing arms—can opt to leave a heap of broken china on doorsteps, instead.

7. ROMANIA // PERFORM A CEREMONIAL BEAR DANCE.

In Romania’s eastern Moldova region, villagers dress in real bearskins and dance up and down the streets to ward off bad luck. The ritual takes place each year, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and stems from an ancient Roma tradition.

8. THE AMERICAN SOUTH // EAT BLACK-EYED PEAS.

In America, many Southern families eat a festive New Year’s Day dinner of collard greens, pork, and black-eyed peas—a type of legume with a distinctive black spot on its cream-colored shell. The latter dish is said to bring good luck (and whoever finds a coin hidden in the beans’ serving pot will have the most of it). Nobody quite knows where this tradition originated, but some people say it began after the Civil War, when Union soldiers stole all Confederate food supplies aside from black-eyed peas  (thus making them “lucky”). Another theory is that Sephardic Jews—who settled Georgia during the 18^th century—ate black-eyed peas to ring in the New Year, and brought the tradition with them to America.

9. SOUTH AFRICA // TOSS FURNITURE OUT THE WINDOW.

In Johannesburg, South Africa, locals who live in the city’s Hillbrow neighborhood toss old furniture out the windows, or off their balconies. Presumably, this act symbolizes shedding the old for the new, and embracing the promise of a new year. (Sadly, people have been injured from this practice, and the police have gotten involved, so think twice before emulating this one.)

10. ESTONIA // EAT MULTIPLE MEALS.

In Estonia, people eat seven to 12 meals on New Year’s Day to provide them with the strength of seven to 12 men. (They then, presumably, take seven to 12 food coma-induced naps.)

11. FINLAND/SCANDINAVIA // POUR MELTED TIN INTO WATER.

In some Nordic countries, like Finland, people melt tin horseshoes, then pour the resulting liquid into cold water and watch it swirl into a new, solid form. The shape it makes is said to predict what kind of year you’ll have.

12. BRAZIL // TOSS WHITE FLOWERS AND GIFTS INTO THE OCEAN.

Many Brazilians believe that giving gifts to Yemanja, an Afro-Brazilian ocean spirit, on New Year’s Eve will give them newfound vitality and strength. They travel to Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, and toss white flowers and other offerings into the waves.

13. ECUADOR // BURN A SCARECROW.

To New Year’s Eve revelers in Ecuador, a scarecrow serves as a symbol for the previous year’s bad energy. They burn the straw effigy to promote a fresh, positive start to the year.

14. SCOTLAND // THE YEAR’S FIRST GUEST BRINGS YOU GIFTS.

In Scotland, the first person to cross your home’s threshold in the New Year is required to bring you an assortment of symbolic gifts: a coin, salt, bread, coal, and whiskey.

15. THE PHILIPPINES // MAKE LOTS OF NOISE

New Year’s Eve is typically rowdy in most cultures, but people in the Philippines make lots of noise. To scare off evil spirits, they bang together pots and pans, set off fireworks, and even shoot guns into the air.

If your New Year’s resolutions involve saving money, you’re going to want to give GEICO a call. You may even be able to cut back on your bills by switching.

The holiday season is all about unity, but few topics are more divisive than which Christmas movie is the ultimate seasonal film. For every Home Alone fan, there’s an Elf enthusiast. To settle the score, the folks at online TV service provider CableTV.com have collected the top-rated yuletide films as rated over at AMC, and cross-referenced them with Google Trends state data from the past 10 years. They crunched the data, and compiled it into a map of each state’s favorite holiday flick.

Residents of Connecticut, Illinois, New York, and Vermont liked films set in their home states: Christmas in Connecticut, Home Alone (filmed in Winnetka, Illinois), It’s a Wonderful Life (set in the fictional city of Bedford Falls, New York), and White Christmas (set in the fictional town of Pine Tree, Vermont) all came out on top in those states, respectively.

As for Southern residents, they preferred Christmas cartoons and comedies, like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In New England, movie fans kept it cozy with the classics, including White Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street. Pockets of the Midwest appreciated National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and residents of the Atlantic Seaboard and the Great Lakes region liked Home Alone and Elf. And out West, the Nightmare Before Christmas reigned supreme.

Check out the full results in the map above.

The Afternoon Map is a semi-regular feature in which we post maps and infographics. In the afternoon. Semi-regularly.

It’s been 50 years since artist, producer, entrepreneur, and all-around game-changer Walt Disney passed away from lung cancer on December 15, 1966. Half a century later, it’s easy to forget that Disney was a real guy, not just a caricature or company figurehead. In honor of the man, not the corporation, here are 15 facts about his life.

1. HE ONCE PLAYED PETER PAN IN A SCHOOL PLAY.

The story Peter Pan surely held a special place in Walt Disney’s heart: not only was it a hit movie for him in 1953, it also took him back to his childhood. After seeing Peter Pan on stage, young Walt was given the opportunity to play the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up in a school performance. Walt later recalled that his brother was in charge of the rope used to hoist him over the stage to simulate flying, proving that Roy has always been an integral part of Walt’s life.

2. HE WAS A HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT.

Walt was just 16 when he left school to join the Red Cross Ambulance Corps, wanting to do his part in World War I—but because he was just shy of the minimum age requirement of 17, he forged a different date on his birth certificate. Disney didn’t see much action, however. He was sent to France in late 1918, not long after the armistice was signed that ended the fighting. He still helped where he could, driving Red Cross officials and performing other tasks, before he was discharged in 1919.

3. HE ALMOST SOLD VACUUM CLEANERS FOR A LIVING.

In 1923, Walt joined his older brother Roy in L.A. to pursue a career in animation. Roy had been selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door to make ends meet and encouraged Walt do the same. Walt considered it, but before he could get sucked in by a Kirbyesque scheme, he got a call from a company in New York that wanted him to make shorts for them.

4. MICKEY MOUSE WASN’T HIS FIRST BIG CREATION.

In 1927, Universal asked Walt and his chief animator Ub Iwerks to create a cartoon character for them; the result was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald was a huge hit, complete with robust merchandising. With this success under his belt, in 1928, Disney went to New York to renegotiate his contract with producer Charles Mintz. Mintz, however, countered with a different deal: He wanted to cut the budget. And to add salt to the wound, Mintz had been working backdoor deals to hire Disney’s animators out from under him. In the end, Universal ended up with the rights to Oswald, and Disney left New York feeling as if he had lost almost everything. But it all worked out in the end—on the train ride back to California, Disney sketched a character that would eclipse Oswald in popularity: Mickey Mouse.

The company regained control of the obscure character in 2006, almost eight decades after losing him. The rights were part of a trade between Disney and NBC/Universal: They agreed to let Disney have Oswald back, and Disney, the owner of ABC and ESPN, agreed to let NBC use sportscaster Al Michaels for Sunday Night Football.

5. HE DIDN’T DRAW MICKEY MOUSE.

He did at first, but it didn’t last long—after 1928, Walt was no longer animating, focusing instead on story development and direction. He relied on Ub Iwerks and other superior artists to do the drawing dirty work. He never drew Mickey in any of his theatrical releases, and in fact, probably only really drew Mickey when autograph seekers requested it.

6. BUT HE DID VOICE MICKEY MOUSE.

From 1928 to 1947, Walt was the man behind the mouse—literally. Even after the voice work was officially turned over to Jimmy MacDonald in 1947, Walt continued to do Mickey’s voice for shorts on The Mickey Mouse Club.

7. HE DROVE HIS DAUGHTERS TO SCHOOL EVERY DAY.

Despite the fact that he had drivers, a live-in housekeeper, and a number of other staff members at his disposal, Disney took great pleasure in driving his two daughters to school every day. He also spoiled them unabashedly, which historian Steve Watts believes was a reaction to Walt’s own stern upbringing.

8. HE HAD A SECRET APARTMENT AT DISNEYLAND.

It’s still there, in fact, above the fire station. Walt’s private apartment isn’t typically open to the public, but VIPs are occasionally offered tours. The furnishings remain virtually unchanged from when Walt used to spend time there, including a lamp in the window visible from outside. It’s always kept on to signify that Walt is always in the park.

9. HIS FAVORITE SONG WAS “FEED THE BIRDS.”

There have been a lot of toe-tapping hits in Disney movies over the years, but Walt’s personal favorite was a ballad: “Feed the Birds,” the song about the pigeon lady in Mary Poppins. According to songwriter Richard Sherman, Walt often stopped by the Sherman brothers’ office at Disney on Friday afternoons and requested a personal performance of “Feed the Birds.” “He loved that song, and knew it was the heartbeat of the whole movie,” Sherman said.

10. HE FOUND GOLF ANYTHING BUT RELAXING.

Though many people play golf to relax, Disney couldn’t deal with it. After giving up polo at his doctor’s behest, Walt took up golf, getting up at 4:30 a.m. to squeeze in nine holes before work. He found the game so frustrating that he quit and took up a more chill sport—lawn bowling.

11. WALT FELT RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS MOTHER’S DEATH.

Once he became successful, Walt bought his parents a rather extravagant present: a new house. And when his parents needed something fixed, tweaked, or repaired, he sent his own repairmen from the studio over to take care of it. Such was the case when they discovered a problem with their furnace in 1938. Tragically, his team didn’t take care of the issue properly, and Flora Call Disney died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 70. His father, Elias, also fell very ill from the gas leak, but survived. Walt’s daughter, Sharon, said that even years later, Walt found the subject nearly impossible to talk about.

12. HIS HOUSEKEEPER WAS A VERY WEALTHY WOMAN.

Thelma Howard was the Disney family’s live-in housekeeper and cook for three decades. She was hired in 1951 and quickly became part of the family, even making sure the fridge was well-stocked with hot dogs—Walt liked to eat them cold as a snack when he got home from work. As part of her annual Christmas gift, the Disneys gave her stock in the company. She never did anything with them—and by the time she died in 1994, the woman was a multimillionaire because of them. She left nearly $4.5 million to poor and disabled children, and roughly the same amount to her disabled son.

13. DISNEY WAS OBSESSED WITH TRAINS.

Walt always had an interest in trains, even building an elaborate model in his office, which he enjoyed running for his guests. In 1948, his hobby grew to new heights when he constructed a 1/8 scale model in his backyard, with track spanning half a mile. He deemed it the Carolwood Pacific Railroad.

14. ONE OF HIS LAST WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS WAS RATHER MYSTERIOUS—AND INVOLVED KURT RUSSELL.

Shortly before his death, Disney wrote “Kurt Russell” on a piece of paper. It was later found on his desk, and, according to Disney historian Dave Smith, the notes were among Disney’s last few written words. At the time of Disney’s death, Russell was a largely unknown child actor working for the studio. No one has any idea what Disney was referring to with his note—including Kurt Russell.

15. WALT DISNEY IS NOT CRYOGENICALLY FROZEN.

Bob Nelson, the former president of the Cryonics Society of California, makes a good point: if Disney was the first cryogenically frozen man, it would have been a pretty big deal for cryonics, and they would have publicized the heck out of the Mickey Mouse-cicle. No, Walt was cremated and buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale. His gravesite is in a public area for people who want to see it for themselves.

The chilly rumor may have been started by Ward Kimball, one of Disney’s famed “Nine Old Men” animators, who had a wicked sense of humor.