Author: Erika Berlin

The Founding Fathers built the groundwork for America, but they were much more than military strategists and document writers. Like modern Americans, the Founding Fathers knew how to enjoy life, and spent their leisure time (and in some cases, work time) grabbing a pint at the tavern, scarfing down desserts, and exploring the great outdoors. To celebrate these iconic Americans, we’ve compiled 12 favorite haunts of the Founding Fathers that you can still visit today.

1. GREEN DRAGON TAVERN // BOSTON

The Green Dragon Tavern was known for its drinks, but it was also an important meeting spot where the Founding Fathers made important decisions about this country—like to throw the Boston Tea Party (and the equally important decision to save their rum and toss the tea!), and the resolutions that built our Federal Constitution. It’s also often claimed that this is where, in 1775, British plans for the invasion of Lexington and Concord were overheard and Paul Revere was dispatched for his famous ride to warn the colonists. (According to a letter from Revere, they only met at The Green Dragon until November 1774, when they discovered that they had a traitor in their midst and moved to a more secure location.) The Green Dragon is no longer in its original location, but its historic significance as the “Headquarters of the Revolution” remains strong—just like its rum punch.

2. BELL IN HAND // BOSTON

Back in the day, big names like Daniel Webster and Paul Revere frequented Bell in Hand for its good booze and great company. Opened by the retired town crier in 1795, it was known as the primary alehouse in Boston (its proprietor refused to sell harder liquors). Today, Bell in Hand (which moved to its present-day location in 1844) is more about dancing and drinking than defending our country’s freedom. But hey, even the Founding Fathers had to let loose sometimes, right?

3. ADAMS NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK // QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS

John Adams’s former residence—his “sweet little farm”—has been turned into a historic museum center that tells the story of the Adams family, from its presidents and first ladies to its writers, and everyone in between. And though you can’t grab a drink at the site, if you’d like to drink like the second president, start your morning with a tankard of hard cider. Adams was known to down hard cider for breakfast every day, starting from when he was a 15-year-old student at Harvard through his presidency and retirement.

4. MOUNT VERNON INN RESTAURANT // MOUNT VERNON, VIRGINIA

George Washington may have traveled all over this country, but his favorite place of all was home sweet Mount Vernon. Today, you can dine like George Washington just steps from his estate at the Mount Vernon Inn Restaurant, which serves some of the legendary president’s favorite dishes like freshly caught fish and apple pie (though they don’t have his beloved Madeira wine). The Mount Vernon Inn does not require admission tickets like the GW Estate and is a great way to taste some Founding Father flavors.

5. BAR ORDINARY // NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

Before leading the army to Cambridge in 1775, George Washington spent the night at New Haven’s Beers Tavern, and gathered 100 Yale students (including the fife-playing Noah Webster—he of dictionary-creation fame) in front of the bar the next morning to march with him out of the town. Fast forward more than 240 years, and you can still dine and imbibe at this iconic spot—now called Bar Ordinary—which has also seen visitors like presidents Abraham Lincoln and William Howard Taft.

6. PISCATAQUA RIVER // KITTERY, MAINE

While visiting the New England area in the late 1700s, George Washington made a pit stop for cod fishing in the Piscataqua River right off the shores of Kittery, Maine. Washington didn’t have much luck on his trip—he reported only catching two—but today, you can give it a try to see how your fishing skills compare to our nation’s first president.

7. WHITE HORSE TAVERN // NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND

Rumor has it George Washington celebrated Rhode Island’s ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1790 at—among many popular places—the White Horse Tavern in Newport. Today, you can raise a glass at the White Horse just like Washington, but don’t dress like you’re headed to a pub—this iconic spot requires country club or business casual attire.

8. LAKE CHAMPLAIN // LAKE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY, VERMONT

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson crossed Lake Champlain from New York to explore Vermont—which had just become the 14th state—in early 1791, but the two Virginians left mostly unimpressed by the area as a whole, saying that it is “much larger but less pleasant water than L. George.” But Jefferson did appear to be enjoy the fish, mentioning the 20-pound catfish, sturgeon, and salmon, and he was also pleased by how few mosquitos were in the area.

9. HAMILTON PARK // WEEHAWKEN, NEW JERSEY

On July 11, 1804, vice president Aaron Burr shot and mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton in America’s most famous duel. While you may not (read: should not) reenact the Burr/Hamilton duel scene, you can walk the grounds where this historic event took place at the Hamilton Park in Weehawken, New Jersey while reciting Hamilton lyrics if your head. Side note: Don’t forget your camera, because Hamilton Park also has some of the best NYC skyline views!

10. CITY TAVERN // PHILADELPHIA

We can thank Philadelphia’s historic City Tavern for supplying the food and spirits needed to make this country what it is today. The Founding Fathers spent many late nights here while preparing the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution—according to George Washington, on September 17, 1787, after the Constitution was signed and ready to be sent to the states for ratification, “The members adjourned to the City Tavern, dined together, and took a cordial leave of each other.” While today’s clientele may have fewer powdered wigs and breeches, you can still dine and drink circa the 18th century at this fully operational, completely reconstructed tavern.

11. GADSBY’S TAVERN // ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

With guests like John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Virginia native George Washington, the Gadsby’s Tavern made quite a name for itself among the country’s most elite. Thomas Jefferson was even honored with a banquet there in 1801, the year he became president. And though you may not have an inaugural fete thrown in your honor, you can dine on “George Washington’s Favorite” (a grilled duck breast with scalloped potatoes and a port wine orange glaze) or “Gentleman’s Pye” (a lamb and beef red wine stew in a pastry crust) in this National Historical Landmark’s Colonial-style dining rooms.

12. FRAUNCES TAVERN // NEW YORK CITY

Lower Manhattan’s Fraunces Tavern is possibly the most monumental haunt of them all—it served as the location of General George Washington’s farewell dinner to the officers of his Continental Army after the last British soldiers left America in 1783. Today, you can visit the Fraunces Tavern Museum’s Long Room—the site of Washington’s speech—and grab a pint to (figuratively) pour one out for the most famous of the founding fathers, and all the early Americans who helped make the revolution a success.

Coffee guru Alfred Peet opened his first coffee bean shop in Berkeley, California just over 50 years ago, effectively launching a caffeine-fueled revolution. Considered the grandfather of the American gourmet coffee movement, his eponymous coffee shops are now found across the country.

1. FOUNDER ALFRED PEET WAS INVOLVED IN THE TEA AND COFFEE BUSINESS SINCE HIS CHILDHOOD.

Born in the Netherlands in 1920, Peet grew up assisting his father at the family’s small coffee roastery. In his teens, he worked in London as an apprentice at a coffee and tea company, and he later traveled to Indonesia as a tea taster in the early 1950s.

2. PEET WAS AGHAST AT WHAT AMERICANS CONSIDERED “COFFEE.”

Seeking new grounds, Peet moved to San Francisco in 1955. At the time however, America was known for drinking coffee that tasted like “dishwater,” according to Jim Reynolds, a longtime ambassador for Peet’s brand (he holds the title of Roastmaster Emeritus). “I came to the richest country in the world, so why are they drinking the lousiest coffee?” Mr. Peet asked himself, and he set out to do something about it.

Hoping to replace the black sludge in Americans’ mugs with premium, imported coffee beans, Peet opened his first store on the corner of Walnut and Vine streets in Berkeley, California in 1966.

3. THE FIRST DEVOTEES OF THE STORE WERE CALLED “PEETNIKS.”

The neighborhood around Peet’s soon gained a reputation as a place where one could find high-quality food. Nicknamed “the Gourmet Ghetto” by the late 1970s, the first foodies flocked to artisanal cheese and chocolate shops in the area, which became known as the breeding ground for socially conscious California cuisine. And Peet’s Coffee was right in the thick of it from the beginning. The brand’s cult following began calling themselves Peetniks, and the company still uses the term today for their customer loyalty program.

4. PEET IS CREDITED WITH STARTING THE HIGH-END COFFEE REVOLUTION IN AMERICA.

Soon, everyone was talking about the new coffee coming out of Peet’s store, including three men who would later start a small coffee shop in Seattle (but more on that later). “Everybody was drinking coffee that came out of a can, but Alfred was a purist rooted in the European tradition,” Alice Waters, the chef of influential Gourmet Ghetto eatery Chez Panisse, told The New York Times. “He taught us a new way to look at food, wine, and coffee—paying attention to the preparation, the ritual, and understanding how the beans and ingredients were grown.”

5. STARBUCKS FOUNDER JERRY BALDWIN LEFT AND THEN RETURNED TO PEET’S.

Jerry Baldwin started his career in the coffee business scooping beans at Peet’s. When he and his two friends Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegel decided to open their own coffee shop in Seattle in 1971, they initially sourced all their green coffee beans (the beans they’d later roast) from Peet himself. “All of my early coffee knowledge came from Alfred and what we learned there,” Baldwin told Fortune last year.

But in 1984, while running his own growing coffee company, Baldwin learned Peet’s Coffee was up for sale. In a decision he says was a no-brainer, he bought Peet’s, and then three years later sold Starbucks (at this point, both Bowker and Siegel had already left the company) to current CEO Howard Schultz. Baldwin still sits on the Board of Directors of Peet’s.

6. PEET’S AND STARBUCKS ONCE HAD A NON-COMPETE AGREEMENT OVER THE BAY AREA.

As part of the deal between Baldwin and Schultz, Starbucks agreed it would not open a franchise on Peet’s home turf for the first five years. But, when that agreement expired in 1992, Schultz immediately bought space and opened a Starbucks right next door to a San Francisco Peet’s. Baldwin was furious, but Peet’s continued to thrive, and the two locations on Chestnut Street in the Marina District are both still open.

7. WHEN PEET’S ANNOUNCED IT WAS BEING BOUGHT BY A PRIVATE COMPANY, EVERYONE ASSUMED THE COMPANY WAS STARBUCKS.

After 11 years of being publicly traded on the Nasdaq, Peet’s was bought by a German conglomerate for nearly $1 billion in 2012—not by the company everyone thought would be Peet’s highest bidder. Joh. A. Benckiser, the current owner, also has majority stakes in OPI Nail Polish, Jimmy Choo, and Caribou Coffee.

8. PEET’S HOLDS A NATIONAL BARISTA COMPETITION FOR ITS EMPLOYEES EACH YEAR.

After making it through district and regional competitions, top-notch baristas are invited to compete in a national competition where they are judged on technical quality and taste. Contestants are given 15 minutes to prepare three drinks for the panel of four judges: an espresso, a cappuccino, and a signature beverage.

9. COFFEE LOYALISTS WERE CONCERNED AT THE COMPANY’S BUYING SPREE IN 2015.

After joining forces with Mighty Leaf Tea in August 2014, Peet’s acquired both Portland, Oregon cold brew darling Stumptown and Chicago’s super-premium coffee company Intelligentsia Coffee in October 2015. The caffeine addicts of the Twitter universe voiced their concerns over the mergers, with hits such as “Dear @Intelligentsia, please don’t lose your soul.” Both brands, however, remain independently run and their founders (both of whom got their start at Peet’s) remain active in operations.

Kids and adults alike are drawn to coloring books for the fun, creative outlet they provide. Although adult coloring books are currently a trendy, bestselling genre, coloring books have a vibrant history—they’ve been around since the 1880s! So grab your colored pencils (or crayons, if they’re more your style) and check out these 10 facts about coloring books.

1. THE MODERN COLORING BOOK IS THANKS TO A FAMOUS CHILDREN’S ILLUSTRATOR.

The coloring book has a surprisingly long history. Laura E. Wasowicz, Curator of Children’s Literature at the American Antiquarian Society, told mental_floss that “the earliest coloring books in our collection were produced in Germany and published in Philadelphia by John Weik & Co.” around 1858. But the real ancestor of the modern coloring book is generally agreed to be British illustrator Kate Greenaway. Born in 1846, Greenaway became internationally recognized as a children’s book illustrator (and is now memorialized with the Kate Greenaway Medal for “distinguished illustration in a book for children”).

Sometime in the late 1870s, she teamed up with publisher Cassell Petter & Galpin for The ‘Little Folks’ Painting Book, a reference to a children’s magazine that Cassell Petter & Galpin published. In some cross-promotion, any child who sent in their colored books to a competition the Little Folks magazine was holding could win money and medals, and the books themselves would go to the Children’s Hospitals to “[provide] for the amusement of little ones during their weary hours in the hospital.” Several more of these books were published over the following years, some with similar contests.

So why were these books so influential? Thank lax copyright laws. As Wasowicz has explained before, American publisher the McLoughlin Brothers took Greenaway’s illustrations and published them in books for the American audience, almost certainly without her permission. These were the books that became massive hits and helped create a new genre. And later this year the Antiquarian Society will be hosting an exhibition on the McLoughlins’ dominance of late 19th-century picture books—thanks in part to copying British works.

2. EARLY COLORING BOOKS WERE MEANT TO EDUCATE CHILDREN.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reform movements in children’s education helped to shift popular attitudes about the role of education in achieving social progress. Coloring books became an interactive tool that parents gave to their kids to educate and entertain them, in hopes of giving them an advantage in life. During this time, the cost of books (and paper) also decreased, which made coloring books accessible to more children and families than ever before. Some companies that sold consumer goods, such as shoes and paint, even gave free, promotional coloring books to parents with every purchase.

3. THE FIRST ADULT COLORING BOOK MOCKED CORPORATE CULTURE.

Published in 1961 by three advertising executives, The Executive Coloring Book was the first coloring book aimed at adults. Featuring drawings and captions depicting a businessman getting ready for work (“This is me. I am an executive. Executives are important. They go to important offices and do important things. Color my underwear important.”), the book satirizes and mocks the monotony, conformity, and austerity inherent in corporate workplaces. For example, the book comments on the corporate dress code—like the proliferation of gray suits—as well as the pills that some employees took to combat the depression and ennui of early ’60s workplaces. (The original book is getting a full reprint in March 2017, in case you or someone you know is suffering from cubicle syndrome.)

4. THE 1960s SAW A PROLIFERATION OF ADULT COLORING BOOKS.

After The Executive Coloring Book’s publication, adult coloring books became trendy. Many of these books satirized societal expectations, political extremism, social movements, the Soviet Union, communism, President John F. Kennedy, and mental illness. Rather than actually color in the drawings in these books, most adults reportedly bought and read the books for a laugh. By the early 1970s, the trend of subversive, satirical coloring books for adults was over.

5. BARBRA STREISAND CAPITALIZED ON THEIR POPULARITY.

“For those who fancy coloring books…” In 1962 and 1963, singer Barbra Streisand released two versions of a song called “My Coloring Book.” Capitalizing on the contemporaneous popularity of adult coloring books, Streisand sang about a breakup through the lens of a coloring book. “Crayons ready? … Begin to color me / These are the eyes that watched him as he walked away / Color them gray / This is the heart that thought he would always be true / Color it blue.” Though Streisand sang the song on the late-night circuit, the song never charted, but it was later covered by Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, and Kristin Chenoweth.

6. THEY HAVE A LONG HISTORY OF PROMOTING POLITICAL VIEWS.

The ’60s wasn’t the only time period that cartoonists used adult coloring books to lampoon political figures and promote counterculture or fringe views. More recently, creators of coloring books have used the books to comment on events and figures in contemporary politics. You can find coloring books about the death of Osama bin Laden and the Tea Party (complete with drawings of Sarah Palin and text about the evils of political correctness), as well as coloring books devoted to former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and President Donald Trump.

7. RESEARCHERS CLAIM THE BOOKS CAN LOWER STRESS AND ANXIETY.

According to researchers and art therapists, adults who color in coloring books may experience a variety of therapeutic benefits. A 2005 study (and a 2012 replication study) concluded that people who colored in mandalas—complex geometric figures frequently seen in Hinduism and Buddhism—experienced lower levels of anxiety than people who simply colored on a blank piece of paper. By focusing on different shapes and patterns in a structured way, people who color can shut off negative thoughts, becoming calmer. The study concluded that like meditation, the act of coloring patterns can let the brain rest, decrease anxiety, and encourage mindfulness.

8. DIGITAL COLORING BOOKS ARE A THING.

If you assumed that all coloring books are tangible items, think again. Plenty of websites offer digital coloring books, allowing users to choose an image, pick a stylus tool, and decide how to color it. But digital coloring books can be more high tech than a glorified Microsoft Paint program. Disney offers Disney Color and Play, an augmented reality coloring book app that lets you use your smartphone or tablet to transform 2D images of Disney characters into a colorful, digital 3D experience.

9. TODAY, YOU CAN FIND JUST ABOUT ANY TYPE OF COLORING BOOK…

Whether you have a hankering to color in drawings based on pop culture, politics, literature, or sports, there’s probably a coloring book for you. Pop culture-themed options include everything from Star Wars and Harry Potter to Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. And if you want a more involved coloring experience, interactive coloring books let you write your own story, solve puzzles, or scan pages that you’ve colored and animate them online.

10. …AND YOU CAN EVEN CREATE ONE USING YOUR OWN PHOTOS.

The only thing better than taking a selfie is coloring in your selfie! Thanks to Color Me Book, you can order personalized coloring books that feature your own photos. After you upload your images, a team of designers hand-trace them and turn them into pages of a customized coloring book—one that’s perfect for those impossible-to-shop-for family members.

What do a brothel token, ice cream trucks, and an ancient Egyptian portico have in common? They’ve all been found at the bottom of some of the world’s most famous rivers. But the treasure trove doesn’t end there. Here are nine unusual items that have surfaced from well-known rivers across the globe.

1. A SHIPWRECK ON TOP OF ANOTHER SHIPWRECK // NEW YORK CITY’S WATERWAYS

A cabin cruiser located at the bottom of the Hudson River near Yonkers (the exact location is kept secret) sits atop an older, flattened shipwreck—”probably a nineteenth century sailing ship,” according to New York Magazine.

Other bizarre NYC discoveries include “gribbles” (Limnoria tripunctata), wood-eating isopods that gnaw on the pilings holding up the FDR Drive, ice cream trucks, and just a little further out, the remnants of an early 20th century amusement park. There’s also a $26 million collection of silver bars from a 1903 shipwreck lying in the Arthur Kill area, but those have yet to be recovered.

2. ROMAN BROTHEL TOKEN // THAMES RIVER

In 2012, an amateur archaeologist discovered a Roman brothel token near the Thames’s Putney Bridge. The bronze token depicts a graphic act of passion; experts believe this “sex token” was hidden beneath the mud for around 2000 years. 

3. NILE CROCODILE // RIVER SEINE

In case the grit and grime doesn’t deter you, here’s another reason to forgo a dip in the Seine: In 1984, a 31-inch Nile crocodile was found crawling in a sewer near the popular Pont Neuf bridge. Sanitation workers stumbled upon the reptile while on the job, and called in a zoo vet. It eventually found its way to the Aquarium de Vannes. While its life pre-sewer remains a mystery, the veterinarian estimated the croc spent one to two months living in France’s sewer systems before its discovery.

Over the years, the Seine has seen its fair share of terrifying creatures. Sightings of snapping turtles, snakes, and pacu—relatives of piranhas with an almost uncertainly undeserved reputation for biting off testicles—have all been reported.

4. 15,000 BICYCLES // AMSTERDAM CANALS

Amsterdam, a city of 780,000, has been estimated to have around 2 million bicycles. But as canal cleaners have discovered, bicycles fill more than just streets: Approximately 15,000 bikes are pulled up from Amsterdam’s canals each year.

“Bike fishing” has actually become a popular Amsterdam tourist attraction. The local water company (Waternet) has perfected the activity with a claw and crane device that sits atop a barge.

5. ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PORTICO // NILE RIVER

In 2007, a team of Egyptian archaeologists embarked on the Nile River’s first underwater excavation, hoping to uncover antiquities and shipwrecks from the river’s deep past. Surveying the Nile’s dense, intensely muddy waters wasn’t easy, and required specific gear, including side scan sonar to find artifacts beneath the mud and a GPS, according to Daily News Egypt.

Despite the tough conditions, the historic dive did not disappoint. Archaeologists discovered a portico (covered entryway) for an ancient Egyptian temple. According to a 2008 National Geographic report, the entryway led to the temple of fertility god Khnum. The stone featured inscriptions that date back anywhere from 945 to 525 BCE. The archaeologists also found parts of an ancient Christian church during their dives.

6. SOVIET FIGHTER PLANE AND PILOTS // VISTULA RIVER

In 2015, Poland’s Vistula River reached historically low levels, which unearthed rare World War II artifacts, including a Soviet fighter plane and the remains of its pilots. According to the Associated Press, the plane crashed in January 1945 when Germany’s army was retreating back toward Berlin. The plane was hit while flying low across the Vistula, and ultimately crashed through the ice into the river.

Explorers also found parts of the pilots’ uniforms, boots, parachutes, a sheepskin coat collar, and radio equipment with Cyrillic controls.

7. COMPUTER TOWER // RIVERS OF AMERICA

When Disneyland visitors raft over to Tom Sawyer Island, they don’t just drop gum or cellphones in the river (although hundreds do that every year). In 2010, Disneyland employees uncovered a desktop computer tower during a routine maintenance draining.

8. MACHETES AND A SAUNA // LOS ANGELES RIVER

Every spring, the Friends of the Los Angeles River organization hosts a city-wide river cleanup that draws thousands of volunteers, who pick up 70-plus tons of trash and an assortment of unusual trinkets and treasures. Findings from the group’s more than two decades of cleanups include machetes, a sauna, and a phone booth.

9. 18TH CENTURY CANNONS // DETROIT RIVER

According to experts, the Detroit River’s muddy waters obscure numerous museum-worthy relics. Between 1980 and 2011, divers pulled up six separate cannons dating back to the 1700s, according to a recent story in the Detroit Free Press. And those cannons, which were likely part of a stash kept by British soldiers before the War of 1812, represent just a small portion of the treasures on the river’s bottom (which, given the visibility issues, divers can usually only locate by touch). In November, a 6000-pound anchor belonging to Greater Detroit—a 2100-passenger steamship which traveled the Great Lakes from 1924 to 1950—was recovered; there are also rumors of Prohibition-era vehicles, like a Model T, on the river’s Canadian side. (Divers need a federal permit to explore there.)

The kings, queens, and captains that populate pop culture are, for the most part, imagined. But then there are those familiar figures who are far from fictional. While unfortunately there’s no evidence there was ever an actual Mother of Dragons, other positions from books, folklore, television, and other cultural channels are (or were) very real, and we’ve got the backstories (and, in some cases, current titleholders) to prove it.

1. THE SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM

He was Robin Hood’s villainous rival in the classic English tale, trying his best to thwart the folk hero’s stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. But in real life, the Sheriff of Nottingham’s responsibilities are remarkably less sinister.

Some argue Robin Hood’s sheriff was based on actual Nottingham Sheriff Reginald de Grey, who was tasked with pulling together an army to defeat the outlaws (including possible Robin Hood inspiration Roger Godberd), defying the area royals in the 13th century. Once modern police forces came along, the job had less law enforcement pull. Today, it’s largely ceremonial, with current Sheriff Jackie Morris (who now holds the position for a second time, having also been the predecessor to last year’s sheriff, Mohammed Saghir) trading in the historic hunt for Merry Men for important stuff like supporting the city’s tourism strategy, encouraging residents to utilize all Nottingham has to offer, and “hosting welcome receptions in order to promote the city.”

2. THE QUEEN OF SHEBA

Nobody has been able to definitively prove who the Queen of Sheba actually was, but the legendary royal appears in the sacred religious texts and traditions of Christians, Jews, and Muslims, so scholars are pretty sure she must have been based on somebody (though the stuff about her having a goat hoof for a foot is probably less likely). Clues from her various cultural appearances suggest she came from a place rich with gemstones, spices, and incense, which would hint at roots in modern day Ethiopia, Yemen, or Somalia, and her interactions with King Solomon narrow down her lifespan to a few different periods people have assigned to the historic king. While Yemen and other regions still see the Queen of Sheba as their own legend, in Ethiopia she is credited with having a son with the biblical King Solomon named Menelik, who was said to have brought the Ark of the Covenant (yep, the same one Indiana Jones was after) back to their country. Sheba giving birth to Menelik was also believed to have been the start of the Solomonic dynasty, the Ethiopian emperors who ruled the country as recently as the 1970s.

3. THE EARL OF SANDWICH

The greatest thing since sliced bread was clearly the sandwich since it put bread to an even more delicious use—and the real-life man behind everyone’s favorite lunch staple was the Earl of Sandwich, a title that’s lived on for centuries in the quaint English community that shares its name. It was, in fact, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu, who developed the edible namesake in the 18th century, apparently so he could keep snacking while he played cards (although people had eaten bread with fillings long before Montagu came along). But generations later, members of the Montagu family continue to use their inventive relative to their personal advantage: The 11th Earl of Sandwich (also named John Montagu) teamed up with Planet Hollywood founder Robert Earl in 2004 to launch a restaurant chain named after the family title. And the same Montagu’s son Luke, the heir to the earldom, is married to Julie Montagu, an American yoga instructor who joined the cast of Bravo’s Real Housewives offshoot Ladies of London in 2014; on it, she often mentions her efforts to modernize and promote the family estate, Mapperton, and has told the story of her husband’s ancestor and his favorite snack. The town of Sandwich celebrated the 250th anniversary of its most famous food in 2012.

4. THE KING OF SIAM

When the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic The King and I returned to Broadway for its 2015 revival, director Bartlett Sher was careful to pay homage to the real people whose lives inspired the musical: Indian-English governess Anna Leonowens and King Mongkut of 19th century Thailand, then known as Siam. Leonowens’s 1870 memoir about her years as a governess at the Siamese court was the work former Christian missionary Margaret Landon based her 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam on. Landon’s book sparked an Oscar-winning movie and the iconic stage production, which led to another Oscar-winning movie, starring Yul Brynner as the king. The real Mongkut’s descendant, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, sat on the Thai throne for 70 years as the world’s longest-reigning living monarch until his death in October 2016 (his son was then crowned in December of that year). As far as we know, no musicals are being penned about Bhumibol—though even if they were, they’d probably be banned in his country, much like the play that made Siam’s king so famous in the first place.

5. LADY GRANTHAM (A.K.A. LADY ALMINA)

Even after Downton Abbey closed its TV doors in 2015, the proper lords and ladies who reside in the real Downton—southern England’s Highclere Castle—aren’t going anywhere. The estate where the popular drama was shot has been home to the aristocratic Carnarvon family for generations, and Downton creator Julian Fellowes has said he finds the real Highclere “very intriguing.” Currently, the 8th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon live part-time on the grounds, but in the early decades of the 20th century when the fictional action of Downton was unfolding, the lady of the manor was Lady Almina, the wife of the estate’s 5th Earl. Almina shared many qualities with the TV show’s Lady Grantham: She was a wealthy American heiress, she turned the house into a makeshift hospital during World War I, and she modernized the property by adding electricity and a telephone line.

6. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

The world has long had mixed feelings about the guy who inspired the word sadism. Born in Paris in 1740, the infamous Marquis de Sade got an understandably bad rep for both his seriously scandalous writings (think violent orgies, prostitution, murder, and more) and his own troubling behavior (he died in an insane asylum). For generations after the marquis’s death, the de Sade family chose to pretend their rebellious relative hadn’t existed at all. It wasn’t until the late 1940s that de Sade descendants started owning their famous forebear. Today, current marquis Elzéar de Sade and his brothers, Hugues and Thibault, have embraced their ancestor and hope others will too via exhibits of family artifacts and, of course, branded merchandise (Marquis de Sade wine, anyone?).

7. THE SOUP NAZI

His title was bestowed by contemporary sitcom writers, not ancient officials, but the so-called Soup Nazi was based on a very real New York soup-slinger with very little patience for those unable to adhere to his strict ordering rules. Initially, Al Yeganeh wasn’t crazy about the classic Seinfeld episode based on his restaurant (and was pretty vocal about it), but in the 20-plus years since the show first aired, Yeganeh and his Original Soupman brand have used the unexpected fame (and the actor who played the Yeganeh-inspired character on the show) to promote their soups and franchises.

8. THE PRINCE OF WALACHIA

You probably know him as Count Dracula. Author Bram Stoker’s fictional, bloodthirsty noble went down in horror history when the eponymous novel was published in 1897. The original Dracula, otherwise known as Vlad III (and better known still as Vlad the Impaler), ruled the southern region of what is now Romania centuries earlier. Stoker likely looked to the 15th-century prince and his legendary brutality as a partial model when he penned his famous book—and there was plenty of reported cruelty to scour, such as Vlad’s proclivity for leaving his enemies on spikes (thus giving him his posthumous nickname) and the legend of his dipping his bread in their blood. Subsequent Romanian royals were a lot more humane. The kingdom of Walachia was dissolved in 1859, and today it’s the president and prime minister that hold the real power in the region, though Britain’s Prince Charles did claim to be a descendent of Vlad a few years back (prompting some to speculate he might take over the Romanian throne) and 95-year-old former monarch King Michael I, who abdicated in 1947, is still known as the king.

Long before Ronald Reagan became the 40th President of the United States, he was a popular actor appearing alongside Errol Flynn in Desperate Journey and co-starring with a chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo. Reagan’s first film, Love Is On the Air, was released in 1937, and by 1941, a poll of movie theater owners ranked him fifth among up-and-coming movie stars. And what’s a celebrity to do but give celebrity endorsements? Enjoy these 14 vintage advertisements featuring a pre-politics Ronald Reagan.

1. ROYAL CROWN COLA AD WITH JANE WYMAN // 1947

Reagan and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman appeared in a few ads together, such as a 1941 Chesterfield cigarettes ad and the above Royal Crown Cola ad in 1947. The two met on the set of the film Brother Rat in 1938 and kindled a romance during a nine-week “Stars of Tomorrow” performance tour the next year. They married in January 1940 and starred in four movies together that year, becoming fixtures in the gossip pages of movie magazines like Modern Screen and Photoplay. Reagan and Wyman separated in 1948, divorcing in 1949, and Reagan married Nancy Davis, the future First Lady, in 1952.

2. MARLBORO SHIRT COMPANY CHRISTMAS AD // 1947

“‘Pipe this!’ cries Ronald.” Apparently, Marlboro shirts feature “Soft-as-smoke fabric,” but don’t get confused: the Marlboro Shirt Company was unrelated to the Marlboro cigarette brand, which has been produced by Philip Morris since 1924. Founded in Baltimore in 1907, the clothing company still exists and now goes by the name Marlboro Originals.

The above holiday ad appeared in the December 13, 1947 issue of the Saturday Evening Post and in the January 1948 issue of Esquire.

3. CHESTERFIELD AD // 1948

Despite appearing in multiple Chesterfield advertisements—like this one from 1948—Reagan did not smoke cigarettes. He did smoke a pipe, writing in his autobiography, An American Life, that he took up the habit in college because he thought it looked cool: “I’d never liked cigarettes, but I was impressed by a flurry of ads in those days in which women said, ‘I like a man who smokes a pipe.’ I’d always liked the look of someone smoking a pipe, so I saved up and bought one. But I never inhaled. I just sucked in the smoke, tasted it, and blew it out—and I only did that during the offseason, when I wasn’t playing football.”

After his brother, Neil, a two- or three-packs-a-day cigarette smoker, developed laryngeal cancer in the 1960s, Reagan quit smoking his pipe and picked up a Jelly Belly habit instead.

4. MARLBORO SHIRT COMPANY AD // 1949

Reagan appeared in another advertisement for Marlboro Shirt Company in Life magazine, showing off a couple of collar styles just before Easter, 1949.

5. CHESTERFIELD CHRISTMAS AD // 1951

This ad was featured in the December 3, 1951 issue of Life magazine. In 1947, Chesterfield had changed their marketing strategy to heavily emphasize celebrity endorsements, and by this time, famous spokespeople for the brand had included Lucille Ball, Joan Crawford, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Kirk Douglas, Bob Hope, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra, and Jimmy Stewart.

6. V8 AD // 1951

Campbell Soup Co. purchased V8 (then styled as V-8) in 1948 and began running a series of print advertisements for the vegetable-blend juice featuring celebrities, including both Reagan and Shirley Temple.

7. JERIS AD // 1951

This advertisement appeared in the February 5, 1951 issue of Life magazine, among other places. Hair tonics—lightweight, alcohol-based hair products—were popular in the ’50s and still show up in barbershops today. Men used tonics to get a crisp part and to add shine to the hair without making it greasy. And Reagan wasn’t the only celebrity singing Jeris’s praises—Kirk Douglas also endorsed the brand.

8. CIGAR INSTITUTE OF AMERICA AD // 1951

This February 1951 ad for the Cigar Institute of America suggests that Reagan’s approach to cigars was the same as his approach to pipes: smoke, just don’t inhale.

9. WILDROOT AD // 1950S

Dating to sometime during the 1950s, this advertisement for Wildroot Cream Oil is equipped with a cardboard easel and seems to have been designed to sit in the window of a barbershop, using Reagan’s glossy hair and confident grin to draw in customers. Infused with lanolin, Wildroot is an oil-based grooming product meant to serve the same purpose as a hair tonic, with added moisturizing properties.

10. WESTINGHOUSE AD // 1953

Reagan would become a famous General Electric spokesman, but before taking on that role, he endorsed Westinghouse appliances in this April 1953 advertisement. According to the ad (he’s third from the left along the front row), his favorite Westinghouse feature was “the Laundromat’s Weigh-to-Save Door and Water Saver.” Reagan would begin working with GE the next year.

11. VAN HEUSEN AD // 1953

Reagan appeared in this Van Heusen campaign in 1953, and in January 1981, the company re-ran the ad with a celebratory message in Time, Newsweek, and People magazines to congratulate Reagan on the eve of his first inauguration. Then, in 1985, Andy Warhol used this same ad as a basis for his screenprint “Van Heusen (Ronald Reagan)” in his “Ads” series.

12. “LIVE BETTER ELECTRICALLY” AD // 1958

In 1954, Reagan was hired by General Electric to host General Electric Theater, a popular CBS anthology TV show that mixed dramatic stories with advertising for GE products and the modern “electric home” more generally. It ran for two seasons without a host, then introduced Reagan in the third season to give the show a more consistent voice. At a low point in his acting career, Reagan was enticed by the offer of steady work—and a starting paycheck of $125,000.

Along with his salary, GE also turned the Reagan family’s home in the Pacific Palisades into “the most electric home in the country.” In a recurring segment, the show would “check in” with the Reagans, exploring their house as the family demonstrated and praised their “electric servants,” as they called their GE appliances. The tagline for these segments was “Live Better Electrically,” the name of a multi-million dollar campaign co-sponsored by GE and Westinghouse that aimed to sell not just specific products but the idea of a home populated with appliances and reliant on electricity. Launched in 1956, the “Live Better Electrically” campaign marketed a vision of the modern American home as an “all-electric” home—catchy jingle and all.

13. UNION PACIFIC DOMELINER AD // 1959

In this advertisement in National Geographic from 1959, Reagan touts the luxury of train travel in a Union Pacific Domeliner, a special passenger car topped with a glass dome that offered panoramic views. The Domeliner had snagged another A-list endorsement a couple of years earlier—it got the full-episode treatment on I Love Lucy when Lucy, Desi, and company took a long trip on the luxury liner (which Lucy ruined when she kept pulling the emergency brake).

14. GE PORTABLE TELEVISION AD // 1961

This advertisement appeared in 1961 when Reagan was still presenting General Electric Theater, which he hosted the show until the following year. With Reagan at the helm, GE Theater had become a top-10 show in the Nielsen ratings between 1956-’58, and celebrities like Fred Astaire, Bette Davis, Judy Garland, and the Marx Brothers all made guest-star appearances.

Whether your pot is filled with gooey cheese or melted chocolate, fondue makes for some seriously fun (and seriously delicious) eating. But you can do so much more with your fondue pot, from making soup to keeping food warm before you serve it. So grab your skewers and read up on these 10 alternate uses for your fondue pot.

1. MAKE SOUP.

A warm bowl of chicken noodle or tomato soup can be comforting in the winter months. Thankfully, you can use your fondue pot to heat up broth or frozen homemade soup. Just pour the liquid and other ingredients into your fondue pot, wait 30 minutes to an hour (depending on your pot and heat setting), and enjoy a bowl of soup.

2. DEEP FRY FOODS.

An electric fondue pot can double as a small deep fryer. Fill your pot with oil and deep fry your food of choice, whether it’s onion rings, calamari, mini donuts, tempura, or latkes. To avoid hot oil splatter, keep the oil level as low as possible, stick to frying small batches of food, and make sure to keep an eye on the temperature so you don’t burn yourself.

3. KEEP APPETIZERS WARM.

When cooking for guests, oven and stovetop space often come at a premium. If you’ve got meat cooking in the oven and vegetables staying warm on the stove, bring out your fondue pot to keep appetizers and other small bites warm until you serve them. You can also fill your fondue pot with extra dip, sauce, or self-serve chili for those Super Bowl party hot dogs.

4. MAKE YOUR HOME SMELL GOOD.

Air fresheners and perfume can make your living space smell better, but your fondue pot can quickly transform your home from malodorous to magnificent. Pour water and vanilla extract into your pot, set it on a low heat, and let the fondue pot do its thing. As the vanilla extract slowly heats up, the aroma will waft around the room. If you’re a fan of essential oils, try lavender, lemon, or your favorite calming or invigorating oil instead of vanilla extract.

5. MAKE “CAMPFIRE” S’MORES.

Although fondue pots are often used to simply melt chocolate for dessert, you can turn your pot into a makeshift campfire for s’mores. After melting chocolate in the pot, hold a skewered marshmallow above the heat to soften it. Spread the melted chocolate and marshmallow on a graham cracker, and voila! Campfire fondue pot s’mores.

6. PREPARE SHABU-SHABU OR HOT POT.

Your fondue pot is perfect for several Asian styles of cooking, such as Shabu-Shabu, Steamboat, and Mongolian Hot Pot. Recipes vary, but the gist is this: Boil water or broth in your fondue pot and add thin slices of meat and vegetables. Beef, tofu, mushrooms, and pea shoots work particularly well. You can sit around the communal pot with friends or family while the hot water cooks the ingredients. Use skewers or chopsticks to remove the food, dip it in sauce, and enjoy!

7. IMPROVE YOUR COMPLEXION.

Most DIY facials start with opening your pores, and your fondue pot can certainly help with that. Heat water in the pot and hold your face over the steam, being careful not to overheat or burn your skin. Once your pores feel open, put a cleansing mask on your face and relax. For a more spa-like experience, add sprigs of rosemary or a few drops of essential oils to the water before heating it up.

8. STORE EXTRA STUFF.

Kitchen space comes at a premium, and it can be difficult to find storage space to stash all your pots, pans, and cooking tools. When you’re not using your fondue pot, take advantage of the space inside of it by storing extra utensils, whisks, and graters in it. And if for some reason you’re having a party without fondue, you can even fill your pot with ice and chill a bottle of white wine.

9. SERVE COCKTAIL WEENIES.

Mini hot dogs in barbecue sauce are always a hit at parties and tailgates. By putting cocktail weenies in a fondue pot with your favorite barbecue sauce, you can keep the “little smokies” warm for hours. Just be sure to provide enough skewers.

10. MAKE TEA OR COFFEE.

If your coffee maker is out of commission and you’re suffering from caffeine withdrawal, a fondue pot can come to the rescue. Boil water in the pot and add instant coffee or your favorite tea bag. You’ll be sipping your favorite warm beverage in no time.

All images via iStock.

To the delight of kids (and adults who have a major sweet tooth), Fruit Roll-Ups have been around since the early 1980s. Part of General Mills’ Betty Crocker brand, Fruit Roll-Ups are one of the brand’s several fruit snack products, but, as you may have suspected, they don’t count toward your four to five servings of fruit per day. Read on for nine fun, fruity facts about Fruit Roll-Ups.

1. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FOR FRUIT ROLL-UPS STARTED IN 1975.

In 1975, General Mills began researching ways to make a fun, sweet fruit treat. The research and development team based the new product on fruit leather, and when Fruit Roll-Ups hit grocery store shelves in 1983, customers could choose between strawberry, apple, cherry, and apricot varieties.

2. A PROLIFIC GENERAL MILLS INVENTOR CREATED FRUIT ROLL-UPS’ NONSTICK BACKING.

The main fruit component for Fruit Roll-Ups might get the most notice, but another company inventor contributed the essential non-edible packaging of the snack. Bob Zoss, an inventor at General Mills, created Fruit Roll-Ups’ nonstick backing, which allows kids to easily pull apart the flat sheet of fruit snack from its cellophane backing. During his nearly 40 years at General Mills, Zoss filed five patents, set 58 invention records, and worked on everything from sodium reduction research to quality control in food packaging.

3. PEOPLE SOMETIMES CONFUSE FRUIT ROLL-UPS WITH FRUIT BY THE FOOT.

Because Fruit Roll-Ups are inherently similar to Fruit by the Foot, another Betty Crocker fruit snack, confusion between the two has abounded. Both snacks are sugary, come in bright colors, appeal to kids, and come rolled. Although people debate in online forums and comment sections about the merits of Fruit Roll-Ups versus Fruit by the Foot, many commenters state that they mistakenly always thought the two snacks were the same.

4. THEIR TEMPORARY TONGUE TATTOOS WERE A BIT HIT WITH KIDS.

Kids’ food have a long history of including toys or games to pique interest, and Fruit Roll-Ups are no different. Besides offering a variety of flavors and pre-cut shapes to punch out of the roll, in the early 2000s, some Fruit Roll-Ups added edible dye that could be pressed onto the tongue, giving kids cool temporary tongue tattoos. The marketing trick worked. As one 6th grader in Oregon said, “The greatest snack ever invented is Fruit Roll-Ups because there are tongue tattoos that are out of this world.”

5. A LAWSUIT POINTED OUT THAT STRAWBERRY FRUIT ROLL-UPS DON’T ACTUALLY CONTAIN STRAWBERRIES.

A consumer watchdog nonprofit, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, recently sued General Mills, claiming that Fruit Roll-Ups’ packaging intentionally misled customers into believing that the snack was healthy and made of fruit. In particular, the strawberry flavor of Fruit Roll-Ups contains no actual strawberries—it’s flavored with pear juice concentrate instead—but the box showed an image of a strawberry. In 2012, General Mills agreed to remove images of fruit from Fruit Roll-Ups boxes that didn’t contain the actual fruit.

6. ALTHOUGH KIDS MAY LOVE THEM, DENTISTS DON’T.

Dentists specifically call out Fruit Roll-Ups as being particularly bad for teeth. Because many people think dried fruits and various fruit-flavored snacks are healthier than candy, they don’t realize just how much sugar the fruit products contain. Besides the possibility of eroding enamel from being stuck on the teeth for too long, the chewiness and stickiness of Fruit Roll-Ups can also potentially pull out fillings.

7. YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN VERSION OF FRUIT ROLL-UPS.

If you run out of Fruit Roll-Ups or love them so much that you want to try your hand at making your own homemade version, you’re in luck. Chop up your favorite fruit (it can be fresh, frozen, or out of a can), add a sweetener such as sugar or honey, and puree it in a food processor. Spread the puree on a baking sheet and dry the fruit mixture by cooking it in your oven for 6 to 8 hours at 150°F. Slice into strips or blocks with a pizza cutter, and if you wrap it in plastic or parchment paper, you’ll have your own homemade fruit roll-ups.

8. FRUIT ROLL-UPS GOT A SHOUT-OUT ON FRIENDS.

On a 2000 episode of Friends, Chandler tried to avoid a relationship conversation with Monica by asking for a Fruit Roll-Up. Guess even manchildren need afternoon snacks.

9. JEREMY LIN HAS A BASKETBALL JERSEY MADE OF FRUIT ROLL-UPS.

thanks fruit snacks for the best gift ever: a life-size jersey made of fruit roll up. I would eat it if it wasnt framed pic.twitter.com/UIJH6cTs

— Jeremy Lin (@JLin7) May 3, 2012

In 2012, General Mills gave Jeremy Lin, a former member of the New York Knicks, a special jersey made entirely of Fruit Roll-Ups. Full “Linsanity” had broken out after Lin, a point guard, led the Knicks to a number of wins. When the newly crowned superstar tweeted about loving fruit snacks, Fruit Roll-Ups responded in kind by making the colorful jersey as well as sending along a gift basket of fruit snacks.

Dolly Parton—who turns 71 years old today—is a prolific songwriter, performer, and businesswoman. She’s been nominated for 46 Grammys (and won eight) and has sold over 100 million albums. But over the years, Dolly has become famous for not just her music but also her clever one-liners, self-deprecating jokes, and encouraging advice, all told with her trademark smile and good-natured giggle.

1. ON TODAY’S MUSIC INDUSTRY

“Everything’s high-tech and I’ve just been dragged screaming and kicking into the 21st century. But I try to surround myself with folks that keep up with it. It’s completely different now, but it’s wonderful that I’m still here. I say that I’m as old as yesterday, but hopefully as new as tomorrow.”

— From a 2014 interview with Today Show

2. ON HER FAMILY’S HUMBLE ORIGINS IN RURAL TENNESSEE

“The kids peed on me every night … There were so many of us. We slept three and four in the bed. I would wash every night, and as soon as I go to bed, the kids would wet on me and I’d have to get up in the morning and do the same thing … That was the only warm thing we knew in the winter time. That was almost a pleasure to get peed on because it was so cold. Lord. It was as cold in the room as it was outside. We’d bundle up to go to bed.”

— From a 1978 interview with Playboy

3. ON HER CLOTHING CHOICES

“I like all that frilly stuff. Like I’ve always said, it’s a good thing I was a girl, or I’d definitely have been a drag queen! Most definitely.”

— From a 1999 interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

4. ON WEARING CONSERVATIVE ATTIRE FOR HER ROLE IN 9 TO 5

“It’s really a totally different look for me … I loved the movie and I enjoyed doing it, but I couldn’t wait to get out of those little suits and get into my trashy stuff.”

— From a 1992 interview on Live with Regis & Kathie Lee

5. ON HER GUILT COMPLEX

“I have a guilt complex about being the one that’s so successful when so many of them [other performers] are so much more talented than me. And so many friends that I know in Nashville that have twice the talent that I’ve had, that I’ve seen them come and go through the years and never see their dream come true.”

— From a 2012 interview with NPR

6. ON HER SECRET TO STAYING MARRIED FOR NEARLY 50 YEARS

“I stay gone. [Laughs] … He’s a good guy; we know each other so well. I know every line in his face, and he knows every hair in my wig.”

— From a 2014 interview with Today Show

7. ON ACHIEVING HER DREAMS

“Now the night I graduated from Sevier County High School, back in 1964, we were all asked to stand up and talk about what we were going to do with the rest of our lives. And everybody had a different story. And when it came my time I stood right up there. I said I’m going to Nashville and I’m going to be a star. Well the whole place laughed out loud. And I was so embarrassed, cause I thought, ‘How odd. Why is everybody laughing? ‘Cause that is what I’m going to do.’ But as bad as I felt at that moment and as embarrassed as I was, it did not shake me from my dreams. So I guess I showed them, huh?”

— From her 2009 University of Tennessee, Knoxville commencement speech

8. ON HOW SHE KEEPS HER ENERGY UP

“I just depend on a lot of prayer and meditation. I believe that without God I am nobody, but that with God, I can do anything.”

— From a 1980 interview with Roger Ebert

9. ON STARTING DOLLYWOOD

“I really wish that y’all could have seen the look on my lawyer’s face 24 years ago when I told him I wanted to start a theme park and call it Dollywood. He thought I’d already taken the train to Crazywood.”

— From her 2009 University of Tennessee, Knoxville commencement speech

10. ON WHETHER SHE WEARS IN-EAR MONITORS ON STAGE

“No, I have too much hair! And too much other stuff going on. I can’t stand that in my ear. I figure I’ll be wearing hearing aids soon enough.”

— From a 2003 interview on Oprah

11. ON HER DECISION TO WEAR ATTENTION-GRABBING WIGS AND EXTREME CLOTHES

“It’s certainly a choice. I don’t like to be like everybody else. I’ve often made the statement that I’d never stoop so low as to be fashionable. That’s the easiest thing in the world to do.”

— From a 1977 interview with Barbara Walters

12. ON HER LEGACY

“Now people are always asking me, What do you want people to say about you 100 years from now?’ I always say I want them to say ‘Dang, don’t she still look good for her age’.”

— From her 2009 University of Tennessee, Knoxville commencement speech

13. ON BEING A HILLBILLY

“I’m proud of my hillbilly, white trash background. To me that keeps you humble; that keeps you good. And it doesn’t matter how hard you try to outrun it—if that’s who you are, that’s who you are. It’ll show up once in a while.”

— From a 2014 interview with Southern Living

14. ON THINKING LIKE A MAN

“I grew up in a family of 12 children and six of those kids were boys. I was very close to my dad, and my uncles and my grandpas, and my brothers, so I relate to men. I understand the nature of men. I always say that I look like a woman, but I think like a man, or I can think like a man.”

— From a 2014 interview with Bust

15. ON BELONGING

“I never felt I belonged. Never belonged in my whole life, even as a little kid. I was just different and so I never really found my place till I moved to Nashville and got in the music business. That was my real place, so I fit in.”

— From a 1977 interview with Rolling Stone

16. ON HOW MANY WIGS SHE OWNS

“I don’t know, I’ve got better things to do than count them. But I wear one every day of the week, so probably 365.”

— From a 1984 interview with Interview Magazine (conducted by Andy Warhol)

17. ON HER FLAMBOYANT COSTUMES

“I never let a rhinestone go unturned!”

—From a 2015 tweet by Dolly Parton

18. ON EMOTIONS

“I’m a very sensitive person. I’m a songwriter, so I have to live with my feelings on my sleeve. I have to not harden my heart, because I want to stay open to feel things. So when I hurt, I hurt all over. And when I cry, I cry real hard. And when I’m mad, I’m mad all over. I’m just a person; I like to experience whatever the feeling is and whatever I’m going through.”

— From a 2014 interview with Southern Living

19. ON ALL THE REFERENCES TO HER BIG BUST

“It don’t bother me so much unless people dwell on it. Get tacky and all. It’s part of the act. If someone gets really carried away, well, I sort of pity him. Cause it’s his problem, not mine. Other than that, I’m a good sport. I know some of the best Dolly Parton jokes. I made ’em up myself.”

— From a 1980 interview with Roger Ebert

20. ON HER RUMORED TATTOOS

“People say that the reason I wear sleeves is because I have snakes tattooed all over [my arms]. I say ‘No, I don’t!’ I do have a few little tattoos, but they were mostly done to cover scars because I’m so fair.”

— From a 2014 interview with Today Show

21. ON WHAT ACTRESS SHOULD PLAY HER IN A MOVIE

“Hmmmm. I dunno. Maybe if Sissy Spacek made enough money off of playin’ Loretta Lynn, she could get herself a boob job.”

— From a 1980 interview with Roger Ebert

22. ON CHOOSING BETWEEN BIG BOOBS OR BIG HAIR

“Uhhhhh … I couldn’t pick one. I’d have to pick three.”

— From a 2014 interview with Southern Living

23. ON SONGWRITING

“It’s therapy. It’s fun. It’s creative. I love getting on a big writing binge and staying up a couple days working on a song and knowing at the end of those two or three days that I’ve created something that was never in the world before. It’s like a feeling of creating, not that the same stories ain’t been told before, but it ain’t been told through my point of view. And it’s my way of relaxing. Songwriting is a hobby and to me it’s therapy. It’s a joy. It’s a thrill. It’s like mind exercises or something.”

— From a 1990 interview with American Songwriter

24. ON BEING A LIVING LEGEND

“I don’t know! Am I livin’? Am I a legend? You never know how people are going to look at you till you’re older and you look back at your life. So far I’ve been very pleased that, you know, my life has turned out the way it has, and I don’t take it for granted. I owe a lot of credit to God and folks for helping me along the way, so I didn’t do this all by myself.”

— From a 2015 interview with Mashable

25. ON OTHER ARTISTS COVERING HER SONGS

“I’m always flattered that anybody would record my songs, even if they change them. Certain ones of my songs, I’ll hear somebody do it and I’ve had mixed emotions. I think either ‘Wow, that’s great. I never thought of hearing it like that’ or I’ll think ‘Oh Lord, they’ve ruined that song.’ But you’re still glad as a writer that they did it, no matter how it turns out. You’re just glad that somebody liked your song enough to record it. But you do have your favorites. I guess the ones I’d like to record my songs right now are the ones having hits and make me the most money.”

— From a 1990 interview with American Songwriter

26. ON HER IMAGE

“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!”

— A oft-used quote, as in this Vanity Fair article

The National Association of Women Business Owners reported in 2015 that there were more than 9.1 million women-owned firms in the U.S. generating $1.4 trillion in sales—a huge number, considering just a few decades ago most working women were either secretaries, teachers, or clerks (though, those jobs are still very popular). But in addition to all the major inventions women have given us over the years, female entrepreneurs and visionaries have founded and owned companies in fields ranging from tech to television, fashion to food, and everything in between. Here are just a few examples of the game-changing enterprises women have founded:

1. KIKKOMAN

The origin story behind one of the world’s best-known soy sauce brands dates all the way back to 17th century Japan. As legend has it, an upper-class war widow named Shige Maki escaped in disguise with her son from Osaka Castle, their war-ravaged home, to Edo (the city that would become Toyko). Maki and her son learned to cultivate rice and brew soy sauce like their new neighbors, and Maki’s tweaks to the production process went over so well, 350 years later Kikkoman is still making a version of the stuff.

2. FLICKR

Web design consultants Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield had originally developed a social interaction-based online game, but it wasn’t until Butterfield was up sick all night while the couple was at a 2003 gaming conference that the idea to just focus on the game’s photo-sharing aspect struck. Today, the online photo album site hosts more than 13 billion photos and has changed the way people capture their lives on camera. Yahoo acquired the company from Fake and Butterfield for an undisclosed but hefty sum in 2005.

3. SPANX

Once landing the title of youngest female self-made billionaire didn’t come easily for Sara Blakely. She’d tried getting into law school, standup comedy, selling fax machines, even auditioning at Disney World (she’s said she didn’t get the part of Goofy because she was too short). But Blakely’s turning point came at age 29 when she snipped the feet off a pair of pantyhose so she’d have a smoother shape under a pair of white pants and thought she might be onto something. She was. Spanx shapewear has since expanded to more than 200 products and a chain of retail stores, and has scores of celebrity devotees including Oprah, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Michelle Obama. In 2013, Blakely—who still owns 100 percent of the company—made headlines for pledging to donate half her wealth to charitable causes.

4. PEPPERIDGE FARM

In the 1930s, Connecticut housewife Margaret Rudkin started baking preservative-free breads to help alleviate one of her son’s allergies. Soon she was selling her bread (which was named after her family farm) to local grocers, and by 1947 Rudkin opened her first bakery. She’d go on to act as official taste-tester, the company spokesperson, and the importer of products like European-style cookies and Goldfish crackers she’d discovered on trips to Belgium and Switzerland. The brand’s yearly sales were already at $32 million a year when it sold to Campbell’s in 1961; Rudkin officially retired from the company in 1966, but her breads and cookies continue to be grocery aisle mainstays.

5. CISCO

Sandy Lerner worked for Stanford University in the early ’80s along with her husband, Len Bosack, but the two were frustrated that they were unable to email each other from different buildings. The two developed a router that allowed multi-network exchanges, and the technology was so in-demand that they had $1.5 million in sales by the following year. Lerner and Bosack are no longer with Cisco (and are no longer married), but the networking products company they launched is valued at more than $140 billion.

6. PROACTIV

Dermatologists Katie Rodan and Kathy Fields met in the 1980s during their residencies at Stanford University School of Medicine, and in 1995 the friends launched their multi-step Proactiv Solution, a noticeable departure from the spot-treatment-style acne products that cornered the market at the time. In the years since, their distinctive ads and celebrity endorsements (including top names like Katy Perry and Justin Bieber) have turned Rodan and Fields’ skincare line into a household name.

7. BUILD-A-BEAR

The idea to let kids make their own stuffed animals was apparently inspired by an unsuccessful shopping trip founder Maxine Clark went on with a friend’s young daughter. When the girl suggested they make their own stuffed animal at home, Clark ran with the idea and opened her first store—a “theme park factory in a mall”—in 1997 in St. Louis. Today there are more than 400 Build-A-Bear Workshops worldwide.

8. BET

Black Entertainment Television got its start in 1979 when Sheila Johnson used the money she was making teaching music lessons to help fund the fledgling cable network with her then-husband, Robert. The Johnsons (now divorced) have distanced themselves from today’s iteration of the channel since they sold the company to Viacom in 2001, but in the ’80s and ’90s, Sheila Johnson served as one of the original board members and the VP of Corporate Affairs. In 1991, BET became the first African American-controlled company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

9. LIQUID PAPER

When secretary and single mom Bette Nesmith Graham discovered white tempera paint and a thin paintbrush worked wonders for correcting typos, she worked on perfecting the solution, calling her product “Mistake Out.” Graham slowly started a side hustle after shifts at the bank by selling bottles, and in 1958 she decided to go into business for herself and changed the name to Liquid Paper. By 1968, the company was big enough for its own factory and offices, which Graham insisted include a childcare center and library.

10. THE BODY SHOP

Traveling the world taught Anita Roddick a lot about unique body care customs, and in 1976 she applied some of that knowledge to the products she offered at the first Body Shop she opened in Brighton, England. Roddick’s earth-and-animal-friendly mindset was ahead of its time: she’s sometimes credited with launching the concept of ethical consumerism. Today, you can find Body Shops and their iconic Body Butters in more than 60 countries.

11. RENT THE RUNWAY

Harvard Business School classmates Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss were inspired to apply a Netflix model to designer clothes and accessories after Hyman’s sister complained of needing to drop a fortune on a new dress she’d only wear once for a wedding. Rent the Runway launched in 2009, the perfect time to capitalize on a culture growing increasingly preoccupied with selfies and event photos—wearing the same special occasion outfit twice would no longer fly. Hyman and Fleiss’ high-tech interface and recently added Unlimited subscription have kept the company growing, and in 2016 Hyman and Fleiss’ novel concept broke $100 million in revenue.