Author: Erika Berlin

Betty White—who turns 95 years old today—is busier, sassier, spunkier, and better than ever. The beloved actress and comedian has appeared on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls, Hot In Cleveland, and on countless talk shows during her incredible 60-some years on television. Known for using language to masterful (and often surprising) effect, it’s only right that we pay proper tribute to some of her best wise words and one-liners.

1. ON THE ART OF A DIRTY JOKE.

“Well, I mean, if a joke or humor is bawdy, it’s got to be funny enough to warrant it. You can’t just have it bawdy or dirty just for the sake of being that—it’s got to be funny.”

—From a 2012 interview with The Huffington Post

2. ON HER REGRETS.

“I have no regrets at all. None. I consider myself to be the luckiest old broad on two feet.”

—From a 2013 interview with Guinness World Records

3. ON WHETHER SHE’S EVER MADE SOMEONE ANGRY. (SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE, RIGHT?)

“I have two ex-husbands.”

—From a 2012 interview with Momtastic

4. ON LIKING OLDER MEN.

“I’ve always liked older men. They’re just more attractive to me. Of course, at my age there aren’t that many left!”

—From a 2010 interview with Parade Magazine

5. ON HER CULINARY SKILLS.

“I’m not a big cook. I only go in the kitchen to feed my dog.”

—From a 2014 column in Bon Appetit

6. ON HER COLLEAGUES.

“I am still to this day star struck. I look out at this audience and I see so many famous faces, but what really boggles my mind is that I actually know many of you. And I’ve worked with quite a few … maybe had a couple … and you know who you are.”

—From her 2009 Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech

7. ON HANDLING GRIEF.

“There’s no formula. Keep busy with your work and your life. You can’t become a professional mourner. It doesn’t help you or others. Keep the person in your heart all the time. Replay the good times. Be grateful for the years you had.”

—From a 2011 interview with Time Goes By

8. ON STARRING IN A SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL FOR SNICKERS.

“Well I love Snickers and I thought, sure that’d be fun, why not? So I got over there early one morning and didn’t know I was going to be in the … ice cold muddy water, but all I had to do was just lie down in it. This poor stunt woman took the dive, she went in. And it was a great stunt that she did, and I got the laugh. Now, really, that’s unfair when that happens. She’s probably sticking pins in a little Betty White doll.”

—From a 2010 interview with Ellen DeGeneres

9. ON HER ACCOMPLISHMENTS OUTSIDE OF SHOW BUSINESS.

Happy #NationalPuppyDay! Today is all about celebrating puppies and encouraging adoption. pic.twitter.com/D27j889PUO

— Betty White (@BettyMWhite) March 23, 2015

“I’ve worked with the Morris Animal Foundation for over 50 years, I’ve worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for over 50 years. The Morris Animal Foundation is an animal health organization, and we fund humane studies into specific health problems—dogs, cats, horses and zoo and wildlife. And at one point, I said nobody was addressing pain in animals … I said, okay, I’ll start it. And so, bless their hearts, they sent out these brochures about anybody wanting to research that and study it. And now, there’s not a scientific study that Morris Animal Foundation funds—and they fund hundreds—that doesn’t have pain medication built into the research. And I think I’m happiest about that.”

—From a 2012 interview with Momtastic

10. ON HOW IT FEELS TO BE CALLED “LEGENDARY.”

“I just laugh. Have I got them fooled.”

—From a 2010 interview on CNN with Joy Behar

11. ON HOW SHE STAYS HEALTHY.

“I’m a health nut. My favorite food is hot dogs with French fries. And my exercise: I have a two-story house and a very bad memory, so I’m up and down those stairs.”

—From a 2012 interview with The New York Times.

12. ON THE VIRAL FACEBOOK PETITION THAT GOT HER TO HOST SNL.

“Well I didn’t know what Facebook was, that’s how dumb I was. And I had turned [hosting SNL] down about three times years and years ago, because I was so afraid it was so New York and I’m so west coast, I thought it’d be like a fish out of water. Which I probably was, but I was too dumb to know it!”

—From a 2010 interview on The View

13. ON CHIVALRY.

“If you’re walking with your lady on the sidewalk, I still like to see a man walking street-side, to protect the lady from traffic. I grew up with that, and I hate to see something like that get lost. I still like to see that a man opens the door. I like those touches of chivalry that are fast disappearing. If I sound old-fashioned, it’s because I’m as old as I am! But it’s just polite.”

—From a 2011 Q&A with The Chicago Tribune

14. ON HARRY HOUDINI.

“I not only knew Houdini, but we had a very lovely relationship … I really thought we had something going, and then the son of a gun disappeared.”

—Joking in a 2014 interview with Craig Ferguson (Note: She was 4 years old when Houdini died in 1926.)

15. ON PLASTIC SURGERY IN HOLLYWOOD.

“Gravity has taken over. So there’s not much I can do about it … My problem with [plastic surgery] is you’ll go to a women’s press conference or something like that, and old friends will come up and I kind of don’t recognize them. I recognize the voice, but I don’t—all of a sudden, there’s this whole new face that I don’t know who that is.”

—From a 2010 interview on CNN with Joy Behar

16. ON HER GOLDEN GIRLS CO-STAR BEA ARTHUR.

“Bea and I are the two almost reclusive, unsocial types … And Bea is very shy. I’m shy, but you’d never know it, and with Bea, she seems so strong, and she’s a bowl of Jell-O come show night.”

—From a 1986 interview with Barbara Walters

17. ON HER CAREER LONGEVITY.

“I had no idea that I would still be around at this point for one thing, but that I’d still be privileged enough to still be in this business. And it is such a privilege. And the bottom line I think to the television business is that unless you’re a real bad egg, it is such fun. It really is. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

—From her 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech at the Emmy Awards

It’s no surprise that candy delights kids and adults alike. We love sweets so much that the average American eats about 22 pounds of candy each year. Whether you’re looking to impress your friends or simply brush up on your candy trivia, check out these 50 sweet facts about your favorite candies.

1. The most popular Halloween candy varies by state, from Airheads in Alabama to candy corn in Wyoming. But Kit Kat, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Butterfinger are a few of the most consistently popular candies in all 50 states.

2. Harry Burnett Reese sold the Lizzie Bar and Johnny Bar, candy bars he named after his daughter and son, respectively. But his chocolate-covered peanut butter cup creation, which he named after himself and called Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, was his real hit.

3. Leo Hirschfield, the inventor of Tootsie Rolls, also invented Bromangelon, a gelatin dessert that was a precursor to Jell-O.

4. If you love drinking beer and eating candy, Oregon-based brewery Rogue Ales has the perfect candy bar in a bottle for you. The brewery’s candy-flavored beer—Hazelutely Choctabulous, a chocolate stout blended with hazelnut brown nectar—provides the perfect opportunity to drink your dessert.

5. If drinking alcoholic candy isn’t your thing, edible alcoholic candy is also an option. In Japan, adults can buy sake-flavored Kit Kats, which are enveloped in white chocolate and contain sake powder (0.8 percent alcohol). The Japanese can also snack on whiskey-flavored Pocky sticks, which are covered in chocolate and flavored with malt.

6. Historians aren’t sure exactly when candy canes were invented, but legend has it that the twisted sticks have been around since 1670, when a German choirmaster twisted regular sticks of candy to make them look like shepherds’ hooks.

7. Inspired by a malted milkshake that was popular in the early 1920s, Milky Way was meant to mimic the taste of the shake.

8. Lovers of white chocolate, beware! Because white chocolate doesn’t contain cocoa solids, it’s not real chocolate.

9. Toblerone customers are a passionate, vocal bunch. When the chocolate bar company decided to cut costs by reducing the weight of two of their bars sold in the UK, fans loudly expressed their disappointment and mocked the new bar’s fewer triangular chocolate peaks.

10. The two M’s in M&M’s stand for Mars and Murrie, the surnames of the two businessmen—Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie—who developed and financed the candy-coated chocolates.

11. Clarence Crane, the creator of Life Savers, made his candies round rather than square, which was the typical shape for most mints at the time, after visiting a pharmacy. Inspiration struck when he saw a machine making pills that were round and flat, and the rest is history.

12. According to researchers who built licking machines (yes, they’re a real thing), it takes anywhere from 364 to 411 licks to reach the center of a Tootsie Pop. Human lickers, on the other hand, averaged just 144 to 252 licks.

13. E.T.‘s iconic scene in which Elliott entices the alien with Reese’s Pieces almost didn’t happen. Steven Spielberg’s first two choices of candy were M&M’s and Hershey’s Kisses, but when the Hershey Company offered to pay $1 million to showcase their latest candy creation, Reese’s Pieces became E.T.’s favorite sweet.

14. If you’re not sure how to properly pair Halloween candy with wine, you’re in luck. Based on criteria including flavor, acidity, bitterness, and sweetness, wine experts recommend pairing Whoppers with Cabernet Sauvignon, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups with Sherry, and Hershey’s Kisses with Zinfandel.

15. M&M’s come in a lot more flavors than milk chocolate, peanut, and crispy. You can also snack on M&M’s in more esoteric flavors (some are limited-edition): pecan pie, peanut butter, pumpkin spice latte, pretzel, and white cheesecake.

16. Invented by an anti-smoking advocate, PEZ were originally marketed as mints to help smokers kick the habit. The candy’s slogan in the 1920s? “Smoking prohibited, PEZing allowed.”

17. Franklin Mars named the Snickers bar after his wife’s favorite racehorse.

18. It’s never too early in the a.m. to indulge your sweet tooth. Last year, Dunkin’ Donuts and Hershey joined forces to offer customers candy-flavored coffee, with Heath bar and Almond Joy flavor options.

19. According to the American Chemical Society, eating 262 fun-sized Halloween candy bars would poison a 180-pound person. But don’t worry about death by candy—you’d vomit before you’d be able to down 262 candy bars in one sitting.

20. The rivalry between fans of Twizzlers and Red Vines is fierce and deep-seated. Candy fans have heated online debates about which licorice product has a better taste, texture, and appearance.

21. If you’ve ever wondered what’s in the filling (between the layers of wafer) of a Kit Kat bar, here’s your answer: it’s not chocolate! It’s actually recycled Kit Kats. Technicians pull any imperfect Kit Kats—with off-center wafers or not enough shine, for example—and then grind them into a paste.

22. President Ronald Reagan loved eating Jelly Belly jelly beans so much that Air Force One was outfitted with special jelly bean holders, lest turbulence cause his beloved beans to spill.

23. Most candy canes are peppermint-flavored, but more adventurous fans can buy candy canes in wacky flavors including wasabi, bacon, coffee, pickles, and gravy.

24. In 2012, a chef in Illinois created the world’s largest candy cane, measuring 51 feet and containing a whopping 900 pounds of sugar.

25. During the Korean War, U.S. soldiers in the First Marine Division used the phrase “Tootsie Rolls” as a codename for mortar shells. But the real candy came in handy when the soldiers used chewed-up Tootsie Rolls to patch holes in their vehicles’ fuel lines.

26. In 2009, Butterfinger jumped on the energy drink bandwagon with Butterfinger Buzz, a candy bar containing 80 mg of caffeine (as much caffeine as a can of Red Bull). But due to low sales, the product was discontinued.

27. Until the ’90s, Snickers bars in the United Kingdom were called Marathon bars.

28. Junior Mints were named after Junior Miss, a Broadway play that ran from 1941 to 1943.

29. To appeal to kids, PEZ turned candy dispensers into toys. The first dispensers geared toward children were shaped like Santa Claus, a robot, and a space gun.

30. Every day, 64 million Tootsie Rolls are made, which means that over 44,440 Tootsie Rolls are created per minute!

31. Haribo, the candy company famous for its gummy bears, is a portmanteau. Creator Hans Riegel combined the first two letters of his first and last name with the first two letters of his hometown: Bonn, Germany.

32. Athletes can munch on Jelly Belly’s Sport Beans, a line of jelly beans containing carbohydrates, electrolytes, B vitamins, and Vitamin C. Who says you can’t eat candy while exercising?

33. The 1920s saw the release of The Vegetable Sandwich bar, a health-oriented candy bar that contained celery, tomatoes, cabbage, and peppers covered in chocolate. But with competition from Baby Ruth, Milky Way, and Milk Duds, it’s no surprise that the vegetable bar didn’t take off.

34. The design of Mary Jane candies—a yellow wrapper with a red stripe and drawing of a young girl—has stayed the same for over 100 years.

35. DOTS are vegan, gluten-free, and kosher.

36. Introduced in 1932, 3 Musketeers was so named because it featured chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla pieces of candy. But vanilla and strawberry (as well as sugar) were scarce during World War II, so 3 Musketeers ditched the vanilla and strawberry to focus on chocolate.

37. Sam Born, the man who founded Just Born candy company in 1923, originally made his fortune by inventing the Born Sucker Machine—a device that would insert sticks into lollipops.

38. It used to take 27 hours to make one Peep, but after automation, now it only takes six minutes. That means the Pennsylvanian factory can pump out 5.5 million Peeps a day!

39. North Dakotans in search of candy cigarettes between 1953 and 1967 were out of luck. The state banned the candy due to concerns that it would encourage kids to smoke real cigarettes.

40. Past PEZ flavors have included pineapple, coffee, cola, and even chlorophyll.

41. Customers in the United Kingdom can buy jars of Twix spread, a Nutella-like spreadable that contains chocolate, caramel, and crunchy pieces of biscuit.

42. The Goelitz Candy Company’s brand of candy corn, which they began producing in 1898, was called “chicken feed,” since real corn kernels were usually only fed to livestock.

43. Even though Twizzlers are known as a “licorice candy,” only the black licorice packages contain licorice extract. The standard strawberry ones are made with corn syrup, enriched wheat flour, and artificial flavoring.

44. If you love snacking on Everlasting Gobstoppers, Runts, and Laffy Taffy, you can partially thank Roald Dahl. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, the film based on his book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, was the impetus for Quaker Oats, who agreed to help finance the film, to launch a candy line (which later became The Willy Wonka Candy Company) to bring the imaginative candy creations to life.

45. Every eight hours, Mars’ New Jersey factory produces 2 billion M&M’s.

46. Researchers determined that the Kit Kat jingle—”Gimme a break, Gimme a break, Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar”—is one of the most common earworms. Our apologies that it’s now stuck in your head!

47. Since debuting in 1940, Mike and Ike candy has been made in almost 40 different flavors, from the original fruit mix (orange, cherry, lemon, and lime) to more unusual ones such as cotton candy and root beer float.

48. Salt-water taffy, which was invented in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1880s, was given that name because it was sold as souvenir candy at seaside towns, not because it’s particularly salty or watery.

49. After Curtiss Candy Company owner Otto Schnering achieved success with the Baby Ruth candy bar, he followed it up with Butterfinger, another smash hit.

50. Hershey, Pennsylvania, home to the world headquarters of the Hershey Chocolate Company, was named after a failed naming contest. In 1904, the newly created town hosted a contest to pick its new name, and the winner was “Hersheykoko.” The post office (and many locals, including founder Milton Hershey’s wife) rejected the the name, and they eventually went with the more straightforward “Hershey.”

All images via iStock.

Although most well known for its peas and corn, the Green Giant brand sells a variety of fresh, frozen, canned, bagged, and boxed vegetables (as well as hummus). Founded in 1903 as the Minnesota Valley Canning Company, the company changed its name in 1950 to Green Giant, though its recognizable mascot had been around much longer. Read on for 11 things you might not know about the veggie company.

1. THE COMPANY WAS AT THE FOREFRONT OF INDUSTRIAL CANNING.

In 1903, 14 merchants in Le Sueur, Minnesota joined forces to create the Minnesota Valley Canning Company. They started an industrial cannery, producing and selling 11,750 cases of white corn in their first year of business. In 1907, they started producing cans of Early June peas, and they continued to focus only on corn and peas until 1939 when they began also selling canned asparagus.

2. GREEN GIANT PEAS WERE NAMED AFTER A BIG PEA FROM ENGLAND.

Until 1925, the Minnesota Valley Canning Company only sold Early June peas, a variety of small, sweet peas. When a company executive found a large pea in England that was tender and tasted sweet, he brought it back to Minnesota. At the time, the company couldn’t legally trademark the name Green Giant to describe the peas, so they created a mascot named Green Giant and sold the new type of peas under that name.

3. THE ORIGINAL GREEN GIANT MASCOT WAS NEITHER JOLLY NOR GREEN…

The original Green Giant mascot was a white (not green) man holding a giant pea pod in his arms. Starting in 1928, he appeared in ads for the peas. The Green Giant’s original incarnation was reportedly influenced by illustrations from Grimms’ Fairy Tales, a collection of German fairy tales from the early 1800s.

4. …BUT HE BECAME THE GENTLE GIANT WE KNOW TODAY THANKS TO THE CREATOR OF TONY THE TIGER AND THE PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY.

The advertising company Leo Burnett, which created other well-known food mascots such as Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Doughboy, and Toucan Sam, softened the Green Giant’s appearance in 1935. The revised giant had a smile to match his new name, the Jolly Green Giant, and he wore a toga of green leaves. He also got a backstory—he watched over the Jolly Green Giant Valley, protecting the crops.

5. GREEN GIANT HAS CLOSE TIES WITH LE SUEUR VEGETABLES.

Green Giant and Le Sueur are different brands under the same company. Because the Minnesota Valley Canning Company was founded in Le Sueur, Minnesota, the company named its canned vegetables Le Sueur Z. They dropped the Z in 1933, but Le Sueur still sells cans of peas, asparagus, and carrots today.

6. LITTLE GREEN SPROUT HAS BEEN LEARNING FROM THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT SINCE THE EARLY 1970s.

Green Giant introduced another company mascot called Little Green Sprout in 1973. Aimed at children, the young green boy with leaves for hair joined the Jolly Green Giant in the valley, learning about veggies and keeping him company. Little Green Sprout’s youth is reinforced with his high-pitched voice, a stark contrast to the Jolly Green Giant’s booming “ho, ho, ho” tagline.

7. YOU CAN VISIT A TOWERING 55-FOOT STATUE OF THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT.

Tourists to Blue Earth, Minnesota will probably marvel at the sight of a 55-foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant. Paul Hedberg, a radio station owner, wanted to encourage visitors who were traveling on Interstate 90 to stop in Blue Earth, so he contacted Green Giant to ask if a statue could be erected. Green Giant gave the okay, and Hedberg raised money from local businesses. The fiberglass statue, which has been towering over the town since 1979, even gets a giant red scarf placed around his neck each winter.

8. GREEN GIANT HAS INNOVATED VEGETABLE MANUFACTURING METHODS.

Green Giant has a history of being on the cutting edge of research and development. In 1929, the company invented Green Giant Niblets by canning vacuum-packed sweet corn in a new way. In 1933, the company used gravity separators—machines that measured and separated peas during the manufacturing process. And in 1969, Green Giant was the first company to sell frozen corn on the cob and mushrooms in glass jars.

9. GREEN GIANT FREEZES THEIR VEGETABLES AFTER HARVESTING TO PRESERVE NUTRIENTS.

Studies have shown that freezing vegetables at their peak ripeness can preserve the nutrients, so you can get just as much benefit from eating frozen veggies as eating fresh ones. Green Giant’s sweet corn, for example, is frozen and packaged within 24 hours of being harvested, and then shipped to a grocery store near you.

10. GREEN GIANT SUPPORTS BULLY PREVENTION.

Green Giant has partnered with Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center to help kids who are bullied. With the “Nominate A Giant” program, Green Giant encourages people in the community to nominate kids and adults who stand up against bullies. “From being friendly in the halls to inviting others to sit with you at lunch, your nice gesture is what makes you a Giant,” the company writes, and they reported that more than 12,000 people nominated “giants” on their social media pages.

11. THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT HAS BECOME A POP CULTURE ICON.

People love the Green Giant’s combination of brawn and gentleness. In Blue Earth, Minnesota, people can visit the Green Giant Museum and get a kick out of seeing the giant green footsteps that are painted on the sidewalks each summer for the town’s Giant Days festival and parade. For those not in Minnesota, Green Giant vintage merchandise such as dolls, kites, shirts, hats, coffee cups, and posters are available for sale online.

The concrete jungle may be sprinkled with man-made parks and tree-lined streets, but the great outdoors? Not so much. Enter the Catskills, a mountainous region two hours north of Manhattan that boasts more than 6000 square miles of pristine, untouched nature. It’s the backdrop to Dirty Dancing, the nap site for Rip Van Winkle, and where more than 35 peaks rise above 3500 feet. As ski season kicks into high gear, we’ve compiled eight things you need to know about New York’s natural gem.

1. THERE ARE A LOT OF ANIMALS.

The Catskills are home to black bears, cougars, bobcats, coyotes, porcupines and (shudder) a variety of poisonous and non-poisonous snakes. Black bears can be found on nearly every mountain in the Catskills region, which has the highest black bear population in New York State. Cougars and bobcats have been spotted much less frequently.

And the snakes? Well, they’re just about everywhere. The majority of poisonous snakes are found in Ulster County, and there’s a particularly large population at the summit of Overlook Mountain.

2. IT HAS NORTH AMERICA’S LARGEST ZIP LINE …

Located at Hunter Mountain, New York Zipline has the largest zip line canopy tour in North America. Their zip lines reach up to 650 feet long and 60 feet above the forest floor, and visitors can even enjoy a night zipping under the stars with their moonlight tours.

3. … AND THE WORLD’S LARGEST KALEIDOSCOPE.

The brainchild of ’60s psychedelic artist Isaac Abrams and his son Raphael, a digital artist, the 60-foot-tall Kaatskill Kaleidoscope is the world’s largest, walk-through kaleidoscope. More than 20 people can fit inside the kaleidoscope—a former grain silo—for an energetic show of colors, music, and trippy images. As it goes with roadside stops, there are plenty of mini kaleidoscope souvenirs on your way out.

4. RIP VAN WINKLE SLEPT IT OFF HERE.

Washington Irving’s iconic story of Rip Van Winkle took place in the Catskills region. In the story, Van Winkle lived in the village of Catskill, which is where he took his notoriously long nap. Today, the legend of Rip Van Winkle continues to live on in the Catskills, with the Rip Van Winkle Wine and Cheese Festival in May, the Rip Van Winkle Golf Trail, and a statue of the beloved sleeper himself atop Hunter Mountain.

5. THE CATSKILL 3500 CLUB REQUIRES HIGH-PEAK CREDENTIALS.

The Catskills region has the perfect challenge for outdoor adventurers: the Catskill 3500 Club. Membership comes at a strenuous price—you have to climb all 35 of the Catskills’ peaks above 3500 feet—but the soreness and struggle come with some pretty immaculate views (and bragging rights).

6. MOUNTAIN STONE WAS USED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF BIG APPLE ICONS.

While the Catskills are 100-some miles from New York City, they’re a foundational part of some of the Big Apple’s most iconic landmarks. Bluestone, an extremely hard, durable, fine-grained sandstone, is found throughout the region and was used in the construction of the Empire State Building and the base of the Statue of Liberty.

7. NOBODY PUT BABY IN A CORNER IN THE CATSKILLS. (THINK FURTHER SOUTH.)

When it comes to stellar entertainment, the Catskills—a.k.a. the Borscht Belt—had a storied history for many decades before Dirty Dancing, released in 1987 and set in 1963, revived its reputation. But it turns out that infamous summer at Kellerman’s didn’t happen in the Catskills at all. The actual movie shoot took place more than 500 miles south, in Pembroke, Virginia. Nonetheless, the movie helped elevate the profile of this beautiful region once again.

8. IT’S HOME TO A VARIETY OF BREWERIES, WINERIES, AND DISTILLERIES.

It’s easy to imbibe in the Catskills with breweries like the Catskill Brewery, wineries like Windham Vineyards, and spirits crafters Catskill Distilling Company, which is located right across from the farm where the infamous 1969 Woodstock music festival was held (in Bethel, not Woodstock, despite the name). The Catskills get extra hoppy in April when the annual TAP NY beer fest—the largest craft beer festival in New York—takes place at Hunter Mountain.

Plenty of people love The Smiths, the 1980s English rock band (led by Morrissey) behind songs such as “This Charming Man,” “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” and “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want.” But in 1987, one teenage fan in Denver, Colorado took his love for the band too far. According to an urban legend, the 18-year-old supposedly drove to his local radio station and held the DJs hostage at gunpoint, forcing them to play songs by The Smiths on repeat.

The story makes the crazy antics of obsessed Beliebers look tame by comparison, but did it actually happen? Different accounts of the incident appeared in The Denver Post, Denver’s weekly newspaper; Westword; Details Magazine; a Morrissey biography; and inconsistent recollections from the radio station’s employees. In 2013, Westword got to the bottom of the urban legend, exploring the differing versions of the story and separating fact from fiction.

According to Westword, The Denver Post gave the first account of the incident. The brief report stated that a “last minute change of heart apparently averted the hijacking of a Lakewood radio station but left an Arvada teenage in jail Wednesday.” The write-up describes the wannabe hijacker as an 18-year-old—later identified as James Kiss—who said he was planning to take over the Top 40 radio station KRXY (Y-108). According to the police spokesman, Kiss surrendered his rifle to one of the station’s employees and asked the employee to call the police. The teen was then arrested in the station’s parking lot for attempted kidnapping and extortion.

The week after the incident, a column in Westword stated that Kiss, who was carrying a rifle, seven cassettes, and an album by The Smiths, was arrested after he entered the station. Seven years later, an April 1994 interview with Morrissey in Details Magazine referred to the incident, saying that Kiss held the radio station at gunpoint for four hours, “demanding that they play only Smiths’ songs.” Morrissey was surprised that the interviewer had even asked him about the incident because most people hadn’t heard about it. “’If it was any other artist, it would have been world news. But because it was poor old tatty Smiths it was of no consequence whatsoever,” he said.

A decade later, in the 2004 biography Saint Morrissey: A Portrait of This Charming Man by an Alarming Fan, writer Mark Simpson gave his own account of the event, writing that the radio station was coerced to play songs by The Smiths for four hours. Simpson added that almost none of the radio station’s listeners had heard of The Smiths, and the police surrounded the station until Kiss surrendered.

To figure out which version of the story is accurate, Westword interviewed former KRXY employees. A sales manager recalled seeing the young man’s single-shot, bolt-action 22 rifle, but another employee thought that Kiss may have not even had a weapon. The station’s production director told the police that as he walked to his car after work, a young man in a station wagon called him over, told him to tell the radio station employees to call the police, and pointed his rifle at him before handing it over.

“This is one of those legends that bloats with time,” said broadcaster Dom Testa. “It’s morphed from ‘detained in the parking lot’ to ‘held hostage for four hours at gunpoint.'” The police officer’s version of events corroborates Testa’s take; according to the police report, Kiss brought a Remington .22 caliber Apache 77 rifle, a cartridge with .22 caliber rounds, a pellet gun, a magazine clip, and several Smiths cassettes. He confessed that he planned to take hostages at the radio station, forcing the DJs to play The Smiths because the Top 40 station had tons of listeners and was, in his mind, shallow. Kiss was cooperative with police, telling them that he had come to the station before to act on his plan but hadn’t been able to work up the courage. The police report noted that Kiss had a button with Morrissey’s photo on it in his shirt pocket.

The police later found Kiss’s letters and poems, in which he expressed his despondency, explained his motives, and conveyed his hope that his parents would forgive him. “I don’t feel right here,” he wrote. “I feel as if I’m out of place. My spirit is lost and my body is pollution filled … I guess what I’m doing is a protest about life. The world’s dying and most don’t care … in a way the Smiths and Morrissey are one reason I’m doing this.”

The district attorney decided not to prosecute Kiss because he turned himself in and didn’t commit a crime. Despite his callow transgression, Kiss eventually went to college, overcame his depression, and now works helping young people. “I can see it when kids start to paint themselves into corners, and I try to get them to work their way out of that,” he told Westword in 2013. Explaining his depression—he had recently graduated from high school, couldn’t work due to a hip injury, and had no future plans—Kiss said that his thinking was clouded. “My intention was to throw my life away,” he said. Kiss also shared that he had decided not to go through with his plan because he realized that he didn’t want to hurt or scare the radio station employees.

The incident allegedly inspired the plot of the 1994 film Airheads, and it’s getting the big screen treatment in the near future. With Morrissey’s blessing, Joe Manganiello will produce and star in a movie called Shoplifters of the World. Based on the incident, the film will include songs by, of course, The Smiths.

“I’m a huge The Smiths fan,” Manganiello told Collider. “It’s just really great to be afforded the opportunity to go out and tell stories that I’m really excited and passionate about.”

Watching the ball drop in Times Square, raising a toast, and sealing the night with a smooch may be the most quintessentially American ways to celebrate, but around the world, revelers and party-goers give the traditional ball drop a run for its money. From shattering dishes to carefully choosing underwear for the night, here are 10 of the world’s most entertaining ways to ring in the New Year.

1. BRAZIL // UNDERWEAR ATTIRE

While some of us don our most shimmery dresses for the New Year’s party—or our comfiest pajamas to celebrate with a low-key night in—Brazilians take a much simpler, minimalistic approach to ringing in the New Year: The dress code is for all-white attire, but the color of your underwear is thought to determine your arena of luck in the new year. Want to find love? Pick the pink panties. Financial security may be attained by wearing yellow undergarments, and green is for good health.

2. DENMARK // SHATTERING DISHES

The Danish get a jump on cleaning out their cupboards by taking any chipped or unused crockery and shattering it against their friends’ and families’ doors to ring in the new year. The more plate pieces piled at your doorstep, the more popular your family … which may or may not make the next day’s hungover cleanup more manageable.

3. SPAIN // A MOUTH FULL OF GRAPES

The Spanish don’t just celebrate the New Year with drink in hand—they ring it in with a mouth full of grapes. If you can fit 12 grapes into your mouth at midnight, you’re believed to have great luck in the coming year.

4. SIBERIA // LAKE DIVING WITH A “NEW YEAR TREE”

A typical ball-and-gown party doesn’t cut it in Siberia; they’re all about the thrill—and chill. To celebrate the New Year, some revelers participate in the annual “jump into a frozen lake and plant a New Year’s Tree at the bottom” tradition—sort of like a more extreme Polar Plunge. The divers then pass the champagne and dance around the tree before coming back up to the surface. But even those who don’t do the full tree dive will go for their own frozen swim—there’s a reason all Russian bath houses have an icy cold pool! It’s practically a national pastime.

5. CHILE // CEMETERY SLEEPOVER

In the town of Talca, Chile, locals add extra spirit to New Year’s Eve by celebrating the holiday in a cemetery, surrounded by all of their deceased loved ones. Legend has it this tradition started with a little breaking and entering, but it’s now a welcomed celebration that draws locals in by the thousands.

6. ESTONIA // EATING SEVEN TIMES ON NEW YEAR’S DAY

Estonia knows how to kick off the New Year right. Instead of resolving to diet and exercise, they eat—a lot. Traditionally, Estonians believed that by eating seven times on New Year’s Day, they could ensure a well-fed, abundant year. While this tradition has changed slightly over the years—Estonians celebrate with alcohol as much as food these days—it’s a tradition party-goers around the world participate in without even realizing it. (Cough, Seamless binge, cough.)

7. THAILAND // WATER FIGHT

While the Thai New Year isn’t until April 13, their celebratory festival, called Songkran, is just too good to pass up: a water fight. Yes, a full-on water fight where major roads are blocked off and Thai locals—and, as you’d imagine, loads of visitors—use buckets, fire hoses, water guns, and even elephants to throw water at each other. Inner child, rejoice—and purchase Songkran plane tickets immediately.

8. ECUADOR // BURNING EFFIGIES

Ecuador literally lights up on New Year’s Eve. Locals make large, paper-filled effigies that can resemble anyone from beloved pop culture figures like Homer Simpson to maligned politicians, and they set them on fire when the clock strikes midnight. As the tale goes, this burning ritual lets Ecuadorians forget the past and focus on a good New Year.

9. AUSTRALIA // SYDNEY FIREWORKS DISPLAY

As one of the first countries to celebrate the New Year, Australians kick off the festivities with a major bang—to the tune of seven firework-filled barges. The annual 12-minute show—one of the world’s largest fireworks displays—dazzles more than 1 million spectators who gather along the waterfront, with the beautiful Sydney Opera House as its backdrop. They even host an earlier fireworks show, at 9 p.m., for any little Aussies whose bedtime is long before the main event.

10. SOUTH AFRICA // THROWING HOUSEHOLD ITEMS OUT THE WINDOW

To end things on a slightly absurd (and rather unsafe) note, we have Johannesburg, South Africa, where locals ring in the New Year by throwing old household items out the window—a quite literal “out with the old” type of symbolism. The tradition has gotten a bit out of hand in recent years, as residents in high-rise buildings have taken to tossing furniture, appliances, bottles and, well, just about anything out the windows. As you’d expect, this tradition comes with its set of annual injuries, but local government is doing its part to keep the New Year’s celebrations safe—even if it’s accompanied by the age-old warning, “Watch out below!”

All images via Getty.

New Year’s resolutions have a habit of being broken more than any other goals. This year, impress your friends and show yourself resolved to follow through with these 10 scientifically-proven ways to honor your commitments to self-improvement and healthy change.

1. TO FEEL MORE FULFILLED, VOLUNTEER.

People who volunteer as little as two hours each week report greater happiness, sense of purpose, and increased health. One study in Social Science and Medicine suggests that volunteering might contribute to happiness levels “by increasing empathic emotions, shifting aspirations” and helping people to re-evaluate their own life situations. Moreover, volunteering is protective in older adults against cognitive and physical decline.

2. TO INCREASE DISCIPLINE, REDUCE “ACTIVATION EFFORT.”

If this year you’re planning to learn a language or unpack that ukulele, you might want to take advantage of “happiness researcher” Shawn Achor’s “20 second rule.” The author of The Happiness Advantage discovered that just 20 extra seconds of “activation effort”—the energy it takes to get started—is enough to cause most people not to do an activity. He found that if he reduced the time it takes to do something new by 20 seconds, such as moving the guitar next to the couch instead of hiding it away in the closet, he was more likely to do it every day.

3. TO BE MORE CREATIVE, MAKE ART WHEN YOU’RE HAPPY.

Contrary to the popular notion that tortured artists make the best art, a recent study in the journal Nature found a link between increased creativity and positive emotion. Lead author Malinda McPherson found that “emotion has a huge effect on the way our brains can be creative,” she told The Atlantic. Her research with jazz musicians found that positive emotion was related to a “deeper state of creative flow.”

4. TO BE MORE PRODUCTIVE, TAKE MORE BREAKS.

If this is the year you aim to become more productive, the best thing you can do for yourself is to take more breaks. That’s right, do less to do more. A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that frequent, short breaks that begin as early as a couple of hours after you begin work are most effective at refreshing employees. Overwork leads to exhaustion and an increase in stress hormones, which can create cycles of burnout.

5. TO EXPERIENCE GREATER HAPPINESS, TRAVEL MORE.

Research shows we are happier when we spend our money on experiences and travel versus obtaining material things. Don’t forget the axiom, you can’t take it with you when you die… People’s greatest regrets at the end of their lives tend to be the things they did not do. And, another study in Psychological Science, in which participants were fed chocolates, found that we tend to focus most potently on the “last” of an experience, so end your vacations on a high note.

6. TO QUIT SMOKING, DON’T GO AT IT ALONE.

While there is an undeniable physical addiction to break with smoking, the National Institutes of Health has found that smoking cessation counseling programs and/or cognitive behavioral therapy are the most effective way to ensure you can quit. Of course, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), which may include weaning off cigarettes through nicotine gum, nasal sprays, patches, or lozenges, improves quit rates by as much as 50 to 70 percent over no NRT therapy, so the two methods together may give you mega quitting power.

7. TO LOSE WEIGHT, STOP FOCUSING ON WEIGHT.

Focusing on how much you weigh can defeat the process of trying to lose weight, according to an unlikely source: neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt, author of Why Diets Make Us Fat. She asserts that our brains control our body weight at a “set point” within 10-15 pounds, because the brain is hardwired for survival. The brain perceives diets as a threat to survival and increases stress hormones, which are also linked to increased weight gain. Aamodt says to concentrate on a slow and steady regime of regular exercise, good food choices, and stress reduction instead. But don’t rely upon exercise alone. Try mindful eating—pay careful attention to your feelings and attitudes about food and choose opportunities to give your body what it needs versus what it craves.

8. TO SAVE MORE MONEY, RESTRICT YOUR ACCESS.

When you make it harder to take out money, you save more. According to a study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, participants who committed to a restricted access savings account, versus a control group that did not, saved more money than the control. You can set up a savings account that penalizes you for taking out money over a certain dollar amount or more than a specified number of times per month. You could also take a set chunk of savings and invest it in a Certificate of Deposit (CD), which has a fixed investment period of usually several years, and a fixed interest rate, so you’re guaranteed not to lose any money.

9. TO FORM NEW HABITS, GIVE THEM MORE TIME TO STICK.

Pop-science has erroneously spread the belief that all it takes to forge a new habit is about one month of consistent activity. A British researcher found that, in fact, it’s closer to 66 days. Luckily, you can miss a day in there, so long as you lay out a plan in advance that sets out concrete actions you can take on a daily basis, and do not feel pressured to “perform.”

10. CHOOSE A RESOLUTION THAT DOESN’T REQUIRE WILLPOWER.

The secret to successfully following through on any of these resolutions is to start with those that don’t require willpower. A body of research has found that when people must exert extreme willpower, a function of the prefrontal cortex, it exhausts other functions such as mental endurance and the will to follow through. Willpower is a mental muscle that must be trained, so consider choosing a resolution that adds something to your life (such as joining a book club or making more homemade smoothies), rather than taking away (such as cutting out sugar or drinking all at once). Or, make strengthening your willpower your resolution.

There’s no rule that regulates how animals obtain the necessary genetic material to reproduce—and as a result, there is a lot of weird animal sex going on out there.

1. BANANA SLUGS MATE USING PENISES ON THEIR HEADS.

Banana slugs are huge, they eat your garden, and they leave a slimy trail as they squirm across the ground. Their method of reproduction is no more pleasant than their appearance: The scientific name for one species of banana slug is Ariolimax dolichophallus, the second part of which means “long penis,” and it’s apt. The invertebrates’ penises can be 6 to 8 inches long—the entire length of the slug’s body. When it’s time to get down, the penises grow out of pores in the head. It isn’t unusual for the penis of one slug to get stuck inside the other during copulation; to solve this uncomfortable situation, the slug on the receiving end will eat the penis that’s stuck inside it.

2. MOUSE SPERM IS BIGGER THAN ELEPHANT SPERM.

Sorry, dudes: The size and shape of a male animal’s sperm is more related to the biology and mating practices of the female—which is why mouse sperm is longer than the sperm of the biggest land animal on Earth, the elephant.

Two major factors in sperm size include the literal length and size of the female reproductive tract and how many mating partners the females have. Mice produce big sperm because, in most species, females have a lot of partners. The grouping of sperm can help to increase its competitiveness in promiscuous animals. Accordingly, the deer mouse has sperm equipped with small hooks that helps them clump together in groups of up to 35 sperm to fight their way to the egg. Grouping sperm allows the cluster to swim in a straighter line to the egg; the ideal number is seven. Too many spermatozoa will eventually start working against each other. Meanwhile, female elephants have a very long reproductive tract (more on that below), so male elephants have evolved to produce more but smaller sperm to combat the risk of dilution. To follow the reproductive strategy of mice sperm, elephant sperm would need to be scaled up enormously to make a difference. 

3. ELEPHANT PENISES ARE PREHENSILE.

Speaking of elephants: The elephant penis is so huge that males can rest on it like it’s a leg. When erect, it can weigh in at 66 pounds and can be more than 3 feet long. It’s also prehensile, which means that an elephant can move it around and even use it to scratch hard to reach places. As we mentioned, female elephants have long reproductive tracts—nearly 10 feet from start to finish—and the vagina doesn’t begin until about 4.27 feet in, so the elephant penis doesn’t enter the vagina.

4. BEE SPERM WAGES WAR.

Male honey bee drones are infamous for extreme breeding. These bees have an internal penis—a.k.a. an endophallus—which, during copulation, is turned inside out and inserted into the queen. As he ejaculates, the drone falls back, breaking off his genitalia inside the queen and dying in the process. In theory, this sacrifice would lock his sperm inside and block out any competitors’, ensuring that his genes were passed on. But unfortunately that’s not what happens. As Social Insects: An Evolutionary Approach to Castes and Reproduction explains, “The next [drone] to copulate removes the mating sign [the endophallus plug] of his predecessor with the hairy ventral part of his own endophallus before he is able to insert its bulb and ejaculate the semen.” The next drone will do the same, and on and on. Of the 90 million sperm that end up in the queen’s oviducts, only 7 million make it to a pouch called the spermatheca. She uses that sperm over the course of her life to fertilize eggs.

That is just the start of the story when it comes to bee sex. In species where multiple males mate with the queen, the sperm wage war with each other inside of her. (This happens in some species of ants, too.) When males get a little too violent, queens from some species will give off chemicals to calm everyone down.

5. ONE AUSTRALIAN MARSUPIAL HAS SEX UNTIL IT DIES.

The Antechinus is a mouse-like marsupial that eats insects, nests in trees, and has so much sex that it literally dies. By the time they hit 11 months old, males of this species have produced all the sperm they’ll create in their short lifetimes; for the next couple of weeks, they’ll go at it for up to 14 hours at a time with one female before moving on to another, over and over again, until their bodies break down. The male’s fur will fall out; he’ll bleed internally; he’ll get gangrene and any number of other infections, ultimately dying before he reaches one year. But he’s chasing tail up until the end: As Diana Fisher from the University of Queensland told National Geographic, “By the end of the mating season, physically disintegrating males may run around frantically searching for last mating opportunities. By that time, females are, not surprisingly, avoiding them.” The ladies are a little luckier, at least if they’re of larger Antechinus species: Between 30 and 50 percent of them will live to produce two litters.

6. NAKED MOLE RATS HAVE DEFORMED SPERM.

The wrinkly, nearly blind naked mole rat is a successful breeder despite how inept its sperm is at being sperm. Small, malformed—many have multiple heads or are shaped oddly—and deficient in the mitochondria that most mammal sperm rely on for energy, just 15 percent, max, of the naked mole rat’s sperm can swim; only 1 percent can move quickly. The animals don’t produce that much sperm, either. These weird quirks may be due to the fact that the queen mates with only one male, so speedy, normal sperm isn’t necessary to guarantee the continuation of the species.

7. FEMALE NEOTROGLA PENETRATE THE MALES.

Neotrogla, a fly-like insect that lives in a cave in Brazil, is the first-ever species found that has “opposite” genitalia. The females are equipped with spiny, penis-like genitalia called gynosomes, which they use to penetrate the male; then, the insects get it on for up to 70 hours as the male transfers sperm and nutrients to the female. If the two are separated during copulation, the male’s insides will be ripped out while the female remains intact.

8. MONOGAMY MAKES FOR SMALL GORILLA PENISES.

You’d never know it by looking at them, but male gorillas have surprisingly tiny penises: They measure just 1.5 inches in length when erect. How can an animal that weighs up to 485 pounds be so humbly endowed? It’s because primate mating practices are a huge factor in the evolution of the males’ genitalia. When males have to compete among other males—as the sexually promiscuous bonobos do—the species’ penis size is bigger. In gorilla society, male silverbacks mate with many females who are all monogamous to him. No reproductive competition equals a tiny penis. 

Recess and playtime these days is tame compared to what kids got up to over a century ago. You can bet that boys playing these brutish games—which came from the pages of Games and Sports for Young Boys (1859) and Thomas Sheppard Meek’s Young People’s Library of Entertainment and Amusement (1903)—probably suffered skinned knees and worse. You won’t want to try any of these at home.

1. JINGLING

The first key element in this game was a pen—either one made with twine and stakes or the kind used for livestock. The second was The Jingler. This boy with a bell tied around his neck would have his hands bound behind him, and his object was to avoid capture by other, blindfolded boys careening around the pen. A clever and nimble Jingler could manipulate and mislead the other boys into smashing into each other and the pen walls (or trip wires, if they went the DIY pen route) and might even incite a brawl between two boys who each mistakenly thought they had caught the Jingler. The winner is the boy who takes the Jingler down. (There’s no tag here—one boy literally takes the other down.) The Jingler himself wins if he eludes his blind hunters for the requisite amount of time.

2. SLING THE MONKEY

Billed by Meek as one of several “healthful outdoor games to develop the body,” Sling the Monkey involved turning a boy into a human piñata—albeit one that could hit back. The boy was tied to a sturdy tree branch with a rope around his waist, his feet just touching the ground. Once he was in place, his friends, armed with knotted handkerchiefs, would begin “basting” (joyously beating) the Sling Monkey. “With players who don’t mind a little buffeting this game becomes exceeding lively,” Meek wrote. “[A]n active monkey is very difficult to approach with safety and, of course, gives much more life to the game.” If the Sling Monkey, who was also armed with a knotted cloth, managed to smack any one of them in return, he was let down from the tree. With the motivating sting of his wounded flesh and pride, he would then galvanize the tiny mob to return to beating the child who had taken his place.

3. AERIAL ARCHERY

Kids who played this game first had to obtain, or make, a bow and arrow or crossbow. (This wasn’t difficult: Nearly all books written on children’s crafts before 1950 gave detailed instructions on how to make homemade projectile weapons.) Next, the kids erected a 90-foot-tall pole crossed with Christmas-tree style beams at the very top. Into these beams were “deftly stuck” feathers. The goal was to knock the feathers off by standing under them and shooting arrows at them—not a simple task. The arrows, according to Meek, should not “[terminate] in a point in the ordinary manner” but instead “have at the end a piece of horn shaped like a bullet”; he recommended that the person in the position of arrow-gatherer be given “an immense wicker hat” that would protect him from the rain of arrows coming down on his person.

4. THE NEW CUDGEL GAME

According to Meek, this game—which involved boys trying to smash each other in the head—”is causing a great deal of amusement at social gatherings in Europe.” Here’s how it worked: Two boys were blindfolded and “in the right hand of each [was] placed a stout roll of paper in the form of a club or cudgel.” Next, they laid on the ground and clasped left hands. One player would call, “Are you there?” When the other answered, “Yes,” the first boy struck out in the direction of the sound with his club, aiming “to hit the spot where, from the sound of the voice, he supposes the other’s head to be.” But since the one to be clubbed is allowed to move his head, “nine times out of ten” his opponent only succeeded in hitting his shoulders, neck, arms, and chest.

5. DRAWING THE OVEN

In centuries past, to “draw an oven” was to pull its contents out, whether it be bread or pottery. In this game, the bread was very stubborn and fought back. Basically, it was a game of tug-of-war where the rope was not a rope but a series of human boys. A line of boys sat on the ground, each boy clasping his arms around the waist of the boy in front of him. When it was time to play, two other boys grabbed the arms of the first boy and, according to Games and Sport for Young Boys, “[pulled] away vigorously.” The boys on the ground, meanwhile, countered by pulling backward on the front boy’s waist.

Once the front boy was disengaged from his line, the two yankers proceeded to the next little loaf “and so continuing ‘drawing the oven’ until they have drawn all the players from the ground.” There aren’t really winners and losers in this game; apparently it was enough fun to keep pulling boys like so much taffy until enough bruises were distributed.

6. JUMP LITTLE NAG TAIL

This game was composed to two evenly matched teams of either six or eight players. The team that lost the toss lined up, with the first boy facing a wall with his hands on it; each of his teammates then bent and rested his head on the rump in front of him, clinging to what the 1859 text described as the previous boy’s “skirts.” “When thus arranged,” the text noted, “they are called ‘nags.'”

Once the nags were in place, the teams began a harsh version of the game of leap frog. The best jumper of the opposing team ran at the nags, yelling “Warning!” and leaping as far as possible on the back of a boy—hopefully, the one closets to the boy with this hands on the wall. His whole team followed until they were all astride the backs of the nags.

The goal was to break the boy under you, fairly literally: If any boy could keep from crumpling under the weight of the jumper sitting on him for the time it took to chant, “Jump little nag tail one two three” three times followed by “Off off off!” the nag team lost and had to start again. If the jumpers fell off, however, or if there were not enough nag backs for them to sit on, then they became the nags.

7. BASTE THE BEAR

The cruel practice of bear baiting got a strange twist in this game, which replaced the bear with a child. According to Games and Sport for Young Boys, “[The bear] kneels on the ground in a circle … Each Bear may select his own master, whose office it is to hold him by a rope, and use his utmost efforts to touch one of the other players, as they try to thrash the Bear.” Instead of unleashing dogs on the “bear,” he is simply beaten with knotted handkerchiefs that are twisted “very tightly.” The Master must tag one of the bear beaters without letting go of the Bear’s rope or stepping out of the circle. If he succeeds, the tagged boy becomes the bear, and the young men continue their healthy outlet for pent up frustration.

Over the years, lots of amazing things have happened on December 25. The birth of Jesus Christ, however, was not one of them. J.C.’s arrival—the precise timing of which remains unknown—wasn’t pegged to 12/25 until 336 CE. While it’s certainly come to dominate its calendar square, Christmas isn’t the only reason to celebrate the date. What follows are 25 other incidents and milestones that make December 25 a day worth commemorating with silly songs and colored lights.

1. 597 // THE JULIAN CALENDAR REINTRODUCED TO ENGLAND.

Originally taking effect in 45 BCE and traditionally considered reintroduced to England in 597, it took a little over 200 years for England to fully commit to Julius Caesar’s preferred means of measuring time (and they were nearly another 200 years behind the rest of Europe in switching over to the Gregorian calendar in the 1750s). At least Caesar’s hairstyle, on the other hand, never goes out of style.

2. 800 // CHARLEMAGNE CROWNED HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR.

In his role, the man also known as Charles the Great and “the father of Europe” helped to foster the Carolingian Renaissance—a glorious explosion of culture and intellect nobody has ever heard of.

3. 1492 // CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS’S SANTA MARIA SINKS ON HISPANOLA.

Ol’ Chris turned lemons to lemonade, using timber from the ship to build a fort near the modern Haitian town of Limonade.

4. 1741 // ASTRONOMER ANDERS CELSIUS INTRODUCES THE CENTIGRADE SCALE.

Some 270 years later, Americans still don’t know what the hell those numbers mean.

5. 1758 // RETURN OF HALLEY’S COMET FIRST SIGHTED.

German farmer and amateur astronomer Johann Georg Palitzsch spotted the fireball, confirming Edmond Halley’s theory of 76-year cycles. Before that, everyone had figured it was driven by willy-nilly by demons or elves or something.

6. 1776 // GEORGE WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE RIVER AND DEFEATS 1400 HESSIANS.

He kept telling his men what a righteous painting it would make one day.

7. 1809 // PHYSICIAN EPHRAIM MCDOWELL PERFORMS THE FIRST ABDOMINAL SURGERY IN THE U.S.

He removed a 22 pound ovarian tumor, but the hardest part was probably getting insurance approval.

8. 1843 // FIRST-EVER THEATER MATINEE PRESENTED AT THE OLYMPIC IN NYC.

This would’ve been a good day to get on the waitlist for Hamilton tickets.

9. 1868 // PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON GRANTS UNCONDITIONAL PARDON TO CONFEDERATE VETERANS OF THE CIVIL WAR.

And then, a few days later, he celebrated his 60th birthday by throwing a party for 300 of his grandchildren’s closest friends.

10. 1873 // THOMAS EDISON MARRIES HIS FIRST WIFE.

Mary Stillwell was just 16 when she wed the inventor, who apparently neglected his family in favor of his work. Unless you live in a house without light bulbs, don’t judge.

11. 1896 // JOHN PHILIP SOUSA COMPOSES “STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER.”

The magnum opus of the “March King” was declared the official march of the United States in 1987.

12. 1930 // THE MT. VAN HOEVENBERG BOBSLED RUN AT LAKE PLACID, NEW YORK, OPENS TO THE PUBLIC.

America’s first bobsled track built to international standards is on the National Register of Historic Places. Sadly, the gift shop doesn’t sell “I’m a Luger, Baby” T-shirts.

13. 1931 // THE METROPOLITAN OPERA BROADCASTS ITS FIRST FULL OPERA OVER THE RADIO.

The show was Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, and a critic/color commentator talked through most of it.

14. 1946 // JIMMY BUFFETT WAS BORN IN PASCAGOULA, MISSISSIPPI.

He was promptly swaddled in Hawaiian shirts, baptized in tequila, and worshipped by future yuppies in the nursery.

15. 1959 // RINGO STARR GETS HIS FIRST DRUM KIT.

If Pete Best ever gets a time machine, he’s making sure Richard Starkey gets a tuba instead.

16. 1962 // THE FILM VERSION OF TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD IS RELEASED.

The trial portion of the film takes up twice as much time as in the book because star Gregory Peck demanded more screen time.

17. 1967 // PAUL MCCARTNEY AND JANE ASHER ANNOUNCE THEIR ENGAGEMENT.

The pair never wed, but Asher can say she inspired such Beatles classics as “And I Love Her” and “Here, There and Everywhere.” Plus, she avoided being in Wings.

18. 1968 // APOLLO 8 FINISHED ITS SUCCESSFUL MOON ORBIT.

Nothing terrible happened, which is why you’ve never seen a movie about it.

19. 1977 // CHARLIE CHAPLIN DIES.

Thanks to his iconic “Tramp” character, the silent film star remains a hero to well-meaning bumblers with funny mustaches.

20. 1985 // LONGEST-EVER BATTERY-POWERED CAR TRIP ENDS.

Two blokes in a Freight Rover Leyland Sherpa drove Great Britain from bottom (Land’s End) to top (John o’ Groat’s, Scotland) in four days, likely singing Wham! all the way.

21. 1989 // SCIENTISTS IN JAPAN ACHIEVE -271.8 DEGREES C, THE COLDEST TEMPERATURE EVER RECORDED.

This was a full 10 degrees colder than a brass toilet seat in the Yukon.

22. 1991 // GORBACHEV RESIGNS AS PRESIDENT OF THE USSR.

Six years later, he starred in a Pizza Hut commercial.

23. 1997 // JERRY SEINFELD ANNOUNCES HIS NAMESAKE SITCOM WILL END IN THE SPRING.

Seinfeld taught us we’re all terrible people living meaningless lives. We miss it still.

24. 2002 // KATIE HNIDA BECOMES THE FIRST WOMAN TO PLAY IN A DIVISION I COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME.

The New Mexico University placekicker attempted an extra point against UCLA in the Las Vegas Bowl, but it was blocked. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.

25. 2006 // JAMES BROWN DIES

The “hardest working man in showbiz” finally got a break.

All images via Getty.