Author: Erika Berlin

When it comes to cooking a juicy, flavorful turkey, America’s chefs aren’t afraid to fly in the face of tradition. Here are a few of their top suggestions worth trying this holiday season.

1. BUY A FRESH TURKEY.

Most home cooks opt for a frozen turkey, but chefs like Sara Moulton recommend buying fresh. The reason: Muscle cells damaged by ice crystals lose fluid while the turkey thaws and roasts, making it easier to end up with a dried out bird. For those who stick with a frozen turkey, make sure to properly thaw the bird—one day in the fridge for every 4-5 pounds.

2. BUY SMALL.

Idealizing the big, fat Thanksgiving turkey is a mistake, according to numerous chefs. Large birds take more time to cook, which can dry out the meat. Wolfgang Puck recently told Lifescript he won’t cook a bird larger than 15 pounds, while Travis Lett, head chef at Gjusta in Los Angeles, recommends going even smaller and cooking two or three 8-pound birds.

3. BRINE THAT BIRD.

Brining a turkey adds flavor, and it allows salt and sugar to seep deep into the meat, helping it retain moisture as the bird cooks. You can opt for a basic brine like the one chef Chris Shepherd recommends, which calls for one cup sugar, one cup salt, five gallons of water, and a three-day soak. Or, try something less traditional, like Michael Solomonov’s Mediterranean brine, which includes allspice, black cardamom, and dill seed. One challenge is finding a container big enough to hold a bird and all the liquid. Chef Stephanie Izard of Chicago’s Girl and the Goat recommends using a Styrofoam cooler.

4. OR, TRY A DRY BRINE.

If the thought of dunking a turkey in five gallons of seasoned water doesn’t appeal to you, a dry brine could be the ticket. It’s essentially a meat rub that you spread over the bird and under the skin. Salt should be the base ingredient, and to that you can add dried herbs, pepper, citrus and other seasonings. Judy Rogers, chef at San Francisco’s Zuni Café, offers this dry rub recipe with apples, rosemary, and sage. In addition to a shorter prep time, chefs say a dry brine makes for crispier skin and a nice, moist interior.

5. BRING THE TURKEY TO ROOM TEMPERATURE.

Don’t move your bird straight from the fridge to the oven. Let it sit out for two to three hours first. Doing this, according to Aaron London of Al’s Place in San Francisco, lets the bones adjust to room temperature so that when roasted, it “allows the bones to hold heat like little cinder blocks, cooking the turkey from the inside out.”

6. CUT UP THE TURKEY BEFORE COOKING.

This might sound like sacrilege to traditional cooks and turkey lovers. But chefs insist it’s the only way to cook a full-size bird through and through without drying out the meat. Chef Marc Murphy, owner of Landmarc restaurants in New York, told the Times he roasts the breast and the legs separately, while chef R.B. Quinn prefers to cut his turkeys in half before cooking them. Bobby Flay, meanwhile, strikes a balance: “I roast the meat until the breasts are done, and then cut off the legs and thighs. The breasts can rest, and you can cook off the legs in the drippings left in the pan.”

7. COOK THE STUFFING ON THE SIDE.

Many chefs these days advise against cooking stuffing inside the turkey. The reason? Salmonella. “With the stuffing being in the middle, a lot of blood drips into it and if everything in the middle doesn’t come to temperature then you’re at risk,” Chef Charles Gullo told the Chicago Tribune. TV host Alton Brown echoed this advice, and writes that it’s very difficult to bring the stuffing to a safe 165 degrees without overcooking the bird.

8. BUTTER IT UP.

No matter if you’ve chosen a dry brine, a wet brine, or no brine at all, turkeys need a helping of butter spread around the outside and under the skin. Thomas Keller, founder of The French Laundry, recommends using clarified butter. “It helps the skin turn extra-crispy without getting scorched,” he recently told Epicurious.

9. USE TWO THERMOMETERS.

A quality meat thermometer is a must, chefs say. When you use it, make sure to take the temperature in more than one spot on the bird, checking to see that it’s cooked to at least 165 degrees through and through. Also, says Diane Morgan, author of The New Thanksgiving Table, you should know the temperature of your oven, as a few degrees can make the difference between a well-cooked bird and one that’s over- or under-done.

10. TURN UP THE HEAT.

If you’ve properly brined your meat, you don’t need to worry about high heat sucking the moisture out, chefs say. Keller likes to cook his turkey at a consistent 450 degrees. This allows the bird to cook quickly, and creates a crisp shell of reddish-brown skin. Ruth Reichl, the famed magazine editor and author, seconds this method, but warns that your oven needs to be squeaky clean, otherwise leftover particles could smoke up.

11. BASTE—BUT DON’T OVERDO IT.

Spreading juices over top the turkey would seem to add moisture, no? Not necessarily. According to chef Marc Vogel, basting breaks the caramelized coating that holds moisture in. The more you do it, the more time moisture has to seep out of the turkey. Also, opening the oven releases its heat, and requires several minutes to stabilize afterward. It’s not really an either/or prospect, chefs agree. Best to aim somewhere in the middle: Baste every 30 minutes while roasting.

12. LET IT REST.

Allowing a turkey to rest after it’s cooked lets the juices redistribute throughout the meat. Most chefs recommend at least 30 minutes’ rest time. Famed chef and TV personality Gordon Ramsey lets his turkey rest for a couple hours. “It may seem like a long time, but the texture will be improved the longer you leave the turkey to rest,” Ramsey told British lifestyle site Good to Know. “Piping hot gravy will restore the heat.”

All images via iStock.

Raising children is confusing and stressful, which is why new parents rely on traditional wisdom and the experiences of others to help guide their decisions. But what one person considers traditional knowledge, another may interpret as bizarre or irrational. In psychology, this phenomenon is called magical thinking. Or, more commonly—superstitions.

When it comes to children, superstitions arise out of a need to exert control over the randomness of life and the difficulty of parenting. Parents act on superstitions to protect their offspring from the dangerous, unpredictable outside world. But how real or superstitious a certain custom seems depends on personal belief. Distinct cultural lenses are necessary to focus the blurry line between superstition and age-old wisdom, as is the knowledge that many of these traditions were born in times of high infant mortality and provided much-needed comfort. Read on to learn about some of the most unique ways parents around the world use superstitions.

1. SUMO WRESTLERS AND CRYING INFANTS // JAPAN

For 400 years, bringing babies to tears at the hands of sumo wrestlers has been a tradition carried out during Tokyo’s annual Nakizumo Festival. During the event, two sumo wrestlers stand in a ring while trying to make the baby they each hold cry. If the babies don’t cry, a referee will don a terrifying mask to help bring the babies to tears. There is a saying in Japan that says “Naku ko wa sodatsu,” which translates to “crying babies grow fastest.” The proverb harkens back to a traditional belief that a baby’s cry can ward off demons and promote the healthy growth of the child.

2. FLYING INFANTS // INDIA

In a few remote villages in the eastern Indian provinces of Maharashtra and Karnataka, a reportedly 700-year-old superstition continues to draw the ire of outsiders. Babies under the age of 2 (although some reports claim most of the infants are less than 2 months old) are dropped from the top of Muslim mosques and Hindu temples. The infants are dropped on their backs from dizzying heights upwards of 50 feet and caught by a group of men who break the fall with a blanket. Though widely condemned (and although most Indians don’t even know the custom exists) and illegal under Indian law, some villagers gather to watch the (extremely uncommon) event and participating parents believe that it will bring their children good health, strength, and long life.

3. POST-BIRTH NAMING CEREMONY // EGYPT

Seven days after a baby is born, Egyptian families hold a gathering called the Sebou, which is like a post-birth baby shower. The Sebou is a rite of passage and the first ceremonial acknowledgment of a newborn; to celebrate a birth before the seven days is considered bad luck. Traditional Sebous involve scaring the baby with loud noises, like banging a mortar and pestle, to teach courage. At some ceremonies, the baby is placed on a sieve with a knife on their chest to keep away evil while the mother hops back and forth seven times over her newborn. Guests sprinkle salt around the home and on the mother to guard against the evil eye. After that, guests place grains and gold around the baby; other common gifts include religious verses written on prayer rolls and turquoise stones for luck.

4. DEVIL JUMPING // CASTRILLO DE MURCIA, SPAIN

The devil comes to the streets of Castrillo de Murcia, Spain each June to steal original sin from infants. During the celebration a man playing the character of el Colacho parades around the streets dressed in the garb of the devil. At the end of the multi-day festival, parents lay their babies down on mattresses in the street, and as el Colacho flees the town, he jumps over the hordes of infants. When he leaps over the babies, it is believed the devil soaks in the sin babies were born with and takes it with him. Catholics believe that all humans are born with sin, and this ceremony protects infants from their inherent wickedness.

5. STAY OFF THE GROUND // BALI, INDONESIA

On the largely Hindu island of Bali, after a child is born the placenta is buried in a special location and the cord cutting is delayed. But just as importantly, babies aren’t allowed to touch the ground. After 105 days have passed, families celebrate by throwing Penyambutan, when the baby’s feet get to touch soil for the first time, and it is during this celebration that the baby is given a name. A priest comes to the celebration where he blesses the family and the baby and helps as the family gives offerings to various Hindu gods.

6. CALLING BABIES UGLY // VARIOUS LOCATIONS

Westerners love to ooh and aah over babies, but in other places, admirers are purposely less enthusiastic. In Bulgaria it is believed that if a child is praised the devil will become jealous, so adults (generally) pretend to spit on babies while saying things like “May the chickens poop on you.” In other cultures, including in Greece, Romania, and India, it is customary to spit on or near a baby that has been complimented to ward off the evil eye. In Vietnam, there is a superstition that calling a baby “cute” will make the baby turn ugly. Among families who want to keep away evil spirits, they will affectionately coo, “You’re such an ugly baby.” Variations on this belief include Thailand, where ghosts will steal sweet-looking babies, and China, where superstitions say that praising a newborn will bring on evil spirits.

7. NEONATAL BABY TEETH // VARIOUS LOCATIONS

Not all superstitions are actions that people carry out; some are based on biological functions that no one can control. Natal and neonatal teeth are baby teeth that appear either in the womb or in the first month after birth. They have long been associated with superstitions around the world. Malaysian families have associated them with good luck. Nearby in China, the opposite is believed, with some communities going as far as considering babies with them monsters and demanding the removal of the teeth. There have been multiple accounts of isolated villages in parts of Africa where infants with neonatal or natal teeth have been killed or abandoned. In parts of Europe, it was believed babies with these early teeth would become great leaders—or potentially a vampire. And of course, the superstitions around losing baby teeth later on are just as old and widespread.

Chances are you know someone whose life has been touched by adoption. Each year, about 135,000 children are adopted by families in the U.S. In honor of World Adoption Day and National Adoption Day both taking place this week, here are 12 people who grew up to become famous figures after finding their permanent homes.

1. GERALD FORD

The 38th President of the United States was born in 1913 and named Leslie Lynch King Jr. after his biological father, but his parents separated soon after his birth. His mother remarried when her son was 2, and legally changed his name to reflect that of his new father: Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. He was adopted and was a preteen when he found out Ford Sr. wasn’t his birth father. “It didn’t make a big impression on me at the time,” Ford once said. “I didn’t understand exactly what a stepfather was. Dad and I had the closest, most intimate relationship. We acted alike. We had the same interests. I thought we looked alike.” He finally met his biological father, who came looking for him when he was in high school, but felt that his true bond was with his stepfather, the only father he actually knew.

2. STEVE JOBS

The Apple visionary was born in 1955 to an unmarried couple from the Midwest. His biological mother’s family didn’t approve of their relationship (his biological father was a Syrian Muslim immigrant), so she moved to San Francisco, had her baby in secret, and put him up for adoption. Paul and Clara Jobs adopted Steve, but only after they signed a pledge that his birth mother insisted on—that the child would attend college. Jobs never met his biological father, and he frequently corrected anyone who didn’t refer to Paul and Clara as his “real parents.” “They were my real parents,” he said. “1000 percent.”

3. SARAH MCLACHLAN

When Sarah McLachlan—the Canadian singer famous for her hit songs like “Angel” and founding Lilith Fair—was about 9 years old, she was told that she’d been adopted shortly after she was born. She’s said it never bothered her because she loved her parents and was too young to fully understand. Her birth mother was a 19-year-old artist in Nova Scotia who would have struggled to raise her child, and though McLachlan did eventually meet her, she’s said she is glad that they both had the opportunity to go on and live their dreams.

4. DARRYL MCDANIELS

One of the founding members of hip hop group Run–D.M.C., Darryl McDaniels was adopted as a baby—but he didn’t find out until he was 35. While writing his autobiography, he called his parents to ask them for details about the day he was born. They revealed to him that they had adopted him when he was just 1 month old. (His wife had always teased him that he didn’t look like anyone in his family, and suddenly they knew why.) The revelation deeply affected him; he had already struggled with some depression in his life, had recently lost his dear friend and bandmate Jam Master Jay, and McDaniels was drinking heavily and even considered suicide (he actually credits Sarah McLachlan’s song “Angel” with getting him through his darkest days). He worked to get through it, and documented his search for his birth mother in a VH1 documentary, DMC: My Adoption Journey, in 2006. They were reunited when he was 41.

5. DAVE THOMAS

Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, was adopted as a baby. He was raised mainly by his adoptive father and grandmother after losing his adoptive mother at 5 and two stepmothers before he was 10. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush asked him to spearhead a national campaign to encourage people to adopt or foster children, and to help businesses understand the importance of offering adoption benefits. Two years later he created the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, dedicated to increasing the number of children placed each year. He testified before Congress in support of adoption tax credits and helped in the creation of an adoption postage stamp that was issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 2000.

6. FAITH HILL

The country singer knew she was adopted from a young age but was told she had been given up because her birth mother had an affair with a married man who wouldn’t leave his wife for her. In reality, the couple did get married and had another child whom they kept. Hill learned the truth when she tracked down her birth mom shortly after she moved to Nashville to pursue a career as a singer. She says that despite loving her family and being happy she was adopted, there was a feeling that something was missing from her life. “I was adopted into this incredible home, a loving, positive environment, yet I had this yearning, this kind of darkness that was also inside me,” she has said. She was awed by her first meeting with her biological mother, who looked just like her.

7. JAMIE FOXX

The Academy Award-winning actor is actually a second-generation adoptee; his mother was adopted as well. He was officially adopted by his maternal grandparents after his parents decided they couldn’t handle having a child when he was 7 months old. His grandmother was 60 when she took him in, and he publicly thanked her in his 2005 Oscar acceptance speech. In 2003 he appeared on “A Home for the Holidays,” a Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption CBS special where he shared his adoption story and encouraged others to adopt or foster as well.

8. DEBBIE HARRY

The Blondie singer was born in 1945 and adopted when she was 3 months old. Her parents told her when she was 4 and she says that they did it in a way that made her feel “quite special.” When she was a teenager she used to fantasize that her birth mother was Marilyn Monroe. Harry says that she thinks her being adopted might be why she is so adventurous, since she felt it didn’t give her any limitations. “I sometimes attribute my, uh, adventurous nature to that… I have an open mind about things,” Harry has said. “It didn’t present me with any borders.”

9. GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

The famous African-American scientist was born into slavery in Missouri shortly before the end of the Civil War, although the exact year and date are unknown. He was one of many children born to the only two slaves owned by the Carver family, who were farmers. Almost immediately after his birth, he, his mother, and a sister were kidnapped by raiders. But the Carvers sent someone to look for them and only the infant George was recovered. Once slavery was abolished, they raised him and one of his brothers, James, as their own.

10. RAY LIOTTA

The Goodfellas actor was born in 1954, and given up for adoption at 6 months old, after his unmarried birth parents realized they couldn’t afford to raise him. His adoptive parents told him about it when he was very young, and he even did a presentation on being adopted as a kindergartner. But when Liotta got older and was going to have a child of his own, he worried about what genetic traits they might inherit, so he sought to find his birth mother. “I found my birth mother and found out I have, not an identical twin, but a half brother, five half sisters and a full sister that I didn’t know about until 15 years ago,” he said in 2014. When his biological mom found out the son she gave up was now a famous actor he said she had “a whole different bounce to her voice.” But Liotta remains grateful that he was adopted, though he admits that he struggled with feelings of being given up at times.

11. FRANCES MCDORMAND

McDormand, the Oscar-winning Fargo actress, was adopted by a minister and his wife as an infant. She doesn’t know who her biological mother was, though she was given the opportunity to meet her when she was 18; ultimately she did correspond with her, but decided not to pursue a relationship. McDormand has discussed her adoption and how angry the knowledge of her abandonment makes her feel, but she has also said, “It’s subjective, and every adopted person comes to it differently.” And that also includes her own son—she and husband Joel Coen chose to adopt their child, Pedro, from Paraguay. “And my son will deal with it in his own way,” she said.

12. KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY

The actor and comedian—and one-half of comedy duo Key & Peele—was born to a white woman and her married black co-worker; he was adopted as a baby by another biracial couple. In 1996, at age 25, he found his birth mother. He calls it one of “the most unexpected and crucial and significant and foundational things” that happened in his life. He also says it is the reason he now has such a strong faith. When he met her, he listened to her life story and how she came to give him up for adoption, and then he says he suddenly found himself crying and accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. “So, that was pretty unexpected,” he said. “It’s one of the touchstones in both my spiritual and personal life.”

Oscar-Claude Monet is beloved for his series of oil paintings depicting water lilies, serene gardens, and Japanese footbridges. The French painter manipulated light and shadow to portray landscapes in a groundbreaking way, upending the traditional art scene in the late 19th century. In honor of his birthday, here are 11 things you might not know about the father of French Impressionism.

1. HIS ARTISTIC TALENT WAS EVIDENT AT AN EARLY AGE.

Born in Paris in 1840, Monet began drawing as a young boy, sketching his teachers and neighbors. He attended a school of the arts and, as a young teenager, sold his charcoal caricatures of local figures. He also learned about oil painting and en plein air (outdoors) painting, which later became a hallmark of his style. Monet’s mother encouraged his artistic talent, but his father, who owned a grocery store, wanted him to focus on the grocery business. After his mother died in 1857, Monet left home to live with his aunt and, against his father’s wishes, study art.

2. HE SERVED AS A SOLDIER IN ALGERIA.

In 1861, Monet was drafted into the army. Forced to join the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry, he left Paris for Algeria, a territory that was then controlled by France. Monet’s father offered to pay for his son’s discharge if he would promise to give up painting, but Monet refused to abandon art. After serving one year of his seven-year military commitment, Monet got sick with typhoid fever. His aunt paid to get him released from the army, and she enrolled him in art school in Paris.

3. HE WAS SO FRUSTRATED WITH LIFE THAT HE JUMPED INTO THE SEINE.

In his late 20s, Monet was frustrated with the Académie, France’s art establishment. He hated creating formulaic artwork, copying the art that hung in the Louvre, and painting scenes from ancient Greek and Roman myths. Although he tried to get his paintings into the Academie’s art exhibits, his art was almost always rejected. Depressed and struggling to support himself and his family financially, Monet jumped off a bridge in 1868. He survived his fall into the Seine and began spending time with other artists who also felt frustrated by the Académie’s restrictions.

4. RENOIR CREATED A META PAINTING OF HIM.

In 1873, Monet was spending his summer in a rented home in Argenteuil, a suburb of Paris. His friend Pierre-Auguste Renoir visited Monet to spend time together and paint outdoors. The two men connected over their mutual dislike of the traditional style of the Académie. During his visit, Renoir painted Monet painting in his garden, creating a painting within a painting. The painting, straightforwardly called Monet Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil, depicts Monet standing outside as he paints flowers.

5. HE INDIRECTLY HELPED COIN THE TERM “IMPRESSIONISM.”

Monet created a community with other frustrated artists, a group that included Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, and Paul Cézanne. The group, which called itself The Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc., organized an exhibition in 1874. The exhibition included groundbreaking artwork featuring bright, vivid colors and loose, seemingly spontaneous brushwork. After a critic compared one of Monet’s paintings—”Impression, Sunrise”—to an unfinished sketch (or “impression”), the term “Impressionists” caught on to describe the artists who displayed these radically different, new paintings.

6. HIS SECOND WIFE WAS IRRATIONALLY JEALOUS OF HIS FIRST WIFE.

Monet frequently painted his first wife, Camille Doncieux, who worked as a model and had been in a relationship with the artist since the mid 1860s (they married in 1870). The couple had two sons, but Camille died, perhaps of uterine cancer, in 1879. Alice Hoschedé, the wife of a businessman and art collector, had been living with the Monets after her husband went bankrupt, and Monet may have started an affair with her while Camille was still alive. After Camille’s death, Hoschedé jealously destroyed all of her letters and photographs. Despite this, Hoschedé (along with her six children) lived with Monet and his two kids, and the couple married in 1892 after Hoschedé’s husband died. (Fun fact: One of Hoschedé’s daughters later married one of Monet’s sons, so the step-siblings became husband and wife.)

7. HE IMPORTED HIS WATER LILIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

From 1883 until his death in 1926, Monet lived in Giverny, a village in northern France. Over the years, he hired gardeners to plant everything from poppies to apple trees in his garden, turning it into a beautiful, tranquil place for him to paint. Finally wealthy from sales of his paintings, Monet invested serious money into his garden. He put a Japanese footbridge across his pond, which he famously painted, and he imported water lilies from Egypt and South America. Although the local city council told him to remove the foreign plants so they wouldn’t poison the water, Monet didn’t listen. For the last 25 years of his life, he painted the water lilies in a series of paintings that showcased the plants in varying light and textures.

8. HE PAID A GARDENER TO DUST HIS WATER LILIES.

As Monet’s garden expanded, he hired six full-time employees to tend to it. One gardener’s job was to paddle a boat onto the pond each morning, washing and dusting each lily pad. Once the lilies were clean, Monet began painting them, trying to capture what he saw as the light reflected off the water.

9. HIS CRITICS MOCKED HIS VISION PROBLEMS.

Around 1908 when he was in his late 60s, Monet began having trouble with his vision. Diagnosed with cataracts in 1912, he later described his inability to see the full color spectrum: “Reds appeared muddy to me, pinks insipid, and the intermediate or lower tones escaped me.” When he became legally blind in 1922, he continued painting by memorizing the locations of different colors of paint on his palette. Monet delayed getting risky cataract surgery until 1923, and critics mocked him for his blurry paintings, suggesting that his Impressionist style was due to his failing vision rather than his artistic brilliance. After two cataract surgeries, Monet wore tinted glasses to correct his distorted color perception and may have been able to see ultraviolet light.

10. LAST YEAR, THE WORLD DISCOVERED A NEW MONET PASTEL.

In 2015, an art dealer in London discovered an unknown Monet pastel that had been hidden behind another Monet drawing that he had bought at a 2014 auction in Paris. The pastel depicts the lighthouse and jetty in Le Havre, the port in France where Monet lived as a child. Art scholars authenticated the pastel as an authentic Monet artwork and dated it to 1868, around the time he jumped into the Seine.

11. TOURISTS CAN VISIT HIS HOME AND GARDENS.

In 1926, Monet died of lung cancer. Starting in 1980, his former home in Giverny has been open to tourists to see his gardens, woodcut prints, and mementos. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people visit Giverny to walk through the artist’s famous garden and refurbished home. Besides looking at a variety of flowers and trees, visitors can also see Monet’s bedroom, studio, and blue sitting-room.

Even when the news all seems to negative, it’s nice to remind ourselves from time to time that there are plenty of people doing good in the world. For World Kindness Day, here are a few acts—some big, some small—that all make more than just the recipient feel the love.

1. THE SECURITY GUARD WHO MAKES KIDS FEEL EXTRA SPECIAL.

When he retired after 35 years in the German navy, Freddie Wieczorek started to go a bit stir crazy. He and his wife had moved to Florida, so he decided to get a part-time job at Walt Disney World as a security guard. But he went above and beyond making sure guests’ days are safe and enjoyable: when he isn’t too busy, he asks costumed children for their autographs.

While it seems like such a small gesture, it makes the days of all the tiny princess and pirates, many of whom think he has mistaken them for the “real” characters. “Every time I see a princess leaving from that signature or when I just tell them, ‘You look so pretty,’ I see them skipping. Then I know I just made their day, Wieczorek told Today in 2012. “And the pirates, the same thing. When they ‘Awwwr,’ it’s very special.”

2. THE MAN WHO GAVE UP HIS DREAM OF WALKING TO HELP A CHILD.

Following a biking accident, Welshman Dan Black was paralyzed from the chest down at age 22. He spent four years raising £22,000 in the hopes that a future stem-cell treatment might help him walk again one day. But then his mom showed him a newspaper article on a 5-year-old boy who lived nearby with cerebral palsy whose family was trying to raise £60,000 for an operation that would let him walk unaided for the first time. Despite having what his mother called a “horrendous” quality of life, Black decided the boy, Brecon Vaughan, needed the money more than him and donated every penny. That, plus the news his generosity generated, helped them reach the goal within days. Brecon soon underwent the surgery, and within a year had ditched his walker. Within two years he was walking to school on his own and running along with his classmates.

3. THE TOWN THAT RALLIED WHEN NO ONE CAME TO A CHILD’S BIRTHDAY PARTY.

Last year, kindergartener Glenn Buratti invited all 16 of his classmates to his birthday party, and not a single one showed up. According to his mother, when Glenn realized no one was coming, he was devastated and tried to hide his tears. So like many upset moms do in that situation, Ashlee Buratti took to a community-based Facebook page. Within an hour, her son had a birthday party, all thanks to strangers.

Half a dozen families stopped by, some with presents. The sheriff’s department sent a helicopter to do a flyby. Later in the week they sent over the full arsenal: police cars, fire trucks, a SWAT van, and a canine unit. His mother said that despite having autism and some social anxiety, Glenn’s smile just kept getting bigger and bigger.

4. THE GREEK CAFE THAT HOUSES STRAY DOGS AT NIGHT.

The Hott Spott café on the island of Lesbos might be a cool hangout for humans until 3 a.m. each night, but after that it is a warm place for stray dogs to sleep. Ever since Greece was hit by their debt crisis, people have been abandoning dogs they can no longer afford. It has gotten so bad that animal charities estimated there were more than a million stray dogs in the country. Last winter, an assistant sociology professor took a photo of some dogs curled up on the café’s benches that went viral, and said that since the refuge crisis, it seemed like people had been trying to find ways to help the less fortunate, including cold puppies who might otherwise freeze on the streets.

5. THE TEENAGER WHO USED EXTREME COUPONING TO DONATE TO A HOMELESS SHELTER.

16-year-old Jordon Cox decided to try and get a huge Christmas meal for as little as possible. But not for his family: he donated it all to a homeless shelter. In the end, he managed to get £572.16 worth of food from a British supermarket … for only four pence.

Part of this was down to writing food manufacturers directly and telling them about his mission; many of them sent him vouchers. But the other part was possible thanks to his spending half an hour each day searching online and through mailers for great deals—i.e. “extreme couponing.” While normally he does it to save money on his and his mom’s weekly shop, at the holidays he wanted to help those less fortunate.

6. THE STRANGERS WHO RAISED THOUSANDS FOR A MAN WHO COMMUTED 21 MILES EACH DAY—ON FOOT.

James Robertson’s Detroit neighborhood didn’t have bus services all the way to his factory job, so he found himself walking eight miles there and 13 miles home, five days a week. Some nights he would only get two hours of sleep. But when the 56-year-old’s story was highlighted in the city newspaper, donations started pouring in.

Three GoFundMe campaigns raised a total of $33,000 within hours. A car dealership offered him the choice between two newer vehicles, and other people offered bikes, bus tickets, and even to drive him to work themselves. Needless to say, Robertson was completely overwhelmed by the generosity. But he still urged Detroit to consider a 24/7 bus service, because he knows he’s not the only person in that position.

7. THE WOMAN WHO TURNED HER HOME INTO A HOSPICE FOR TERMINALLY ILL CATS.

Peruvian nurse Maria Torero, not content with helping the sick at her day job, turned her eight-room home into a hospice for cats with leukemia. And not just two or three cats—for years, she has regularly had up to 175 at a time. She has stray cats tested, and will only bring home the adult ones who already have leukemia, since the disease can be spread to healthy cats. Her house is covered in food bowls and litter trays, as well as bed so they can be comfortable. Torero spends roughly $1500 a month (from donations and out of her own pocket) on food and medicine for her feline patients, and she even knits them sweaters. But she says that the best gift she can give them is love and respect during their lives.

8. THOUSANDS TURN OUT TO FULFILL CHRISTMAS WISH OF A GIRL WITH CANCER.

In 2013, 8-year-old Delaney Brown was diagnosed with leukemia in May, and by December, doctors were only giving her days to live. While she had already received donations to pay for medical expenses and a video chat with Taylor Swift, she knew what she really wanted as one last Christmas wish: to hear live carolers outside her house. So her parents posted it to social media. Instead of just a few people, an estimated 6000 to 8000 turned up, allowing Delaney to hear them sing “Frosty the Snowman” and “Jingle Bells” even though she was too sick to come to the window. She posted a picture one Facebook saying, “I can hear you now!!! Love you!”

Delaney died just a few days later, on Christmas morning.

9. THE UGANDAN WOMEN WHO DONATED TO KATRINA VICTIMS.

Despite only earning $1.20 a day, a group of women in Uganda got together and donated $900 to the relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina. Because the group had selflessly donated to the victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia the year before, local nurse Rose Busingye didn’t want to ask them for money again, instead just asking that they pray for those effected. But to her surprise, 200 women donated money not just from their day jobs breaking rocks into gravel, but from selling things like bananas, necklaces, and chairs. The money all went to a Catholic aid organization in the United States.

Best known as the eccentric author of Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut filled his novels, plays, and short stories with irreverence, satire, and wry wit. He wrote about dystopian societies, disillusionment with war, and skepticism, particularly connecting with millions of readers in the 1960s counterculture. To celebrate Vonnegut’s birthday, we compiled a list of facts about the beloved science fiction writer.

1. HE MET HIS FIRST WIFE IN KINDERGARTEN.

Born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1922, Vonnegut met his future wife, Jane, in kindergarten. Although they dated as teenagers in high school, their relationship paused when Vonnegut went to Cornell University, dropped out to serve in World War II, and became a prisoner of war in Germany. After returning to the U.S., he married Jane in 1945. The couple had six children—three biological and three adopted—but divorced in 1971.

2. HIS MOTHER COMMITTED SUICIDE ON MOTHER’S DAY.

When Vonnegut was born, his parents were well-off. Kurt Sr., his father, was an architect and Edith, his mother, was independently wealthy from the brewery that her family owned. But due to Prohibition and the Great Depression, the family struggled to make ends meet, sold their home, and switched their son to a public school. Edith, who suffered from mental illness, became addicted to alcohol and prescription pills. In 1944, when Vonnegut came home from military training to celebrate Mother’s Day, he found Edith dead. She had committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills, and the 21-year-old Vonnegut soon went to Germany to fight in World War II. In an interview with The Paris Review, Vonnegut remembered his mother as being highly intelligent, cultivated, and a good writer. “I only wish she’d lived to see [my writing career]. I only wish she’d lived to see all her grandchildren,” he said.

3. HE TURNED HIS PRISONER OF WAR EXPERIENCE INTO A BESTSELLING BOOK.

Because Vonnegut was flunking his classes at Cornell, he decided to drop out and join the army to fight in World War II. During the Battle of the Bulge, in 1944, German forces captured him, along with other American prisoners of war, in Dresden. Forced to work long hours in a malt-syrup factory, he slept in a subterranean slaughterhouse. In a letter he later wrote to his family, Vonnegut described the unsanitary conditions, sadistic guards, and measly food rations. After surviving the February 1945 Allied bombing of Dresden, in which tens of thousands of people were killed, Vonnegut was forced by his captors to remove jewelry from the corpses before cremating them. “One hundred thirty thousand corpses were hidden underground. It was a terribly elaborate Easter-egg hunt,” he said in his Paris Review interview.

Later in 1945, Vonnegut got frostbite and was discharged from the army (he earned a Purple Heart). Over two decades later, in 1969, Vonnegut published the bestselling novel Slaughterhouse-Five, which gave readers a fictionalized account of his wartime imprisonment. He later said that only one person benefited from the raid in Dresden: him. “I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that,” he said.

4. CONTRARY TO RUMORS, HE WASN’T FRAT BUDDIES WITH DR. SEUSS.

An urban legend suggests that Vonnegut and Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) were college friends who spent time together in the same fraternity. But according to Snopes, the tale of Geisel and Vonnegut’s friendship is greatly exaggerated … that is, it’s false. The two authors probably never met, and they didn’t attend any of the same schools (plus, Geisel was 18 years older than Vonnegut). Geisel did, however, once visit a friend who belonged to Cornell’s Delta Upsilon fraternity. Geisel drew a mural on the wall of the fraternity’s basement, and Vonnegut saw his drawings at Cornell a decade later as a student.

5. HE HELD A SERIES OF ODD JOBS TO SUPPORT HIS FAMILY.

In 1947, Vonnegut began working in public relations for General Electric, an experience that he drew upon to write Cat’s Cradle. He wrote articles and short stories for magazines such as Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post, and his first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1952. Vonnegut then briefly wrote for Sports Illustrated, managed a Saab car dealership in Massachusetts (the first in the U.S.), and worked as an English teacher.

6. HE ADOPTED HIS SISTER’S THREE KIDS.

In the late 1950s, Vonnegut’s sister, Alice, died of cancer and Alice’s husband died in a train accident within the span of a few days. Although Vonnegut already had three children with his wife, he adopted his sister’s three sons. Since he now had six children to support, Vonnegut spent even more time writing to earn money.

7. HE ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.

Although Slaughterhouse-Five made him a famous, bestselling author, Vonnegut struggled with depression in the midst of his literary success. After getting divorced in 1971, he lived alone in New York City and had trouble writing. His son became psychotic, and although he married his second wife in 1979 (and they adopted a daughter together), his depression got worse. In 1984, he tried to kill himself by overdosing on sleeping pills and alcohol, an experience he wrote about in 1991 in Fates Worse Than Death, a collection of essays.

8. HE GRADED ALL HIS BOOKS.

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Vonnegut discussed his grading system for his books (he also wrote about this system in Palm Sunday, a collection of his works published in 1981). He gave himself an A+ for his writing in Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five but wasn’t as generous with Happy Birthday, Wanda June or Slapstick, which both received Ds.

9. HE LOVED WATCHING CHEERS.

In 1991, while speaking to the press to promote his Showtime television show Vonnegut’s Monkey House, he extolled the virtues of the NBC show Cheers. “I’d rather have written Cheers than anything I’ve written,” he said. Although he viewed television in general with skepticism, he made an exception for the long-running sitcom, calling it television’s one comic masterpiece: “Every time anybody opens his or her mouth on that show, it’s significant. It’s funny,” he said.

10. HE TRIED TO STOP SMOKING BUT GAINED TOO MUCH WEIGHT.

A lifelong smoker, Vonnegut began smoking cigarettes as a young teenager. Interviews with the author described his chain-smoking, his preferred brand (Pall Mall), and his frequent coughing and wheezing. Vonnegut admitted that he quit smoking twice, but neither attempt succeeded long-term. “Once I did it cold turkey, and turned into Santa Claus. I became roly-poly. I was approaching 250 pounds,” he told the Paris Review. The second time, his lack of smoking made him “unbearably opinionated” and curtailed his writing time. “I didn’t even write letters anymore. I had made a bad trade, evidently. So I started smoking again,” he said.

11. THANKS TO CAT’S CRADLE, HE FINALLY GOT HIS MASTER’S DEGREE.

While studying anthropology as a young man at the University of Chicago, Vonnegut wrote his graduate thesis comparing 19th century Cubist painters to Native American artists. Vonnegut later explained that the faculty rejected his dissertation, and he dropped out of his master’s program there: “I left Chicago without writing a dissertation—and without a degree. All my ideas for dissertations had been rejected, and I was broke, so I took a job as a P.R. man for General Electric in Schenectady.” But the quality of his novel Cat’s Cradle, published in 1963, persuaded University of Chicago faculty to accept the novel as his dissertation. So 20 years after he dropped out, Vonnegut finally earned his master’s degree in anthropology.

12. HE HAS OVER 200,000 TWITTER FOLLOWERS.

How complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.

— Kurt Vonnegut (@Kurt_Vonnegut) November 5, 2016

Although Vonnegut died in 2007 at 84 years old, his ideas live on in 140 characters or less. A Twitter account dedicated to the writer tweets his quotes several times a day to more than 200,000 followers. Examples of his tweets? “How embarrassing to be human,” and “We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.” Fittingly, the account follows just one person, @TheMarkTwain, for Vonnegut greatly admired the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn author.

13. THE VONNEGUT MEMORIAL LIBRARY CONTINUES HIS LEGACY.

Located in his birthplace of Indianapolis, The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library honors the writer’s achievements and keeps his legacy alive. Opened in 2010, the library displays signed copies of Vonnegut’s books as well as early rejection letters. Visitors can also see his drawings, examine family photos, and view his typewriter, cigarettes, and Purple Heart. The library works to fight censorship, a cause that Vonnegut strongly believed in, by giving free copies of Slaughterhouse-Five to students whose schools have banned the book. So it goes.

Although Greek yogurt seems to be available everywhere you look, that wasn’t always the case. Fage, the company behind the top-selling Greek yogurt in Greece, began in Athens in 1926. Today, Fage sells dairy products in over 40 countries, using milk, cream, and live active cultures to create all natural yogurt, free of artificial sweeteners and preservatives.

1. IT ALL STARTED WITH A SMALL DAIRY SHOP IN ATHENS.

In 1926, Athanassios Filippou’s family opened a dairy shop in Patisia, a neighborhood in central Athens, Greece. The shop became popular amongst locals for its rich, creamy yogurt. Almost three decades later, in 1954, Filippou’s son Ioannis joined the family business and helped create a national wholesale network for yogurt, distributing the dairy shop’s yogurt all over Greece.

2. IT’S PRONOUNCED FAH-YEH. (IT DOESN’T RHYME WITH PAGE.)

From the Greek imperative word Φάγε—English translation: Eat—Fage is often mispronounced by those unfamiliar with it. Φάγε is also an abbreviation, as the four letters in the Greek word stand for Filippou Adelphoi Galaktokomikes Epicheiriseis—translation: Filippou Brothers Dairy Company—after Filippou’s sons, Ioannis and Kyriakos.

3. FAGE WAS THE FIRST BRANDED YOGURT IN GREECE.

In 1964, the Filippou brothers opened Fage’s first yogurt production plant in an Athens suburb. Over the next two decades, Fage continued to innovate. In 1975, Fage started selling containers of “Fage Total” branded yogurt to Greeks. Fage also expanded outside of Greece for the first time, exporting yogurt to the United Kingdom in 1983.

4. THE OWNER OF A GROCERY STORE IN NEW YORK INTRODUCED FAGE GREEK YOGURT TO THE U.S. …

In 1998, Costas Mastoras, the owner of a grocery store catering to Greek Americans, visited Fage in Greece to buy cheese to sell at his store in Astoria, Queens. Mastoras tried a sample of Fage’s strained yogurt and loved its thickness. After ensuring that he wouldn’t be breaking U.S. Department of Agriculture rules by importing the yogurt (since it contains live active cultures), Mastoras ordered 120 six-ounce yogurt containers and had them flown to New York.

5. … MAKING FAGE THE FIRST GREEK YOGURT EVER SOLD IN THE U.S.

The yogurt sold so well at Mastoras’s store that Fage created Fage USA in 2000 to sell the yogurt more widely in the U.S. Americans who tried Fage didn’t mind paying a little more for the Greek yogurt, which is less watery than regular yogurt. Fage’s Total yogurt is strained—four pounds of milk are used to create one pound of yogurt—and the yogurt doesn’t contain the watery whey.

6. BESIDES GREEK YOGURT, FAGE ALSO PRODUCES CHEESE AND MILK.

In the early 1990s, Fage started selling cheese and milk. Since 1991, Fage has produced cheeses like feta and gouda, but they’re not available in the U.S. Since 1993 in Greece, Fage has sold fresh milk that is pasteurized, homogenized, and packaged in its factories.

7. FAGE HAS A MASSIVE FACTORY IN UPSTATE NEW YORK.

In 2008, Fage opened a U.S. production plant in Johnstown, New York. After a multi-million dollar expansion of the factory in 2014, the New York Fage factory has the capacity to produce 160,000 tons of yogurt annually.

8. WILLEM DAFOE NARRATED FAGE’S FIRST TELEVISED COMMERCIALS IN THE U.S.

In 2011, Fage recruited actor Willem Dafoe, a.k.a. Green Goblin in the Spider-Man trilogy, to narrate televised commercials. Chef Bobby Flay has also done ads for the brand. More recent UK commercials for the Fage Total split cups (which have yogurt plus a separate compartment of a sweet mix-in like strawberry, honey, peach, cherry, key lime, blood orange, or raspberry pomegranate) feature a female narrator.

9. FAGE’S HEADQUARTERS ARE NO LONGER IN GREECE.

The financial crisis in Greece greatly impacted Fage. In 2012, Fage executives decided to move the company’s headquarters from Greece to Luxembourg to avoid Greece’s instability and depressed economy. Although Fage isn’t headquartered in Greece anymore, the company retains its authentic Greek heritage by continuing to own and operate yogurt, milk, and cheese factories in its home country.

10. FAGE WAS SUED FOR NOT BEING “GREEK” ENOUGH.

In 2014, two men in New York sued Fage (and Chobani, another Greek Yogurt company) for deceiving customers. In a class action lawsuit, Barry Stoltz and Allan Chang accused Fage of misleading customers into thinking that 0 percent yogurt means it has no sugar (the 0 percent refers to the milk fat) and of tricking customers into thinking that Fage is made in Greece when it’s really made in the U.S. The lawsuit is ongoing, but lawyers for Fage are working to get the lawsuit dismissed.

11. DESPITE ITS INTERNATIONAL GROWTH, FAGE REMAINS A FAMILY BUSINESS.

Fage’s parent company, Fage International S.A., is still completely owned and led by the Filippou family. In 2006, Athanassios Filippou’s grandchildren joined the company, continuing the Greek yogurt family business.

In recent years, the humble doughnut has become a culinary canvas for all sorts of bold flavor combinations. On National Doughnut Day, we take a look at a few choice selections from around the country.

1. HALVA // UNDERWEST DONUTS

Location: New York City

If you’re visiting Times Square, head west to 12th Avenue, where you’ll find one of the city’s best doughnut shops—inside a car wash, of all places. Underwest, run by a former sous chef, turns out an assortment of thick, rich cake doughnuts, including the Halva, a glazed doughnut topped with the nutty, tahini-based sweetmeat.

2. ROSEMARY OLIVE OIL // FŌNUTS

Location: Los Angeles

Fōnuts is a popular L.A. shop that specializes in baked doughnuts made with all-natural ingredients. And this is its calling card: a delicate, earthy doughnut made with crushed rosemary, olive oil, and a hint of lemon zest. If you can’t make it to southern California, try your hand at the recipe, courtesy of pastry chef Waylynn Lucas.

3. POI GLAZE // KAMEHAMEHA BAKERY

Location: Honolulu

Bite into this specialty from Kamehameha Bakery and behold a soft, gooey purple cake filling. That comes from poi, a Polynesian staple made from the taro plant, that’s baked into the dough. If you’re in town, go early: The bakery opens in the wee hours and sells out quickly.

4. THE CHARLESTON // GLAZED GOURMET

Location: Charleston, South Carolina

The Charleston, like the city it’s named for, is a southern treat through and through. It’s filled with bourbon cream, covered in a toffee glaze, and topped with crushed pralines.

5. THE DOH-NILLA // PSYCHO DONUTS

Location: San Jose and Campbell, California

Why choose between cookies and doughnuts? The Doh-Nilla, made by the mad scientists at Psycho Donuts, is topped with vanilla frosting and Nilla wafers, and drizzled with chocolate sauce.

6. GOOEY BUTTER // STRANGE DONUTS

Location: St. Louis, Missouri

This is the doughnut version of a St. Louis cake staple, and boy is it a hit at up-and-comer Strange Donuts. Made with cream cheese, vanilla and—you guessed it—butter, the doughnut is super rich and sweet, and appropriately gooey on top.

7. VANILLA PUDDING CURRY NERDS // STREET DONUTS

Location: Seattle

This is just one of many topping combinations visitors to Seattle’s Street Donuts can create. The mobile cart, which appears at locations throughout the city, gives customers a basket of mini doughnuts and lets them go crazy. Other toppings include Nutella, cardamom, chai, bacon, marshmallow fluff, and dulce de leche.

8. THE BOMBSHELL // GLAM DOLL DONUTS

Location: Minneapolis

Glam Doll bakery likes to spice up traditional doughnuts with bold flavors. Exhibit A: The Bombshell, filled with spiced Mexican chocolate, and topped with a vanilla glaze and cayenne pecans. It’s anything but your usual jelly-filled doughnut.

9. PINEAPPLE BASIL // RISE BISCUITS AND DONUTS

Location: Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina

Rise Biscuits and Donuts is a small but fast-growing chain that likes to mix in a few tasty experiments with its classic selections. One of its more colorful varieties, the Pineapple Basil, includes a basil cream filling, pineapple glaze, and pistachio topping.

10. THE FREEBIRD // GOURDOUGH’S

Location: Austin, Texas

Gourdough’s, which serves up doughnuts, doughnut sandwiches, doughnut burgers, and doughnut-based entrees, does not hold back. The Freebird is a testament to that spirit. It’s filled with cheese cake batter and topped with cream cheese, graham cracker crumbles, strawberries, and blackberries.

11. MEMPHIS MAFIA DONUT // VOODOO DONUTS

Location: Portland, Oregon

The lovably odd (and super-popular) Voodoo Donuts has made its name with off-the-wall doughnuts. Embodying the shop’s crude decadence, the Memphis Mafia takes dough made with banana chunks and cinnamon and tops it with peanuts, peanut butter, chocolate frosting, and chocolate chips.

Troll dolls—like witches or choker necklaces—seem to make a comeback every decade or two. And while children of the ’90s might remember collecting the wild-haired, naked dolls with gemstones for bellybuttons or topping their pencils with the miniature figures, children of the ’60s were collecting their own versions. And now, with the new Trolls movie hitting theaters this weekend (and that Justin Timberlake song still rattling around in your head), it’s time for everyone’s favorite potbellied, grinning fuzz-tops to rule the toy aisle once again.

1. THE FIRST TROLL DOLLS WERE WOODEN.

Danish fisherman Thomas Dam was very often out of work, but he had a talent for carving figures out of wood. Though he initially carved little gifts for his children, his wife recognized the monetary potential in his hobby. She encouraged him to sell some door-to-door, which turned into a job making larger Christmas displays for a department store window in 1956. Customers began asking to buy the trolls from the displays, and before long, Dam was spending all of his time carving troll dolls to sell. Soon after, he opened a factory and switched to the more economical method of making the bodies out of rubber stuffed with wood shavings. By the end of the ‘50s, he was selling more than 10,000 trolls in Denmark each year.

2. DAM’S TROLLS WERE ROOTED IN SCANDINAVIAN FOLKLORE.

While trolls range from large to child-sized in various fairytales, their primary characteristic has always been their extreme ugliness. In their mythology, they often live under bridges or in the mountains, they spend their time tricking humans out of their money, and they’re always hideous. But Dam managed to take the usually ugly features—wrinkly faces, bulbous noses, oversized ears—and turn them into tiny, oddly adorable figurines. And since, according to Scandinavian tradition, nothing bad can happen to a person who is laughing, Dam thought of his charmingly unattractive little trolls—which he named Good Luck Trolls—as chuckle-inducing talismans. “They were so ugly,” Dam once said, “that you couldn’t help but laugh, and when you laugh, luck follows you.”

3. THEIR HAIR HAS ALWAYS BEEN UNRULY.

Even Dam’s first trolls had the wild, crazy hair that has become their trademark. The Icelandic sheep’s wool used was dyed three colors—white, black, or orange—and glued on the tops of the dolls for a bushy, exaggerated mane that Life magazine called “strangely soothing to the touch.” And though the company eventually switched to synthetic hair that stood even more upright, Dam said production demand for the dolls was so high in 1964 that he had to buy Iceland’s entire wool harvest that year. 

4. DAM HAD A GREAT SENSE OF HUMOR.

Dam seemed to know he had a damn funny name (it’s pronounced more like “dahm” than the American “damn”). Once his trolls took off, he named his toy-making company Dam Things, and the highest quality of these trolls became known as Dam Dolls. One design even went by the name Dammit.

5. THE LARGE MAJORITY OF TROLLS ON THE MARKET WEREN’T DAM’S DOLLS, THOUGH.

By the early 1960s, trolls were a huge international trend. Dam rapidly expanded his distribution network, opening factories in New Zealand and Florida. But because of their immediate success, and due to Dam’s lack of a copyright, knock-off trolls showed up on shelves all over America. Competing companies put out troll-esque dolls with names like Wish-niks, Fauni Trolls, and Lucky Shnooks. According to The New York Times, “the Dam Company earned only a small percentage of the estimated $4.5 billion made from Trolls throughout the world.”

6. ONE DAMMIT DOLL HAD AN AUDIENCE WITH THE PRESIDENT.

Amelia Earhart made headlines in 1932 for becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and it took 31 years before pilot Betty Miller became the first woman to earn that title for the Pacific. Her only company for the arduous flight? A Dammit doll. Following her historic flight, Miller was invited to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy, and she brought her trusty troll doll with her.

7. TROLL DOLLS WERE THE ORIGINAL BEANIE BABIES.

When the troll takeover of America hit, it hit hard. The Chicago Tribune reported in a 1964 trend piece that “bring your own troll” parties were “‘in’ among the teenage set,” and many of those devotees grew up to be major collectors. A West Virginian woman named Paula Dolog—alias: “The Troll Princess”—told her local newspaper in 2009 that she’d collected so many troll dolls over the course of 45 years that she had “trolls that haven’t seen the light of day in years.” Other devotees told stories of picking up trolls to cheer ailing family members, only to begin collecting them in earnest soon after. And when the ’90s wave took hold, 29-year-old Lisa Kerner put together a pre-internet Craigslist of sorts called Troll Monthly Magazine, intended to help collectors sell and trade the dolls. Scouring resale sites today will still bring up all manner of troll dolls, from a 1950s stuffed Dam doll going for $225; to themed dolls, like this vintage Viking troll for $175; to a terrifying Lucky Shnooks doll from the ’60s.

8. A SELF-PROCLAIMED TROLL QUEEN RUNS A TROLL MUSEUM.

In Alliance, Ohio, a woman named Sigrid calls herself the Troll Queen. She claims to be a huldra troll—the kind of troll that disguises itself to appear human—and has used her passion for the creatures to amass a collection of nearly 3000 unique trolls, setting a Guinness World Record. Sigrid (human name: Sherry Groom) has turned her love of the dolls into a weird and wonderful museum called The Troll Hole, which now houses more than 18,000 trolls and memorabilia. She gives guided, costumed tours once a day; there’s only a $10 troll toll to visit the Troll Hole.

9. TROLL DOLLS HAVE DONE POLICE WORK.

In a move called “Trolls on Patrol,” the police department in Tarpon Springs, Florida bought 5000 troll dolls in 2003 and put them to work. The goal? To build relationships with area children. “It should bring some friendly interaction,” police chief Mark G. LeCouris told the St. Petersburg Times at the time, noting that they wanted local kids to see police officers as approachable role models, and that their previous giveaways of items like junior police badges and “Say No to Drugs” bracelets had always been popular with kids. Police handed out the trolls at Halloween and at various community events. “They really put smiles on kids’ faces,” LeCouris said.

10. FOUR DECADES LATER, THE DAM COMPANY WON THEIR PATENT.

Even though Thomas Dam lost his creation to the public domain in America in the ’60s, his company soldiered on in Europe. The ’80s saw another wave of troll fandom, most notably when a New York-based marketing executive named Eva Stark decided to import large numbers of Dam’s trolls and rebrand them as Norfin dolls (“Norfin” being a portmanteau of “elfin,” “orphan,” “Norway,” and “Finland”; no word on why “Danish” or “Denmark” wasn’t thrown in for consideration). Thomas Dam died in 1989, but new laws passed in 1994 allowed the Dam Company to sue copycat manufacturers. Eventually, they won the worldwide rights to the troll doll image.

11. EVEN WITH A MAJOR SALE, THE DAM COMPANY KEPT THEIR HOLD ON SCANDINAVIA.

After a misguided attempt to update the Troll brand (recreating them in the image of Bratz dolls in 2005 and calling them Trollz was a huge failure), the Dam Company agreed to sell worldwide rights—save Scandinavia, naturally—to DreamWorks Animation in 2013. “Trolls is one of those rare, proven and universally adored brands,” DreamWorks’s franchise head, Shawn Dennis, said at the time of their intention to create a multi-platform marketing plan. Within the year they’d reworked the Trolls movie’s original concept, turning it into a musical comedy that would eventually bring on Justin Timberlake as the executive musical producer. That choice, at least, has already paid off—the debut song from the soundtrack, “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”, topped the charts in more than 15 countries when it was released.

12. HASBRO HAS RELEASED A NEW LINE OF TROLL DOLLS.

Not only do the trolls from the new DreamWorks movie have updated faces (the large heads and stubby bodies resemble the ’60s originals, but the facial features are far less oversized—or wrinkly), they now also come with huggable plush bodies. And with so many of the Trolls movie characters getting both the plastic figurine and plush doll treatment, it seems only a matter of time before the collectors come out in full force again.

Nothing helps stave off a chilly morning quite like a warm bowl of Quaker oatmeal. The wholesome, hearty favorite seems timeless today, but oats for breakfast were once quite strange to American sensibilities. While the Quaker brand is synonymous with oatmeal, they’ve consistently branched out (read on for their surprising connection to Willy Wonka). Read on for 13 wholesome facts about the fascinating history of the Quaker Oats Company.

1. AMERICANS WERE RELUCTANT TO EAT “HORSE FOOD.”

To many Americans in the 1850s, oats were considered livestock food—not fit for human consumption. Ferdinand Schumacher set out to change that perception in 1856 when he opened the German Mills American Oatmeal Factory in Akron, Ohio. Schumacher found success due to both the cheap nature of oat milling as well as strong support from Irish and German immigrants, who were already accustomed to eating oats. His success led to the memorable nickname “The Oatmeal King,” and he quickly began attracting local competitors.

2. THE “QUAKER” BRAND WAS INTRODUCED IN 1877—BUT WITHOUT ANY QUAKER INFLUENCE.

One major competitor to Schumacher was Henry Parsons Crowell, who owned the Quaker Oat Mill in nearby Ravenna, Ohio. Crowell was the first marketer to introduce a trademark for a cereal product and registered the “Quaker” brand name and symbol in 1877. Neither Crowell nor the brand had any connection to the Quaker religious sect, but the icon of the traditional figure was intended to represent “good quality and honest value.”

3. THE COMPANY WAS BORN FROM A TUMULTUOUS MERGER.

After years of cutthroat competition, 1888 saw Schumacher and Crowell join forces with five other Midwestern grain moguls, including John Stuart and George Douglas, to form the American Cereal Company. Schumacher was the company’s first president and named Crowell vice president. Despite their alliance, the businessmen continued to struggle for control of the organization throughout the 1890s, with Crowell ultimately winning out. The renamed Quaker Oats Company was announced in 1901, with initial sales of $16 million.

4. HENRY CROWELL WAS A MAJOR PHILANTHROPIST.

While not a literal Quaker, Crowell was a prominent Christian philanthropist. Along with his wife, Susan Coleman Crowell, he established a major charitable trust which helped support over 100 evangelical organizations. In addition to his work with Quaker, he was also the Chairman of the Moody Bible Institute, a Christian university, for 40 years. Crowell ultimately donated over 70 percent of his lifetime earnings to various charities.

5. QUAKER OATS WAS THE FIRST TO GIVE OUT TRIAL-SIZE SAMPLES.

In the early 1890s, Quaker Oats pioneered several clever marketing techniques which would later become commonplace. In 1890, they introduced “trial size” samples of oatmeal, which were placed in every single mailbox in Portland, Oregon. The following year saw two additional innovations: they began including a small chinaware piece as a “free prize” in every box, and also became the first food company to include recipes on the packaging (the original recipe was for oatmeal bread).

6. THE MASCOT’S NAME IS LARRY.

Although often rumored to be William Penn, prominent Quaker and founder of the state of Pennsylvania, the company maintains that their genial mascot does not represent any particular historical person. Reminiscent of Crowell’s earlier statements about the brand association, Quaker now says their logo represents “honesty, integrity, purity, and strength.” Within the company, however, he is affectionately known as Larry.

7. THEY DIVERSIFIED FAIRLY QUICKLY.

In 1922, Quaker released “Quaker Quick Oats,” which reduced the cooking time from 20 minutes to just five. Along with Jell-O and other prepackaged options, “Quick Oats” were one of the very first convenience products on the American market. As Quaker continued to grow, they began offering a wider variety of products and incorporating other well-known name brands. One major acquisition was Aunt Jemima’s pancake flour in 1926. In 1942, they became a leader in the pet-food market when they purchased Ken-L Ration. The company saw a post-war boom, and by the late 1940s, Quaker boasted over 200 different products and sales of $277 million.

8. QUAKER JUMPED ON THE BREAKFAST CEREAL BOOM EARLY.

The trend towards convenience during the 1950s and 1960s sparked demand for quick-and-easy options, and Quaker was a leader in providing popular breakfast choices. The company introduced Life cereal in 1961—11 years before their memorable TV advertisement featuring a reticent young eater named Mikey, and the catchphrase “Mikey likes it!” Another kid-friendly cereal, Cap’n Crunch, was created in 1963 as a direct response to a survey which showed that children disliked soggy cereal. Yet another 1960s innovation was Quaker Instant Oats, which further reduced the cooking time from five minutes down to one.

9. QUAKER OWNED FISHER-PRICE FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS.

As cereal sales started to slow in the late 1960s, Quaker began to diversify outside of the food market. Many such acquisitions were short-lived, but in 1969 they took over the Fisher-Price Toy Company, which at one point comprised 25 percent of Quaker’s total profits. Fisher-Price mainstays during the ’60s and ’70s included toy xylophones, animal “pull toys,” and the popular “Little People” playsets. Quaker spun off Fisher-Price in 1991.

10. QUAKER OATS FINANCED WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.

Surprisingly, the Quaker Oats Company was instrumental in the creation of the classic 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The early 1970s brought a major decline in revenue for the movie industry, and film studios began looking for unconventional ways to finance new projects. David Wolpert, a production executive, pitched a creative tie-in: Quaker would finance the production of the film, and also obtain exclusive rights to create Willy Wonka-themed products. The Gene Wilder-helmed film wasn’t an immediate hit, but candy products that were featured in the film, including Everlasting Gobstoppers, proved profitable. (Runts and Laffy Taffy were also born of this collaboration.) Quaker sold the Willy Wonka candy line to Nestle in 1988.

11. QUAKER WAS A MAJOR BEVERAGE PLAYER TOO.

As Quaker continued to branch out, one of their savviest business moves was the 1983 acquisition of Stokely-Van Camp, the makers of the Gatorade line of sports drinks. By 1987, Gatorade was Quaker’s biggest seller, and the company attempted to corner more of the beverage market with the 1994 purchase of the Snapple Corporation. By 1995, Quaker was the nation’s third-largest producer of non-alcoholic beverages, with sales over $2 billion annually. Ultimately, the Snapple decision proved to be a mistake; the brand was sold at a loss in 1997. Four years later, Quaker was bought out by PepsiCo, although the Quaker line remains popular to this day.

12. OATMEAL FOR A HEALTHY HEART—IT’S OFFICIAL!

As consumers became increasingly health-conscious throughout the 1990s, Quaker used that trend to notch another first: Following a petition from Quaker, the FDA issued the first official food-specific health claim for oatmeal in 1997, which read “Soluble fiber from oatmeal as part of a low saturated fat, low cholesterol diet, may reduce the risk of heart disease.” So go ahead and have that second bowl.

13. LARRY GOT A MAKEOVER.

In 2012, Larry, the smiling Quaker mascot, received a minor makeover as part of a broader marketing initiative among the PepsiCo corporation. Intending to subtly reinforce the perception of oatmeal as a healthy choice, the cheerful Quaker was given a trimmer haircut, and was slightly slimmed down—he “lost about five pounds,” according to the art team who led the redesign.