Author: Stacy

Though Robert Frost has been gone for more than half a century—he died on January 29, 1963—his poems remain timeless, inspiring everyone from John F. Kennedy to George R.R. Martin. Though most people know him for “The Road Not Taken,” there’s more to Frost than that—and according to him, we’ve all been interpreting that poem wrong anyway.

1. HE WAS NAMED AFTER CONFEDERATE GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE.

Frost’s father, Will, ran away from home at a young age in an attempt to join the Confederate Army. Though he was caught and returned to his parents, the elder Frost never forgot his war heroes, and eventually named his son after one of them.

2. HE WAS A COLLEGE DROPOUT—TWICE OVER.

First, Frost attended Dartmouth for just two months, later explaining, “I wasn’t suited for that place.” He got his second chance in 1897 at Harvard, but only made it two years before dropping out to support his wife and child. “They could not make a student of me here, but they gave it their best,” Frost later said. Still, he managed to get a degree anyway—Harvard bestowed honorary honors upon him in 1937.

3. HE MADE $15 FROM THE SALE OF HIS FIRST POEM.

Published by the New York Independent in 1894, when Frost was 20, Frost’s first paid piece was called “My Butterfly: An Elegy.” The payday for the poem was the equivalent of $422 today; the sum was worth more than two weeks’ salary at his teaching job.

4. EZRA POUND HELPED FROST GAIN A FOLLOWING.

As an established poet with a following, Ezra Pound exposed Frost to a much larger audience by writing a rave review of his first poetry collection, A Boy’s Will. Frost considered it his most important early review. Pound might have reviewed the book sooner had it not been for a bit of a misunderstanding—he once gave Frost a calling card with his hours listed as “At home, sometimes.” Frost “didn’t feel that that was a very warm invitation,” and avoided visiting. When he finally stopped in, Pound was put out that he hadn’t come sooner. He wrote his review of Frost’s poetry the same day.

5. HE BELIEVED “THE ROAD NOT TAKEN” WAS VERY MISUNDERSTOOD.

“The Road Not Taken” is often read at high school and college graduations as a reminder to forge new paths, but Frost never intended it to be taken so seriously—he wrote the poem as a private joke for his friend Edward Thomas. He and Thomas enjoyed taking walks together, and Thomas was constantly indecisive about which direction he wanted to go. When he finally did choose, he often regretted not choosing the other way.

Frost was surprised when his readers began taking the poem to heart as a metaphor for self-determination. After reading “The Road Not Taken” to some college students, he lamented to Thomas that the poem was “taken pretty seriously … despite doing my best to make it obvious by my manner that I was fooling. … Mea culpa.”

6. HE WAS THE FIRST POET TO READ AT A PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION.

John F. Kennedy invited Frost to do a reading at his 1961 inauguration; though Frost prepared a poem called “Dedication” for the ceremony, he had a hard time reading the lightly typed words in the sun’s glare. In the end, that didn’t matter—the poet ended up reciting a different piece, “The Gift Outright,” by heart.

Frost’s performance paved the way for later appearances by Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, Elizabeth Alexander, and Richard Blanco.

7. HE OUTLIVED FOUR OF HIS SIX CHILDREN.

Frost knew tragedy. Of his six kids—daughters Elinor, Irma, Marjorie, and Lesley, and sons Carol, and Elliot—only two outlasted him. Elinor died shortly after birth, Marjorie died giving birth, Elliot succumbed to cholera, and Carol committed suicide.

8. HE WASN’T MUCH OF A FARMER, ACCORDING TO HIS NEIGHBORS.

Though Frost adored living the bucolic life on his 30-acre farm in Derry, New Hampshire, his neighbors weren’t exactly impressed with his skills. Because Frost mostly paid the bills with poetry, he didn’t have to be as regimented about farm life as his full-time farming neighbors did, so they thought he was a bit lazy.

Even if his farming skills weren’t up to par with the pros, the estate itself did wonders for his writing. According to Frost, “I might say the core of all my writing was probably the five free years I had there on the farm down the road a mile or two from Derry Village toward Lawrence. The only thing we had was time and seclusion. I couldn’t have figured on it in advance. I hadn’t that kind of foresight. But it turned out right as a doctor’s prescription.”

9. HE INSPIRED GEORGE R.R. MARTIN.

If Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire sounds a bit like Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice,” well, it is: “People say I was influenced by Robert Frost’s poem, and of course I was,” Martin has said. “Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor and all of these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is … you know, that kind of cold inhumanity and all that stuff is being played out in the books.”

10. NO ONE HAS MATCHED HIS PULITZER PRIZE RECORD.

Frost took home the award in poetry a whopping four times. His honors were for New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes (1924), Collected Poems (1931), A Further Range (1937), and A Witness Tree (1943). No other poet has yet managed to win on four occasions.

11. HIS EPITAPH IS TAKEN FROM ONE OF HIS POEMS.

The inscription on Frost’s tombstone is his own words: “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” It’s the last line from his poem “The Lesson for Today.” Here’s the whole thing:

“And were an epitaph to be my story

I’d have a short one ready for my own.

I would have written of me on my stone:

I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”

A 2002 study by the University of Massachusetts found that 60 percent of adults can’t even make it 10 minutes without telling a little white lie—or a big whopper. Are you part of the 40 percent that can be completely honest for a mere 600 seconds?

One of the most time-honored theater traditions is also one of the most morbid. Sometimes, when actors or very serious Shakespeare fans take their final bows, they bequeath their skulls to an acting company to be used as the skull of Yorick, the target of Hamlet’s “Alas, poor Yorick” monologue.

Though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when and where the tradition began, it likely goes back to at least the early 1800s, when famed Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth reportedly found himself on the receiving end of an unexpected gift. The story goes that Booth once befriended a man he shared a jail cell with, but while Booth was released, his friend was eventually hanged. The man told his jailers that his head should be sent to Booth and used in Hamlet. The Players Club in New York City, which Booth’s son Edwin (brother of John Wilkes Booth) once owned, still has the skull said to have belonged to Junius Booth’s unfortunate friend. (While it’s clear that a real skull passed from Junius Booth to his son and was used in Hamlet, it’s difficult to prove the original owner was Booth’s cellmate.) The skull now bears the handwritten legend, “And the rest is silence.”

Another early documented instance is that of John “Pop” Reed, a stagehand at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. After more than half a century working at the Walnut, Reed had developed a love for the Bard and stated in his will that he wanted to live on as Hamlet’s deceased jester. The Walnut granted his wish, and Reed’s remains reside there to this day.

But the most famous Yorick is probably André Tchaikowsky, the Polish composer and pianist. When he died in 1982, the performer added his name to the list of people wanting to act from beyond the grave. A passionate Shakespeare fan who was often moved by Royal Shakespeare Company performances, Tchaikowsky willed his dome to the company. They stuck it on a roof for two years to dry and bleach it, then began using it in rehearsals. Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) rehearsed with it, but the RSC eventually felt the skull was inappropriate to use in an actual performance; a cast was used instead.

Don’t worry: Tchaikowsky’s mortal remains did get their moment in the spotlight. In 2008, actor David Tennant held the composer’s skull aloft in his 22 performances as Hamlet at the Courtyard Theatre in Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon. Though it was originally reported that a fake was used, director Gregory Doran later explained that he didn’t want the skull’s story to become the focus of the production, and so had fibbed a little.

Sadly, not all those who ask are able to serve as Yorick. Comedian Del Close left his noggin to Chicago’s Goodman Theatre when he died in 1999, but his widow was unable to find anyone willing to clean it, and Close’s wish went unanswered. In 1995, an actor who dreamed of performing onstage with the Royal Shakespeare Company—yet who had been repeatedly rejected—figured he would audition from the afterlife by bequeathing his skull to the company. He told The Independent, “I may not know what my next job will be, but I want to ensure I know what my last job will be.” Alas, the RSC declined him once again.

Photographer and filmmaker Jamie Livingston took a photo every day for nearly two decades, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. What started as an offhand project after receiving a Polaroid camera as a gift turned into a poignant look on how everyday moments make up a life.

The next time you proudly sing along with the U.S. national anthem at a sporting event, take a moment to consider that it was once a song about drinking and sex. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is an example of a contrafactum—when new words are added to an old tune. Some of the most well-known songs in history, like these eight, were once vastly different than what we’ve come to know today.

1. “TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR” // “THE ALPHABET SONG” // “BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP”

Which song was the original? None of them. The tune is based on an old French folk song called “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman” (“Ah, Mother, If I Could Tell You”). It was already popular when a young Mozart composed Twelve Variations on “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman” in the 1780s.

The three popular children’s songs are basic versions of the tune. As for which of them came first, “Twinkle Twinkle” was originally a poem published in 1806, but doesn’t appear to have been set to “Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman” until 1838. “The Alphabet Song” (“A-B-C-D-E-F-G”) was published as “The Schoolmaster” in 1834, and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” existed under a different melody as far back as 1744. Of the three, It seems like the first to use the French tune was probably “The Alphabet Song,” but it’s hard to say for sure.

2. “THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER”

Though Francis Scott Key’s lyrics are unabashedly American, the tune they’re set to is anything but. Before it crossed the Atlantic, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was a British song called “To Anacreon in Heaven.” Written for a London gentlemen’s music club called the Anacreontic Society around 1775, the song originally celebrated Anacreon, an ancient Greek poet who enjoyed love, music, and wine.

3. “MY COUNTRY, TIS OF THEE”

The U.S. national anthem isn’t the only patriotic song to have originated elsewhere: Though “My Country, Tis of Thee” has more regal origins, its back story is similar to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The song may have first appeared as “God Save Great George the King” sometime around 1740, and it’s still used today as “God Save the Queen/King”:

Baptist minister Samuel Francis Smith didn’t match American lyrics to it until 1831, while he was studying at Andover Theological Seminary. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the song also became the Danish national anthem, the Prussian national anthem, and the Liechtenstein national anthem, among others.

4. “HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING”

Before “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” was a Christmas carol celebrating the coming of the “newborn king,” it was a Felix Mendelssohn cantata that celebrated the coming of Johannes Gutenberg. Called “Festgesang zur Eröffnung der am ersten Tage der vierten Säcularfeier der Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst,” the piece was written to honor the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press. In 1855, an English musician named William Cummings made a 1739 composition entitled “Hymn for Christmas Day” fit the Mendelssohn masterpiece. Today, of course, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is much better known than the Gutenberg cantata.

5. “AULD LANG SYNE”

Many people hear “Auld Lang Syne” exactly once a year, when the clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve. In Japan, the nostalgic song is much more commonplace—it’s used in many retail stores to notify customers that the store is closing soon. Instead of “Auld Lang Syne” (which is itself a mashup of an old folk song and a Robert Burns poem), the song is called “Hotaru no Hikari,” with lyrics about the various hardships suffered by a devoted student, including studying by the light of a firefly.

6. “WHAT CHILD IS THIS?”

This religious Christmas standard has come a long way since its 16th-century origins as an old English folk song. The original lyrics sang the praises of “Lady Greensleeves”—and there’s a theory that the term “greensleeves” is actually a reference to a prostitute.

Though rumors have long swirled that Henry VIII wrote the song for Anne Boleyn, they’re probably false—the song didn’t become popular until the reign of Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth I.

7. “YANKEE DOODLE DANDY”

You’ve probably been singing “Yankee Doodle” since before you can recall—it’s one of the most common folk songs in the U.S., not to mention the state anthem of Connecticut. But before it was a Fourth of July staple, the British sang it to make fun of the poor, ragtag colonists. And before it was theirs, the Dutch used it as a harvest song, using nonsense lyrics like “Yanker dudel doodle down.”

8. “MY WAY”

Few songs are as synonymous with a performer as “My Way” is to Frank Sinatra—but it wasn’t actually “his.” It started out as a French song called “Comme d’habitude,” written in 1967 by composers Claude François and Jacques Revaux.

Singer, songwriter, and onetime teen idol Paul Anka heard it while visiting Paris, thought there was something to it, and bought the rights. He eventually rewrote the lyrics specifically for Frank Sinatra, and the rest is history. Unfortunately, it seems Ol’ Blue Eyes got a little burned out on his hit. “He always thought that song was self-serving and self-indulgent,” his daughter Tina once told the BBC.

English is a notoriously difficult language to learn to speak—and it’s perhaps even harder to write. Benjamin Franklin—who was born on this day in 1706—certainly thought so, which is why he proposed getting rid of certain letters that make redundant sounds. Why have the letter “C,” for example, when all the sounds it makes can be covered by “S”or “K”?

Other letters he thought were completely replaceable: J, Q, W, X, and Y. Cutting all of these “useless” letters wouldn’t shorten the alphabet, however, because Franklin also proposed six entirely new letters, including one to replace the “sh” sound and one that makes a soft “o” sound. Check out this letter he wrote using his phonetic alphabet:

Since kids these days are still learning the ABCs and not the ABDs, it’s clear that Franklin didn’t get his way. Though he managed to convince famous lexicographer Noah Webster that a phonetic alphabet would be best for the new country, they couldn’t convince anyone else. The public was unimpressed with the idea, and Franklin eventually gave up.

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and gave a speech for the ages, delivering the oratorical masterpiece “I Have a Dream” to nearly 250,000 people.

When he was done, King stepped away from the podium, folded his speech, and found himself standing in front of George Raveling, a former Villanova basketball player who, along with his friend Warren Wilson, had been asked to provide extra security around Dr. King while he was speaking. “We were both tall, gangly guys,” Raveling told Time. “We didn’t know what we were doing but we certainly made for a good appearance.”

Moved by the speech, Raveling saw the folded papers in King’s hands and asked if he could have them. King gave the young volunteer the speech without hesitation, and that was that. “At no time do I remember thinking, ‘Wow, we got this historic document,’” Raveling told Sports Illustrated in 2015. Not realizing what a gem he had on his hand, Raveling went home and stuck the three sheets of paper into a Harry Truman biography for safekeeping. They sat there for nearly two decades while Raveling developed an impressive career coaching NCAA men’s basketball.

In 1984, he had recently taken over as the head coach at the University of Iowa and was chatting with Bob Denney of the Cedar Rapids Gazette when Denney brought up the March on Washington. That’s when Raveling dropped the bomb: “You know, I’ve got a copy of that speech,” he said, and dug it out of the Truman book. After writing an article about Raveling’s connection, the reporter had the speech professionally framed for the coach.

Though he displayed the framed speech in his house for a few years, Raveling began to realize the value of the piece and moved it to a bank vault in Los Angeles. Though he has received offers for King’s speech—one collector wanted to purchase the speech for $3 million in 2014—Raveling has turned them all down. He has been in talks with various museums and universities and hopes to put the speech on display in the future, but for now, he cherishes having it in his possession.

“That to me is something I’ll always be able to look back and say I was there,” Raveling said in the original Cedar Rapids Gazette article. “And not only out there in that arena of people, but to be within touching distance of him. That’s like when you’re 80 or 90 years old you can look back and say ‘I was in touching distance of Abraham Lincoln when he made the Gettysburg Address.’”

“I have no idea why I even asked him for the speech,” Raveling, who is currently serving as Nike’s Director of International Basketball, has said. “But I’m sure glad that I did.”

If you can look at your behind right now and see a little red tag attached to the back pocket of your jeans, you have Levi Strauss to thank.

In 1848, the Bavarian-born Strauss moved from Germany to New York to help his older brothers with their dry-goods business, J. Strauss Brother & Co. Like many other folks seeking to make their fortunes, he decided to head west when he heard “there’s gold in them thar’ hills”—but it wasn’t the mineral he was after. Figuring that all of the ’49ers would need access to more supplies, Levi established a branch of the family business in San Francisco.

Strauss was successful enough that, in 1872, Jacob Davis, a tailor from Reno who often purchased bolts of denim from Strauss, contacted him about an idea he had for stronger clothing [PDF]. The future, he figured, was rivets. His customers went through pants at an alarming rate, and Davis had noticed that wear and tear often occurred at the same points, regardless of the wearer or the pant. To reduce the amount of stress placed on these points, Davis had started putting rivets at each of the commonly torn locations. He wanted to patent the idea, but needed a partner to help him get up and running. Strauss was onboard, and on May 20, 1873, he and Jacob received the patent for blue jeans.

Though the jeans were originally worn by blue collar workers looking to extend the life of their clothing, Levis quickly grew beyond just utilitarian use. From the pair of 501s Marlon Brando donned in 1953’s The Wild One to the trusty leather jacket Albert Einstein wore almost everywhere, the Levi brand became a worldwide phenomenon. “It was the kind of clothing that represented the American West and it was this cachet and this sort of magical thing,” Lynn Downey, archivist and historian at Levi Strauss & Co., told the BBC.

Though Strauss didn’t make it quite long enough to see his company become the global mainstream success it is today, it did flourish, leaving him a multimillionaire when he died in 1902. Perhaps that’s why he “cheerfully fell into [his] last sleep,” according to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times. “Death came most suddenly to the old gentleman, and he passed away just as if he were going asleep. He replied cheerfully to a question from his nurse, and the next moment he was dead.” Strauss had no children, so he left the business to his four nephews, who had previously been made partners in the company.

If you want to pay your respects to the man who helped change the face of fashion, you can find him at the Home of Peace Cemetery and Emanu-El Mausoleum in Colma, California.

Happy Friday the 13th! Why is the number 13 considered unlucky, anyway? Here are 13 possible reasons.

1. THERE WERE 13 PEOPLE AT THE LAST SUPPER.

And tradition has held that the 13th to take their seat was either Judas or Jesus himself.

2. MANY BELIEVE EITHER THE LAST SUPPER OR THE CRUCIFIXION OCCURRED ON THE 13TH.

One of the great controversies surround the Last Supper is whether or not it was a Passover meal. John seems to suggest that the meal was eaten the day before Passover, which has led some scholars to date the Last Supper to the 13th of Nisan (a month on the Jewish calendar), while others say that the crucifixion itself was on the 13th of Nisan.

3. BIBLICAL REFERENCES TO THE NUMBER 13 AREN’T ALL THAT POSITIVE.

According to historian Vincent Foster Hopper, one of the people who really pushed 13 as being unlucky was 16th century numerologist Petrus Bungus. Among his reasons? Hopper says that Bungus “records that the Jews murmured 13 times against God in the exodus from Egypt, that the thirteenth psalm concerns wickedness and corruption, that the circumcision of Israel occurred in the thirteenth year.”

4. TRADITIONALLY, THERE WERE 13 STEPS TO THE GALLOWS.

According to popular lore, there are 13 steps leading up to the gallows. Gallows actually varied wildly, but even then, the number was often brought up to 13. A park ranger at Fort Smith Historic Site once said, “[There were] 13 steps on the gallows—12 up, and one down.”

5. THE MASS ARREST AND EXECUTION OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR BEGAN ON FRIDAY THE 13TH.

The Knights Templar, who were widely believed to be protecting the Holy Grail (the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper) as well as other holy objects, also acted as a bank of sorts to European kings. But after French King Philip IV lost a war with England and became heavily indebted to the Knights, he conspired with Pope Clement V to have all members of the Knights Templar arrested, charged with Satanism and other crimes, and massacred. The roundup of the Knights Templar began in earnest on Friday, October 13, 1307.

6. WOMEN MENSTRUATE ROUGHLY 13 TIMES A YEAR.

Some suggest that the association with 13 being unlucky is due to women generally having around 13 menstrual cycles a year (based on a cycle length of 28 days).

7. A WITCHES’ COVEN HAS 13 MEMBERS.

Although a coven is now considered to be any group of witches (or vampires, in some tellings), it was once believed that a coven was made up of exactly 13 members.

8. 13 LETTERS IN A NAME MEANS THE PERSON IS CURSED.

There’s an old superstition that says if you have 13 letters in your name, you’re bound to be cursed. Silly, yes, but slightly more convincing when you consider that a number of notorious murderers’ names (Charles Manson, Jack the Ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy, and Albert De Salvo) all contain 13 letters. And, in case you were wondering: Adolf Hitler’s baptismal name was Adolfus Hitler [PDF].

9. SUPERSTITION HAS MADE FRIDAY THE 13TH TOUGH FOR BUSINESSES.

Friday the 13th is an expensive day for businesses. One analyst claims that around a billion dollars a year are lost as people choose not to do business of any kind on Friday the 13th.

10. 12 IS A PERFECT NUMBER, SO 13 MUST BE UNLUCKY.

In some schools of numerology, the number 12 is considered to be the representation of perfection and completion. It stands to reason, then, that trying to improve upon perfection by adding a digit is a very bad idea indeed—your greed will be rewarded with bad luck.

11. ZOROASTRIAN TRADITION PREDICTS CHAOS IN THE 13TH MILLENNIUM.

The ancient Persians divided history into four chunks of 3000 years. And although the exact timeframes can vary, some scholars feel that at the beginning of the 13,000th year there will be chaos as evil mounts a great battle against good (although good will eventually triumph).

12. SPORTS GREATS WITH JERSEY NUMBER 13 SOMETIMES COME UP SHORT.

Dan Marino is a constant fixture at or near the top of “best quarterbacks to never win a Super Bowl” list. Perhaps his failure to grab the biggest prize in football comes down to his jersey number—13. And he’s not the only example: basketball star Steve Nash was a two-time NBA MVP and is considered one of the all-time great point guards, but he and his #13 jersey never won a championship.

13. SUPER BOWL XIII WAS A HUGE FINANCIAL SETBACK FOR SPORTS BOOKIES.

And keeping with sports, 1979’s Super Bowl XIII was a particularly bad one for bookies. Called “Black Sunday,” it pitted the Dallas Cowboys, the defending champions, against the Pittsburgh Steelers. But as money kept pouring in from Texas and Pennsylvania, the spread kept changing until settling precisely at the game’s actual spread. The losses were legendary.

To counter all of this undue hatred of the poor number 13, here’s one reason to love it: a baker’s dozen. Mmm, extra doughnut.

A version of this story ran in 2010.

The legendary Harlem Globetrotters played their first game 90 years ago today, on January 7, 1927. In the near-century since, a select few people have been named “honorary Globetrotters.” While there are athletes on the list, most of them aren’t exactly people who can handle a basketball like Meadowlark Lemon.

1. HENRY KISSINGER

In 1976, Henry Kissinger was deemed the first-ever member of the honorary roster. “I’m not too good at the fast break, but I’m strong on defense, and despite my height, I’m a pretty good rebounder,” Kissinger said. “It is an honor to be associated with a group whose won-and-lost record was certainly better than my own. My only worry is how I will look in short pants.”

2. BOB HOPE

Hope was named an honorary Globetrotter in 1977, receiving jersey number 1. It’s no surprise that the legendary comedian’s acceptance letter was full of jokes:

“To be perfectly frank, I deserve to be a Globetrotter … In fact, I was recently given an award for completing my first million miles, and that was just to and from airports. The Trotters are famed for making baskets. I’ve been making baskets myself lately, and if the psychiatrists let me out for an hour, I’ll be there for your presentation.”

3. KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR

The Globetrotters offered Abdul-Jabbar a reported $1 million to play basketball for them back in 1969, but he declined and went on to become the first pick in the NBA draft that year. They eventually added him to the lineup as an honorary member in 1989.

4. WHOOPI GOLDBERG

Comedian and actress Whoopi Goldberg also joined the team in 1989.

5. NELSON MANDELA

In 1996, the Globetrotters made history when they became the first professional basketball team to play in a free democratic South Africa. They also hosted clinics, made school and hospital visits, and honored President Nelson Mandela with his own number.

6. JACKIE JOYNER-KERSEE

Track and field Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee became the sixth member of the honorary squad in 1999. Though she’s known for her prowess around the track, Joyner-Kersee could hold her own if the Globetrotters ever asked her to jump in on the court: She briefly played for the Richmond Rage in the women’s American Basketball League.

7. POPE JOHN PAUL II

Pope John Paul II made the cut in 2000, receiving jersey number 75 in honor of the Globetrotters’ 75th anniversary.

8. JESSE JACKSON

The civil rights activist famously stood up for the Globetrotters when they were criticized for portraying African-Americans as buffoonish. “I think they’ve been a positive influence,” Jackson said. “ … They did not show blacks as stupid. On the contrary, they were shown as superior.” Jackson was inducted in 2001.

9. POPE FRANCIS

The Globetrotters have not one, but two holy rollers on their honorary lineup. Pope Francis was added to the honorary roster in 2015. “His tireless work for the well-being of the poor and elderly, his humanitarian efforts, and his commitment to bridge gaps between people of various cultures are ways the Harlem Globetrotters also aspire to touch lives around the world,” Globetrotters CEO Kurt Schneider said.

Globetrotters Hi-Lite Bruton, Ant Atkinson, Big Easy Lofton, and Flight Time Lang tried to teach the Pope the old trick of spinning a basketball on one finger, but as you can see from the video above, His Holiness should probably stick to recording albums.

10. ROBIN ROBERTS

Award-winning newscaster Robin Roberts joined the team in 2015, receiving jersey number 21—the same number she wore as a basketball player for Southeastern Louisiana University. “She used her platform as a journalist to selflessly make her personal health battle public in order to raise awareness of the need for bone marrow donors, and by doing so, she potentially helped save lives,” Schneider said. “Robin fully embodies the ambassadorial spirit the Globetrotters have exuded for 90 years.”

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.