The miniskirt is named after…
The miniskirt is named after the Mini Cooper and not the skirt’s size. The designer, Mary Quant loved Mini Cooper cars and named the garment after them, saying that car and skirt were both “optimistic, exuberant, young, flirty,” and complemented each other.
John Newton was the captain…
John Newton was the captain of a slave ship. In 1748 he encountered a severe storm and, although being non-religious, prayed out to God for safety. This event changed his life. He later became a clergy member, an abolitionist, and wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace” about his experience.
While being mad about having to work…
While being mad about having to work on New Years Day, children’s TV host Soupy Sales, during one of his programs, asked children to send him the “funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents” from their parent’s wallets and purses. He received thousands of dollars in the mail and was suspended for […]
The dwarf actors in the 1987 film…
The dwarf actors in the 1987 film The Garbage Pail Kids Movie could only survive in their costumes for five to seven minutes before their oxygen depleted, so a paramedic with a stop watch was required on set in order to keep the takes quick, and the actors from asphyxiating.
Sound Baptisms
On Sundays, San Francisco’s Church of St. John Coltrane holds ‘sound baptisms’ — three-hour jam sessions, and their general advice is ‘If you ain’t happy, you ain’t listening to enough Coltrane!’.
An newly discovered organism called…
An newly discovered organism called Lithoredo abatanica eats stone and excretes sand. It is a shipworm, a group of burrowing animals known for eating woods and related to clams, but so different from known examples that it is both a new species and genus.
Gargoyles on a 15th century church…
Gargoyles on a 15th century church in Loire-Atlantique, France, now include Gizmo and a Gremlin from “Gremlins” and the xenomorph from “Alien.” The characters were added when the centuries-old church was restored in the 1990s.
Plastic and petroleum were originally…
Plastic and petroleum were originally environmental saviors, because they eliminated the need to kill whales, elephants, turtles, and many other creatures for their materials.
Oregon had the only state-sponsored…
Oregon had the only state-sponsored rock festival in United States history, Vortex I. It was an elaborate ploy to lure young people away from Portland during a planned visit by President Richard Nixon.