President Obama is slated to let Congress know how the country's doing in his third SOTU address tonight. Here are the answers to a few questions about the speech.]]> President Obama is slated to let Congress (and the rest of us) know how the country’s doing in his third State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Here are the answers to a few questions that might come up when the address storms every channel of your television.

Why does the President give a State of the Union address to Congress every year?

The address can trace its roots back to the Constitution. Article II, Section 3, Clause 1 of the Constitution says that the President “shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Isn’t that a pretty vague order?

“From time to time” leaves the question of frequency open to interpretation, but George Washington helped cement the State of the Union as an annual event after he gave the first State of the Union address at Federal Hall in New York City in January 1790.

Since there wasn’t much of a blueprint for Washington, he praised the 1st Congress’ work and outlined a brief legislative plan for the upcoming year. In this way, Washington’s address bore some resemblance to the one President Obama will give tonight. On the other hand, Washington’s goals were a bit different from national health care; he wanted to work on the army, build post roads, and develop uniform systems of currency, weights, and measures.

What if a President didn’t love public speaking?

You’ll notice that the order from Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution doesn’t say anything about a speech; the President just has to keep Congress informed of what’s going on in the country. When Thomas Jefferson took office in 1801, he decided that the idea of showing up before Congress to deliver a grand address sounded like something a monarch would do, so he decided to bag the speech. Instead, he wrote down an annual message and sent it to Congress, where a clerk read it aloud to the assembled legislators.

Would a politician really skip a chance to give a big speech?

Apparently Presidents don’t love giving long speeches any more than the rest of us do, because Jefferson’s successors jumped on this new system. For over a century, every President opted to keep Congress informed through a written message rather than a spoken one; these messages were generally full of long, exhaustive administrative and budget reports rather than rousing political rhetoric.

Woodrow Wilson finally revived the old practice of delivering a speech in 1913. Even then, Presidents haven’t always appeared to give a speech. Since the 1913 revival of the practice, 22 State of the Union reports have come in written form, most recently Reagan’s 1989 report.

Who are all of the people crammed into the front of the House Chamber?

It’s a big crowd for the State of the Union. In addition to the members of Congress, the President usually has the Justices of the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his cabinet seated at the front of the audience.

Who won’t be there?

At least one member of President Obama’s cabinet. Since the Cold War, one member of the cabinet has holed up in an undisclosed secure location during big government gatherings like the State of the Union address and presidential inaugurations. This absent member is dubbed the “designated survivor.” In the unlikely event that an attack or a disaster leads to the deaths of all of the assembled leaders, having a designated survivor hiding out somewhere safe maintains the line of presidential succession.

Since 2005 a few members of Congress have also stayed away from big events so there would be at least a tiny legislature remaining in the event of a disaster.

When did the State of the Union address become must-see TV?

President Truman actually gave the first televised State of the Union in 1947, but it didn’t become a primetime spectacle until 1965. Lyndon B. Johnson decided to give his address in the evening that year, while previous addresses had generally taken place during the day. At the time, LBJ was trying to sell Americans on his civil rights reforms and Great Society plans, so he decided to give the address at night in order to reach the widest possible audience. The trick worked, and it was the first State of the Union address to be televised during the evening.

Can a President opt out of giving a State of the Union address?

Sort of. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense for a newly inaugurated president to deliver a State of the Union address after only having been in office for a few days. Since Ronald Reagan’s first term started in 1981, new presidents have opted to give a somewhat more specialized address—everyone but George H.W. Bush in 1989 has spoken mostly about the economy—to a joint session of Congress. Although these speeches are accompanied by the familiar pomp and circumstance, they’re not technically State of the Union addresses.

Who started the parade of honored guests?

Could such a Hollywood flourish have come from anyone other than Ronald Reagan? His 1982 address was the first to feature personal guests that the President publicly recognized over the course of his speech.

As you might guess, there have a few guests that one might not expect at a political event. A few particularly choice guests: 12-year-old music prodigy Tyrone Ford (1986), baseball sluggers Sammy Sosa (1999) and Hank Aaron (2000), Baby Einstein founder Julie Aigner-Clark (2007), and NBA star Dikembe Mutombo (2007).

What’s the story with the opposition party’s response right after the address?

In 1966, television networks offered the Republican Party a half-hour slot for a rebuttal of LBJ’s address. Senator Everett Dirksen and Representative Gerald Ford made counterarguments to Johnson’s comments. Since 1976, the opposition’s response has been slotted in directly behind the State of the Union.

Who gave the longest address in history?

According to the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, Harry Truman takes that prize with a 1946 speech—over 25,000 words. (To give you an idea of how long that is, the average modern address is in the neighborhood of 5,000 words.) George Washington wins the award for brevity; his first address in 1790 was just 833 words long.

A version of this article originally appeared in 2010.

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Very short answers to very big questions!]]> The cover story for the new issue of mental_floss magazine is The Most Important Questions of 2012. To tide you over until you get your hands on a copy, here are 25 very short answers to very big questions.

1. How do South Koreans get kids to stop studying?

Police.

2. What’s the difference between lava and magma?

Location.

3. What’s the best way to figure out how your tattoo will age?

Math.

4. What makes New York bagels so tasty?

Poaching.

5. What’s the biggest downside of an all-beer diet?

Scurvy.

6. Can soap get dirty?

Yes.

7. Why do coins make your hands smell funny?

Iron.

8. What made the AK-47 so popular?

Reliability.

9. Legally, are tomatoes fruits or vegetables?

Veggies.

10. How many rupees will a yeti-hunting permit set you back?

500.

11. What dog might steal Mary Poppins’ gig?

Pits!

12. What’s the sound of one hand clapping?

“Pwwwft.”

13. What’s the oddest thing Antarctica recycles?

Dreams.

14. What’s the name of the space between your thumb and other fingers?

Purlicue.

15. How would an OCD person prefer to see a pine tree?

Deconstructed.

16. Have Archie and Jughead ever railed against sinners?

Yup.

17. What happens when ants wear stilts?

Confusion.

18. Can you have a two-way conversation with a severed head?

OK.

19. What’s the neatest thing you can buy for $600,000?

Submarines.

20. Who’s the weirdest person Barbara Bush ever apologized to?

Marge.

21. What do you give cold chickens?

Cardigans.

22. Is this milk still good?

Probably.

23. Credit, Debit or Paypal: What’s the safest way to pay online?

Credit.

24. What company was Steve Jobs happy Apple appeared before in the phone book?

Atari.

25. How many ingredients are in the McRib?

70!

Bonus: Where can I get a free issue of mental_floss magazine?

Here!

South Korea image credit: Xinhua /Landov; Lava image via Shutterstock; Tattoo image via Joe/Discover; Beer image via Shutterstock; Soap image via Shutterstock; Coins image via Shutterstock; AK-47 image credit: Ed Darack/Science Faction/Corbis; Tomato image via Shutterstock; Hand image via Shutterstock; Deconstructed pine image via Ursus Wehrli; Severed head image via Shutterstock; Money image via Shutterstock; Online shopping image via Shutterstock

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When candidates drop out of the race before they've spent all their campaign donations, what happens to the money?]]>

Image credit: REUTERS/ADAM HUNGER/LANDOV

After a disappointing performance in the Iowa Caucus, Rick Perry is reassessing his campaign. Some members of her own party are urging Michele Bachmann to call it quits. [Update: He's still in. She's out.] If they do drop out and they’re not out of cash, what happens to that money?

One thing’s for sure — disappointed candidates can’t console themselves by putting the dough toward a new yacht.

The Federal Election Commission has strict rules about what federal candidates can and can’t do with leftover campaign money, and the biggest commandment is that they can’t pocket it for personal use. Here’s what a campaign committee is allowed to do with any lingering cash: it can donate the funds to charities or political parties; it can contribute $2,000 per election to other candidates; and it can save the money in case the candidate chooses to run again.

In reality, though, there’s rarely a giant pot of money for losing candidates to play with. Running a campaign is an expensive proposition — Barack Obama spent more than $700 million on his 2008 White House bid — and insufficient cash is often the reason campaigns go belly up.

As for winning politicians, they’ll often put their leftover funds toward their next race. If they choose not to run, they have to abide by the same rules. Oddly, this wasn’t always the case. Until 1993, U.S. Representatives who took office before January 8, 1980, were allowed to keep any leftover campaign change when they retired.

This is one of the Most Important Questions of 2012 featured in the new issue of mental_floss magazine. Click here to get a free issue!

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More than a few of us will crack open a bottle or two of champagne to help toast in the New Year. With a few choice facts about the bubbly stuff, you can look knowledgeable rather than just tipsy when you drain your flute.]]>
As midnight approaches on December 31st, more than a few of us will crack open a bottle or two of champagne to help toast the New Year. With a few choice facts about the bubbly stuff, you can look knowledgeable rather than just tipsy when you drain your flute. Here are a few little nuggets you can share with fellow revelers.

What exactly is champagne?

Strictly speaking, champagne is a sparkling wine that comes from the Champagne region of northeastern France. If it’s a bubbly wine from another region, it’s sparkling wine, not champagne. While many people use the term “champagne” generically for any sparkling wine, the French have maintained their legal right to call their wines champagne for over a century. The Treaty of Madrid, signed in 1891 established this rule, and the Treaty of Versailles reaffirmed it.

The European Union helps protect this exclusivity now, although certain American producers can still generically use “champagne” on their labels if they were using the term before early 2006.

How is champagne made?

Sparkling wines can be made in a variety of ways, but traditional champagne comes to life by a process called the methode Champenoise. Champagne starts its life like any normal wine. The grapes are harvested, pressed, and allowed to undergo a primary fermentation. The acidic results of this process are then blended and bottled with a bit of yeast and sugar so it can undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle. (It’s this secondary fermentation that gives champagne its bubbles.) This new yeast starts doing its work on the sugar, and then dies and becomes what’s known as lees. The bottles are then stored horizontally so the wine can “age on lees” for 15 months or more.

After this aging, winemakers turn the bottles upside down so the lees can settle to the bottom. Once the dead yeast has settled, producers open the bottles to remove the yeast, add a bit of sugar known as dosage to determine the sweetness of the champagne, and slip a cork onto the bottle.

What’s so special about the Champagne region?

Several factors make the chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier grapes grown in the Champagne region particularly well suited for crafting delicious wines. The northern location makes it a bit cooler than France’s other wine-growing regions, which gives the grapes the proper acidity for sparkling wine production. Moreover, the porous, chalky soil of the area — the result of large earthquakes millions of years ago — aids in drainage.

Do I have to buy champagne to get good sparkling wine?

Not at all. Although many champagnes are delightful, most of the world’s wine regions make tasty sparkling wines of their own. You can find highly regarded sparkling wines from California, Spain, Italy, Australia, and other areas without shelling out big bucks for Dom Perignon.

Speaking of Dom Perignon, who was this guy?

Contrary to popular misconception, the namesake of the famous brand didn’t invent champagne. But Perignon, a Benedictine monk who worked as cellar master at an abbey near Epernay during the 17th and 18th centuries, did have quite an impact on the champagne industry. In Perignon’s day, sparkling wine wasn’t really a sought-after beverage. In fact, the bubbles were considered to be something of a flaw, and early production methods made producing the wine somewhat dangerous. (Imprecise temperature controls could lead to fermentation starting again after the wine was in the bottle. If one bottle in a cellar exploded and had its cork shoot out, a chain reaction would start.) Perignon helped standardize production methods to avoid these explosions, and he also added two safety features to his wines: thicker glass bottles that better withstood pressure and rope snare that helped keep corks in place.

What’s the difference between brut and extra brut?

You’ll see these terms on champagne labels to describe how sweet the good stuff in the bottle is. As mentioned above, a bit of sugar known as dosage is added to the bottle right before it’s corked, and these terms describe exactly how much sugar went in. Extra brut has less than six grams of sugar per liter added, while brut contains less than 15 grams of additional sugar per liter. Several other classifications exist, but drier champagnes are more common.

Why do athletes spray each other with champagne after winning titles?

Throughout its history, champagne has been a celebratory drink that’s made appearances at coronations of kings and the launching of ships. However, the bubbly-spraying throwdowns that now accompany athletic victories are a much more recent development. When Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt won the grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 1967, they ascended the winner’s podium with a bottle of champagne in hand. Gurney looked down and saw team owner Carroll Shelby and Ford Motors CEO Henry Ford II standing with some journalists and decided to have a bit of fun. Gurney gave the bottle a shake and sprayed the crowd, and a new tradition was born.

This article originally appeared in 2008.

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