If you love trivia, games, mental_floss, or almost any combination of those words, we’ve got the thing for you: the mental_floss trivia game! And for the next 24 hours, we’re offering it at 15% off when you enter the word “game” into the coupon code. Oh, and if you’re in the mood for even more trivia, our power-blogger Jason English’s new Big Fat Lies game just came out today too. Check ‘em both out here at the mental_floss store.

This article, written by Brian McMahon, appears in the November- December issue of mental_floss. Pick up a copy wherever brilliant (or lots of) magazines are sold. To subscribe, click here.

During World War II, the British secret service hatched a master plan to smuggle escape gear to captured Allied soldiers inside Germany. Their secret weapon? Monopoly boxes. The original notion was simple enough: Find a way to sneak useful items into prison camps in an unassuming form. But the idea to use Monopoly came from a series of happy coincidences, all of which started with maps.

Smooth As Silk

Maps are harder to smuggle than you might think. They fall apart when wet, and they make a lot of noise when unfolded. Allied officials feared paper maps might draw the attention of German troops, so they turned to an unlikely source for help—silk. Not only would silk maps hold up in all kinds of weather, but they’d also come with the life-saving benefit of being whisper quiet.

To produce these silent maps, the Brits turned to John Waddington Ltd., a company that had recently perfected the process of printing on silk and was already manufacturing silk escape maps for British airmen to carry. What else was Waddington known for? You guessed it—being the licensed manufacturer of Monopoly outside the United States.

Suddenly, the popular board game seemed like the perfect way to get supplies inside German-run POW camps. At the time, the Nazis were hard-pressed to get provisions to their own troops, much less to the Allied soldiers they’d captured. Wishing to hide this less-than-stellar upholding of the Geneva Convention, they happily welcomed Red Cross aid packages for POWs. So throwing Monopoly games into the care kits along with food and clothing was met with little scrutiny. Monopoly was already a well-known game throughout Europe, and the German guards saw it as the perfect way for their detainees to remain occupied for hours.

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On Tuesday, I presented fascinating facts about six artists who were born in or who died in November. Wrapping up the list, today’s post presents interesting tidbits about five more November artists. (This list, however, is by no means exhaustive; there are more than 60 artists who were born in or who died in November!)

7. Camille Pissarro (death: Nov. 13, 1903), a French artist, had eight children with Julie Vellay. Two of the children died while still young, but the rest followed in their father’s footsteps and also became painters. [His “Landscape in the Vicinity of Louveciennes” is pictured above.]
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Interesting people say interesting things. Four of the most interesting people are inextricably linked in ways too numerous to count and essentially bridge the gaps between philosophy, politics, Jedi guruism and music: existential philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, uber-politician Bill Clinton, Jedi master Yoda and Radiohead frontman/lyricist Thom Yorke.

To find out what you’ve retained from the universal truisms uttered by each over the years, take our quiz:

The Quotation Vexation Sensation: A Brett Savage Quiz

UPDATE: Still another whole day-and-a-half to send in your brilliant ideas for a future mental_floss t-shirt. See below for details.

We’ve run our share of t-shirt contests, from Ridiculous Board Games to eBay scavenger hunts to Weekend Genius Challenges. But this one is different. To celebrate the arrival of our new shirts (above), let’s start working on the next batch.

Here’s how to play:

1) Come up with an idea for a fun and quirky mental_floss t-shirt. Make sure yours is not an idea someone else is already wearing. For inspiration, browse our store to see all our shirts.

2) Email your brilliant and original shirt idea to flossytees@gmail.com. (Comments on this post are disabled.)

3) The three best, as judged by us on Friday, win – what else? – a mental_floss t-shirt.

4) If we choose to create a shirt based on your idea, you’ll also win $100. And we’ll write a whole mental_floss blog entry about how witty you are. That should sufficiently wow prospective employers when they’re Google-stalking you one day.

While you’re brainstorming, picture these t-shirt models wearing your witticisms…

I’m a little behind the curve on this one (by about a year), but I’m sure you’ll let that slide. I just discovered the hilarious Phone Call to the 14th Century, a faux game show by the Kasper Hauser comedy group (iTunes link: Kasper Hauser podcast). The rules of “Phone Call to the 14th Century” are simple:

You all know the rules of the game: you get one phone call to impart as much knowledge as you can to the people of the 14th Century. The one who imparts the most walks away with the BIG one. Ready… phone call…. BEGIN!

To listen: Visit the show page and click the big pink “play” button under “Hear Episode One.”

While the piece speaks for itself, it actually raises a fun thought experiment: what would you tell the people of the 14th Century?

The tortoise and the playwright - 458 B.C.
The possibly apocryphal but widely-disseminated story of Aeschylus’ death goes something like this: the legendary Greek playwright was walking outside when an eagle, mistaking his round bald head for a rock, dropped a tortoise on it. (Seriously.) Apparently, eagles still use this technique to break open shelled prey — no word as to whether the tortoise was killed as well as the writer.

The stoic who died laughing - 207 B.C.
It’s said that the Greek philosopher Chrysippus died of laughter while watching his drunken donkey attempt to eat figs. (Actually, if he’d had a video camera, sounds like that might’ve been the first great YouTube phenomenon. Which, if everyone were as sensitive to funny animal videos as the Greeks probably would’ve been, could lead to a doomsday scenario like this.)

The man who thought too much - 270 B.C.
The Greek poet and philosopher Philitas of Cos is said to have died from insomnia while contemplating the Liar Paradox. (An example of a Liar: “The next sentence is false. The previous sentence is true.”) According to Athenaeus, his epitaph read:

“Philetas of Cos am I
’Twas The Liar who made me die,
And the bad nights caused thereby.” (more…)

Plush toys really don’t serve any serious purpose, and are often bought just to fill a gift obligation. But if you put some thought into it, you can really impress someone with their favorite things, in a form all ready to cuddle up with. You don’t even have to look, because the list is right here!

1. Tickle Me Freud

Forget Tickle Me Elmo! Tickle Me Freud is a serious psychoanalyst until you press his foot, then he shows his real personality with an infectious belly laugh!

2. Monty Python’s Killer Rabbit

From the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, this cute little bunny seems harmless, until he bares his teeth and eats you. Available in both original plush-only and electronic flashing-eye version. Run away! Run away!

3. Venereal Disease Microbes

These toys are greatly magnified versions of the germs that cause Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and Herpes. Available individually or as a set of four. Other microbes are available from Giant Microbes, from the flu to Mad Cow prions.

Lots more cool plushies, after the jump.
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With the holiday season heating up and people on the lookout for that special something, I thought you all might enjoy the following short list of way pricey food and drink orders. If you’ve got money to burn (not simply through your pocket, but down to the core of the earth), one of these ostentatious extravaganzas might be just the ticket to impress someone special.

The $1,000 Pizza

Nino’s Bellissima in NYC offers a caviar/lobster tail pie that’ll only drain $1K from your bank account. It’s thin-crust (you think they could at least splurge on deep-dish) and supposedly very very tasty. Of course, at that price, who would argue?

The $1,000 Bagel

Executive Chef Frank Tujague at the Westin Hotel in Times Square, NYC, is serving up a $1,000 bagel. What’s in it? Alba white truffle cream cheese and goji berry infused Riesling jelly with golden leaves. From the article: “The white truffle, which is known for its one-of-a-kind aroma, is the second most expensive food in the world, next to caviar, and is very hard to come by. So hard, in fact, that it’s grown from late autumn to winter beneath certain oak trees in the Alba region of Italy, where trained pigs and dogs are called upon to find the delicacies.” Trained pigs????? Say whaaa?

The $10,000 Martini

The Algonquin Hotel in NYC is offering the world’s most expensive martini. What’s so expensive about a little gin and vermouth, you might ask? Simple, it’s served on the rock. And no, that’s not a typo. I meant the rock, as in a real diamond!

The $25,000 Dessert

Named the The Frrrozen Haute Chocolate, Serendipity-3 restaurant, also in NYC, has concocted a mix of cocoa, milk, edible gold and truffle shavings served with a real gold spoon in a golden goblet decorated with 1 carat of diamonds. If you’re wondering if the good folks over at the Guinness Book have been notified, they have, and, yes, the dessert has earned its place as the dessert with the most rrrs in its name. Joking, it can actually brag that it’s now the World’s Most Expensive Dessert.

How about you all? What’s the most expensive, outlandish thing you’ve ever ordered while dining out?

The first true-color high-resolution map of Antarctica has been unveiled. Now we can see penguins and snow in living color!

This creepily lifelike robotic dental patient will tell you when it hurts. She could soon be the scariest part of a dental student’s training.

Top Ten Useless Talents. Useless, maybe, but they still impress people, or at least make us laugh.

A gang of Indian women are taking on corrupt officials and men who beat their wives. They dress in pink and wield axes to fight for the poor and downtrodden.

Modern Marriage Proposals. Check out some of the most creative ways people have made the occasion memorable.