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Mental Floss
You can't visit a Halloween store without seeing the vinyl visages of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Dressing up as the incumbent president on October 31 dates back to the 1960s at least, though some beloved political figures, like George Washington and Ab
Amanda Green|
Imagine lying on a table in a old-school operating room. Faces stare down on you from the viewing galleries above and your leg throbs with pain from a broken bone and an infection just starting to set in. The door opens and three men in blood-stiffened a
Matt Soniak|
Reader and frequent question-asker Nate J. wrote in wondering why we say things like "10-4" and "Roger" on walkie-talkies and other two-way radios.
Matt Soniak|
Barring fictional characters, a slave named Tituba is America's most famous "witch." She was there at Ground Zero in the case of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. But because she was a slave, her documented biography is sparse compared to other accused witc
Miss Cellania|
The act of scraping nails down a chalkboard creates a sound so awful that most people have an instantaneous reaction: A shiver runs up the spine, and they slap their hands over their ears. Anything to block out that noise! But why do unpleasant sounds af
Erin McCarthy|
The famous mascot of Metro-Goldwyn Mayer is not one lion, but five lions. These are their stories. Slats
Matt Soniak|
“The Ballad of Ira Hayes” Written by Pete La Farge (1963) Performed by Johnny Cash The Music Folk singer and songwriter Peter La Farge packed a lot into his thirty-four years on Earth. The son of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist was a Korean War vet, a
Bill DeMain|
In the days before the Internet, writing a letter to a celebrity and sending it out via snail mail was almost a rite of passage. Nearly everyone did it. As a kid, I wrote letters to my favorite athletes requesting autographs, and was always thrilled—and a
Colin Patrick|
Politicians have to dress the part. Before public appearances, they meet with image consultants to ensure that they're wearing the perfect power tie and accessorizing with American flag memorabilia that's noticeable without being ostentatious. But what mi
Amanda Green|
A mental_floss staffer who shall remain nameless asks, “Why is cranberry juice good for treating UTIs? I will not tell you why this question had been on my mind.”Bacterial infections in the urinary tract and its organs are pretty common, especially in adu
Matt Soniak|
TV doesn’t get much respect. It rots your brain and grows couch potatoes. But the so-called idiot box also swings elections, rewires brains, snares criminals, and even sways the Supreme Court. The following may not be the best shows of the last 25 years—i
the mag|
Installment #40: Ten days after Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire, the rest of the Balkan League piled on, with simultaneous declarations of war by Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, which ultimately sent some 750,000 troops across the borders to s
Erik Sass|
One of the biggest news stories of 2012 has been the so-called Miami Zombie attack, where one man—theorized to be on bath salts—attacked a homeless man and gnawed on his face. But lots of other terrifying things happened all over the world this year that
M Asher Cantrell|
Near Adams, Tennessee, stands a cave and a historical marker on a farm where the family of John Bell lived in the early 1800s. It was the scene of a series of mysterious manifestations that became known as the Bell Witch
Miss Cellania|
Around this time of year, we’re all loosening our belts and getting ready to gorge ourselves on hot, gravy-laden turkey. So we couldn’t help but wonder about things at the opposite end of the temperature spectrum: the “cold turkey” invoked when people up
Matt Soniak|
Erin McCarthy|
“Biko” Written and performed by Peter Gabriel
Bill DeMain|
Photo Courtesy of the Free Library of PhiladelphiaTechnical drawings of architectural or engineering designs always seem to consist of white images and text on blue paper. Why?
Matt Soniak|
It's not unusual for wealthy people to leave part or all of their wealth to family and friends. It's extremely rare, however, that people leave estates and fortunes to complete strangers. Here are seven of those exceptional people. 1. An unnamed wealthy
Adrienne Crezo|
The legendary monsters series continues with some scary stories from Africa. There are so many nations and discrete communities in Africa that the problem here was not finding the legendary stories, but whittling down the list to a manageable number.1.
Miss Cellania|
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