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From how they became the Mountbatten-Windsors to the last person in line to the throne, here's what you need to know about the British royal family.

If you were a woman who wanted to go for a swim 200 years ago, you'd first have to hop in a bathing machine.

Yes, beach trips today mean sand everywhere. But beachgoers in the past had to endure much worse than just sand.

Daniel Keyes’s 'Flowers for Algernon' is a poignant science-fiction novella that has won critical acclaim and popularity around the globe.

In the past, courting often involved things like being accompanied by chaperones and talking through tubes.

Online dating and swiping on Tinder have nothing on romance in the past, which was often humiliating, dangerous, and exhausting.

From the fart jokes penned by famous writers to the horrifying consequences of holding in your flatus to why toots smell worse in the shower, here's what you need to know about farts.

A photo of author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson.

Author Hunter S. Thompson is renowned for popularizing the gonzo journalism movement—but it's not always easy to separate fact from fiction.

Prince Albert Victor, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, and author Lewis Carroll were all suspected of being Jack the Ripper.

Lewis Carroll, H.H. Holmes, and Queen Victoria's grandson are just a few of the people who were suspected of being Jack the Ripper.

A reconstruction of the skull of Peking man (Homo erectus pekinensis)

From natural wonders like Guairá Falls to literary works from Hemingway and Byron to paintings by Picasso and Renoir, here's a list of just a few priceless things that are gone forever.

Back in the day, you might have encountered someone with a bridge to sell you.

From fake relics to fake princesses to medical fraud involving goat testicles, history is rife with con jobs that managed to fool unsuspecting marks.

Old Gold Puzzle: Courtesy of Crown Publishing; Jigsaw Puzzle: MerveKarahan // iStock via Getty Images Plus

How did Americans make money during the Great Depression? Some sold apples on street corners and others became migrant farmers. But about 2 million Americans tried to strike it rich another way: By doing puzzles.

Franklin Pierce, 14th president of the United States.

Franklin Pierce was, by all measures, set up for a life of military and political success, the height of which he achieved when he took the oath of the nation's highest office on March 4, 1853. Here's what you should know about "Fainting Frank."

Jack Kerouac's classic novel wasn't as spontaneous as you've been led to believe.

'On the Road,' Jack Kerouac’s stream-of-consciousness travelogue, charts the adventures of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty as they road trip across the United States. Here’s what you should know.

The Mental Floss team drops all of these fun facts and more at cocktail parties.

No Mental Floss celebration—and no celebration of Mental Floss—would be complete without dropping a few fascinating facts and tidbits of trivia.

Clockwise from left: Phineas Gage; Albert Einstein; a Fowler phrenology bust; Gibraltar 1; Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI; and a trepanned skull given to Ephraim George Squier.

The heads on this list—whether human or animal, ancient artifact or geological feature—have actually changed the course of history, some in surprising ways that impact us every day.

If you ever had to endure the Presidential Fitness Test, you know that kids today have it easy.

Physical education in centuries past was sadistic, sexist, and just plain bizarre. Be grateful you never had to experience these P.E. nightmares.

Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks ... or did she? Let's separate the fact from the fiction of Lizzie's legend.

Yuri_Arcurs/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Profound quotes about books and reading from the likes of Toni Morrison, Jane Austen, George R.R. Martin, Salman Rushdie, and more of your favorite authors.

Operators at the switchboard of the Magneto Exchange of the National Telephone Company.

Thanks to developments in science and technology, you can't add jobs like slubber doffers and night soil men to your resume these days.

Not surprisingly, the Witness Protection Program is pretty mysterious.

What exactly is the Witness Protection Program, and how does it work? Here's what you need to know about the secretive program.

The solar system: It’s big, it’s heliocentric, and it’s got space junk to spare. Here are 24 out-of-this-world facts about the corner of space that’s home to Earth.