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If you’re a pop culture fan, then why not celebrate some of these alternative winter holidays next year? 1. Life Day There’s no doubt about the impact Star Wars has had on pop culture, but the weirdness that was the CBS Star Wars Holiday Special can’t
What do Jewish people do on Christmas? You might be surprised at teh customs that have developed.
Disney and co. went through dozens of names before deciding on the seven we know today.
This past year, like every year, many celebrated and significant people left us – an eclectic group, from Alexander Haig to Gary Coleman, from Lynn Redgrave to J.D. Salinger. With one tragic jetliner crash, we lost much of Poland’s political elite. But he
Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). We've invited him to share some of his stories on mental_floss this month. To subscribe to his daily email, click
As promised, here are your four starting locations, brought to you by the good folks at our favorite NYC pizza chain, Two Boots! Two Boots 74 Bleecker Street New York, NY 10012 Two Boots 201 W 11th St New York, NY 10014 Two Boots 1617 2nd Ave New
As a self-proclaimed word nerd, I love when the word of the year is announced. You may have seen the #1 word floating about the Web, but here's the rest of the list as determined by Merriam-Webster.com. They base their picks on words that have seen more
We're less than 24 hours away now! Tomorrow morning, at precisely 10:30am, we will announce your four starting locations right here on this blog (also on the following Twitter accounts: @mental_floss, @neatorama, @resila The locations will be roughly ar
This may sound made up, but Alyssa Milano has been one of our biggest supporters over the years. She's introduced thousands of people to mental_floss; "through a link tweeted by Alyssa Milano" finished surprisingly high on a recent survey of how people fi
Happy Birthday to Beethoven! At least, we think it’s his birthday (see #1). To celebrate, let’s all bash someone over the head with a chair, stop washing our clothes and drink way too much coffee. Read on to read about those habits and seven more unusu
Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). We've invited him to share some of his stories on mental_floss this week. To subscribe to his daily email, click
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is one of the best-known Christmas tales in history. It’s one of my favorites – long before I could read, I repeatedly watched Mickey’s Christmas Carol, the Disney adaptation that featured Scrooge McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge (of
Yesterday we ran a quiz titled "Monty Python Phrase or Ben Franklin Synonym for Drunk?" The quiz referred to Franklin's lengthy list of expressions meaning "inebriated" that he first published in the Pennsylvania Gazette on January 6, 1737. People must b
One of the great things about comics is that characters can be physically disabled, yet still be superhuman. Here are some of the great disabled superheroes. 1. Dr.
• Whether it came from the turn-of-the century prison system, the 1893 World's Fair or the Chili Queens of San Antonio (or from traditional dishes prepared by Mexicans living in the Southwest), chili's popularity has never slowed - today it carries the di
As we lead up to the QR Code Hunt next week in New York City where you will have a chance to win a brand new Ford Fiesta, I wanted to write some more about how the contest will work and how QR codes work in general. Yesterday, we learned that QR codes can
Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). We've invited him to share some of his stories on mental_floss this week. To subscribe to his daily email, click
Amid controversy on Saturday, Auburn's Cam Newton was the 74th person to win the Heisman Trophy. Whether he'll make it in the NFL remains to be seen - some of the most promising Heisman winners failed to get drafted, played a season or two before getting
It's time for snowmen! And snow women, and animals, and pop culture icons ...anything you can make out of snow. My daughter packed five-gallon buckets of snow to make a sort-of robot-shaped snowman this past weekend. Those who have more snow, more time, a
If you want to distract people from the gift underneath the wrapping paper, this Science Tape from UncommonGoods is just what you need. We've got a roll to give away. To pick a winner, we'll ask one mental_floss trivia question. Really obscure trivia. Ab
If you missed our previous installments, check out A Short History of Long-Haired Music
The BCS pairings have been announced for this year’s football season, so here’s a question for you college football nuts: what NCAA school claims the most football national championships? Who did you guess? Alabama? The Crimson Tide have only won a
You may have heard that a batch of new $100 bills was recently misprinted (and if you haven’t, check out #1). It may be the latest monetary mishap, but it’s certainly not the only one - here are a pocketful of other misprints that may be lurking in your