Mental Floss

LISTS

TV ads love to pit products against one another.

In the 1970s and 1980s, television was full of commercials featuring unsuspecting consumers discovering their preferred brand of peanut butter or coffee was hot garbage.

Jake Rossen
The Appalachian Mountains have a long, fascinating history.

The Appalachian Mountains occupy a towering spot in North American cultural identity, thanks in part to the Appalachian Trail. The rugged peaks have been influencing the continent for a lot longer than we’ve been around to appreciate them.

Zoë Randolph
An illustration of an eel circa 1889.

Some eels are big, some are small, and more than a few come with nightmarish jaws. Naturalists have been probing the creatures' mysterious habits for millennia. Here's what you need to know.

Mark Mancini




bell hooks speaking in 2009.

Gloria Jean Watkins, who was better known by her pen name bell hooks, is widely considered as one of the most influential intellectuals and writers of the late-20th century.

Kritika Agrawal




U.S. soldiers in an M24 Chaffee light tank driving through Bologna, Italy, in 1945.

Did kamikaze pilots really volunteer? Did the U.S. really declare war against the Axis powers directly after Pearl Harbor? We're debunking some of the most common misconceptions about World War II.

Jake Rossen
Rich Fury/Getty Images

From his start in 'Roots' to his decades-long role hosting Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton has spent years inspiring and educating legions of fans of all ages.

Lana Schwartz
Ajwad Creative (SPEECH BUBBLE); Crisfotolux (statue) // iStock via Getty Images Plus

Despite its reputation as a learned language of science, religion, and philosophy, ancient Latin was in fact a rough-and-ready language full of strikingly frank insults designed to cut to the bone.

Keith Johnston








Hulton Archive/Getty Images

School has come a long way since the 19th and 20th centuries. From corporal punishment to lunch to recess, here are just a few ways school was different a century ago.

Meredith Danko


BrAt_PiKaChU/iStock via Getty Images; MTV Networks, Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Although MTV has more recently become synonymous with reality TV and cheap clip shows, there was a time when the network truly did live up to its name. And it all began at 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981.

Jon O'Brien






Justin Willman, who performs magic for humans.

'Magic for Humans' host Justin Willman has dazzled audiences on stage, on Netflix, and on Zoom during the pandemic. But learning to be a magician with two broken arms may have been his greatest trick of all.

Jake Rossen