Mental Floss

LISTS

Alicia Silverstone, Brittany Murphy, and Stacey Dash in 'Clueless' (1995).

Whether you loved high school or hated it, filmmakers seem determined to give you as many opportunities as possible to relive it.

April Snellings


Colson Whitehead, Jhumpa Lahiri, and John Updike are among the novelists who have won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The authors on the list are just a few whose novels have nabbed the prestigious prize since it began being awarded in 1918. 

Erin McCarthy






Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph.

Wilma Rudolph made history as a Black woman athlete at the 1960 Rome Olympics, becoming the first American woman to win three gold medals at one Olympics.

Lucas Aykroyd
Robert Shaw, Robert Redford, and Paul Newman in The Sting (1973).

As Khan Noonien Singh once said, “revenge is a dish best served cold,” and cinema is filled with stories where vengeance and retribution gets served with chilling brutality and precision. Here are 25 of the best of those tales.

Todd Gilchrist








Gallaher's Cigarettes recommended a hack that involved setting butter on fire.

From raw beef for wrinkle prevention to cleaning paintings with potatoes, here are some of the most memorable life hacks from days of yore.

Ellen Gutoskey






A sign in Irish on Achill Island in Ireland.

You may hear an "Erin go bragh" or two, but even on the most Irish of holidays, we don't hear much of the Irish language—which is a shame.

Arika Okrent


Venus Williams at the 2023 ASB Women's Classic.

Venus Williams took the sports world by storm when she first arrived on the international stage as a teenage tennis phenom. She hasn't slowed down since.

Rashad Grove