People

Fun facts about people in history and other weird celebrity facts!

WTF Fun Fact 13071 – The Man Who Invented Pop-Up Ads

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Ethan Zuckerman is the man who invented pop-up ads. And he’s very sorry he did.

Pop-ups pay the bills

Zuckerman wrote a long apology to the world in The Atlantic in 2014 (cited below). In it, he explained that from 1994-7 he worked for a website that needed a creative new revenue stream:

“At the end of the day, the business model that got us funded was advertising. The model that got us acquired was analyzing users’ personal homepages so we could better target ads to them. Along the way, we ended up creating one of the most hated tools in the advertiser’s toolkit: the pop-up ad. It was a way to associate an ad with a user’s page without putting it directly on the page, which advertisers worried would imply an association between their brand and the page’s content.”

Of pop-up ads, Zuckerman admits “I wrote the code to launch the window and run an ad in it. I’m sorry. Our intentions were good.”

The best intentions of the man who invented pop-up ads

Creating better, more targeted ads required better surveillance of web users’ behaviors. Specifically, “tracking users’ mobile devices as they move through the physical world, assembling more complex user profiles by trading information between data brokers.”

The more a business relies on ads for income, the more they need people to see those ads. The ads become more invasive as a result. Enter pop-ups.

While the man who invented pop-up ads regrets his creation, he also notes that there’s no other way to offer the free services of the Internet without some sort of advertising.

People aren’t willing to pay for services like social media, for example. As a result, the ads we see have to be visible and valuable – and that means targeting us with things the algorithm knows we’re interested in and making sure we see the ads by forcing us to click through them in order to get to the content we want to see at the moment. — WTF fun facts

Source: “The Internet’s Original Sin” — The Atlantic

WTF Fun Fact 13067 – The Man With the Golden Arm

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James Harrison earned the nickname “the man with the golden arm” after saving the lives of millions of children. That’s because Harrison not only has unique blood with disease-fighting abilities, but he donated that blood every week for 60 years. He “retired” from blood donation in 2018 at age 81.

Who is the man with the golden arm?

James Harrison is an Australian man who needed chest surgery at age 14. After blood donations saved his life at a young age, he pledged to become a life-long blood donor.

After Harrison started giving blood, doctors realized he had unique components in his blood plasma that allowed them to make Anti-D injections. These injections are given to pregnant women whose fetuses are at risk from Rhesus disease, which causes a mother’s immune system to attack her fetus’ blood cells. This puts them at higher risk of anemia and jaundice after birth.

Rhesus disease is rare and occurs when a mother has a rhesus-negative blood type, and her fetus has a rhesus-positive blood type.

Doctors believe that Harrison’s rare blood may be the result of transfusions he received as a child after surgery.

Saving millions

Harrison’s blood plasma can be used to make an injection that prevents women from developing antibodies that harm the fetus during pregnancy.

In Australia, roughly 3 million women with the rhesus-negative blood type have been given an Anti-D injection, nearly all of which are a result of Harrison’s donations. Even his own grandchild was saved by the injection.

Prior to Harrison’s blood donations, thousands of fetal deaths, stillbirths, and baby deaths occurred in Australia each year as a result of Rhesus disease.

For his donations, Harrison is considered a national hero in Australia and has received the country’s national Medal of Honor.

Harrison retired at the age of 81 – but that’s only because in Australia you can no longer donate blood beyond that age. —WTF fun facts

Source: “He donated blood every week for 60 years” — CNN

WTF Fun Fact 13057 – The Pope & Doc Martens

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Did you know Pope John Paul II wore Doc Martens boots? Not only that, but he ordered dozens of pairs of the boots in white for himself and his staff!

The Pope gets stylish with Doc Martens

In a now-archived story from 1996 (cited below), the Associated Press (AP) reported that Doc Martens’ military-style kickers had a new fan – Pope JP2.

They noted that “The Pontiff has ordered 100 pairs of the cushion-soled boots for his Vatican staff, including a pair of white brogues in his own size.”

In fact, he wasn’t the only religious leader to own a pair, the AP reported that the Dalai Lama owned a pair as well.

The boots, originally sold as solid and practical work boots, have long been seen on style icons. But with the Pope’s clothing so formal, we never really would have seen that coming. And most of the time, they would have been hidden by his robes.

Still, sometimes you just need solid footwear to get the job done, no matter what that job is.

Vatican fashion

If you look back at photos of Pope John Paul II, you’ll often see him in some practical-yet-colorful blue slip-on (blue suede shoes, if you will). Yet, because part of the Vatican’s Doc Martens order included a special set in the pope’s size (size 9), it seemed clear that he was reserving the right to stomp around in them occasionally as well.

“The holy order includes a pair of the classic eight-eyelet bovver boots (quite frequently worn by skinheads) and three pairs of brogues in black, blue and white,” noted the AP.

The AP reported that “Among the first to try out the new Doc Martens boots in the Vatican will be the Pope’s Swiss guards.” That we’re less surprised about – because have you seen those uniforms? The boots would be the most practical aspect.

The original Doc Martens were manufactured in Northampton, England, though they were sold worldwide. If you’re a Gen X-er, you may remember lacing up a pair while popping in Nirvana’s “Nevermind” CD (or cassette!). They were big with the grunge crowd.

The receipts

This story wasn’t something assumed based on rumor alone. Doc Marten’s spokesperson Louise Hurren told the AP:

“Well the order was placed by the Vatican and they have asked us to supply a number of styles including the most famous eight eyelet boot in black, white and navy leather and also some three eyelet shoes”.

Stylish! —WTF fun facts

Source: “ITALY/UK: POPE JOINS FASHION CONSCIOUS IN CHOICE OF FOOTWEAR” –Associated Press Archive

WTF Fun Fact 13056 – Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin

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Did you know a woman was elected to Congress before women in the U.S. even had the right to vote? Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin was elected to represent the state of Montana in 1916. That was four years before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

Who was Jeannette Rankin?

Born in 1880 near Missoula, Montana (then a territory), Rankin was born to a prosperous rancher who had emigrated from Canada.

Jeannette Rankin was educated at what was then called Montana State University in Missoula (now known as the University of Montana). She graduated in 1902 with a biology degree, became a teacher, and then an apprentice to a seamstress.

After a trip to San Francisco in 1904, Rankin started volunteering and developed an interest in social work. She graduated from the New York School of Philanthropy (now called the Columbia University School of Social Work) in 1909. Then she moved to Spokane, Washington to take a job helping children in need.

Rankin served two nonconsecutive terms in the House during World War I and II but was known for voting against America’s entry into those wars. Her platform largely centered around expanding women’s voting rights, ensuring better working conditions for American laborers, and improving access to healthcare for women and children.

In 1917, when she took office, she said, “I may be the first woman member of Congress. But I won’t be the last.”

Jeannette Rankin’s road to Congress

Rankin then traveled around the country, doing everything from organizing immigrant laborers after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory to supporting nationwide suffrage for women.

She played one of the most significant roles in helping women gain the right to vote in Montana and then decided to run for one of Montana’s at-large House seats in 1916. While there was no national right to suffrage for women at the time, many Western states had passed their own laws.

When Rankin ran for office, she was one of many women who ran that year but the only female winner. In Kansas, over 300 women ran for office. In her own state, Rankin’s campaign was entirely ignored by the local press.

According to her webpage on the U.S. House of Representatives website (cited below), she won the Republic primary by more than 7000 votes. “Her platform supported several prominent issues during the Progressive Era—including nationwide suffrage, child welfare legislation, and the prohibition of alcohol.“

“Because Montana was so sparsely populated, election results trickled in over three days. But in early November 1916, news arrived that Rankin had become the first woman in American history to win a seat in Congress. Although she trailed the frontrunner, Democratic Representative John Morgan Evans, by 7,600 votes, Rankin secured the second At-Large seat by topping the third-place candidate—another Democrat—by 6,000 votes.”

Not surprisingly, as the first female member of Congress, she was held to different standards, often being asked about her clothing more often than her politics.

But when she was sworn into office, she was greeted with loud applause.

Rankin’s political career

As a pacifist, she was criticized often, despite correspondence from her constituents leaning in favor of the U.S. staying out of WWI. But once the U.S. entered the war, she turned her attention to ensuring troops had what they needed while continuing to fight for national suffrage and workers’ rights in factories.

Redistricting eliminated her at-large House seat in 1917, so she ran for Senate in 1918. However, she lost by 2000 votes.

She continued her service work outside of Congress until 1940, when she challenged an anti-Semitic House Representative for Montana’s western district. She won the primary and then the election, returning to the House with 54% of the vote.

When Jeannette Rankin returned to Congress decades after her first stint, she sat alongside six other women.

However, her second stint was less successful since her pacifism was even less popular during WWII. She did not run for re-election in 1942. At the time of her death in 1973, however, she was considering another House campaign to protest the war in Vietnam. — WTF fun facts

Source: “RANKIN, Jeannette” — U.S. House of Representatives

WTF Fun Fact 13053 – The Mere Exposure Effect

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We tend to find things more pleasant and attractive the more we see them. When it comes to people, we tend to find their faces more attractive the more familiar we are with them. This is called the “mere exposure effect” (or “familiarity principle”).

The mere exposure principle

By merely exposing our brains to the sight of a person, we can build pathways that make them seem more attractive to us over time. The familiarity alone is enough to make us feel better about them. (Of course, this isn’t always the case, especially when there’s bad behavior involved.)

Research on this effect goes back to the early 19th century when German Gustav philosopher and experimental psychologist Gustav Fechner and Edward B. Titchener, who studied the structure of the mind. However, early hypotheses were eventually rejected, and it wasn’t until the 1960s that they were revived.

In the 60s, Polish social psychologist Robert Zajonc found that the brain’s exposure to novel stimuli elicited a fear or avoidance response. In other words, new things make us nervous. The same is true in both humans and animals.

But he found that each time a person viewed that stimulus again, there was less fear and more interest in the object. And after repeated looks, the observing person or animal will begin to act more fondly towards the object that was once new.

The black bag experiment

Wikipedia sums up a critical experiment in 1968 best:

“Charles Goetzinger conducted an experiment using the mere-exposure effect on his class at Oregon State University. Goetzinger had a student come to class in a large black bag with only his feet visible. The black bag sat on a table in the back of the classroom. Goetzinger’s experiment was to observe if the students would treat the black bag in accordance to Zajonc’s mere-exposure effect. His hypothesis was confirmed. The students in the class first treated the black bag with hostility, which over time turned into curiosity, and eventually friendship. This experiment confirms Zajonc’s mere-exposure effect, by simply presenting the black bag over and over again to the students their attitudes were changed, or as Zajonc states “mere repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the enhancement of his attitude toward it.”

This may have to do with perceptual fluency. In other words, our brain just have an easier time processing objects that they’ve already processed in the past.

However, when marketers try to use this to increase our familiarity (and propensity to buy something) by sticking it in our faces constantly, it doesn’t always work. In some cases, familiarity can breed hostility. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Mere-exposure effect” — Wikipedia

WTF Fun Fact 13048 – The Shakespeare Your Mom Joke

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Did “yo momma” jokes originate with Shakespeare? Well, no. Insulting people’s mothers probably goes back much further, but the Shakespeare Your Mom joke is still one of our best and earliest examples.

Shakespeare’s humor

There’s no doubt that The Bard had some epic insults in his works. For example, in Act 2, Scene 2 of King Lear one character calls another a “base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver’d, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.”

It’s overkill, but it’s funny.

The Shakespeares Your Mom joke

As for the early “yo momma” joke, that comes from Act 4, Scene 2 of Titus Andronicus. Chiron and Demetrius are insulting Aaron, who has slept with their mother.

Demetrius: “Villain, what hast thou done?”
Aaron: “That which thou canst not undo.”
Chiron: “Thou hast undone our mother.”
Aaron: “Villain, I have done thy mother.”

It actually gets pretty grim after that when the brothers are baked in a pie and served to that same mother. Shakespeare didn’t shy away from violence or other eye-popping acts.

“Yo momma” jokes are at least 3500 years old. But we don’t necessarily expect to see them in Shakespeare. And that’s part of what makes it all so funny.

People love their mom’s so much that insulting them is just about the worst thing someone can say.

Shakespeare’s linguistic legacy

The Shakespeare mom joke was far from his only legacy. Shakespeare also left us with some common phrases that have nothing to do with one’s mother, such as:

– “For goodness sake” –Henry VIII

– “Neither here nor there” – Othello

– “A wild goose chase” – Romeo and Juliet

– “Not slept one wink” –Cymbeline

–“Send him packing” –Henry IV

– “Vanish into thin air” – Othello

— WTF fun facts

Source: “William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday: The five best insults ever dished out by the Bard” — The Independent

WTF Fun Fact 13038 – Men Spend on Halloween

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Halloween spending continues to rise, with even our furry friends getting increasingly involved. Of course, they’re not the ones who spend money on the holiday. In fact, the biggest spenders are men. A 2018 National Retail Federation (NRF) survey found men spend on Halloween at higher rates than women.

Halloween spending

According to the most recent NRF Halloween spending report, “Participation in Halloween-related activities will resume to pre-pandemic levels, with 69% of consumers planning to celebrate the holiday this year, up from 65% in 2021 and comparable to 68% in 2019, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. With the spike in participation, total Halloween spending is expected to reach a record $10.6 billion, exceeding last year’s record of $10.1 billion.”

Consumers plan to spend about $100 a piece on the holiday in 2022. That’s down from an all-time high of $103 last year.

And what are they spending it on? The NRF says “The top ways consumers plan to celebrate include handing out candy (67%), decorating their home or yard (51%), dressing up in costume (47%), carving a pumpkin (44%) and throwing or attending a Halloween party (28%). Similar to last year, one in five plan to dress their pet up in a costume.”

What do men spend on Halloween?

The last time the Halloween spending survey was broken down along gender lines appears to have been 2018. That survey (cited below) found that “Celebrants are planning to spend an average of$87.Although men and women plan to purchase the same festive items, men plan on spending$14 more, on average, than their female counterparts.” They were also more likely to find costume inspiration on social media sites like YouTube.

The costumes may be the factor that pushed men’s spending up. “Women are much more likely than men to celebrate by carving pumpkins and decorating their homes. Men, on the other hand, are significantly more likely to attend a party.” Who doesn’t want to look their best for those Instagram photos? —WTF fun facts

Source: “2018 Halloween shopping behavior” — National Retail Federation

WTF Fun Fact 13034 – The Ronald McNair Library Story

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Google sees quite a few searches for the Ronald McNair library story. And this one is true.

Ronald McNair library story

In 1959, a nine-year-old Black child named Ronald McNair walked into a segregated library to check out a calculus book. The librarian threatened to call the police if he didn’t leave. The young aspiring astronaut waited while the librarian called the police and his parents. It appears he was eventually allowed to check out the book after the officer asked the librarian why she wouldn’t just give him the books.

Ronald McNair, astronaut

That same boy would go on to get a Ph.D. from MIT and earn 4 honorary doctorates. A NASA program supported by Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols designed to attract more people of color recruited McNair, and his dreams of becoming an astronaut came true. He was the second African American to go to space.

Sadly, one of his missions was aboard the space shuttle Challenger, which famously disintegrated 73 seconds after takeoff, killing its whole crew.

His original burial place was Rest Lawn Memorial Park in his hometown of Lake City, South Carolina. The city moved to the city’s new Ronald E. McNair Memorial Park in 2004.

And that’s not the only site people named in his honor. The library that tried to refuse him that calculus book as a boy is now named after him as well – it’s called the Ronald McNair Life History Center.

Other interesting facts about Ronald McNair

McNair was more than a hometown hero and NASA trailblazer. He was a nationally-recognized laser physicist, a 5th-degree black belt in karate, the first member of the Bahá’í Faith to go to space, and a talented saxophonist.

McNair also has a crater on the moon and a building at MIT named after him. He also has two dozen U.S. K-12 schools named after him. — WTF fun facts

Source: “‘Black in Space’ Looks at Final Frontier of Civil Rights” — Snopes

WTF Fun Fact 13032 – Stephen Hawking, Practical Joker

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Physicist Stephen Hawking was known for many things. But those who knew him well knew had had a wicked sense of humor. Despite his lifelong battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also called Lou Gerig’s Disease) which left him paralyzed, he was still a fan of practical jokes.

Stephen Hawking had wicked sense of humor

While he used technology for just about every function, including speaking, his humor managed to shine through. For example, according to Biography.com (cited below):

“Prior to the February 2015 Academy Awards, for which his biopic The Theory of Everything had garnered numerous nominations, Hawking said he was happy to let leading man Eddie Redmayne use his signature computerized voice box for the film. ‘Unfortunately,’ he added, ‘Eddie did not inherit my good looks.'”

Hawking’s practical joke

Hawking was also a fan of practical jokes. After the physicist died in March 2018, BBC science correspondent Pallab Ghosh told a story of a joke he played at Cambridge University in 2004. It’s one that probably stopped a few hearts – but not his own.

“Seeking to adjust his lighting, the camera operator yanked a cable from a socket, at which point an alarm sounded and Hawking slumped forward as if unplugged from his life support. The anxious visitors rushed over to find Hawking very much alive and giddy at his joke – the alarm was simply over the office computer losing its power supply.”

That’s right, he pretended to fake his own death!

We’re sure more than a few people relived that joke in their heads afterward!

Hawking often called his sense of humor the secret to surviving such a terrible disease for so long. He was one of the longest-living ALS sufferers, diagnosed at the young age of 21.

— WTF fun facts

Source: “10 of Stephen Hawking’s Funniest Zingers” — Biography.com

WTF Fun Fact 13029 – The Real Captain Morgan

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Colonialism and slavery don’t really make for a “fun” fact, but it is worth knowing that the man portrayed in those Captain Morgan rum ads was a real man. He was a “privateer” for the English in the mid-to-late 1600s when they fought the Spanish for control of the Caribbean island of Jamaica.

Who was the real Captain Morgan?

Before you go dressing up as Captain Morgan for Halloween, you might want to know precisely what his privateering accomplished – namely the continued and increasingly brutal enslavement of Caribbean and African peoples who were forced to harvest sugarcane so the English could build the “British Empire” and gain riches. There’s really no other good way to put it.

But we do tend to romanticize pirates. They sailed the high seas, thwarted societal norms, and lived a life of relative freedom (though typically at the great expense of others). Even Disney romanticized the life of pirates by selectively telling the story of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

How did Captain Morgan become famous?

Sir Henry Morgan (1635-1688) was Welsh. Wales had been conquered by the British hundreds of years earlier but continued to fight for its independence. Nevertheless, Henry Morgan was willing to work for the highest bidder. Becoming a privateer (being given papers to fight and loot on behalf of a country) was a lucrative gig.

Morgan was such a successful privateer for the British that he was knighted by King Charles II of England. Sir Henry Morgan fought for them throughout the 1660s and 1670s. He helped the English army defeat the Spanish in decisive battles for control of Jamaica. According to Thought Co. (cited below) “his three most famous exploits were the 1668 sack of Portobello, the 1669 raid on Maracaibo, and the 1671 attack on Panama.”

The fate of Sir Henry Morgan

While we somehow still valorize Captain Morgan, his riches were made during a particularly brutal time in Jamaican history. He was also known for torturing his Spanish prisoners.

But he became rich and famous, held lavish parties for other colonists on the island, and basically retired there, dying in 1688.

The rum Morgan became the face of was originally made by Seagrams after their CEO, Sam Bronfman, visited Jamaica. He was inspired to create the Captain Morgan Rum Company in 1945. Bronfman bought a spiced rum recipe from two brothers in Kingston, and that served as inspiration for the final flavor. Today, Captain Morgan rum is all manufactured in the U.S. Virgin Islands. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Biography of Captain Henry Morgan, Welsh Privateer” — Thought Co.

WTF Fun Fact 13026 – The Lowest Vocal Note

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A man named Tim Storms holds the record for the lowest vocal note a living human is capable of singing. He’s had the record since 2012.

What is the lowest vocal note?

Storms can since the lowest ever vocal note. The note is eight octaves below the lowest G note on a piano. The note is called G -7 (0.189 Hz).

According to Classic FM (cited below), he “holds the Guinness World Records for both the ‘lowest note produced by a human’ and the ‘widest local range.'”

An international competition from Decca Records called “Bass Hunter” was searching for a bass singer who could sing a low “E” – an exceptionally hard and deep note. The goal was to find someone who could since composer Paul Mealor’s newest composition called De Profundis, which featured the note. The low E is the lowest tone ever written in a piece of classical music).

Classical FM notes (no pun intended) that “Storms submitted his tape and won the competition by a landslide. The singer and composer could not only get down to a low E but, so he says, two octaves lower than that.”

The low note

G-7 is so low that it’s difficult for human ears to process. But Storms’ lowest note is pretty much imperceptible to human ears. However, elephants can hear it just fine!

According to the Guinness World Records re: the record-setting note:

Storms “is the bass singer for the vocal group ‘Pierce Arrow’. The attempt was witnessed by two college music professors and an acoustician. The frequency output of Timothy’s voice was measured using Bruel & Kjaer equipment (low frequency microphone, precision sound analyser and laptop for post analysis).”

Storms has a vocal range of 10 octaves.

No doubt you’d like to hear it all, so check out the video below. (And grab an elephant if you want to be sure of what you’re hearing.) — WTF fun facts

Source: “Listen to the man who holds the record for lowest vocal note sung by a human” — Classic FM

WTF Fun Fact 13022 – The World’s Fresh Water

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Seventy-one percent of the Earth is covered in water, but that doesn’t mean we can use it all. But what percent of the world’s water is fresh (and therefore useable for humans to ingest)? Just 2.55 – and much of that is trapped in glaciers. Only 0.007% is available to us for use. The rest is saline and ocean-based. Interestingly, that’s roughly the same amount of freshwater that has always existed on Earth.

The world’s freshwater

Water is a valuable resource. If you’ve ever been without fresh water, even for a short time, you probably know exactly how panic-inducing a lack of fresh water can be. But for many people, fresh water is something we’ve always had and never really questioned. Those are the lucky minority.

It’s a bit startling to realize that the Earth’s freshwater resources have been around for hundreds of millions of years. What we drink has been recycled many, many times, whether it’s via the atmosphere or through our drinking water cups (and we’ll leave you to figure out how that works and then appreciate your local water treatment facility on your own).

Because we have very limited means of creating potable water out of saltwater through desalinization technology, it’s very hard to make enough new freshwater to sustain more humans. And that’s bad news when you think about how much water goes into things we enjoy – NatGeo says “the average hamburger takes 2,400 liters, or 630 gallons, of water to produce.

Fresh water keeps us alive

An increasingly large human population means we will need more water for hygiene, cooking, and drinking.

According to National Geographic (cited below): “Water scarcity is an abstract concept to many and a stark reality for others. It is the result of myriad environmental, political, economic, and social forces.” It has always been this way – people have fought wars over access to freshwater supplies for thousands of years.

“Due to geography, climate, engineering, regulation, and competition for resources, some regions seem relatively flush with freshwater, while others face drought and debilitating pollution. In much of the developing world, clean water is either hard to come by or a commodity that requires laborious work or significant currency to obtain,” they note.

—WTF fun facts

Source: “Freshwater Crisis” — National Geographic

WTF Fun Fact 13013 – Olesja Schemjakowa and a Snack Snafu

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Olesja Schemjakowa made a very expensive mistake in 2018. She accidentally paid almost $8000 for a coffee and a slice of cake at a bakery in Switzerland. That mistake ended up costing her exactly $7,732.

Olesja Schemjakowa and the expensive snack

It was a mistake anyone could have made. The woman simply entered her PIN code for her credit card by accident when the machine was asking for the tip amount.

We doubt the coffee or cake was that good. But leaving an even worse taste in her mouth was the fact that her credit card company refused to reverse the charges since it was not a fraudulent transaction. It was her mistake, and she would have to live with it.

When Schemjakowa got in touch with the owner of the cafe, things looked like they might work out for the best. He originally agreed to refund her the money. Unfortunately for her, as time went on, she saw nothing was being done. That’s when she found the cafe had shut down and the owner had filed for bankruptcy.

No happy ending

The Russian woman was likely the victim of her own translation error at the New Point cafe. She didn’t speak the language when dining in Zurich. And since tipping customs are different all over the world, she likely didn’t expect to be asked for a tip at all, hence entering her PIN code. Let this be a lesson for us all to start our PIN codes with a zero or two!

Her bill was just $23, meaning she left a 32,000% gratuity.

The Swiss police also refused to intervene since no crime had taken place.

When the news came out in 2021 of the 2018 snafu, Schemjakowa told the Swiss newspaper Blick:

“I just can’t understand how the cafe owner can just keep the money, and I cannot do anything about it. That’s just not fair!” “I’ve been told there may still be a one percent chance that I’ll see my money back.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “A woman accidentally tipped $7,700 for coffee and some cake — and she will probably never get that money back” — Business Insider

WTF Fun Fact 13011 – Facebook and Divorce

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What’s the connection between Facebook and divorce? Well, one clue comes from a study published back in 2013 that found an astonishing 1/3 of divorce papers included a reference to the social media platform.

The relationship between Facebook and divorce

We’d be interested to know where this study stands now and if anyone looked more deeply into the results. What we do know is that in 2011, 1/3rd of all divorce filings contained the word “Facebook,” according to Divorce Online. This was up from 20% just three years earlier. ABC News (cited below) also pointed out that “more than 80 percent of U.S. divorce attorneys say social networking in divorce proceedings is on the rise, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.”

Lawyers have also seen an increase in the number of times Facebook has been used to prove infidelity during divorce cases as well as in child custody hearings.

ABC News also reported that “Despite the increase, the top Facebook mentions were the same: inappropriate messages to “friends” of the opposite sex, and cruel posts or comments between separated spouses. Sometimes, Facebook friends would tattle to one partner in a relationship about bad behavior by the other.”

How Facebook affects relationships

A 2013 study in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networkingalso showed that Facebook was playing an important role in the end of relationships.

While Facebook might have helped some of us forge new relationships, it may not be the best use of our time once we’re in them. In fact, it may be damaging to our romantic relationships, according to Russell Clayton who performed the research and found that “people who use Facebook excessively are far more likely to experience Facebook-related conflict with their romantic partners, which then may cause negative relationship outcomes including emotional and physical cheating, breakup and divorce,” according to a press release.”

By surveying Facebook users ages 18 to 82 years old, the researcher found that high levels of Facebook use among couples “significantly predicted Facebook-related conflict, which then significantly predicted negative relationship outcomes such as cheating, breakup, and divorce.”

When it came to couples in a relationship for three years or less, Facebook proved to be a particularly large problem.

“Previous research has shown that the more a person in a romantic relationship uses Facebook, the more likely they are to monitor their partner’s Facebook activity more stringently, which can lead to feelings of jealousy,” Clayton said. “Facebook-induced jealousy may lead to arguments concerning past partners. Also, our study found that excessive Facebook users are more likely to connect or reconnect with other Facebook users, including previous partners, which may lead to emotional and physical cheating.”

If you want your relationship to last, you may want to consider being more mindful about how and how often you use social media. —WTF fun facts

Source: “Can Facebook Ruin Your Marriage?” — ABC News

WTF Fun Fact 13002 – Keeping Secrets

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Fun Fact: Keeping secrets is a universal phenomenon. Researchers found that approximately 97% of people are keeping a secret at any given time, and the average person is currently keeping around 13 of them (though not all are because of shame or guilt).

***

What aren’t you telling us? What are you hiding? Nothing? Ok. Then are you hiding big surprise from someone? Are you pregnant and not telling anyone? Are you buying us a pony for Christmas? No. Darn.

Well, chances are you’re holding onto at least one secret – and you’re more than likely keeping a whole bunch across a handful of different categories. Not all secrets are sinister, and some we’d probably rather people kept to themselves.

Secrets are interesting things, which is why psychologists study them.

The anatomy of a secret

The American Psychological Society (cited below) wrote about the work of some of their members, and it’s fascinating stuff.

First, you may be interested to know that sharing this private information and asking people to keep it from others is burdensome (so maybe you should keep some to yourself). Then again, researchers also found that sharing secrets is a great way to bond with people and show them you trust them.

Dr. Michael Slepian, associate professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia Business School, described his interest in the psychology of secrets:

“For decades, secrecy research focused on the effects of concealment. But I couldn’t find any studies that systematically looked at what secrets people keep, how they keep them or how they experience secrets on a day-to-day basis.” This led him to survey around a thousand people and try to categorize the types of secrets they keep.

Types of secrets

The first step was to define acts of secrecy, which they did broadly, “defining secrecy not just as the moment of actively withholding information, but also having the intention to keep something secret from another person—even when that other person isn’t physically present.”

After categorizing the types of secrets people keep (for example, things related to infidelity, illegal behavior, planned surprises, pregnancy, etc.), he and his colleagues discovered that the things people keep to themselves generally fell into about 38 common categories.

“We all keep the same kinds of secrets,” Slepian told the APA. “About 97% of people have a secret in at least one of those categories, and the average person is currently keeping secrets in 13 of those categories.”

The biggest harm of keeping a secret was a person’s tendency to ruminate on it, which happened far more often with negative secrets. Interestingly, people tend to dwell on things that make them feel ashamed – even more than they ruminate on secrets that make them feel guilty. That’s because shame makes you feel like a bad person and breeds feelings of helplessness or powerlessness.

Divulging secrets

Divulging these previously private things can be a double-edged sword, of course. But talking to people can reduce the shame. Slepian found that “thinking about a secret can create a motivational conflict in which a person’s need to connect with others directly clashes with their desire to keep their secret to themselves.”

After finding 38 categories of secrets among hundreds of people, Slepian’s team also found that “confiding a secret predicted improved well-being, both because the participant received social support and because the act of revealing the secret seemed to minimize the amount of time the person spent thinking about it.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Exposing the hidden world of secrets” — American Psychological Association

WTF Fun Fact 13001 – Unhappy Monday

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Fun Fact: A 2011 study found that people tend to be so miserable on Mondays that, on average, they don’t crack a smile until 11:16 am. Do you experience an unhappy Monday?

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If you hate Mondays, you’re not alone. People seem to find it a depressing day of the week. In fact, in 2011, the food company Marmite did a study that found people were so depressed on Monday mornings they typically didn’t smile for the first time until 11:16 am. That’s pretty late in the day for something as small as a smile!

The study by Marmite, the British food spread, also found that half of employees will be late to work, and will only log about three-and-a-half hours of productive work time.

Why are we so bummed on Mondays?

Ok, so there’s the obvious reason to hate Mondays if they signal the end of the weekend to you. That’s probably why some studies found Sunday to be pretty depressing as well.

According to HuffPost (cited below): “Yet other studies have found that it’s Sunday, not Monday, that is the most depressing day of the week. In 2009, a study by researchers at the University of Gothenburg and Institute for the Study of Labor found that Sunday is the darkest day of the week in Germany, where individuals reported the lowest level of subjective well-being.”

Americans also found Sunday to be the most depressing day.

Defeating the unhappy Monday

Well, the bad news is that there’s no magical cure for Mondays (short of winning the lottery, quitting your job, and spending the rest of your days at leisure).

The best the Marmite study could suggest was finding time on Monodays to indulge in activities you enjoy, such as shopping, watching TV, planning a trip, or eating a treat.

— WTF fun facts

Source: “Mondays Are More Depressing Than We Thought, Says Study” – HuffPost

WTF Fun Fact 12996 – Swami Vivekananda

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Anyone who practices yoga in the West today does so because a Hindu monk named Swami Vivekananda traveled to Chicago from India in 1893 to crash the World’s Columbian Exposition.

This world’s fair was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World but gave him an enormous audience at its Parliament of Religions, which was originally meant to celebrate the glories of Protestantism.

Who was Swami Vivekananda?

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below), things didn’t get off to a great start for Swami Vivekananda since he hadn’t actually been invited to speak at the event:

“One morning in September 1893, a 30-year-old Indian man sat on a curb on Chicago’s Dearborn Street wearing an orange turban and a rumpled scarlet robe. He had come to the United States to speak at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, part of the famous World Columbian Exposition. The trouble was, he hadn’t actually been invited. Now he was spending nights in a boxcar and days wandering around a foreign city. Unknown in America, the young Hindu man, named Vivekananda, was a revered spiritual teacher back home. By the time he left Chicago, he had accomplished his mission: to present Indian culture as broader, deeper and more sophisticated than anyone in the U.S. realized.”

Recognizing Indian culture

No one at the time thought of India as a vibrant-yet-ancient culture. It was a conquered place, considered backward and largely irrelevant from a cultural standpoint. “So the audience was astonished when Vivekananda, a representative of the world’s oldest religion, seemed anything but primitive—the highly educated son of an attorney in Calcutta’s high court who spoke elegant English. He presented a paternal, all-inclusive vision of India that made America seem young and provincial.”

It turns out Swami Vivekananda was the perfect person to bring Indian culture, including the practice of yoga (which looked quite different at the time), to America. He had attended Christian schools and knew the Bible and was an expert in European philosophy.

While Swami Vivekananda died early, at age 39, he traveled to major cities in the U.S. and shared Indian culture and knowledge about the Hindu religion, opening the door to the practice of yoga (as a spiritual practice at the time) in America. — WTF fun facts

Source: “The Indian Guru Who Brought Eastern Spirituality to the West” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12994 – The First Use of OMG

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Have you typed or texted OMG in surprise? While you may feel a bit too old and mature for that, it might surprise you to know it’s not a millennial phenomenon – at least not originally. The first use of OMG to mean “oh my God” was in 1917.

Who was the first person to use OMG?

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below), Lord John Fisher was a British Navy Admiral “who began World War I as First Sea Lord but resigned in 1915” first used the abbreviation in a letter to none other than Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The 1917 letter reads:

My Dear Winston,

I am here for a few days longer before rejoining my “Wise men” at Victory House-

“The World forgetting,
By the World forgot!”

but some Headlines in the newspapers have utterly upset me! Terrible!!
“The German Fleet to assist the Land operations in the Baltic.
“Landing the German Army South of Reval.”
We are five times stronger at Sea than our enemies and here is a small Fleet that we could gobble up in a few minutes playing the great vital Sea part of landing an Army in the enemy’s rear and probably capturing the Russian Capital by Sea!
This is “Holding the ring” with a vengeance!
Are we really incapable of a big Enterprise?
I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis: — O.M.G (Oh! My! God!)– Shower it on the Admiralty.

Yours,
Fisher
9/9/17

The first use of OMG was one of utter surprise, which seems fitting! But let’s not overlook the hilarious phrase “Shower it on the Admiralty” either – that one has to come in handy at some point, right?

—WTF fun facts

Source: “The First Use of OMG Was in a 1917 Letter to Winston Churchill” — Smithsonian Magazine