WTF Fun Fact 13036 – The Original Potato Jack-o-lantern

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We wouldn’t dream of carving anything other than a pumpkin on Halloween. But the carving tradition actually originated in Ireland with the potato jack-o-lantern.

Stingy Jack and the origins of the potato jack-o-lantern

The history of jack-lanterns on Halloween originates with an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack from centuries ago.

According to History.com (cited below):

“According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.”

Jack sounds pretty savvy, but the story gets even more convoluted.

Jack of the Lantern

When Jack died, the folktale says that God refused to let him into heaven because of his sneaky deeds. The Devil didn’t want him either. So, “[h]e sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since.”

That’s really not a story we could have guessed.

Nevertheless, Jack’s glowing figure was eventually referred to by the Irish as “Jack of the Lantern” and later simplified to “Jack O’Lantern.”

The spooky tradition of carving one’s own Jack-o-lantern started in Ireland and Scotland, where potatoes and turnips were plentiful. (Pumpkins are native to South America, so there were no pumpkins in Europe before colonization.)

Even creepier is England’s use of beets (which would look bloody and bright!).

The tradition came to America with immigrants, who realized the pumpkins made an even better vessel for Jack’s face. —WTF fun facts

Source: “How Jack O’Lanterns Originated in Irish Myth” — History.com

WTF Fun Fact 13035 – The Truth of Fake It Til You Make It

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The last thing any unhappy person wants to hear is “smile,” “cheer up,” or “can’t you just try to be happy?” The answer to all of those requests is usually “no.” But once those people leave the room, you may just want to try it out next time you’re grumpy. It turns out there’s some truth to the whole “fake it til you make it” thing.

Smile though your heart is aching

It’s hard, perhaps impossible even, to smile all the time. But if you’re in a bad mood and you’d rather not be (and let’s face it, sometimes we want to wallow), your physiology can sometimes affect your mood.

In other words, smiling may help you change your emotional trajectory.

According to Psychology Today (cited below):

“This might sound odd, as convention dictates that when you are happy, you smile and laugh, and when you are sad, you frown and cry. However, it turns out that the relationship between your emotions and your behavior is a little more reciprocal than that. This means that if you force a smile when you are feeling down, you will lift your mood, and alternatively, if you frown when you are happy, you will feel down.”

Fake it til you make it

This is based on real research, not just a web column. In fact, it’s based on a review of over 100 research studies that showed a connection between people faking a mood and then recording how they felt afterward. Researchers showed that to some small extent “an individual’s experience of emotion is influenced by feedback from their facial movements.” It’s called the facial feedback hypothesis.

This tracks with another principle called the Hebbian theory, or Hebb’s Law, stating that “neurons that fire together wire together.” (However, Hebb’s Law has more to do with learning.)

The point is that if you can muster a smile and even a joyful tone, you can trick your brain into releasing some of those happy chemicals. (There’s also the possibility that the people around you will be happier. And this tends to make situations more pleasant too.)

We’re not saying you should force a smile all the time. But if you’re looking to lift your mood, the answer lies inside you.

Providing facial feedback

The facial feedback hypothesis is partly based on the work of Charles Darwin, who noted that facial expressions can affect a person’s emotional experience. And since Darwin was deeply depressed for much of his life, we imagine he tried it for himself on more than one occasion.

Researchers have tried to see if smiling helps improve mood without even asking a person to fake a grin. They just had subjects put a pe between their teeth to make the right muscles move. Moods lifted. A pen between the lips tended to lessen the cheer, however, since that activated frowning muscles.

And the effect doesn’t appear to be limited to smiling either – posture can help. Unslumping shoulders, standing up straight, and holding your head up all help. These actions can make it easier to engage with people in a positive way, improving your mood. It also helps with confidence (and first impressions).

Some version of the “fake it til you make it” adage has been around for a long time. For example, philosopher William James once wrote: “If you want a quality, act as if you already have it.”

Of course, that doesn’t make it ok to tell someone to smile. — WTF fun facts

Source: “How “Fake It ‘Till You Make It” Really Is a Thing” — Psychology Today

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 13033 – The Proposed U.S. Referendum on War

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The request for a referendum on war has come up many times since WWI. But one of the more memorable proposals of a U.S. referendum on war came from a group of Nebraskans in 1916 who largely wanted to encourage either peace or isolationism. At the very least, they wanted the people who voted for war to walk to the walk.

A referendum on war

A 1987 article in the NYT (cited below) listed some of the amendments citizens have proposed over the years. Among them was one from a group of Nebraskans that tends to recirculate any time the U.S. appears to be about to engage in a war effort.

“The petition, sent to Washington by a group of Nebraska residents in 1916, proposed an amendment requiring a national referendum before Congress could declare war. To dissuade votes for war, the petition proposed that all those who voted in favor of the United States entering World War I be willing to enlist.”

The petition got so many signatures in the petitioner’s town that the US Archives noted that he had to add extra pieces of paper to accommodate them all.

The Ludlow Amendment

The 1916 attempt to give citizens the power to declare war wasn’t the only attempt.

The Ludlow Amendment was a constitutional amendment proposed in 1938 by Indiana Representative Louis Ludlow. According to the US House of Representatives Archives, it “called for a national referendum before the United States could enter a war, except in cases of invasion or attack on U.S. soil.” This would have removed the power to declare war from Congress in most cases.

A poll found that many people favored this amendment, but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed everything. “On December 8, the House of Representatives voted 388 to 1 to approve President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s request to declare war on Japan, with the President signing the declaration later that day. On December 11, Congress approved war resolutions against Germany and Italy, with Roosevelt also signing them the day they were passed.” (Source)

— WTF fun facts

Source: “WASHINTON TALK; Letters to Congress: Amend the Constitution? Let Us Count the Ways” — NY Times Archives

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 13031 – A Bear Sense of Beauty

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Is there a bear sense of beauty? How do we explain wild bears who are seen at scenic spots staring off into the mountains, trees, forests, and river vistas? We may never understand this behavior. But if we use our own behavior as a reference point (which humans so often do), it may be that bears – just like us – enjoy a really good view.

Do bears have a sense of beauty?

Let’s start with one thing we do know – bears are smart. Their brains are difficult for us to understand because they’re not organized in a familiar way, but their size and complexity indicate that bears have a capacity for intelligence that was previously unknown to most humans.

Now, not every bear will share the same behavior, especially when it comes to something subjective, like beauty. But the fact that some bears seem to be able to scout out a good view for the day is fascinating. Some also build their dens near scenic points (and not just the ones that humans and their picnic baskets frequent). You know what they say about real estate – location, location, location.

So, does a bear staring into the beauty of the mountains mean there’s a bear sense of beauty though?

Sharing beauty with bears

The staring behavior was first noticed by people studying bears in the wild. After all, a bear showing up at a scenic parking lot in the Smokies is not going to arouse the same level of interest – just terror.

Canadian artist Maureen Enns and rancher Charles Russell have long been advocates of living alongside bears. They’ve also discussed the penchant for beauty they’ve witnessed from the creatures. They aren’t scientists, but they have gotten up close and personal with grizzlies and found them to be quite serene when they’re not threatened. Enns was one of the first people to publicly suggest that bears appreciate beauty. This was after seeing them gaze at a stunning view one day.

Since then, others have remarked on similar behavior. But investigating the bear’s sense of beauty doesn’t appear to be on any major research agendas right now.

—WTF fun facts

Source: “Sharing the wild with bears” – LA Times

WTF Fun Fact 13030 – Mary Really Did Have a Little Lamb

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Do you remember the children’s nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”? Well, it turns out that it was based on a real little girl named Mary Sawyer.

Mary and her little lamb

Around 1816, a girl named Mary Sawyer from Sterling, Massachusetts headed off to school one day. And as you may have guessed by now, her lamb followed her.

There was even a book published in 1928 about that fateful day, citing all of the evidence.

It turns out that Mary adopted the little lamb after it had been rejected by its mother. It was near death, and Mary’s father refused to let it in the house so she could nurse it back to health. But Mary didn’t relent. She went and asked her mother, who allowed the lamb inside.

The lamb became Mary’s pet. She gave it milk and kept it warm, and it eventually responded to her calls and followed her everywhere.

Mary’s lamb goes to school

The story recounted by Mary is that she and her brother decided to take the lamb to school one day. (And, yes, it was against the rules). They wrapped it in a blanket but when it let out a bleat, the jig was up. She had to take it home at lunchtime.

As an old woman, Mary Sawyer is said to have recounted the story to a man named John Roulstone, who wrote the nursery rhyme. However, according to the New England Historical Society (cited below): “Sarah Josepha Hale had written and published Mary’s Lamb in 1830. She included it in a little book, book, Poems for Our Children. Hale’s version of Mary Had a Little  Lamb had three additional stanzas that added a moral lesson to the tale.” In addition, there’s no written evidence that Roulstone wrote the nursery rhyme for Mary.

The controversy over a nursery rhyme

The reason there is an argument over who really wrote the nursery rhyme had to do with selling stockings knitted from the lamb’s wool.

“Mary’s mother made some stockings out of the lamb’s wool for Mary, and she treasured them. Then, when Mary was an old woman living in Somerville, Mass., preservationists started raising money to save the Old South Meeting House. Mary donated the wool from her stockings to the fundraising efforts. Volunteers picked apart the stockings and attached the wool to cards that said, ‘Knitted wool from the first fleece of Mary’s Little Lamb.’ They sold like hotcakes.”

While we still don’t know exactly who wrote the nursery rhyme first. But we know it had meaning because it was linked to the fundraising effort for the Meeting House. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Mary Had a Little Lamb – Yes, There Was a Mary and She Did Have a Little Lamb” — New England Historical Society

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 13028 – Lifespan of a Dollar Bill

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The U.S. Federal Reserve estimates that the average lifespan of a dollar bill is just 6.6 years. Since larger bills get passed around less often, a $100 bill has an average lifespan of 22.9 years.

The lifespan of paper bills

According to the Federal Reserve website (cited below):

“When currency is deposited with a Federal Reserve Bank, the quality of each note is evaluated by sophisticated processing equipment. Notes that meet our strict quality criteria–that is, that are still in good condition–continue to circulate, while those that do not are taken out of circulation and destroyed. This process determines the lifespan of a Federal Reserve note.”

They continue:

“The lifespan of Federal Reserve notes varies by denomination and depends on a number of factors, including how the denomination is used by the public. For example, larger denominations such as $100 notes are often used as a store of value, which means they pass between users less frequently than lower-denominations such as $5 notes, which are more often used for transactions.”

Average currency lifespans and their ultimate fates

A U.S. $5 bill lasts roughly 4.7 years while a $10 may be around for around 5.3 years. Twenty-dollar bills typically stay in circulation for 7.8 years, and $50 bills last over a decade (12.2 years).

The Federal Reserve puts new currency into circulation each day and reclaims damaged money to destroy it. The cash is typically handed over by banks.

Every year, around $200 billion of “unfit currency” gets taken out of circulation.

According to Yahoo Finance: “What makes money too unfit to use? According the Fed, bills that have holes larger than 19 millimeters, or about the size of an aspirin, can no longer be used. Bills that are torn, dirty, or worn out are also removed. And 5-, 10- and 20-dollar bills produced before 1996 are removed automatically because of their age, regardless of condition.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “How long is the lifespan of U.S. paper money?” — U.S. Federal Reserve