"Today's Trivia"
-Frank Sinatra started his career as a teen heartthrob in the late 1930s, but it really took off after his first film roles in the mid 1940s. That’s right, the most famous ol’ crooner of them all was one of the first teen idols, and he was massively famous. Remember all the One Direction hysteria? Replace those fangirls with 1940s bobbysoxers, and you have “Sinatra-mania”, as it was dubbed. He could barely walk down the street (during filming of On the Town in 1948, some on-location scenes in Manhattan had to be filmed from the back of a car, because a camera crew would be too conspicuous.) His shows often attracted absolute hysteria and mobs of girls numbering in the tens of thousands, who would galvanize and mob the entire area. Those who couldn’t get into the show stood outside and sang his songs themselves. In crowded Manhattan, whole streets around the theater would be closed off from the sheer volume of fans. There are stories of the girls mobbing and overtaking policemen, shoving aside barriers, fainting in record numbers, and even wetting themselves in their seats so as not to miss a song (not to be vulgar.) Teenage boys, however, generally hated Sinatra- not for his voice or songs, but because he turned their girlfriends into screaming, uncontrollable obsessives who forgot they even had boyfriends. There’s even a famous photo of young sailors throwing tomatoes at a Sinatra sign.
-Abraham Lincoln grew his beard because an 11-year-old girl, Grace Bedell, wrote him a letter saying his face looked too skinny, and a beard would help it look healthier.
-In America, it wasn’t until the early 1800s that prisons separated male, female, and juvenile prisoners. Beforehand, they’d all simply be thrown together into one big cell, with nothing but straw on the ground for both bedding and a toilet.
-In 1300s London, football (soccer to Americans) was often played in the streets for lack of better refuge. However, medieval city streets were narrow and crowded. That meant crowds of grown men shoving people aside- people who had no room to move- and causing utter havoc. There were no boundaries and few rules to the game; nothing was really off limits so players and bystanders often suffered horrible injuries. People who couldn’t get out of the way stood an excellent chance of being trampled to death.
-Toilet paper was invented in the mid 1800s, but was barely used. People couldn’t understand why you should buy special paper for wiping yourself when you could easily use an old newspaper or catalog. In the late 1800s, old pages of the Sears catalog had become the preferred method UNTIL the 1930s (!!) when the catalog’s paper changed to shinier, slicker texture. Sears received a barrage of complaints about the “wipe-ability” of the pages. That’s not to imply people weren’t using toilet paper up until the 1930s, they were (thank god) but Sears was the traditional favorite.
-Vikings never wore horns on their helmets. It originated as a 19th-century opera costume based on archaeological findings at Celtic sites.
-Burberry is so associated with the trench coat because they invented them. During World War I, Thomas Burberry was commissioned by the British government to make rain-resistant coats for officers serving in the trenches. Hence, a literal trench coat.
-From 1918–1919, New Orleans was terrorized by “the Axeman.” In 1919, he himself (supposedly) sent police a letter stating he would kill again at exactly 12:15 am on March 20, but would “spare the customers of any establishment where jazz was playing.” NOLA dance halls were packed that night, people threw jazz parties at home, and those wealthier hired jazz bands. Windows were kept open so jazz could be heard playing from people’ s houses. No one was killed that night, and the “axeman” was never caught.
-The 1903 silent film The Gay Shoe Clerk was the first on-screen depiction of a woman’s bare ankle, and caused quite the scandal.
-Marlon Brando might’ve been a total hound dog, but there’s at least one woman who could make him go shy and leave him awestruck: Audrey Hepburn. Her son, Sean Ferrer, writes that the two were seated next to one another at an Actor’s Guild Luncheon in the mid 50s. As they sat down, Audrey greeted him but he said nothing to her the entire luncheon, not even a greeting or goodbye, and would barely make eye contact. So for decades, she simply believed he disliked her. But near the end of her life, she received a letter from Brando while in the hospital. A mutual friend had told him of her hurt feelings, and he wrote to explain. She might’ve been shy of him at that luncheon, but he recalled he’d been so in awe of her that he was speechless. He couldn’t think of a single thing so say.