15 Trivia Tidbits for Saturday, February 22, 2025
James K. Polk died just three months after leaving the White House. He caught cholera during his farewell tour, and people believed his corpse was so infectious that they buried it in a special cemetery exclusively for cholera victims.
Shitting yourself to death isn’t very fun, but Polk also suffered further indignities while alive. Find out about one below, along with some facts about ancient sex and deadly gravity.
Snip Snip
Hot-dog casings used to be so thick that you had to peel them away and discard them before the hot dogs were ready to eat. “Skinless wieners” were hailed as a step forward for convenient eating, and companies advertised that customers were no longer paying for skins they didn’t eat.
Tempting Fate
Anything you post online might end up serving as your last words. In 2012, aspiring rapper Ervin McKinness posted, “Drunk af going 120 drifting corners #FuckIt YOLO.” His car crashed a few minutes later, killing him.
HR Violation
Actress Tallulah Bankhead refused to wear underwear while filming Lifeboat, leading the crew to complain to director Alfred Hitchcock. The man quipped that he wasn’t sure if this was a matter to be addressed by the makeup department or the hairdressing department.
Face Card
The system of sticking missing kids’ pictures on milk cartons didn’t result in anyone finding many of these kids. But in one of the few success stories, a seven-year-old ended up getting rescued after looking at a carton and spotting her own face.
For the Chief He Does Need Hailing
“Hail to the Chief” wasn’t written about the U.S. president but about a Scottish chieftain. We started associating it with presidents thanks to first lady Sarah Childress Polk, who wanted a song announcing James Polk’s entry into a room for fear that people otherwise wouldn’t notice the unimpressive man.
Fall of the Machines
In the 1960s, British companies pioneered Supermarionation, an advanced type of puppetry. The puppets’ mouths were programmed to sync up with prerecorded audio. Tragically, the world decided they preferred animation instead.
Highly Unprofessional
During the practice montage in Dirty Dancing, Jennifer Grey’s character repeatedly laughs, and we repeatedly cut to the characters practicing that move from the start. Not only was this unscripted — Patrick Swayze went on to write in his autobiography about how much these mistakes of hers wore on his patience.
Short Morse Service
Decades ago, Nokia introduced the tone that plays when you receive an SMS — a tone that’s the letters “SMS” in Morse code. Everyone should have realized this, since it’s just one dash away from SOS, the most famous Morse message.
Audience Participation
At a 1997 Green Day concert, Billie Joe Armstrong caught sight of some bad behavior in the crowd and yelled, “Hey, why don’t you come here, you little mohawked motherfucker? You wanna fight? I’ll fight you right now. Come on, get up here on the stage?” Then he leapt down and really did fight the audience member.
Sex Coupons
Archaeologists have found a series of Roman tokens depicting sex acts on one side and a numeral on the other. Some speculate that these were tokens used in brothels, but we have no documentation explaining them.
Cold Welcome
The full theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air contains an additional rarely heard verse, describing Will’s arrival at LAX. He sees a driver that the Banks family sent to pick him up and mistakes him for a cop, explaining why he ended up hailing a cab to get to their home.
Watch for Falling Rocks
Historical records tell of the time in 1490 when “stones fell like rain” in the Chinese city of Qingyang. We think this was an example of a meteor air burst, and the records claim that these killed tens of thousands of people.
From Death, Life
Though “Eye of the Tiger” is a famous song from Rocky III, the production didn’t want to feature a new song at all. They wanted to use Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” which isn’t quite as inspirational an anthem. But they couldn’t get the rights.
See Something, Say Something
Dutch customs officials once interrogated Alien artist H.R. Giger about art he carried, thinking these were actual photographs he had taken. Given that they depicted body parts of otherworldly creatures, this raised questions about where they thought he could have photographed them.
Something to Cry About
Three thousand people attended the funeral for 18th-century Massachusetts trader Timothy Dexter. Partway through the ceremony, they were surprised to discover Dexter alive in the kitchen, beating his wife with a cane. He had faked his death and was angry that his widow wasn’t crying.
