Mental Floss: Instant Knowledge (25 page)

(and the guy who should’ve gotten credit)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, impressing your history teacher, consoling anyone who’s ever felt shafted

KEYWORDS:
Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary

THE FACT:
While Hillary gets all the glory for getting to the top of Everest first, he should probably share some of the hype with his Nepalese buddy who got him there.

Tenzing Norgay was a Sherpa, one of the hardy mountain folk of Nepal. Like many Sherpa, he discovered that he could make a nice living guiding Europeans up the mountains of his homeland. In 1953, he led Sir John Hunt’s expedition to Mount Everest, the highest point on earth. But few remember Norgay’s name, because a New Zealander, Edmund Hillary, insisted on being the first person to stand on the summit. It took Hillary and company seven weeks to climb to the summit and three days to descend, though one suspects Norgay could have done better
without
the Europeans. In 2004, Pemba Dorji, another Sherpa, reached the peak in just 8 hours, 10 minutes.

(America’s greatest rock group)

USEFUL FOR:
impressing your history teacher, nerdy dates, and South Dakotans

KEYWORDS:
Rushmore, South Dakota, and the inevitable why?

THE FACT:
Meet America’s greatest rock group: George, Tom, Abe, and Teddy. But how exactly did this presidential summit come about? And more important, why South Dakota?

The fact is, a South Dakota state historian had a big idea in 1924: Turn a cliff in the Black Hills into a tribute to heroes of the Old West. And sculptor John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum liked the idea, but not the choice of subjects. So the idea morphed a little, and a quartet of presidential busts was opened to the public in October 1941. Mount Rushmore, which cost about $1 million to build and is the largest American artwork ever created, attracts 2.7 million visitors a year—even though it was never finished. America got into World War II and funds ran dry. That’s why Lincoln is missing an ear. Either that, or that’s van Gogh up there.

(like a Movie Mogul)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, business lunches, justifying lazing in the hammock when you’re supposed to be out mowing the lawn

KEYWORDS:
snooze, sleep, slumber, power naps, or Sam Goldwyn

THE FACT:
Sam Goldwyn, one of Hollywood’s most prominent film producers, believed in the power of working hard. He also believed in the power of a good afternoon’s sleep.

It’s no secret that Sam Goldwyn was a workaholic who demanded a lot from his employees. But like any good mogul, he also believed in pampering himself. Every day after lunch, Sam would take a siesta, disappearing into a room adjacent to his office, changing into pajamas, and sleeping for an hour. According to biographer Arthur Marx, Goldwyn—the man behind such classics as
Wuthering Heights
and
The Best Years of Our Lives
—believed a 60-minute afternoon nap was the secret to good health. One day he recommended the practice to two writers working on a script for a Danny Kaye picture. “You ought to try it, too,” he said. Then, realizing that he didn’t want the scribes sleeping on company time, he added, “…In your cases, eat a half-hour, sleep a half-hour.”

(one that’s easy to love, but hard to sing)

USEFUL FOR:
Olympics, ball game banter, anytime someone fumbles the words to a song

KEYWORDS:
Please rise for the national anthem

THE FACT:
Every time you struggle a bit with “The Star Spangled Banner,” just be glad that you’re not from South Africa.

Like the nation itself, the South African National Anthem is a combination of words from several different ethnic groups. During the apartheid era, the white government had its anthem, “
Die Stem van Suid Afrika”
(The Call of South Africa). Of course, Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress had its own separate-but-unofficial tune: “
Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica”
(God Bless Africa). Then, when apartheid finally ended, and blacks and whites were legally forced to coexist, the two anthems were forced to coexist with equal status. That is, until 1995, when the pieces were melded to form the current national anthem in all its disjointed glory. Just how awkward is it? The anthem changes key in the middle, and is in
five
different languages. Starting as “
Nkosi,”
the tune goes on to sample the more prevalent of South Africa’s many native languages. Verse 1 is in Xhosa. Verse 2, Zulu. Verse 3, Sesotho. Then the key switches and “
Die Stem”
powers through. Verse 4 is in Afrikaans, and verse 5 is in English. Whew!

(the idea)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, ’80s nostalgia, and picking up people at the vending machine

KEYWORDS:
the biggest mistake in history

THE FACT:
In the early 1980s, the cola wars were in heavy combat, and Coke was dangerously close to losing its number-one spot to Pepsi. Its (poor) solution? A newly formulated version of the original soda.

On April 23, 1985, New Coke was released to the American public amid a barrage of media hype. The result was nothing short of a national crisis. Consumers were relentlessly enraged, comparing the taste of New Coke to “sewer water,” “furniture polish,” and worse, “two-day-old Pepsi.” Before long, Old Coke had a thriving black market, with a case going for as much as $30. Other avid drinkers had supplies shipped to them from Canada or created stockpiles in their basements. But, apparently, you didn’t even have to taste New Coke to be extremely angry about the beverage. The simple act of altering the formula at all set off its own firestorm. One disgusted consumer commented, “It’s like spitting on the flag.” Said one husband and father of two: “I couldn’t have been more surprised if someone had told me that I was gay.”