Mental Floss: Instant Knowledge (37 page)

(and the beer it should make you want to chug)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, ball games, and barroom banter

KEYWORDS:
will you please stand for…

THE FACT:
Believe it or not, the American national anthem, and the source of a lot of pregame pride, was actually nicked from a drinking song written by John Stafford Smith.

Every third-grader knows the story of Francis Scott Key penning the great poem while watching the siege of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. But that’s just a poem. So where exactly did all this music hoo-ha come from? When Key wrote the anthem, he had a song in his head as a reference for the poem’s meter (a song from
England
, ironically enough). The tune, notoriously difficult to sing, is from a drinking song written by John Stafford Smith. Original title: “To Anacreon in Heaven.” It was the theme song of a club of rich London men who got together to eat, drink, and then for good measure drink some more. The Anacreontic Club took its name from Anacreon, a Greek poet who wrote about such things. Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that the song is usually sung before sporting events, after fans have been tailgating (translation: drinking) for several hours.

USEFUL FOR:
Olympic banter, half-time conversation, and awkward pauses at drag shows and high school track competitions

KEYWORDS:
Olympics, track-and-field, or hermaphrodites

THE FACT:
In one of the most unusual cases ever, Olympic superstar Stella Walsh was unmasked after her death as being a little more than just woman.

In 1980, a 69-year-old member of the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame was shot and killed outside a Cleveland shopping mall. Police immediately ascertained that the victim was Stella Walsh, the greatest female track-and-field athlete of her day. Stella, born Stanislawa Walasiewiczowna in Poland, won a gold medal for Poland at the 1932 Olympics and a silver in 1936, and set 20 world records. But when the police took the body to be autopsied, they found something very unusual on the 69-year-old woman: male genitals! Further studies showed that she had both male and female chromosomes, a condition known as mosaicism. When the shocking news got out, it took approximately 2.7 seconds for the great runner to get a new nickname: Stella the Fella.

(leading to sudden death)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, barroom banter, and irritating the sports fans at the retirement home

KEYWORDS:
this one’s going to go into overtime

THE FACT:
If Grandpa’s got a heart condition, maybe he shouldn’t be watching the big game this week.

Scientists at Utrecht University in the Netherlands analyzed the incidence of death on the five days prior to, the day of, and the five days after semifinal between the Netherlands and France in soccer. The game was particularly exciting, going into overtime before being decided by penalty kicks. (France ultimately won.) The average number of male deaths in the Netherlands by heart attack or stroke on the days surrounding the match: 150; on the day of the match: 173. It isn’t known what the French death rate was during and after the match. Guess that means they’ll have to do more research.

(the thing Morse didn’t invent)

USEFUL FOR:
impressing history buffs, irritating anyone related to Sam Morse, and chatting with anyone who still sends telegraphs (if you can find ’em)

KEYWORDS:
Morse code, SOS, or how do you type SOS in Morse code?

THE FACT:
Forget what you learned in grade school: Samuel F.B. Morse was at the least a second placer when it came to the telegraph.

Instead, set your sights on the true champ, Sir Charles Wheatstone. The British inventor built the first practical electric telegraph in 1837 or 1838—at the very least four years before Morse received his U.S. patent. Even in America, though, Morse’s “invention” of the telegraph is fraught with controversy: a friend, Dr. Charles Jackson, accused the inventor of stealing his idea (which could move Morse from second into third place). Also in dispute is the extent to which Morse’s assistant, Alfred Vail, contributed to both the design of his telegraph machine and the development of the “Morse code,” which was originally called the “Morse-Vail code.” (Does that even leave Sammy in the running anymore?) Well, whatever the case, you can always trust that the telegraph system will forever bear the good old Morse name.

(and the guy behind it)

USEFUL FOR:
making small talk with speechwriters, chatting up politicians, and anytime you see someone squinting at the camera

KEYWORDS:
please stay tuned for a message from the president

THE FACT:
Talk about an unsung hero: newscasters and politicians everywhere should be on their hands and knees thanking Irving B. Kahn, the inventor of the teleprompter.

Kahn stumbled into the idea while working on a projection system for the U.S. Army (not as a piece of military equipment, but simply to make presentations to Congressmen). Ridding newscasters of the need to read cue cards, the teleprompter was a huge success, leading Kahn to start the TelePrompTer Corporation, and leaving us to forever wonder both why newscasters still insist on shuffling papers and why he felt the need to capitalize the
P
and
T
in the company name. But those eternal questions aren’t the only annoying legacies Kahn left the world. In 1961, Kahn and fellow TelePrompTer exec Hub Schlafley developed the first pay-per-view television system, called Key TV, by showing (and charging for) the second Patterson – Johansson heavyweight fight.