The following is reprinted from Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader.

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was one of the most dramatic incidents in U.S. history - and the source of persistent questions. Did President Roosevelt know the attack was coming? If so, why didn't he defend against it? Here's some insight from It's a Conspiracy!

USS Shaw exploded during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. (Image Credit of this and the images below: Dept. of the Navy - Naval Historical Center)

USS Arizona burning at Pearl Harbor.

Rescuing survivor near USS West Virginia during the Pearl Harbor attack.

USS Maryland and the capsized USS Oklahoma.

Burning PBY patrol bomber at Naval Air Station Kaneohe.

View of Pearl Harbor from a nearby hill - the dots in the sky were anti-aircraft shells bursting.

Burning planes and hangars at the Wheeler Field. Shortly after dawn on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese warplanes launched an all-out attack on Pearl Harbor [wiki], the major U.S. military base in Hawaii. Within two hours, they had damaged or destroyed 18 warships and more than 200 aircraft, killing 2,403 American soldiers, sailors, and marines, and wounding 1,178. Americans were stunned and outraged. The next day, FDR delivered a stirring speech to Congress in which he referred to the day of the attack as "a date which will lie in infamy." In response, Congress declared war, and the country closed ranks behind the president. Despite America's commitment to the war, however, questions arose about Pearl Harbor that were not easily dismissed: How were we caught so completely by surprise? Why were losses so high? Who was to blame? Did the president know an attack was coming? Did he purposely do nothing so America would be drawn into the war? Although there were seven full inquiries before the war ended, the questions persist to this day.

UNANSWERED QUESTION #1 Did the United States intercept Japanese messages long before an attack, but failed to warn the Hawaiian base?

Suspicious Facts

• By the summer of 1940, the United States had cracked Japan's top-secret diplomatic code, nicknamed "Purple [wiki]." This enabled U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor messages to and from Tokyo.

• Although several U.S. command posts received machines for decoding "Purple," Pearl Harbor was never given one.

• Messages intercepted in the autumn of 1941 suggested what the Japanese were planning:

› On October 9, 1941, Tokyo told its consul in Honolulu to "divide the water around Pearl Harbor into five sub-areas and report on the types and numbers of American war craft." › The Japanese foreign minister urged negotiators to resolve issues with the U.S. by November 29, after which "things are automatically going to happen." › On December 1, after negotiations had failed, the navy intercepted a request that the Japanese ambassador in Berlin informed Hitler of an extreme danger of war ... coming "quicker than anyone dreams."

On the Other Hand

• Although the United States had cracked top-secret Japanese codes several years earlier, "the fact is that code-breaking intelligence did not prevent and could not have prevented Pearl Harbor, because Japan never sent any messages to anybody saying anything like 'We shall attack Pearl Harbor,'" writes military historian David Kahn in the autumn 1991 issue of Military History Quarterly.

• "The [Japanese] Ambassador in Washington was never told of the plan," Kahn says, "Nor were other Japanese diplomats or consular officials. The ship of the strike force were never radioed any message mentioning Pearl Harbor. It was therefore impossible for cryptoanalysts to have discovered the plan. Despite the American code breakers, Japan kept her secret."

• Actually, Washington had issued a warning to commanders at Pearl Harbor a few weeks earlier. On November 27, 1941, General George Marshall sent the following message: "Hostile action possible at any moment. If hostilities cannot, repeat CANNOT, be avoided, the United States desires that Japan commit the first over act. This policy should not, repeat NOT, be construed as restricting you to a course of action that might jeopardize your defense."

• But the commanders at Pearl Harbor were apparently negligent. The base should have at least been on alert, but the antiaircraft guns were unmanned and most people on the base were asleep when the attack came.

UNANSWERED QUESTION #2 Did a sailor pick up signals from the approaching Japanese fleet and pass the information on to the White House - which ignored it?

Suspicious Facts

• This theory is promoted in John Toland's bestselling book, Infamy. He asserts that in early December, an electronics expert in the 12th Naval District in San Francisco (whom Toland refers as "Seaman Z") identified "queer signals" in the Pacific. Using cross-bearings, he identified them as originating from a "missing" Japanese carrier fleet which had not been heard from in months. He determined that the fleet was heading directly for Hawaii.

• Toland says that although Seaman Z and his superior officer allegedly reported their findings to the Office of Naval Intelligence, whose chief was a close friend of the president, Pearl Harbor never got the warning.

On the Other Hand

• Gordon Prange, author of Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History, refutes many of Toland's assertions. Although he concedes that there may have been unusual Japanese signals that night, Prange says that they were almost certainly signals to the carriers from Tokyo - and thus would have been useless in locating the carriers.

• To prove his point, Prange quotes reports written by Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the air attack on Pearl Harbor: "The Force maintained the strictest silence throughout the cruise ... [Admiral] Genda stressed that radio silence was so important that the pilots agreed not to go on the air even if their lives depended upon it." The chief of staff for Fleet Admiral Nagumo adds, "All transmitters were sealed, and all hands were ordered to be kept away from any key of the machine."

• Prange notes, "It would be interesting to know how the 12th Naval District in San Francisco could pick up information that the 14th Naval District, much nearer the action in Honolulu, missed."

• Finally, Prange reports that years after the war, "Seaman Z" was identified as Robert D. Ogg, a retired California businessman. Ogg flatly denied that he had said the unusual signals were "the missing carrier force," nor was he even sure that the transmission were in Japanese - "I never questioned them at the time."

UNANSWERED QUESTION #3 Even if FDR didn't specifically know about an impending attack on Pearl Harbor, did he try to provoke the Japanese into attacking the U.S. to gain the support of the American public for his war plans?

Suspicious Facts

• FDR told close aides that if the Allies were to be victorious, the U.S. had to enter the war before Japan overran the Pacific and Germany destroyed England.

• FDR told a British emissary that the United States "would declare war on Japan in the latter attacked American possessions ... [but] public opinion would be unlikely to approve of a declaration of war if the Japanese attack were directed only against British or Dutch territories."

• Earlier that year, on July 25, 1941, Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the United States.

• In 1937, Japan sank a U.S. warship in China's Yangtze River, and relations between America and Japan began deteriorating. Both countries made a public effort to negotiate, but FDR presented a series of impossible ultimatums to the Japanese negotiators and openly loaned money to the Nationalist Chinese, whom the Japanese were fighting at the time.

Curtiss Tomahawk fighter plane of the Flying Tigers, painted with the 12-point sun symbol of the Chinese Air Force (Image Credit: Wikipedia)

Crews of the Flying Tiger (Image Credit: Wikipedia)

• According to columnist Pat Buchanan, Roosevelt also committed an act of war against Japan in August 1941, when he secretly approved sending a crack U.S. Air Force squadron, the "Flying Tigers [wiki]," to fight alongside the Chinese Nationalists. Although these fliers were officially "volunteers," Buchanan claimed that they were "recruited at U.S. bases, offered five times normal pay [and] sent off to fight Japan months before Pearl Harbor, in a covert operation run out of FDR's White House ... Though their planes carried the insignia of the Chinese army, [they] were on active duty for the United States."

On the Other Hand

• No evidence proving a conspiracy to goad the Japanese into attacking has come to light in the 50-plus years since Pearl Harbor. If there had been one, it would have surfaced by now .. wouldn't it have? We'll probably never know.

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader. This special edition book covers the three "lost" Bathroom Readers - Uncle John's 5th, 6th and 7th book all in one. The huge (and hugely entertaining) volume covers neat stories like the Strange Fate of the Dodo Bird, the Secrets of Mona Lisa, and more ...

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

Aristophanes

Overview: The inventor of comedy. The plot of his most famous play had the wives of dueling Athens and Sparta withhold sex from the warmongers until, finally, peace fell over the land.

Best Lines:

"Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleip
sanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaome
litokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophat-
toperisteralektryonoptekephallio-
kigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon." A grammatically correct Greek word that Aristophanes made up to poke fun at the Greek language. "

"These impossible women ... can't live with them, or without them!" Yeah - it's an old line.

Shakespeare

Overview: Shakespearean humor generally falls under four categories: 1) horrible puns that rely on knowledge of 16th-century English; 2) veiled reference to sex; 3) satire concerning 16th-century politics that scholars don't even laugh at; and 4) wit that, sometimes, remains timeless.

Best Lines:

"Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance."

"Sampson: ... I will be cruel with the maids, I will cut off their heads.
Gregory: The heads of the maids?
Sampson: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense you wilt."

Mark Twain

Overview: Mark Twain was the funniest writer in American history. We're going to stop the overview there to leave more room for his jokes.

Best Lines:

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it."

"In a world without women," Twain was once asked, "what would men become?" "Scarce, sir," Twain replied. "Mighty scarce."

"Familiarity breeds contempt - and children."

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."

Lenny Bruce

Overview: Comedy's first bad boy, Bruce created the current form of stand-up storytelling with its sarcasm, twists, and shocks. In the '50s and '60s Bruce discussed topics ranging from his Jewish heritage to explicit sex and was arrested several times for public profanity - which does make him challenging to quote in a family-friendly book, but ...

Best Lines:

"A lot of people say to me, 'Why did you [the Jews] kill Christ?' I dunno ... it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know? ... We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him."

Richard Pryor

Overview: Born to a brothel's madam and one of her clients, Richard Pryor didn't get a head start in life. By making fun of himself, the state of the black race in America, and his own mistakes, Pryor became recognized as one of the finest comedians in American history. In the tradition of Lenny Bruce, not many of his best lines are suitable for publication. But we'll try.

Best Lines:

"I went to Zimbabwe ... I know how white people feel in America now - relaxed! 'Cause when I heard the police car I knew they weren't coming after me!"

"I believe in the institution of marriage, and I intend to keep trying till I get it right."

Stricken with MS, Pryor stopped performing in the mid '90s, but he remained outspoken - but as an advocate for radical animal rights group - until his death in 2005.

From mental_floss' book Scatterbrained, published in Neatorama with permission.

Don't forget to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!

Reprinted from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader: Fast-Acting Long-Lasting.

You've heard of the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile; maybe you've even seen it in person. Here are a few more vehicles to watch for while Uncle John finalizes his design for the Pot Rod.

THE ZIPPO CAR

Zippo Car (Image Credit: The Studio)

Looks Like: A 1940s-era black sedan, with the passenger compartment ripped out and replaced by two giant Zippo lighters, with their tops flipped open and neon flames sticking out.  

Details: Zippo founder George G. Blaisdell had the first Zippo Car built onto a Chrysler Saratoga New Yorker in 1947. It cost him $25,000, which was a lot of money back then. But Blaisdell didn't have much to show for it - the car was so heavy that the tires blew out regularly. Rebuilding it onto a Ford truck chassis would have solved the problem, but the redesign made the car several inches taller than government regulations allowed. The estimate for fixing that problem was $40,000, so Blaisdell abandoned the project. Apparently he never even picked it back up from the Ford dealership that was hired to do the work. The dealership eventually went out of business; no one knows what happened to the car, but it probably ended up in the wrecking yard. A replica of the original car was built in 1996 (hopefully with better tires).

THE ECKRICH FUNHOUSE

Eckrich Fun House (Image Credit: Roadside Gallery)

Looks Like: Eckrich makes sausages, and it's not easy being a sausage company in search of a promotional vehicle. Why? If you go the obvious, a sausage shape, you'll just remind people of the competition - the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Having missed the weiner boat, Eckrich settled for a cartoon-looking house.

Details: They call it the Funhouse (it has windows with flower boxes filled with daisies that squirt water at unsuspecting passersby). There's nothing particularly sausagey at all about it except maybe that most people eat their sausages at home. But hey - Eckrich had to come with something.

MEOW MIX MOBILE

Meow Mix Mobile (Image Credit: St. Charles Humane Society)

Looks Like: A van converted into a crouching cat that looks like it's about to pounce. The cat comes complete with motorized tongue that licks "whisker to whisker" 20 times a minute.

Details: A lot of promotional vehicles raise money for charity; Clawde the Red Lobster (an ad-mobile for Red Lobster restaurant chain) supports the Special Olympics, for example. But the Mew Mix Mobile has a charity all its own: Meows on Wheels. &quotAs the Meow Mix Mobile travels around the country, it will be delivering Meow Mix brand cat food to people who have difficulty purchasing it themselves,&quot the company's Web site says. &quotIf you know any cat owners who are homebound, elderly or disabled, or for any reason have difficulty getting to the store to purchase food for their cats, we want to hear from you.&quot

THE SPAMMOBILE

Spammobile (Image Credit: uberculture [Flickr])

Looks Like: A blue bus with big Spam decals on each side that are supposed to make it look like a big can of Spam. What it really looks like is a city bus covered in Spam ads.

Details: The "Spambassadors" who drive the Spammobile crisscross the United States handing out free sample-sized Spamburgers (patties of Spam Lite, Less Sodium Spam, Smoked-Flavored Spam, Oven Roaster Turkey Spam, and regular Spam on tiny hamburger buns) to the public. Mmmmmm!

OTHER VEHICLES

Pep-O-Mint Car, 1918 (Image Credit: George W. Green Special Use Vehicles)

The Lifesavers Pep-O-Mint Car: One of the coolest vehicles of all, the 1918 Pep-O-Mint car looked just like a roll of Lifesavers on four of those old-fashioned wooden spoked wheels. The driver sat right in the middle of the roll; the O in Pep-O-Mint served as the left and right-side windows.

Hershey's Kissmobile.

The Hershey's Kissmobile: Looks like three big foil-wrapped Kisses (Regular, Almond, and Hugs) sitting on a giant Hershey's bar. The driver sits in the regular Hershey's Kiss (it has a curvy, kiss-shaped windshield); the other two kisses hold free samples.

Mr. Peanut Hot Rod (Image Credit: Prototype Source)

The Mr. Peanut Hot Rod: A motor home remade into a peanut-shaped race car, complete with a giant engine block sticking out of the "hood" and a giant Mr. Peanut sitting in the faux driver's seat. Why a hot rod? Mr Peanut is "the Official Snack of NASCAR."

(Image credit: Lazy Lightning [Flickr])

Call it the poor man's dream, a casino without walls, or a tax on the stupid, the lottery has deep and widespread roots. Here's a look at five stories about the numbers game.

1. Lotteries of Yore (It's Older Than You Think!)

Lotteries have been around as long as arithmetic. According to the Bible, God ordered Moses to use a lottery to divvy up land along the River Jordan (it's in the Book of Numbers, naturally). And that ain't all the "good book" has to say about it: lotteries are also mentioned in Joshua, Leviticus, and Proverbs. The lottery can also be traced back to China, where a warlord named Cheung Leung came up with a numbers game to persuade citizens to help pay for his army. Today, it's known as keno. Other famous lotteries? The Chinese used one to help finance the Great Wall; Augustus Caesar authorized one to raise money for public works projects in Rome. And in 1466, in what is now the Belgian town of Bruges, a lottery was created to help the poor - which lotteries supposedly have been doing ever since.

2. The Founding Fathers Took Their Chances

Displaying the astute politicians' aversion to direct taxation, early American leaders often turned to lotteries to raise a buck or two. John Hancock organized several lotteries, including one to rebuild Boston's Faneuil Hall. Ben Franklin used them during the Revolutionary War to purchase a cannon for the Continental Army. George Washington ran a lottery to pay for a road into the wilds of western Virginia. And Thomas Jefferson wrote of lotteries, "Far from being immoral, they are indispensable to the existence of Man." Of course, when he wrote it, he was trying to convince the Virginia legislature to let him hold a lottery to pay off his debts.

3. Louisiana: a Whole Lotto Love

Ticket from the Louisiana State Lottery (Image Credit: Louisiana Lottery [wiki])

By the end of the Civil War, lotteries in America had such bad reputations, they were banned in most states. But not in Louisiana, where a well-bribed legislature in 1869 gave an exclusive charter to a private firm called the Louisiana Lottery Company. The company sold tickets throughout the country, and for 25 years, it raked in millions of dollars while paying out relatively small prizes and contributing chump change to a few New Orleans charities. Finally, in 1890, Congress passed a law banning the sale of lottery tickets through the mail, and eventually all multistate lottery sales were banned. What's a corrupt U.S. company to do? Move offshore, of course! The Louisiana Lottery moved its operations to Honduras, and America was lottery free until 1963, when New Hampshire started the lottery cycle anew.

4. "Inaction" Jackson: Lotter's Biggest Loser

Clarence Jackson's luck began to run out on Friday, the 13th of October, 1995, when the Connecticut Lottery picked the numbers on Jackson's lotto ticket, making his family the winners of $5.8 million. Only he didn't know about it - and didn't find out until 15 minutes before the one-year deadline to claim the prize, despite a whole slew of lottery ads seeking the winner. Jackson, a 23-year-old who'd taken over the family's struggling office cleaning business from his ailing father, didn't make it in time, and lottery officials rejected the claim. In 1997, the Connecticut General Assembly voted to award Jackson the prize, but the state senate refused to go along. Up until 2004, Jackson was still trying each year to convince the legislature. And still losing.

5. And Some Other Jackson: It's Biggest "Winner"

Andrew Jackson "Jack" Whittaker was already wealthy when he won the multistate Powerball lottery in December 2002. A millionaire contractor from West Virginia, Whittaker became the biggest single lottery winner in history after snagging a $314.9 million jackpot. But the dough seemed to carry more curses than the Hope Diamond. And when Jack decided to take a $170.5 million lump sum instead of payments over 20 years, it wasn't the only lump coming his way. Whittaker was robbed three times, once of more than $500,000 at a strip club. He was also sued for assault, arrested for drunk driving, and even booked for getting into a bar fight. And in September 2004, three burglars broke into his house and found the boyd of a friend of Whittaker's granddaughter, whose death may have been drug related. The sad truth? Simply that money doesn't guarantee peace of mind.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!

THE NAPOLEON

Popularized By: Napoleon, naturally
Hat Story: Napoleon was known for his tall. Folded-brim felt hats. Some hypothesize, in fact, that Napoleon is remembered as short because his gigantic hats dwarfed the rest of him.
Pluses: The last guy who wore it conquered most of Europe.
Minuses: From a distance, it looks like a giant possum is asleep atop your head.

THE BERET

Popularized By: Saddam Hussein (president, Iraq) and Max Fischer (president, Rushmore Beekeepers Club).
Hat Story: Originally worn in ancient Greece and Rome, the beret reached the Basque country by way of traders. The Romans color-coded their berets (white, for instance, could only be worn by aristocrats).
Minuses: Also looks French

THE FEZ

Popularized By: King Hassan II (King of Morocco in the 1960s) and Shriners
Hat Story: This visorless, flat-topped, betassled felt cap became part of the official Turkish dress code under Sultan Mahmud II in the 1800s and remained so until being outlawed in 1925, two years after Turkey became a secular republic.
Pluses: Friends and family will be able to spot you in a crowd: “Just look for the tassel!”
Minuses: Won’t keep the sun out of your eyes; people will start calling you Fezzy McTassleman.

THE BOWLER, AKA THE DERBY

Popularized By: Charlie Chaplin (who played a dictator in The Great Dictator) and Benito Mussolini (who played a dictator in World War II)
Hat Story: Originally designed as a kind of stylish hard hat, the narrow-brimmed bowler first appeared in 1850 and for the next several decades was the hat for those who though top hats pretentious—or expensive.
Pluses: Much sexier than today’s hard hats (if also less hard)
Minuses: It didn’t work that well for Duckie in Pretty in Pink.

EGYPIAN DIADEM

Popularized By: King Tutankhamen (of Egypt) and Steve Martin (of Saturday Night Live)
Hat Story: Tut’s royal crown, made of gold, glass and semiprecious stones, featured a vulture and cobra (representing goddesses of lower and upper Egypt) to protect the leader. Martin’s was made of plastic.
Pluses: It’s good to be king!
Minuses: Airport metal detectors

THE TOP HAT

Popularized By: Abraham Lincoln (16th president of the United States)
Hat story: A Cantonese hatter designed the first silk top hat in China for a French dandy back in 1775—but top hats didn’t catch fire until the 1820s. Honest Abe actually wore a variation on the top hat called the stovepipe hat, the hat being straight rather than wider at the top.
Pluses: Uber-retro, and black is very slimming.
Minuses: Kids always asking you to pull a rabbit out of it.

From mental_floss' book Scatterbrained, published in Neatorama with permission.

Don't forget to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!

The following is an article from Bathroom Readers' Institute 13th edition Uncle John's All-Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader. You can't help laughing at some of life's - and death's - ironies ... as long as they happen to someone else. These stories speak for themselves.

FELIX POWELL, music composer

Story: Powell, then a British staff sargeant, wrote the music for "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile" in 1915 and entered it in a World War I competition for best morale-building song. The ditty won first prize and has been called "perhaps the most optimistic song ever written."

Final Irony: Powell committed suicide in 1942.

NIC MARCURA, a Yugoslavian farmer

Story: Sensing that his own end was near, Marcura set to work digging his own grave.

Final Irony: According to news reports, "in a sudden cloudburst, water began to fill up the hole. Marcura tried to bail it out with a bucket, slipped in and drowned."

ALBEN BARKLEY, former U.S. vice president

Story: On April 30, 1956, Barkley delivered a speech at a mock political convention at Washington and Lee University.

Final Irony: Moments after declaring to his audience, "I would rather sit at the feet of the Lord than dwell in the house of the mighty," Barkley keeled over and died.

FRIEDRICH RIESFELDT, a zookeeper in Paderborn, Germany

Story: When his elephant Stefan became constipated, Riesfeldt fed it 22 doses of animal laxative ... and when that didn't work, fed it more than a bushel of high-fiber berries, figs, and prunes. Still no luck.

Final Irony: The frustrated zookeeper then gave Stefan an olive-oil enema. That did it. According to one account, the elephant suddently released approximately 200 pounds of manure, killing Riesfeldt. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him," police detective Erik Dern explained. "With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour and suffocated." (Although this story was widely reported in the press, it may just be an urban legend. What makes it so questionable? Sounds like a lot of dung.)

GEORGE STORY, Life magazine's "Life Baby"

Story: In 1936, the premiere issue of Life magazine featured a picture of newborn baby George Story. The headline: "Life Begins." Over the years, the magazine periodically updated readers on the progress of Story's life as he married twice, had children, and retired.

Final Irony: Less than a week after Life announced it was folding, Story died from heart failure. The final issue of Life featured one last article on Story. The headline: "A Life Ends."

MYRA DAVIS, Janet Leigh's body double in the film Psycho

Story: Davis was Leigh's stand-in, she was one of several people who provided the voice of Norman Bates's mother, and it was her hand that was seen in the famous shower scene in which Leigh's character is stabbed to death.

Final Irony: On July 3, 1988, Davis was found strangled in her Los Angeles home, murdered by a 31-year-old "caretaker and handyman" ... just like the character portrayed by Anthony Perkins in Psycho.

BOBBY LEACH, a professional daredevil

Story: In 1911, Leach, who made his living risking his life, went over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He survived the attempt.

Final Irony: Fifteen years later, in 1926, Leach slipped on an orange peel ... and died from injuries sustained in the fall.

JOHANN UNDERWALD, a Swiss mathematician

Story: Underwald, one of the brightest stars in his field, was described by his peers as "the next Albert Einstein."

Final Irony: Underwald died in October 1999. Cause of death: mathematical error - Underwald "made a 250-foot bungee jump with a 300-foot bungee cord, and died immediately on impact."

The following is reprinted from Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader.

These tidbits about extinct candy bars come from Dr. Ray Broekel, "candy bar historian" and publisher of a newsletter called the Candy Bar Gazebo.

THE AIR MAIL BAR. Introduced in 1930 to honor the first airmail flight in the U.S. - in 1918, from Washington, D.C. to New York City. Ironically, the first flight never made it to New York. After takeoff, the pilot noticed someone had forgotten to fill the fuel tank. Then he got lost over Maryland and had to land in a cow pasture. The Air Mail candy bar had a similar fate.

FAT EMMA.

In the early 1920s, the Pendergast Candy Company in Minneapolis introduced a candy bar with a nougat center. They planned to call it the Emma bar. But when it wound up twice as thick as expected (they accidentally put too much egg white in the mixture), they changed the name to Fat Emma. Later, Frank Mars copied the idea to create the Milky Way bar.

THE SAL-LE-DANDE BAR. The first candy bar named after a stripper - Sally Rand, whose "fan dance" at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair shocked and titillated the nation. In the 1960s, another stripper bar was available briefly: the Gypsy bar, named after Gypsy Rose Lee.

Red Grange Bar (Image Credit: Gallery of Red Grange Material)

THE RED GRANGE BAR. Endorsed by Red Grange, the most popular football player of his day. After starring at the University of Illinois, he joined the Chicago Bears in 1925 and helped keep the National Football League in business. Unfortunately, he couldn't do the same for his candy bar.

THE VEGETABLE SANDWICH BAR. One of the weirdest "health" bar ever made, this 1920s vegetable concoction contained cabbage, celery, peppers, and tomatoes. Its makers claimed that it aided digestion and "will not constipate."

THE ZEP CANDY BAR. "Sky-High Quality." One of several candy bars that capitalized on the popularity of "lighter-than-air" dirigibles in the 1930s. This one featured a sketch of a Graf Zeppelin on the wrapper. It was taken off the market after the Hindenburg exploded in 1937.

Chicken Dinner Candy Truck [Image Credit: Charles Phoenix]

THE CHICKEN DINNER BAR. One of the bestselling bars you've never heard of. It was introduced in the 1920s and remained on the market for about 50 years. The original wrapper featured a picture of a roasting chicken on a dinner plate - a bizarre way of suggesting it was a nourishing meal and encouraging customers to associate it with prosperity ("a chicken in every pot"). The manufacturer, Sperry Candy Co., even dispatched a fleet of Model A trucks disguised as giant sheet-metal chickens to deliver the candy to stores. Several years after the bar's debut, Sperry dropped the chicken from the wrapper. But it kept the name.

THE BIG-HEARTED "AL" BAR. George Williamson, owner of the Williamson Candy Company, was a good Democrat and a good friend of New York governor Al Smith, Democratic nominee for president in 1928. Smith lost in a landslide to Herbert Hoover, and his candy bar soon followed.

THE SEVEN UP CANDY BAR. Got its name from having seven connected pieces, each with a different center. The bar came out in the 1930s, before the 7-Up Bottling Company began production of its soft drink - so the Trudeau Candy Company owned the trademark rights to the name. Eventually the 7-Up Bottling Company bought the bar and retired it, so they had exclusive use of the name no matter how it was spelled - Seven Up or 7-Up.

[Image Credit: I Remember JFK]

THE "IT" BAR. The #1 female sex symbol of the silent movie era was Clara Bow - known as the "It Girl." (She had that special quality her movie studio called "It.") In 1927 the McDonald Candy Company of Salt Lake City tried cashing in on her popularity with a candy bar featuring her face on the wrapper. It did well for a few years, then disappeared along with Bow. (She wasn't able to make the switch to talkies, because although she was lovely to look at, her Brooklyn accent made her impossible to listen to.)

Also Gone: The Betsy Ross bar, the Lindy (for Charles Lindbergh), Amos 'n' Andy, Poor Prune, Vita Sert, and Doctor's Orders.

Reprinted from Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader. ©1999 by the Bathroom Reader’s Press.

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader. This special edition book covers the three "lost" Bathroom Readers - Uncle John's 5th, 6th and 7th book all in one. The huge (and hugely entertaining) volume covers neat stories like the Strange Fate of the Dodo Bird, the Secrets of Mona Lisa, and more...

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT

WALK THIS WAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

IT’S NOT FUNNY

DID THEY SEE ANYTHING?

HOW MANY WERE DETAINED? NUN.

JAILBIRD

BETTER THAN A SEAT BELT

3 Delicious Animals We Charbroiled Into Extinction - and 1 That Tasted Nasty But We Killed It Anyway

"Good to the last drop" proved to be a great slogan for Maxwell House coffee. But the "Good to the last existing representation of the species" tagline hasn't worked so well for these delectable creatures. Here are four animals that prove that slow and tasty never wins the race.

The Dodo

Bigger than turkeys and more naive than happy taxpayers, the dodo [wiki] didn't exactly have the best survival strategy on the block. Consider the evidence. Not only was the dodo a flightless bird, it also had tiny wings, a small tuft of curly feathers on its bum, and it laid only one egg a year. It's no wonder European sailors who landed on the shores of Mauritius in the early 16th century got a big laugh out of the clumsy bird, which, in addition to its previously lamented attributes, had absolutely no fear of man. The sailors also got quite a few meals out of the aves, even though they were said to be close to inedible (Dutch settlers called them walgvogel, or "disgusting bird"). No matter. Pigs, rats, and monkeys introduced to the island helped man kill off the bird by 1681. Which is why there aren't any Kentucky Fried Dodos today.

The Sea Cow

They were big, slow, tasty, and defenseless, all of which is a bad combination around a slew of hungry humans. A cold-water relative of the manatee and dugong, the sea cow was discovered by Europeans in 1741 when the explorer Vitus Bering and his crew were shipwrecked in the area between Siberia and Alaska. And since the adventurous lot couldn't really explore the land, they took to exploring their palate. Our shipwrecked gourmands quickly discovered that sea cow [wiki] meat tasted like veal and remained fresh for a surprisingly long time. And there was a lot of meat, too, since the beast reached as much as 26 feet in length and weighed up to 8 tons. They resembled a modern manatee, with looks like your mother-in-law - if your mother-in-law has big expressive brown eyes, a small head, external ears the size of peas, and bristling whiskers. Estimates are that only about 20% of the sea cows shot or harpooned were actually caught, but they all died. By 1768, the gentle, delicious beasts were naught but lip-smacking memories.

The Great Auk

Rich in protein, chock-full of nutritious fats and oils, and great for baiting fishhooks, this flightless seabird was, well, great. Found on the rocky islands and coastal areas on both sides of the North Atlantic, great auks [wiki] were like a somewhat smaller version of the dodo, and they had brains to match. Starting in the early 16th century, sailors began marching the clueless creatures up the gangplank and pushing them into the ship's hold by the hundreds. Unlike the dodo, however, the auk was considered great grub, and the tasty bird was hunted for its feathers, skin, and eggs to boot. Unfortunately, you'll never get to feast on the great auk's tender meat, and you have your European brothers to thank for it. The last pair was killed on an island off the coast of Iceland back in 1844.

The Passenger Pigeon

The naturalist John James Audubon once reported seeing a flock of passenger pigeons [wiki] so numerous, it took three days for them to fly over. And he wasn't exaggerating. In the early part of 19th century, the birds, which were slightly larger than mourning doves, were estimated to make up as much as 40% of North America's entire avian population. But the abundance of the creatures made them easy marks. Effortlessly hunted, the birds were mowed down mostly for food but occasionally for sport, which some "sportsman" bagging as many as 5,000 in a day. In fact, the bird filled entire train boxcars as they were shipped to markets in eastern cities. Unable to sustain themselves except in large flocks, the pigeons dwindled rapidly. In 1900, a 14-year-old boy shot the last wild passenger pigeon (boys will be boys). Fourteen years later, the last one in captivity died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Her name was Martha.

From mental_floss' book Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History's Naughtiest Bits, published in Neatorama with permission.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!

Forgeries, thefts, and outright vandalism? That's right. Art history's about to get a whole lot more interesting.

1. The Vermeer Forgeries

Disciples at Emmaus, a Vermeer forgery by Han van Meegeren (1936)

Every age sees art through its own eyes, and the cleverest forgers play up to this. One of the most notorious forgeries ever occurred in the 1930s. A Dutchman named Han van Meegeren [wiki] (1889 - 1947) produced forgeries of early works by the Dutch 17-th century master Jan Vermeer. They were technically brilliant and faultless, using old canvas and the correct 17-th century pigments. Cunningly, van Meegeren chose religious imagery that some experts believed Vermeer had painted, but very few examples of which existed. Most (though not all) of the greatest experts were completely taken in, but when you see the paintings now, you'll wonder why. All the faces look like great film stars of the 1930s, such as Marlene Dietrich and Douglas Fairbanks.

2. The Mona Lisa Theft

It's sometimes suggested that rich criminals arrange for famous works of art to be stolen so that they can have them exclusively to themselves in private. Such theories have never been proven, and the truth is usually just a bit simpler. One of the most bizarre thefts was of the Mona Lisa [wiki] from the Louvre in 1911. An Italian workman, Vincenzo Peruggia [wiki], walked into the gallery, took the painting off the wall, and carried it out. Security was nonexistent. About two years later it was discovered in a trunk in his cheap lodging rooms in Florence. So, why did he take it? It was nothing to do with money. He said that as the painting was by an Italian, Leonardo da Vinci, it was part of Italy's national cultural heritage, and he was simply taking it back to where it belonged: Florence. (The painting was returned to the Louvre.)

3. The Auction Houses Scandal

The major commercial scandal of recent years has been the alleged collusion between the two big international auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's. As the supply of expensive masterpieces began to run out, competition between the two firms became increasingly fierce and each of them found it difficult to make a profit. They got together secretly to fix not the price of works of art themselves but the commission that they would each charge to sellers. In certain parts of the world, such an arrangement is quite legal but not in the United States. Eventually the practice came to light. The federal authorities imposed fines running into hundreds of millions of dollars, and prison sentences were also handed out.

4. The Portland Vase

Wanton acts of destruction in the art world are fortunately rare. One of the strangest occurred in 1845 in the British Museum, London, and is worthy of a Sherlock Holmes story. The Portland Vase, the most famous example of ancient Roman glass, decorated in dark-blue-and-white cameo technique, was brought from Italy in 1783 and purchased by the Duchess of Portland. A drunken young man entered the museum and without explanation smashed the vase and its glass display case. He was imprisoned for breaking the case but not the vase, as British law didn't impose penalties for destroying works of art of high value. The vase has since been repaired; however, you can still see the bruises.

5. Cellini's Saltcellar

Saliera or salt cellar by Benvenuto Cellini (ca. 1539 - 1543)

A recent art world disaster/scandal occurred on May 13, 2003 (and it wasn't even a Friday!). Thieves climbed scaffolding and smashed windows to enter Vienna's Art History Museum and stole the "Mona Lisa of sculptures" - Cellini's Saltcellar [wiki]. This intricate 16-centimeter-high sculpture was commissioned by François I, king of France, from Benvenuto Cellini (1500 - 1571), the Renaissance's most ingenious and gifted goldsmith. Crafted with amazingly rich detail and skill, its principal figures are a naked sea god and a woman who sit opposite of each other, with legs entwined - a symbolic representation of the planet earth. The thieves set off the alarms, but these were ignored as false, and the theft remained undiscovered until 8:20 a.m. The reasons for the theft are as yet unknown. The fear is that these thieves will destroy the sculpture or melt it down, an act of vandalism that would be the equivalent of burning the Mona Lisa.

[Note: Cellini's saltcellar was recovered in 2006]

From mental_floss' book Condensed Knowledge: A deliciously Irreverent Guide to Feeling Smart Again, published in Neatorama with permission. Original article written by Robert Cumming, an art critic and writer. Cumming was also a curator in the Tate Gallery Education Department, and founder and chairman of the Christies Education programs.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!

SCOTCH TAPE

Believe it or not, the sticky stuff gets its name from an ethnic slur. When two-toned paint jobs became popular in the 1920s, Detroit carmakers asked the 3M Company for an alternative to masking tape that would provide a smooth, sharp edge where the two colors met. 3M came up with 2-inch wide cellophane tape, but auto companies said it was too expensive. So 3M lowered the price by only applying adhesive along the sides of the strip. That caused a problem: the new tape didn’t stick—and company painters complained to the 3M salesman, “Take this tape back to your stingy ‘Scotch’ bosses and tell them to put more adhesive on it!” The name—and the new tape—stuck.

BRASSIERES

Mary Phelps Jacob, a teenage debutante in 1913, wanted to wear a rose-garlanded dress to a party one evening. But, as she later explained, her corset cover “kept peeping through the roses around my bosom.” So she took it off, pinned two handkerchiefs together, and tied them behind her back with some ribbon. “The result was delicious,” she later recalled. “I could move much more freely, a nearly naked feeling.” The contraption eventually became known as a brassière—a name borrowed from the corset cover it replaced. (Jacob later became famous for riding naked through the streets of Paris on an elephant.)

DINNER KNIVES

Regular knives first had their points rounded and their sharp edges dulled for use at the dinner table in 1669. According to Margaret Visser, author of The Rituals of Dinner, this was done “apparently to prevent their use as ‘toothpicks,’ but probably also to discourage assassinations at meals.”

WRISTWATCHES

Several Swiss watchmakers began attaching small watches to bracelets in 1790. Those early watches weren’t considered serious timepieces, and they remained strictly a women’s item until World War I, when armies recognized their usefulness in battle and began issuing them to servicemen instead of the traditional pocket watch.

FORKS

Ancient fork (Image Credit: Chambers' Book of Days)

Before forks became popular, the difference between refined and common people was the number of fingers they ate with. The upper classes used three; everyone else used five. This began to change in the 11th century, when tiny, two-pronged forks became fashionable in Italian high society. But they didn’t catch on; the Catholic Church opposed them as unnatural (it was an insult to imply that the fingers God gave us weren’t good enough for food), and people who used them were ridiculed as effeminate or pretentious. Forks weren’t generally considered polite until the 18th century—some 800 years after they were first introduced.

PULL-TOP BEER CANS

In 1959 a mechanical engineer named Ermal Cleon Fraze was at a picnic when he realized he’d forgotten a can opener. No one else had one either, so he had to use the bumper guard of his car to open a can of soda. It took half an hour, and he vowed he’d never get stuck like that again. He patented the world’s first practical pull-top can later that year, and three years later, the Pittsburgh Brewing Company tried using it on its Iron City Beer. Now every beer company does.

REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS

Mass-produced magnets designed for refrigerators didn’t appear until 1964. They were invented by John Arnasto and his wife Arlene, who sold a line of decorative wall hooks. Arlene thought it would be cute to have a hook for refrigerator doors, so John made one with a magnet backing. The first one had a small bell and was shaped like a tea kettle. It sold well, so the Arnastos added dozens of other versions to their lines. Believe it or not, some of the rare originals are worth more than $100.

TOOTHPASTE TUBES

Toothpaste wasn’t packaged in collapsible tubes until 1892, when Dr. Washington Wentworth Sheffield, a Connecticut dentist, copied the idea from a tube of oil-based paint. Increasing interest in sanitation and hygiene made the new invention more popular than jars of toothpaste, which mingled germs from different brushes. Toothpaste tubes became the standard almost overnight.

Reprinted from Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader. ©1999 by the Bathroom Reader’s Press.

BACKGROUND

URINE TAX

SOUL TAX

BACHELOR TAX

WIG POWDER TAX

WINDOW TAX

LONG-DISTANCE TAX

The following is an article from mental_floss' What's the Difference book.

The Dilemma: You've seen so many documentaries about these guys, but you still can't tell them apart. They're just so identically evil.

People You Can Impress: World War II buffs and fourth-grade history teachers.

The Quick Trick: Everybody recognizes Hitler. The one with the Hitler moustache that isn't Hitler is Himmler (he also had glasses). The one with slicked-back hair and mustard-colored jacket is Goebbels. And the fatty in the dove-gray uniform? That's Göring.

The Explanation: We don't need to tell you anything more about Hitler, der Führer (leader) of the Third Reich. After all, he's one of history's scariest figures, and the facts about him have probably been drummed into you since grade school. What you might not know, however, is that a lot of the evil he oversaw was actually committed by his closest henchmen, equally sinister in their own right.

Heinrich Himmler [wiki] (1900-1945) was one of Hitler's earliest supporters, so in 1929 Hitler chose him to head the SS, the military arm of the Nazi party. What began as a small offshoot of the SA (the party's stormtroopers) became under Himmler a massive organization of the party's ideological elite, with its own military units (the Waffen-SS) fighting alongside the regular German army (the Wehrmacht). The SS were the perpetrators of the worst Nazi crimes, including the death camps, the mass executions of civilians, and the Gestapo secret police. Amazingly, when the war started to go south, Himmler actually tried to secretly negotiate peace with the British and Americans. Captured by the Brits, he poisoned himself before he could stand trial at Nuremberg.

Joseph Goebbels [wiki] (pronounced GHERR-buls, 1897-1945) was the Third Reich's propaganda minister. A fiery orator like his boss, Goebbels championed the technique of repeating a Big Lie again and again until people believe it. Known to his enemies as "The Malicious Dwarf," Goebbels spent his last days in Hitler's bunker under Berlin. After Hitler's death, however, Goebbels moved up in rank. He was chancellor of Germany for one whole day. Of course, his happiness was short-lived. While still in Hitler's bunker, his wife, Magda, a Nazi zealot, poisoned six of their children rather than have them live in a world without National Socialism (their oldest child, curiously, survived because he was off fighting). Goebbels proceeded to shoot Magda before turning the gun on himself.

Hermann Göring [wiki] (1893-1946) led the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe. A decorated World War I hero, he oversaw the air arm of the conquest of Europe until famously squandering his fleet in the Battle of Britain. A drug addict and alcoholic who worried obsessively about his looks, Göring's vanity couldn't keep him from overeating: He seemed to gain 10 pounds every time the Nazis lost a battle. Like Himmler, he was expelled from the Nazi Party by Hitler for suspected treason. And he was sentenced to death by hanging at Nuremberg, but managed to poison himself shortly before the execution.

The article above is reprinted from the mental_floss book "What's the Difference?" with permission.

Monet? Manet? Who can even tell the difference? Well, with the help of the newest mental_floss tome, you can! ... mental_floss gives you all the tips and tricks to have you sounding like a genius.

Visit mental_floss' website for more fun trivia: Link

John Morrissey: The Boxing Loser

When it comes to grudges, Dirty Harry has nothing on former Tammany Hall politician John “Old Smoke” Morrissey [wiki]. The Irish immigrant got his start in New York as a young gang member – a role that segued nicely into dual careers as a champion boxer and a Tammany rep.

In July 1854, Morrissey foolishly challenged rival gang member William Poole (better known as “Bill the Butcher”) to a boxing match, where it took Poole less than five minutes to make Morrissey cry uncle.

Not taking too kindly to the public humiliation, Morrissey and his cronies confronted Poole in the Stanwix Hall saloon the following February. There, Morrissey henchman Lew Baker shot and fatally wounded the Butcher.

Nobody faced charges for the murder, and it certainly didn’t hurt Morrissey’s career. Following the Stanwix Hall incident, he won election to both the U.S. House of Representatives and the New York state senate.

Dmitri Mendeleev: The Brilliant Loser

You’d think a superstar lab rat like Dmitri Mendeleev [wiki] would have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. After all, the guy devised the entire Periodic Table of Elements – that miracle of organization and inference on which all modern chemistry is based. Mendeleev’s table was so good, in fact, that it predicted the existence of elements that hadn’t yet been discovered.

But here’s where politics reared its ugly head. In 1906, the Nobel committee selected Mendeleev to win the honor, but the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stepped in and overturned the decision.

Why? The intervention was spearheaded by Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, who’d won the chemistry prize in 1903 for his theory of electrolytic dissociation. Mendeleev had been an outspoken critic of the theory, and Arrhenius seized the opportunity as the perfect chance to squeeze a few sour grapes.

Andrew Jackson: The Electoral Loser

In the 1824 presidential election, first-time candidate Andrew Jackson [wiki] captured the popular vote, but that didn’t mean much – it being a four-man race and all.

When nobody was able to claim a majority of the electoral college, the decision was thrown to the House of Representatives, which meant fourth-place finisher (and House Speaker) Henry Clay had to leave the race. No longer in the running, Clay urged his supporters to back John Adams, who won the election. Of course, when Clay became secretary of state in Adam’s cabinet, Jackson complained that the two had made a “corrupt bargain” to thwart him.

Old Hickory and his supporters spent the next four years on a constant campaign of wild charges against the president. In 1828 rematch is remembered as one of America’s slimiest elections, featuring accusations that Jackson’s wife was an “American Jezebel,” and that Adams supplied American virgins for the Russian czar.

Jackson won the second go-around easily, and once in office, he rewarded many of his supporters with Cabinet positions. (Sound familiar?) He also tried, unsuccessfully, to eliminate the electoral college.

Clement VII: The Righteous Loser

So, you’re desperate to be named pope, but the cardinals go ahead and choose some other guy. Isn’t it time you took the situation into your own hands? Well, that’s exactly what Robert of Geneva (a.k.a. Clement VII) did back in 1378.

Reigning Pope Gregory XI had, just one year prior, moved the papal court from Avignon, France, back to Rome. After he died, Vatican cardinals were determined to elect an Italian who would keep the power in Rome, so they voted in Pope Urban VI.

The French didn’t take too kindly to that, though. Hoping to bring the power back to France, cardinals there opposed Urban in favor of fellow Frenchy Clement VII. In what was later dubbed the Great Schism, Clement started a second line of popes (antipopes, as they later became known) in Avignon.

As it turned out, Clement probably would’ve been the better choice. Urban VI became legendary for his abuses of power (including killing cardinals who opposed him), and some content he was actually insane. But it’s Clement’s line that history deems illegitimate.

Augustus III: The Well-Connected Loser

Nothing screams “sore loser” like a war of succession! After Polish King Augustus II died in 1733, France’s Louis XV pushed for the restoration of his father-in-law, Stanislaw I, to Poland’s throne. Others wanted Augustus’ only legitimate son to take over, and they called on all their powerful friends.

Stanislaw took the throne, but an approaching army of some 30,000 Russian troops convinced him to rethink his decision and flee the country. Thus began the War of Polish Succession. France, Spain, and Sardinia were on the pro-Stanislaw side, while Austria, Prussia, and Russia backed Frederick Augustus (Augustus III).

The war lasted until 1735 and wound up with Augustus III still enjoying his position of power, albeit with considerably fewer subjects.

The article above was published in the July - August 2006 issue of mental_floss magazine, reprinted here on Neatorama with permission.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!