Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Agatha Christie secretly wrote romance novels
The undisputed Queen of Crime occasionally needed a break from plotting grisly murders with poison. For over 20 years, Christie secretly published bittersweet…
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Jane Austen published her novels without her name
One of the greatest authors in history didn't even put her name on her own books. Austen's first novel, Sense and Sensibility, was simply credited to 'A…
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Why theatrical green rooms aren't usually green
The legendary backstage area where performers wait to go on isn't a stylistic choice of emerald hues. The origin of the term is heavily debated, but most…
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Storm was almost a male superhero named Typhoon
One of the most iconic female superheroes of all time almost didn't exist. Marvel initially planned a male character named 'Typhoon' who could control the…
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Goku only killed two major Dragon Ball Z villains
Despite spending 40 years screaming, powering up, and hitting people hard enough to shatter planets, Goku is surprisingly non-lethal. In the entire canon run…
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F. Scott Fitzgerald was terrible at spelling
You can craft the Great American Novel and still fail a second-grade spelling test. Fitzgerald’s manuscripts were legendary for being littered with horrific…
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Why Hunan banned Alice in Wonderland
Because God forbid a caterpillar gives a child bad ideas about social mobility. In 1931, the governor of Hunan province in China banned Lewis Carroll's…
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez pawned appliances to mail his novel
True suffering for your art means literally freezing. Marquez and his wife were so broke when he finished 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' that they couldn't…
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Travel influencers frequently photoshop themselves
The pressure to appear constantly adventurous is so high that online personalities routinely edit themselves into picturesque settings. Entire software tools…
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The murder mystery that has run since 1952
Agatha Christie's murder mystery opened in London's West End in 1952 and basically just never stopped. Other than a brief pause during the pandemic, the play…
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Sailor Moon’s creator married another manga legend
It's essentially the ultimate power couple of the manga industry. Naoko Takeuchi, the brilliant mind behind Sailor Moon, is married to Yoshihiro Togashi, the…
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This 1939 novel avoids the letter E
Proving that some writers just love torturing themselves for no financial gain, Wright authored 'Gadsby' in 1939. It is a 50,000-word lipogram, meaning he…
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Les Misérables contains an 823-word sentence
Because editors back in the 19th century were apparently too terrified to suggest a period. Victor Hugo famously penned a massive 823-word sentence in his…
Discover moreIron Man was created to make readers root for a weapons tycoon
Because what the anti-war youth of the 1960s really needed was a billionaire weapons manufacturer to idolize. Stan Lee deliberately created Tony Stark as a…
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Kafka wanted his unpublished writing destroyed
The patron saint of existential dread couldn't even manage his own legacy. On his deathbed, Kafka instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all his…
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Flat Stanley began with a fear of being crushed
The beloved paper cutout you mailed across the globe in elementary school has incredibly dark origins. The creator wrote the original book after his son…
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A typo gave Coraline its name
Sometimes the creepiest ideas come from bad keyboard skills. Neil Gaiman was trying to type the name 'Caroline' but slipped up and typed 'Coraline' instead.…
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National Geographic's first issue had no photos
The magazine famous for its stunning, award-winning photography literally started as a wall of dense text. When the National Geographic Society published its…
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Kerouac typed On the Road on a 120-foot scroll
To perfectly capture the manic, endless energy of a cross-country road trip, Kerouac taped long sheets of tracing paper together into a massive 120-foot…
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Dostoevsky raced to write a novel in 26 days
Nothing inspires great literature quite like the threat of having your legs broken. Dostoevsky was deeply addicted to roulette and owed thousands to…
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Why Marcel Proust lined his bedroom with cork
When you're writing a multi-volume masterpiece of memory and time, you apparently can't handle the sound of passing horse carriages. Proust was such an…
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Why German theaters changed A Doll’s House ending
When Henrik Ibsen’s masterpiece ended with Nora aggressively leaving her husband, German audiences were completely scandalized. It was considered so…
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Herodotus wrote about giant ants and flying snakes
Widely known as the 'Father of History', this ancient Greek writer loved a good road trip. Unfortunately, he was also highly gullible. He filled his…
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Elizabethan stages completely banned women from performing
In a move of staggering patriarchal absurdity, 16th-century English society considered it wildly immoral for a woman to act on stage. Thus, every single…
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