World’s Strangest

Jeff Ryan, like a lot of professional writers, spends a lot of time reading. He made a demanding resolution for last year: to read an average of one book per day. Since 2012 was a leap year, that meant 366 books. Ryan was appareantly successful–and not by reading only very short books. Here’s how: No, my [...]

Properly managing one’s finances seems like it should be a prerequisite for running a country. But these U.S. leaders could have used more dead presidents in their wallets. HARRY TRUMAN -THE BUCK STOPPED THERE Prior to becoming president, Harry Truman’s ventures in private business earned him more trouble than profit. He lost several thousand dollars investing in [...]

The U.S. Mint is manufacturing, and will continue to manufacture, one dollar coins that just pile up in the Federal Reserve because no one wants to use them. They’ve already stockpiled over a billion dollars in coins, and may reach two billion! In 2005, Congress decided that a new series of dollar coins should be minted [...]

You already know that Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild before he was President of the United States, and I bet you recall a joke or two about Jimmy Carter being a peanut farmer. Here are a few ways other future presidents paid the bills before they started signing bills. 1. Harry Truman, [...]

by Brendan Spiegel 1. The Convention Turned Klanbake For Americans accustomed to today’s tame, scripted political conventions, the 1924 Democratic Convention went down more like a taping of The Jerry Springer Show. On one side was New York Governor Al Smith, supported by urban, Catholic voters who favored his efforts to repeal prohibition. On the other side [...]

Maybe fake isn’t exactly correct – some of the people on this list really have initials for middle names, they just don’t mean anything. But others have made them up entirely. Read on to see what I mean. 1. Harry S. Truman. His parents were trying to please both grandpas – Anderson Shippe Truman and [...]

It all started with an insult. During Andrew Jackson’s 1828 presidential campaign, his political opponents labeled him a “jackass.” Stubborn as he was, Jackson co-opted the insult and began putting a donkey on his election posters. For the rest of his career and even into his retirement, newspapers and cartoonists continued to represent Jackson either [...]

We all know the tired old legends and facts – George Washington ‘fessed up to chopping down a cherry tree; Abraham Lincoln lived in a log cabin; JFK had an affair with Marilyn Monroe; Bill Clinton had some laundering issues with a Gap dress. But there’s more than meets the eye with the Presidents – [...]

Sure, the boring facts about states have been drilled into you by teachers and history books over the years. You might even remember all of the state capitals. But here are 50 trivia tidbits that you probably didn’t learn in second grade. 1. Alabama. New Orleans might be the hot spot for Mardi Gras these days, [...]