Mental Floss: Instant Knowledge (30 page)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, impressing your history teacher, and making quick decisions on all those son-of-a-wealthy Nigerian forwards

KEYWORDS:
scam, scheme, cheat, or dupe

THE FACT:
Being a scam artist is bad enough, but having a type of scam named after you is a perverse sort of immortality.

Consider the case of Charles Ponzi, who showed great chutzpah even by 1920s standards. Promising investors a return rate of 100 percent in just 90 days, Ponzi lured trusting thousands into his Security and Exchange Company (no relation to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates U.S. financial markets). But the supposed whiz kid merely used the new funds to pay off existing investors, a practice now known as a Ponzi scheme. The arrangement collapsed when the authorities began investigating, and after doing a stint in the slammer, “the Ponz” finally got a real job, working for Alitalia, the Italian national airline.

(and its devilish origins)

USEFUL FOR:
impressing your history and science teachers, and convincing your ultra-religious relatives not to steal from your buttery tub

KEYWORDS:
popcorn, extra butter, Pop Secret

THE FACT:
If you want to know why the devil popcorn tastes so darn good, chief Quadequina has a pretty original answer for you.

English colonists were introduced to popcorn at the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth by Quadequina, a Native American chief. They were told that popcorn pops because a demon living inside each kernel gets angry and has to escape when placed near heat. If you’re looking for a better explanation, look to the steam. Each kernel of corn has a small amount of moisture inside that changes to steam when heated. Gases expand as the temperature increases so that pressure builds up inside the kernel until it can take it no more. Then there’s a sudden explosion, and the kernel is literally blown inside out. Interestingly enough, if a small hole is bored into an unpopped kernel it won’t pop because the steam has a means of escaping.

(gone wild)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, confession booths, and shocking Mother Superior

KEYWORDS:
bad popes, dying in the act, or bad popes dying in the act

THE FACT:
Sometimes religious power corrupts, and absolute religious power corrupts absolutely—well, at least in the case of some of history’s worst popes. Believe it or not, history caught more than a few of these pontiffs with their holy pants down.

That’s right, we’re talking about popes, plural. Apparently papal infallibility only gets you so far. First, we have Pope Leo VII (d. 939
CE
), who died of a heart attack during sex. Then there’s Pope John XII (d. 963
CE
), who was reportedly bludgeoned to death, naked in bed, by the jealous husband of his mistress. And who could forget Pope John XIII (d. 972
CE
), who, remarkably enough, departed this earthly existence in exactly the same way as John XII. Then, of course, there’s good ol’ Pope Paul II (d. 1471
CE
), who for variety’s sake had a heart attack while getting it on with a page boy.

(of the panda variety)

USEFUL FOR:
barroom banter, bachelor party planning, and chatting up your date at the zoo

KEYWORDS:
Ling-Ling, Hsing-Hsing, and Ralph (the Panda)

THE FACT:
We don’t want to pass judgment about their “performance” in the wild, but while in captivity, male giant pandas have a very hard time finding (or keeping) their mojo. Guess what helps them get their groove on.

Basically, the mojo dilemma has forced scientists to try a series of different methods to help put pandas in the mood. In the mid-1990s, researchers in Shanghai tried out a few Chinese medications thought to increase sex drive. They succeeded in raising the male libido, but simultaneously raised their tempers, making females the subject of more violence than romance. In 2002, scientists tried a heaping helping of the erectile dysfunction medicine Viagra, but that didn’t work either. So what’s the most successful aphrodisiac so far? Panda porn! For several hours a day during mating season, researchers in China played X-rated video of pandas having sex for their subjects and reported increased rates of arousal.

(the sin-iest place on earth!)

USEFUL FOR:
barroom banter, bachelor party planning, and impressing any happy-go-lucky buccaneers you run into

KEYWORDS:
sin city, pirates, or “what happens in Vegas…”

THE FACT:
For all its debauchery, Vegas still can’t hold a candle to the original capital of British Jamaica, Port Royal, a.k.a. the most sinsational place on earth!

It’s true: The area was a hotbed for pirates and Limey officials who were happy to look the other way—for a piece of the action. When pirate crews rolled into town they could enjoy a wide array of vice, including prostitutes, gambling, liquor, and drugs smuggled from the Orient and the Middle East. If that doesn’t sound like enough fun for you, the streets literally echoed with the sounds of sin: from ruckus brawls to the incessant nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence.” And just to prove how corrupt it was, Henry Morgan, an infamous pirate admiral, was actually made lieutenant governor of the Port in 1674. Of course, such dens of sin can’t last forever, and Port Royal was destroyed in 1692 by an earthquake that dropped three quarters of it into the sea. It seemed someone upstairs had a cross to bear against this humble burg.