
The British Royal Family Changed Their Name During WWI Because it Sounded Too German

How We (Most Likely) Got 6 Familiar Idioms and Phrases

Why There Are Snakes in All Those Medical Symbols

First Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1861 Architect of the Capitol
At Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration on March 4, 1861, the U.S. Capitol dome was still under construction. The project was led by future Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who was the secretary of war at the time

Lady Gaga Got Her Stage Name from a Queen Song

Mount Rushmore Before Construction, 1905 National Park Service
Mount Rushmore was given its name in 1885 after New York lawyer Charles E. Rushmore, who’d first visited South Dakota’s Black Hills on a mining expedition a decade earlier. He never had a relationship to any of the presidents it memorializes

That Time Winston Churchill Escaped from a POW Camp

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c. 1503–1506 Musée du Louvre, Paris
Da Vinci’s subject was, centuries after it was completed, revealed to be Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo

Thomas Nast, ‘Merry Old Santa Claus,’ 1881 Published in Harper’s Weekly.
Thomas Nast’s 1881 cartoon ‘Merry Old Santa Claus’ helped standardize the modern image of Santa Claus as a bearded, fur-clad figure in winter attire

That Time Someone Threw A Live Hand Grenade at George W. Bush

San Francisco Chronicle, May 9, 1958
In May 1958, student protesters near the National University of San Marcos in Lima threw stones at the motorcade of U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon during a goodwill tour of Peru