If you haven't had your big breakthrough yet, try one of these simple strategies:

1. CRACK OPEN A CAN OF BEER

Toolmaker Ermal Fraze was on a picnic in 1959 when he realized he had no way to open his beverage. At the time, drinking from a can required a triangular tool called a "church key" to punch two holes in the top. Because no one had thought to bring one, Fraze tried to use a car bumper to pierce the container. The result was a foamy mess.

Several nights later, while suffering from insomnia, Fraze went down to his workshop. By the next morning, he'd developed a built-in, tear-off opener for cans. Over time, Fraze refined the idea, and by 1965, 75 percent of American brewers were using Fraze's ring-pull design for their beer.

2. SHAVE YOUR STUBBLE

Although he'd written extensively about the evils of capitalism, King Camp Gillette still dreamed of getting rich.

As a traveling salesman, he understood that the key to financial success was to create something that people would have to buy over and over again. But his big idea didn't hit him until he started shaving one morning in 1895.

At the time, Gillette was using a traditional safety razor, which had to be sharpened after almost every use. So, Gillette imagined a blade that could simply be thrown away when it became dull. By putting a sharp edge on a thin piece of sheet steel, he created the first disposable razor. It took him eight years to get the invention to market, but once it hit stores, Gillette quickly became a millionaire.

Gillette's razor patent, dated November 15, 1904

In 1913, he retired to California to grow fruit and pursue his utopian dream of founding a city called Metropolis, where everyone would live in perfect harmony. Let's just say the shaving venture went more smoothly.

3. TAKE A COLD SHOWER

In 1958, Jean Hoerni was one of eight engineers at the Fairchild Semiconductor company racing to build a better high-speed transistor. At the time, transistors were easily disrupted by dust or moisture, which is, you know, everywhere.

One morning, Hoerni was taking a shower when he noticed the way the water flowed over his hands, and it gave him an idea. If the transistors could be coated in the right substance, then dust and moisture would just flow right over them. He then thought of silicon dioxide, the perfect material for the job. His solution eventually led to the integrated circuit, the silicon chip, and almost everything else to come out of Silicon Valley. (Photo: Fairchild Semiconductor)

4. WALK THE DOG

One evening in 1948, George de Mestral was getting ready to go out to dinner when his wife asked him to zip up the back of her dress. As he struggled with the jammed zipper, he longed for a better way to fasten cloth.

A few weeks later, he was walking his dog in the woods when he noticed that his pants were covered in burrs. When he got home, he examined one of the burrs under his microscope and noticed that it was covered with tiny hooks that stuck to the small loops of thread in his clothes.

By replicating the idea using little hooks and loops made of nylon, de Mestral developed Velcro. He eventually sold the rights to the patent and made millions in royalties, never to deal with zippers again. (Photo: Francoise and Charles de Mestral)

5. DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

In the late 1830s, Elias Howe Jr. was working as a machinist's apprentice when he overheard someone say that the first person to invent a small automatic sewing machine would make a fortune. Howe decided to take on the challenge, but it proved harder than he thought.

Then one night, he awoke from a nightmare about being captured by cannibals and stuffed into a stew-pot. The dream nagged at him until he realized that the cannibals had each carried a spear with a hole in the tip. This was the breakthrough that Howe needed.

Traditional sewing needle were designed so that the hole carrying the thread went through the fabric last. For Howe's machine to work, he needed the hole to go through first. He patented his sewing machine in 1846, but other manufacturers, including Isaac Singer, stole his design. After a lengthy court battle, Howe was finally awarded royalties on all sewing machine sales until both he and his patent expired in 1867.

The article above, written by Ashley Larsen, is reprinted with permission from Scatterbrained section of the Jul/Aug 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff!

A REAL LIFE "OCEAN'S ELEVEN": The 2003 ANTWERP DIAMOND HEIST

If you thought George Clooney's Ocean's Eleven character was smooth, check out the velvet finish on criminal mastermind Leonardo Notarbartolo. In February 2003, Notarbartolo and his gang, known as The School of Turin, pulled off one of the stealthiest heists in history. Daring to break into the famous World Diamond Center in Antwerp - where more than half of the world's diamonds are traded - the group made out with $100 million in jewels and other loot.

HOW THEY DID IT: Not ones to rush into something this big, the Turin boys began laying the groundwork for the project three years prior. Posing as a company owner, Notarbartolo rented an office in the Center in 2000 and proceeded to obtain copies of master keys and learn how the alarm system worked. Then, the group waited for the perfect distraction - the Diamond Games tennis tournament on February 15-16, 2003. As Venus Williams wowed throngs of spectators (many of them Diamond Center employees and security guards), Nortarbartolo's crew used their duplicate keys to sneak into 123 of the building's underground vaults. Simply riding the elevator down to the basement, they deactivated a motion sensor and taped over light detectors. Then, instead of just covering the lenses of the CCTV (closed circuit television) security cameras, they avoided suspicion by replacing the tapes with previously recorded footage.

Of course, the biggest hurdle was getting past the vault's 12-inch thick doors. Knowing the doors were equipped with internal magnets that would set off alarms if they detached, the robbers drilled through the bolts, carefully taped the magnets together, and moved them out of the way so that they wouldn't separate. After that, all they had to do was break the locks to the safety deposit boxes, rake in the diamonds, and then quietly flee the scene. To escape undetected, they memorized the surveillance patterns of the 24-hour police patrols outside the building. (Hey, they didn't have nicknames like “The King of Thieves” and “The Magician with the Keys” for nothing.) Amazingly, even though the heist took place early Sunday morning, authorities didn't discover anything suspicious until Monday.

HOW THEY GOT CAUGHT: Here's a tip for would-be thieves: If you leave the crime scene with a bag full of diamonds and then dispose of the bags on the road leading out of the city, make sure you don't leave your half-eaten sandwich in one of them. Inspectors used DNA evidence found on the food to nab Notarbartolo, and further DNA traces in the vault to arrest two other gang members. In 2005, he was convicted, sentenced to 10 years in prison, and fined $1.3 million. Meanwhile, none of the diamonds have been recovered. Some have microscopic inscriptions on them that would reveal their identity, but only if the thieves ever decide to sell them legally.

(Photo and a very interesting in-depth story by Joshua Davis at Wired Magazine)

BRUTE STRENGTH AND NUMBERS: THE SECURITAS DEPOT ROBBERY

February must be a good month for crime. In February 2006, three years after the Antwerp diamond heist, a Securitas money depot in England was robbed by a band of thieves who coordinated simultaneous kidnappings. They made off with a jaw-dropping $92.5 Million (US) in cash - most of it unmarked. Today, it's considered the largest cash robbery in British history. (Photo: PA, via Telegraph)

HOW THEY DID IT: Picture this: You're driving along a road in Stockbury, England, when the whirring sirens of an unmarked police car startle you from your evening commute. You roll down your window and chipper police officer tells you he needs to speak with you - in his vehicle. Oops, you've just been kidnapped. That's how Colin Dixon was unwittingly reeled into one of the biggest heists of the century. The crooks handcuffed Dixon - a manager at the Securitas cash collection and money transport company - and told him his family would be killed if he didn't comply. Meanwhile, fellow gang members abducted Dixon's wife and son, posing once again as police offices with a fake story about “an accident involving your husband”. The manager led the thieves to the Securitas depot in Tonbridge, where the criminals- wielding guns and cloaked in knit caps - accosted another 14 employees and made off with a giant trick full of loot. While the event was certainly traumatic for all the victims, fortunately, no one was injured.

HOW THEY GOT CAUGHT: Good old-fashioned police work. Apparently, it takes a lot of accomplices to stage multiple kidnappings. In total, investigators have arrested about 30 people in connection with the crime, including drivers, face police, a car dealer, a salesman, a roofer, and a hairdresser named Kim Shackleton. Guess where she's headed?

BRAZIL'S BIG DIG: THE TUNNEL RATS BANK ROBBERY

Sometimes there's a light at the end of the tunnel, other times, there's $72 million (US). Such was the case in August 2005, when a group of criminals in Fortaleza, Brazil, used their 260-ft. long secret passageway to make off with some serious loot. The trick: Spending three months excavating the thing and tediously sneaking vanloads of dirt past the thousands of workers in the busy urban area above. (Photo: AP, via SMH)

HOW THE DID IT: For the 23 or so suspected gang members involved in this operation, the first step was posing as a company that was renting an office building- which just happened to be located near a bank. Cleverly enough, the crooks set up an artificial business as an artificial turf com - called Grama Sintetica, complete with artificial employees and fancy logo. For weeks, a group of men worked around the clock digging a tunnel leading two city blocks over to the Central Bank building Somehow, the process was so shrewdly executed that Grama Sintetica's neighbors failed to notice that a van was transporting several loads of dirt away from the building each day. And if their stealthy moves don‘t seem impressive enough, consider the tunnel itself: In it, the gang installed electric lighting, air conditioning, and wood-paneled walls (to make sure the tunnel didn't collapse).

To pull off the heist, the gang managed to break through the bank's three-and-a-half-foot-wide vault floor, using (as police later discovered) a bolt cutter, a drill, an electric saw, and a blow torch. Over the course of the weekend, they eventually removed five containers full of bank notes, weighing nearly 7,700 lbs. Unbelievably, nobody discovered the theft until that Monday. All told, the heist required experts in electrical engineering, global positioning systems, excavation, and, of course, theft. The most brilliant idea, though? Picking a crowded, noisy area in Brazil for the heist, reasoning that no one would notice the sound of tools and digging in the daily commotion.

HOW THEY GOT CAUGHT: The thieves did a good job of covering their tracks (they used a white powder at the crime scene to hide fingerprints), but apparently, tunneling underneath nations is a little trickier. Attempts to transport the money out of the country using truck transports and chartered planes failed, and the assumed mastermind behind the theft, Luis Ribeiro, eventually turned up murdered. So far, the police have arrested a few dozen suspected members of the gang.

NOT-SO-GOOD FELLAS: THE LUFTHANSA AIRPORT HEIST

In 1978, Lufthansa Airlines employee Louis Werner knew two important things: First, that a Lufthansa airplane occasionally transported unmarked bills from West Germany to New York's Kennedy Airport, where they were temporarily held in nothing more than cardboard boxes locked inside a vault. Second, that he owed about $20,000 in gambling debts to his bookie.

HOW THEY DID IT: The wrong way - with brute force. Even though it became source material for the 1990 film “GoodFellas” (plus several books and even a few copycat crimes), the Lufthansa Airport Heist was a brutal affair. Using a few helpful tips from Werner, infamous crime lord Jimmy Burke put together an operation that involved several phases - breaking into the airport's cargo terminal, handcuffing employees, and subduing guards. Once inside the vault, they found 72 boxes of cash and jewelry totaling about $6 million (instead of the $2 million they'd expected). As for the getaway, the gang used bloody force to make sure no employees reported the crime until long after they'd left the airport. The entire robbery took only 64 minutes, but it became one of the most complex and lucrative heists in U.S. history.

HOW THEY GOT CAUGHT: Unlike the other heists, in which some gang members fled the country to hide, the Lufthansa Airlines gangsters stuck around. Not only that, but they made the mistake of displaying their newfound wealth a bit too obviously. The police had a pretty good idea who was behind the crime, and it wasn't long before snitches implicated Werner and a few others. Many of the participants were murdered before they could squeal, while still others became informants and joined the Witness Protection Program. Werner, who organized but didn't participate in the actual theft, was the only one convicted for a role in the heist.

The article above, written by John Brandon, appeared in the Jan - Feb 2007 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission.

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Dracula vs. Cujo

One dark and stormy evening, Spanish neurologist Juan Gomez-Alonso was watching a vampire movie when he realized something strange; he noticed that vampires behave an awful lot like people with rabies. The virus attacks the central nervous system, altering the moods and behaviors of those infected. Sufferers become agitated and demented, and, much like vampires, their moods can turn violent.

Rabies has several more vampire-like symptoms. It can cause insomnia, which explains the nocturnal portion of the legend. People with rabies also suffer from muscular spasms, which can lead them to spit up blood. What’s stunning is the fact that these spasms are triggered by bright lights, water, mirrors, and strong smells, such as the scent of garlic. (Sound Familiar?)

After watching the Dracula movies a few more times, Dr. Gomez Alonso felt compelled to continue studying vampire folklore and the medical history of rabies. Eventually, he discovered an even more profound connection between the two phenomena: Vampires stories became prominent in Europe at exactly the same time certain areas were experiencing rabies outbreaks. This was particularly true in Hungary between 1721 and 1728, when an epidemic plagued dogs, wolves, and humans and left the country in ruins. Gomez-Alonso theorized that rabies actually inspired the vampire legend, and his research was published by the distinguished medical journal Neurology in 1998.

The Madness Of King George

Dr. Gomez-Alonso wasn’t the first scientist who tried to pin vampirism to a real illness. In 1985, Canadian biochemist David Dolphin proposed a link between vampires and porphyria- a rare, chronic blood disorder characterized by the irregular production of heme, an iron-rich pigment found in blood. The disorder can cause seizures, trances, and hallucinations that last for days or weeks. As a result, people with porphyria often go insane. (Britain’s Kin George III, the one who inspired our founding fathers to start their own country, is thought to have suffered from it.) Porphyria sufferers also experience extreme sensitivity to light, suffering blisters and burns when their skin is exposed to the sun. Another symptom of porphyria is an intolerance to sulfur in foods. Which food contains a lot of sulfur? That’s right, garlic.

Teenage Werewolf

In addition to explaining away vampires, medicine also has some answers for werewolves and zombies. In The Werewolf Delusion (1979), Ian Woodward explains that rabies may have also inspired the werewolf myth. Rabies is transmitted through biting, and the dementia and aggression of late-stage rabies can make people behave like wild animals. Now, imagine that you are living in a village in medieval Europe and you see your friend get bitten by a wolf. A few weeks later, he starts foaming at the mouth, howling at the moon, and biting other villagers. Suddenly that story your grandmother told you about the Wolfman sounds like a decent explanation for what’s going on.

Dawn Of The Dead, Revisited

From: Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero

Zombies may also be creatures of science, at least according to Costas J. Efthimiou, a physicist at the University of Central Florida. In 2006, he attempted to explain the mysterious case of Wilfred Doricent, a teenager who died and was buried in Haiti, only to reappear in his village more than a year later, looking and behaving like a zombie. Efthimiou concluded that Wilfred was not the victim of a curse, but of poisoning. In the waters of Haiti, there is a species of puffer fish whose liver can be made into a powder, which has the ability to make a person appear dead without actually killing him. Wilfred may have been poisoned with the powder and then buried alive. According to one of Dr. Efthimiou’s theories, once underground, Wilfred suffered from oxygen deprivation that damaged his brain. When the poison wore off and Wilfred woke up, he clawed his way out of the grave. (Graves tend to be shallow in Haiti.) Brain-damaged, he wandered the countryside for months until he ended up back in his village.

After Dr. Efthimiou published his explanation of the case, Dr. Roger Mallory, a neurologist at the Haitian Medical Society did an MRI scan of Wilfred’s brain. Although the results were inconclusive, he found that Wilfred’s brain was damaged in a way that was consistent with oxygen deprivation. It would seem that zombification is nothing more than skillful poisoning.

The article above, written by Matt Soniak, appeared in Scatterbrained section of the Mar - Apr 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine (the excellent "The 25 Most Powerful Books of the Past 25 Years " issue). It is reprinted here with permission.

Don't forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog today!

1. The Visionary: St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Margaret Mary Alacoque grew up in a family of fervid cheese-haters, which wasn't exactly unusual for the time. Cheese had a bad reputation in 17th-century Europe. People all across the continent were horrified by its stench and denounced it as indigestible. They blamed the fermented curd for everything from sickness to moral corruption. So, when Margaret Mary's brother took her to join a convent in Burgundy, France, in 1671, he secured one key condition for her stay - that under no circumstances should she be compelled to eat cheese.

And yet, as soon as he left, the nuns started leaning on poor Margaret Mary. Like self-flagellation and celibacy, they believed eating cheese was a way of mortifying the flesh - giving up earthly pleasures to be closer to God. Margaret Mary struggled for days to overcome her fear. She wept; she writhed; she wished for death. Then, at last, she decided she had to "conquer or die." So, Margaret Mary prayed for strength and ate some cheese.

Unfortunately, her experience with the dairy was as horrendous as she'd feared. Margaret Mary later recalled, "I have never felt such repugnance to anything." Still, for eight years after that first trial, she ingested cheese every single day as an ascetic ritual. And as the years passed, her visions intensified. Today, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is known for her vision of the Sacred Heart - the image of Christ's heart pierced, aflame, and crowned with thorns. Such momentous revelations don't come easy, and she couldn't have done it without the vile cheese.

2. The Intellectual: Sor Juana Inés De la Cruz

Meanwhile, across the ocean in the 1650s, a Mexican girl named Juana was struggling with the opposite problem. Little Juana was an aspiring scholar and, like most children, loved eating cheese. But when she heard it would make her stupid - a superstition of the time - she was forced to choose between her appetite and her intellect. Juana renounced the delicious dairy, proving that her "desire to know was stronger than the desire to eat."

Unencumbered by butterfat and lactose, her intellect flourished. By the time she was 8 years old, Juana had taught herself to read Plato, Aristophanes, and Erasmus in Latin. At age 13, she was paraded around the Spanish courts as a child prodigy. She wrote volumes of prose and poetry, from religious verse to scientific treatises, and earned the moniker "The Tenth Muse." And though she had many suitors, Juana took the veil at age 18, giving up men in addition to her favorite food.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is revered today as a proto-feminist and the first female theologian of the Americas. Although she never regretted the sacrifices she made for her studies, a certain longing always remained in Sor Juana. As an old woman, she wrote, "I envoy those who say that the urge to study has cost them nothing," and perhaps heaving a sigh for the lost cheese of her youth, she added, "The desire to know has cost me dearly."

3. The Martyr: St. Perpetua

In the the early 3rd century, Vivia Perpetua converted to Christianity, even though the Roman emperor Severus had outlawed the fledgling religion. Perpetua was arrested, and she faced a grim decision - either renounce Christ or meet a gruesome death. Perpetua chose the latter.

While she stewed in prison before her execution, she experienced a vision of a white-bearded shepherd who offered her some sheep's milk cheese. In the dream, Perpetua ate the cheese. Then, just as she heard the word "Amen," she awoke to the taste of overwhelming sweetness. The vision of heavenly curd reassured her of God's purpose and prepared Perpetua to die for her faith, which she soon did. Perpetua was publicly flogged, trounced by a cow, and then hacked to death in a botched decapitation. But the account of her vision - believed to be the first Christian text written by a woman - inspired millions and secured her legacy as one of the most influential martyrs in history.

4. The Gambler: Diana Duyser of Florida

Even in our jaded and secular age, cheese hasn't quite lost its religious relevance. In 1994, a humble Floridian named Diana Duyser bit into her grilled cheese sandwich and was shocked to see the face of the Virgin Mary staring back at her.

Although initially frightened by the image, Duyser composed herself and stashed the holy leftover in a plastic box filled with cotton balls. Then she placed the box at her bedside table and left it there for a decade. According to Duyser, those 10 years were filled with good luck as she won regularly at local casinos. More impressively, her grilled sandwich didn't mold.

In 2004, Duyser decided to share her miracle with the world and posted the sandwich on eBay. To the bewilderment of many, it sold for $28,000. The buyer, Golden Palace online casino, appreciated its pop-culture significance and showcased the grilled cheese until 2006. Today, the holy sandwich resides in a safe deposit box in Austin, Texas. Golden Palace proudly claims it still hasn't decayed.

Although Duyser has been ridiculed for her devotion to a grilled cheese sandwich, her faith has never wavered. "I would like all people to know that I do believe that this is the Virgin Mary Mother of God," she insists. And while money and fame have faded with Duyser, she still carries with her a timeless memento of her little cheese miracle - a tattoo of the sandwich inscribed near her heart, paid for by GoldenPalace.com

(Photo: AP via BBC News)

The article above, written by David Clark, is reprinted with permission from Scatterbrained section of the Mar/Apr 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.

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They Should Have Stolen a Watch First

Long before he was an outlaw country crooner, Merle Haggard was a real outlaw - albeit a bad one. At the rebellious age of 20, Haggard and a few friends planned to rob a restaurant.

They got drunk and waited until 3 o'clock in the morning, when they knew it would be empty. But when they broke in, they were surprised to find the restaurant full of people. Turns out, in their drunken haze, they accidentally wandered in at 10:30 pm. The attempted burglary landed Haggard in notorious San Quentin State Prison, where he saw Johnny Cash perform three times, inspiring him to pick guitars instead of locks.

Always Case the Joint

[YouTube Clip]

In the olden days, crooks used to "case" joints, staking out a place and detailing all the intricacies before attempting to rob the business. But on March 12, 2008, two young criminals in Port St. Lucie, Florida, proved that tradition is dead. The would-be robbers confidently entered the lobby of a business, hid their hands in their jackets like guns, and demanded money from the woman at the front desk. Unfortunately, there was one flaw in the plan - the "business" was actually a police station.

When God Closes a Window ...

Never come between a defensive lineman and his chalupa. Employees at a Lawrence, Kansas, Taco Bell learned this lesson the hard way in 1999 when they forgot to include one of the deluxe tacos in the order of Dion Rayford, a former member of the Kansas Jayhawks.

Enraged, Rayford lunged through the store's drive-thru window, going after the employees like they were chalupas themselves. But drive-thru windows aren't meant to accommodate a 6'3", 270-lb. lineman, and Rayford got stuck. There he remained, half inside and half outside the Taco Bell, until the police arrived to dislodge him, and then arrest him.

Pier Review

Despite being a former child star, late actor Brad Renfro (The Client, Sleepers) could never afford a $175,000 yacht. So, in 2000, the 18-year-old actor decided to steal one from a Ft. Lauderdale marina.

Unfortunately for him, the 45-ft. vessel was still tied to the dock. When Renfro fired up the engine for a joy ride, the yacht inched forward and was quickly yanked back into the dock, damaging the stern and alerting everyone that something fishy was afoot. Nearby boaters held the beardless pirate until police arrived. (Photo: Brad Renfro's mugshot at The Smoking Gun)

Go Directly to Jail: 4 Brilliantly Bungled Crimes is written by Adam K. Raymond. It is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the May/June 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.

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Star Trek- composed by Alexander Courage

Did you know that the Star Trek theme music has lyrics? Neither did composer Alexander Courage when he signed a deal to write the music. The fine print gave the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, the option to write words to Courage's tune - and he did.

Check out these opening lines: Beyond the rim of the starlight / My love is wand'ring in starflight. Even though the lyrics were never used, Roddenberry still got half the royalties for the theme. (Photo: Listening Post)

The Simpsons - composed by Danny Elfman

From the beginning, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening wanted his show's song to be big. Here's how he put it: "The trend in TV themes for the previous 15 years had been namby-pamby synthesizer schlock that seemed to whimper, 'We can't offer you much, but please like our pathetic little show.' I wanted a big orchestrated, obnoxious, arrogant theme that promised you the best time of your life." (Photo: BMI)

To see his vision through, Groening approached composer Danny Elfman to write the opus, handing him a mix tape to help him get the idea. Highlights included The Jetsons theme, selections from Nino Rota's Juliet of the Spirits, a Remington electric shaver jingle by Frank Zappa, some easy-listening music by Esquivel, and a teach-your-parrot-to-talk record. After listening to it for a while, Elfman told Groening, "I know exactly what you're looking for." Apparently, he did. The Emmy-winning theme has been covered on screen by everyone from Yo La Tengo to Green Day.

Jeopardy! - composed by Merv Griffin

Game show maven Merv Griffin knew what he was doing when he wrote the theme song for Jeopardy. He later recalled, '[The Jeopardy theme] is only 14 seconds. So I rewrote it in another key, [repeated it], then added the 'bum-bump' to get it to 30 seconds, which was the amount of time contestants needed for the Final Jeopardy answer. Now, it's played at sporting events; I've played it with the Boston Pops. It's one of the most lucrative themes in history." In 2006, Griffin estimated he'd made $70 million in royalties from the tune.

Friends ("I'll Be There For You") - composed by Michael Skloff & Allee Willis and performed by The Rembrandts

Image credits: Michael Skloff from ASCAP Playback Magazine; Allee Willis from her own very entertaining blog; The Rembrandts from their official website

When The Rembrandts agreed to record "I'll Be There For You" for the TV show Friends, they were little-known rock band that was happy to get the gig. Overnight, the theme became a sensation, earning The Rembrandts a Grammy nomination. Years later, band member Danny Wilde reflected, "We went from being a cool, cutting-edge band to a pop flavor-of-the-month."

And just like that, the flavor was gone. By the end of the 1990s, there was so little demand for The Rembrandts' music that the band resorted to playing shopping malls, opening once for Richard Simmons. It wasn't their day, their month, or even their year.

Bonus: The Legendary Soundman Behind Hollywood's Most Famous Noises

If you've seen Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Wall-E, then you know the work of Hollywood's most legendary sound designer, Ben Burtt. (Photo: The Pixar Blog)

After taking his first (uncredited) job on the original Death Race 2000 in 1975, Burtt would go on to turn movie sound into an art. By capturing and manipulating ambient and mechanical noises, he created entirely new aural worlds. Here are a few of his trademark sounds.

R2D2's Voice: Most movie fans think that the robot's voice is an elaborate creation of computer synthesizers, but it's actually a combination of Burtt whistling and making fart noises into an old tape recorder.

The Clicks of Wall-E's Cockroach Pet: After experimenting with various synthesized animal noises, Burtt settled on accelerating the chatter of an irritated raccoon.

The Star Wars Lightsaber: The hum and the clash of the lightsaber came from two malfunctioning devices - a broken television set tuned between two VHF channels and an idling film projector.

Chewbacca's Voice: Although the fictional wookie looks all ape, his voice is based on the barks and grunts of dogs, mixed with the growls of lions and bears.

Star Wars' T.I.E. Fighter: The roar of the evil Empire's fighters (the name stands for Twin Ion Engine) is actually the roar of an elephant. To add some length to the sound, Burtt layered in the buzz of his car driving on a wet road.

Indiana Jones' Whip: The crack of Dr. Jones' whip is just that - the sound of Indiana Jones cracking his whip. During the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Burtt recorded Harrison Ford snapping the whip along a rural road in Marin County, California. To add a little more whoosh, Burtt dropped in the sound of a Harrier Jump Jet that flew by.

TV Theme Songs That Will Never Die is written by Bill DeMain, and The Legendary Soundman Behind Hollywood's Most Famous Noises is written by John Scott Lewinski. They are reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the May/June 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!

Hey, Michael Jordan, just because you're good at basketball doesn't mean you can swing a bat. And a syrupy sweet voice doesn't make you a poet, Jewel. Oh, and Paul Newman, you're a fine actor, but your salsa is ... well, it's really good, actually, but you're the exception.

Sometimes, the talented and famous begin to experience delusions of multi-famed grandeur. For all those tilting at windmills, mental_floss is here to provide the ridicule and reality check.

Prose and Cons: Mussolini's Writer's Block

While noted fascist Benito Mussolini eventually found a fulfilling career as a tyrannical dictator, his earlier ambitions were literary. Fourteen years before taking power in Italy, Mussolini penned a serial novel titled The Cardinal's Mistress for a weekly supplement in an Italian newspaper. Apparently, it was quite the bodice-ripping romance. You know, the kind filled with lines such as, "The common brutes of the market-place satiate their idle lusts on your sinful body." It goes without saying, but the book didn't do much to secure Mussolini's reputation as a writer.

Curiously, Mussolini isn't the only dictator with a weakness for romance novels. Saddam Hussein has anonymously published three, and another is purportedly on the way. None of them have been translated into English, though we hear they make Mussolini's stuff read like Proust.

Cantor Battles Shakespeare: Left Brain Takes a Right

Georg Cantor is widely regarded as the most important mathematician of the 19th century. He invented "set theory," which - in addition to making life miserable for Calculus II students everywhere - proved that some infinities are (prepare to have your mind blown) bigger than others. That's the sort of realization that can make your head hurt. And sure enough, Cantor eventually went bonkers.

But even before then, he wasn't exactly a picture of mental health. Toward the end of his life, he became obsessed with proving that Sir Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare's plays via complicated schema and hidden codes the likes of which haven't been seen outside "A Beautiful Mind."

Cantor's extensive writings on the subject aside, nearly all Shakespearean scholars agree on two things: William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, wrote the plays attributed to him, and Cantor should have stuck to math.

Isaac Newton: Putting the Pseudo in Science

Forget Isaac Newton's famous falling apple. (For starters, that story was quite possibly made up by Enlightenment stalwart Voltaire.) Many scholars argue that Newton's theory of gravity was the product of his obsessive fascination with what was, at the time, the decidedly unenlightened science of alchemy. Newton spent more of his life studying alchemy than "real" math and science. And without his beliefs about occult forces operating in a vacuum, he might never have understood gravity. So when Newton famously said, "If I have seen further than others, it's because I stood on the shoulders of giants," many of the giants to whom he was referring were probably cranks, pseudo-scientists, and alchemists.

[Note - See previously on Neatorama: 10 Strange Facts About Newton]

Mark Twain Gets Business-Schooled

Paige Compositor - via Scientific American issue March 9, 1901 at Twain Quotes

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was the first novel composed on a typewriter. Yet, ironically enough, the author formerly known as Samuel Clemens was nearly driven into bankruptcy by the Paige Compositor.

A massive typesetting machine with 18,000 moving parts, the Compositor was a complete commercial failure. Twain invested at least $190,000 and 14 years worth of anxiety into the invention and came away with two prototypes, neither of which worked for very long.

All was not lost, though. One of those prototypes was willed to Columbia University, which donated it to a scrap metal drive during World War I. That means the Compositor became bullets ... and finally served a purpose.

The article above appeared in the Scatterbrained section of the Sept - Oct 2005 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission.

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Minnie Pearl's Fried Chicken

In 1967, Nashville attorney John Jay Hooker convinced Grand Ole Opry comedienne Minnie Pearl that she could sell more drumsticks than Colonel Sanders. After all, Minnie Pearl seemed like the sort of lady who'd have a good family recipe for fried chicken. Unfortunately, she didn't. But that didn't stop Hooker from selling franchises. Within no time, plans were in place for 300 restaurants and public stock was worth $64 million.

Meanwhile, no one seemed worried that only five restaurants were actually operating and that no two franchises used the same fried chicken recipe. Regular customer complaints, combined with an SEC investigation into the company's accounting practices, meant that it wasn't long before the restaurants began hemorrhaging money.

By late 1971, the last bird had been fried. Hooker spent decades living down the debacle, while Pearl continued to apologize to her fans right up until her death in 1996.

(Photo: ghb624 [Flickr])

Twitty Burger

Singer Conway Twitty dreamed of a restaurant chain that would one day hawk Twitty Burgers - a hamburger topped with cheese, two slices of bacon, and a deep-fried, graham cracker-crusted pineapple ring. In 1969, Conway persuaded his friends to invest $100,000 in his cholesterol-rich scheme.

But the Twitty Burger never found its audience, and mismanagement led to the chain's swift demise. When Conway decided to repay his investors, he deduced $100,000 as a business expense on his tax returns. (Another bad idea.) The IRS soon caught wind, and Twitty wound up in court.

Lucky for him, he was assigned to Judge Leo Irwin, an amateur singer with a soft spot for country. Not only did Irwin allow Twitty to keep the money, but after he read the verdict, he sang a song he wrote entitled "Ode to Conway Twitty."

(Image: Conway Twitty's album Gold)

PoFolks

When singer Whisperin' Bill Anderson visited PoFolks in 1981, he had lawsuits on his mind. After all, the restaurant chain had swiped the title of his biggest hit and the name of his road band. But the owner's hospitality - combined with all the fried food - weakened Anderson's resolve. By the end of the meal, he'd agreed to become PoFolk's national spokesman.

As Anderson did PoFolks commercials and even became a partner in several franchises, the chain's prospects grew. He even convinced his pal Conway Twitty to become an investor (apparently the Twitty Burger debacle didn't faze him). At its height, individual PoFolks restaurants were grossing $2 million a year.

But careless expansion took its toll, and by 1989, PoFolks was headed for the PoHouse. The chain rebounded in 1991, but without Anderson. Today, there are nine remaining restaurants, mostly in Florida.

(Photo: Runder [Flickr])

Kenny Rogers' Roasters

In a Seinfeld episode called "The Chicken Roaster," Newman gets Kramer hooked on chicken from Kenny Rogers' Roasters. "The man makes a pretty strong bird," Newman says. True enough. Founded in 1991 by Rogers and former KFC owner John Brown Jr., the Roasters' menu featured wood-fired rotisserie chicken. By 1995, the chain had grown to 350 restaurants worldwide.

While Rogers was an affable spokesman, he didn't know his brand. In 1997, on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Rogers failed a blind taste test, choosing chicken from the NBC cafeteria instead of Roasters'. That may have been a sign. The company filed for bankruptcy a year later, meaning that Kenny didn't know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

Jimmy Dean Sausages

Jimmy Dean Sausage was a hit from its first sizzle in 1969. Most manufacturers at the time made sausage from old sows and chilled the pork before shipping it. But the country music star had a different vision. Jimmy Dean decided to only use top hogs and package the product while it was still warm. The tender, juicy result went on to gross nearly $60 million a year.

While running the company with his brother, Dean pitched his product on TV, singing of sausage "from the whole hawg, not just the leavin's." Amazingly, those leavin's didn't go to waste, either. The inner skins were donated to burn treatment centers, while the outer skins were fashioned into coats for Dean's spin-off company, Pigskin. Other spare parts were turned into cat food. But trouble soon surfaced in hog heaven.

The company expanded too fast, and unsophisticated accounting practices and manufacturing equipments couldn't keep up. When the stress started taking a toll on Jimmy Dean's health, he sold the company in 1984. Despite the change in ownership, Jimmy stood by his product and kept his job as pitchman for another 20 years.

The article above, written by Bill DeMain, is reprinted with permission from Scatterbrained section of the Mar/Apr 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.

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Virgin's Disease

You know you've got it if: You're suffering from green skin, menstrual cessation, and lethargy.

Victims: In 1554, doctors determined the green monster was targeting virgin girls with the disease they labeled "chlorosis." Later, various physicians reported that the condition was a direct result of women either being undersexed, or in the case of university girls, over-educated.

Treatment: Many believed the cure to ending virgin's disease was as simple as ending virginity. In a letter to a worried father, one physician suggested that he arranged for his daughter to get pregnant as soon as possible. His rationale? "If they conceive, they recover." Amazingly, chlorosis didn't disappear from medical textbooks until the 1930s. These days, doctors recognize the symptoms as part of anemia and prescribe iron supplements instead of sex.

Visceroptosis, or "Organ Drooping"

You know you've got it if: You think you're sick. If you suffer from occasional headaches, poor sleep, or even if you don't have any real symptoms, organ drooping is probably to blame.

Victims: People with poor posture, women who had multiple pregnancies, and - above all - girls who wore excessively tight corsets. Visceroptosis was defined as the downward displacement of inner organs within the abdominal cavity. Testing was simple: if a doctor placed light pressure on patients' abdomens and if it made them feel better, organ drooping was taking place.

Treatment: Although organs can cause problems if they get repositioned in the body, the diagnosis was basically a way for surgeons to make money. Organ drooping was such a common diagnosis at the end of the 19th century that specialized surgery clinics popped up across the country to "treat" it. But the popularity of visceroptosis ended with World War I, when surgeons had real problems to fix.

The English Sweat

You know if you've got it if: You're experiencing fever, aches, exhaustion, and of, course, sweating through your shirt. Worse still, people were said to die within 24 hours of contracting the symptoms.

Victims: Strangely, only people living in England. Outbreaks of the sweating sickness broke out in the summer months of 1485, 1508, 1517, 1528, and 1551. Only once did an outbreak make it beyond England's borders.

The real cause: Poor hygiene. Although scientists still aren't sure exactly what caused "the sweating sickness," they believe it might have been a flu-type virus spread by filth or rodents. One monarch had a unique prevention technique: King Henry VIII was so scared of contracting the sweat that he moved around the country from manor to manor trying to outrun it.

... And One Real Disease You Might Have: Love Sickness

You know if you've got it: You're listening to a lot of country music. In addition to some unrequited love, you also may experience loss of appetite, trouble sleeping, and an irregular pulse, among other things.

What it isn't: One ancient medieval writer claimed the illness could cause the body of a jilted lover to fill with black bile. Also, an Islamic philosopher said lovesick men could turn into werewolves.

What it could be: Roman Emperor Commodus' personal physician, Claudius Galenus or Galen, first officially diagnosed lovesickness as a medical disease in the 2nd century C.E. Although that classification eventually fell out of favor, recent brain-imaging studies have shown that people who are madly in love exhibit neurological patterns similar to OCD sufferers.

The article above, written by Josie Swindler, is reprinted with permission from Scatterbrained section of the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine.

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Gazelle Boy

In 1960, Basque anthropologist Jean-Claude Auger received a tip from nomads in the Sahara that a child was running free in the desert. He went to investigate, and sure enough, he spotted a boy galloping with the gazelles. Auger watched as the kid sniffed and licked to communicate and ate roots, lizards, and worms just like the rest of the herd.

Auger returned two years later with a Spanish army captain to capture the child. But when they tried to chase him down, he outran their Jeep. In 1966, Auger made one last attempt to nab the child with a helicopter and a net, but even an aerial attack was no match for Gazelle Boy.

John of the Monkeys

In 1988, a 4-year-old boy named John Ssebunya watched his father shoot and kill his mother. Fearing for his life, John ran into the Ugandan forest and joined a pack of green vervet monkeys, one of the few mammals that accepts other species into their fold.

When John was found more than a year later, he had thick hair covering his body, he walked on his knees and knuckles, and he couldn't tolerate cooked food.

But after a Christian orphanage in the town of Masaka adopted him, he slowly acquired more human traits. Now age 24, John has learned to speak and walk upright. He even sings and plays guitar. And in 1999, he traveled to Europe with the famed Pearl of Africa children's choir. (Image: BBC - Children in Wolves' Clothing)

Doggy Day Care

In 1996, 4-year-old Ivan Mishukov ran away from his abusive parents to become one of the 2 million homeless children living on the streets in Russia.

After begging for food and rifling through garbage bins for leftovers, he'd share his scraps with a pack of stray dogs. In turn, the dogs offered Ivan protection and warmth on Moscow's bitterly cold nights and made him their leader.

Two years later, police captured the boy by luring him into the back of a restaurant kitchen. Snarling and biting, he was taken ito a children's home, where he quickly began to adjust to the human world and started school. Now, Ivan lives a fairly normal life, although he still dreams of dogs. (Photo: Marcianitos Verdes)

The Feral Poster Child of the Enlightenment

When 12-year-old Victor emerged from the woods of Aveyron in France, he couldn't speak, ate raw meat, and had scars all over his body.

It was 1799, the height of the Enlightenment, and Victor soon found himself at the center of a philosophical debate surrounding the nature of man. Is man born good, only to be corrupted by society? Or is he born selfish and cruel, in need of society?

A doctor named Jean Itard devoted himself to Victor, believing that if he could teach the boy to speak and show compassion, it would prove that education can temper the beast in all of us. Unfortunately for Itard, Victor never made much progress.

Crying Wolf: Feral Children Who Faked It

A Pack of Lies

In 1997, a woman named Monique "Misha" Defonesca published her memoirs about surviving the Holocaust. According to the book, the Nazis killed her parents in Brussels when she was just 7 years old. Completely alone, Misha set out on foot to cross war-torn Europe. She eventually ended up in Ukraine, thanks to a pair of trusty wolves who traveled with her for months, possibly years.

The story would have been an amazing tale of survival had it not been totally fabricated. A Belgian newspaper investigated the details and discovered that Misha's real name was Monique De Waal. Although her parents did die in the war, she was actually raised by her grandfather. Misha later came clean and explained to the Belgian press that the story was her "reality" and her "way of surviving."

Link: Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years

The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

As the story went, two young girls were found near Calcutta in 1926 by Rev. Joseph Singh, a rector at the local orphanage. Singh wrote in his diary that they had unnaturally long teeth and an aversion to the sun, howled at the moon, ate out of bowls on the ground, and saw clearly in the dark. He tried to civilize the girls, Amala and Kamala, but to no avail.

Although the story became famous, scholars now doubt its veracity. For starters, Singh's diaries were written years after the events supposedly took place. Also, photographs of the girls on all four acting like wolves were found to have been staged years after their deaths. In all likelihood, Singh faked his "work" with Amala and Kamala to raise money for his orphanage. (Photo: T. Honjo / Wikipedia)

The article above, written by Eric Furman and Linda Rodriguez, is reprinted with permission from Scatterbrained section of the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff!

The following is reprinted from the May - June 2007 issue of mental_floss magazine.

PARDON OUR FRENCH

What do D-Day and disco have in common, besides the letter D? Nazis, of course! During World War II, when the Third Reich occupied Paris, jazz clubs were closed and live music of a liberal nature was strictly verboten! But Parisians couldn't live without their jazz, so they took it underground, opening illicit cellars where they could drink booze freely and listen to pre-recorded music. One such club, on Rue de la Huchette, called itself La Discothèque - coined from the French words for "record" (disque) and "library" (bibliothèque).

ALWAYS STARTIN' SOMETHIN'

Many elements of what we now call disco music appeared in songs like The Jackson 5's 1969 smash "I Want You Back" and Isaac Hayes' 1971 hit "Theme from Shaft." (Actual movie tagline: "The mob wanted Harlem back. They got Shaft ... up to here.") Chubby Checker even released a song back in 1964 titled "At the Discotheque."

[YouTube link: Soul Makossa live performance by Manu Dibango]

But most historians agree the first real disco record was 1972's "Soul Makossa" by the Cameroon-born sax player Manu Dibango. In the song, Dibango can be heard chanting Mama-se, mama-sa, mama-koo-sa. Sound familiar? It should. Michael Jackson used it 10 years later in his song "Wanna be Startin' Somethin'"

BEE KEEPING

Oddly enough, members of the disco super-group The Bee Gees never dug their moniker. In fact, after Robert Stigwood signed on as the band's producer in 1967, the group lobbied to change its name. But what could possibly be better than The Bee Gees? The band suggested Rupert's World. Luckily, their manager nixed the notion. Years later, singer Barry Gibb remarked, "It was like changing your name from Charlie S--t to Fred S--t."

"D" IS FOR DISCO

The success of "Saturday Night Fever" changed the face of disco forever. Suddenly, everyone was sporting white polyester suits - and not just Travolta wannabes. Rod Stewart, Cher, Bette Midler, The Rolling Stones, Dolly Parton, Andy Williams, David Bowie, Neil Diamond, and, yes, even Cookie Monster all donned disco-wear.

(Disco Kermit via Jonathan Mc [Flickr])

HEY MISSUS DJ, PUT A RECORD ON

Sometimes, bold experiments result in mundane things like polio vaccines (yawn.) But other times, they result in wild, earth-shattering breakthroughs! Case in point: 1953's birth of the DJ. That's when 24-year-old Regine Zylberberg, manager of Paris' famous Whisky a Go-Go, undertook an experiment to replace the club's jukebox with two turntables and a microphone.

In no time, DJs were pumping up the jam at parties the world over, as was Zybelberg. By the 1970s, she was running 25 clubs across Europe and the Americas. In fact, you could boogie down at Regine's establishments somewhere in the world 17 out of every 24 hours - assuming you could get in.

FIELD OF FLAMES

Because 1970s discos were often frequented by African-Americans, homosexuals, and working-class white women, the scene was perceived as a threat to the rock 'n' roll community, which had long been a Viking ship of straight white males. Their establishment's witty, orginal slogan - "Disco Sucks" - became popular in the later part of the decade and was available for purchase wherever fine rock T-shirt were sold. (Photo: Rich.lionheart via Wikipedia)

Album-oriented rock (A.O.R.) stations also fueled the anti-disco fire. On July 12, 1979, Steve Dahl, longtime DJ at Chicago's WDAI, staged Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey PArk, where the White Sox were playing a doubleheader. Fans bearing disco albums were admitted into the stadium for a mere 98 cents. Then, between games, they stormed the field to set their records ablaze. Some even detonated them with bombs.

As the fires roared, the masses chanted "Disco sucks!", whipping the stadium into a chaotic frenzy so threatening, the second game of the doubleheader had to be cancelled. Fittingly, more records were broken on July 12, 1979, than on any other day in baseball history.

"SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER": DISCO INFERNO OR DISCO INFURIATING?

The article above is reprinted from Scatterbrained section of the May - June 2007 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff!

Elvis Cow, because you already know what Elvis looked like.
Photo: Zach_ManchesterUK [Flickr]

Are you lonesome tonight? If Elvis is your hunk of burning love and he's got you all shook up, here are some neat tender lovin' facts about The King. But if you don't like this article, then don't be cruel because you're so square and baby, I don't care.

Tiny Elvis

When Elvis left the building permanently in 1977, he was considerably overweight. (Some estimates had him tipping the scales at 250 lbs.) But at birth, the 20-inch Tiny E was significantly underweight, at 5 lbs. Today, research has linked low birth weight to an increased risk of cardiosvascular disease and obesity - both problems for Elvis later in life. In fact, his official cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia, which could have been brought on by heart disease. Of course, it was more likely brought on by the 14 prescription drugs Elvis had in his system at the time.

A Word on the Name

Contrary to popular belief, the name Elvis is not unique to Elvis Presley. Well before the King ever shook things up, many men in the South shared the name. In fact, it dates to at least the 6th century C.E., to an Irish-born bishop named St. Elvis.

The Liberace Connection

You wouldn't think it, but Elvis and Liberace were great friends with plenty in common. Both came from poverty; both had a twin who died at birth; and both blossomed into ostentatiously dressed, sideburn-sporting Las Vegas performers. And although Elvis got a little jealous when Liberace scored a "celebrity-customized" Cadillac in 1962, the two always remained close. Elvis sent the flamboyant piano player guitar-shaped flower arrangements before every Vegas opening, and Liberace returned the favor by sending a similar arrangement to Graceland upon Elvis' death.

Under One Country

Looking to expand his fan base, a young Elvis Presley landed a month-long gig at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Unfortunately, the booking didn't last. After just one performance (on October 2, 1954), the management threw Elvis out onto the street because he wasn't singing country "correctly."

Born in the NRA

The King had a thing for the Second Amendment. One day in 1970, after a concert where fans had gotten a bit too close, Elvis went out and bought several thousand dollars worth of guns from a Beverly Hills sporting goods store - troubling, because he also had a temper.

Elvis was known to shoot out his TV set anytime Robert Goulet or Mel Torme came on the screen. (At least one such-damaged set was later sold as a collectible.) That isn't all he pointed his gun at, though. He also shot his car when it refused to start. (Photo: Elvis Presley News)

Presley by the Numbers

The Legend of Undercover Elvis

White House photograph by Ollie Atkins, December 21, 1970

The Photo: While most people recognize the iconic photo of Elvis meeting Nixon in 1970, many don't know the exact reason for the visit. Elvis desperately wanted to become an undercover agent. Concerned about the increased drug use in America, he petitioned Nixon in a handwritten letter proposing he be named "Federal Agent at Large." Elvis wrote, "I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and I am right in the middle of the whole thing, where I can and will do the most good."

The Visit: Elvis then showed up at the White House unannounced, packing two handguns - one for protection, the other as a gift for the president. After some thinking, officials let him inside with both guns in tote. At the extensively photographed meeting, Elvis showed Nixon his family photos and a collection of law enforcement badges. Later, Nixon awarded him a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, which listed Elvis' position as "Special Assistant."

The Conspiracy?: Soon after Elvis' White House visit, the FBI gave him permits to carry firearms in every state so that he could take care of business whenever the mood struck. Pretty remarkable, considering that earlier in Elvis' career, J. Edgar Hoover had the FBI track the singer extensively. In fact, his FBI file ran more than 600 pages. A popular conspiracy theory suggest that Elvis finally got his Federal Agent wish in 1977, faking his own death in order to go undercover.

The Rock Star Takes a Licking

Images viaThe Smithsonian National Postal Museum

In 1992, the U.S. Postal Service announced its plans for a 29-cent Elvis stamp and invited the nation to vote on which portrait to use. The choice was between a 1950s Elvis wearing a tie and gripping an old-fashioned mic, or a 1970s Elvis in a sequined jumpsuit. on June 4, 1992, the results were announced, and Young Elvis won in a landslide. Of course, after the stamp was released, thousands of fans put them on envelopes marked with fictitious addresses, hoping to get their mail back stamped "Return to Sender."

The article above appeared in the Scatterbrained section of the May - June 2007 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission.

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Did you know that the Empire State Building was a built in a race between Chrysler and General Motors on who could build the taller building? Or that when the Sydney Opera House design was selected, the technology to build it hadn't existed yet? Here are the origins of 5 of the world's most iconic buildings:

Empire State Building

Building the Empire State Building, by Lewis Hine (1930): "Old-timer, -- keeping up with the boys. Many structural workers are above middle-age."
The Chrysler building can be seen in the background.

As it turns out, New York City's most recognizable landmark was born out of a rivalry between two American car companies. At the height of the Great Depression, nobody dealing in large, expensive, luxury objects was doing very good business. So, rather than settle their differences in the marketplace, the CEOs of General Motors and Chrysler opted to see who could build a taller building in downtown Manhattan. (We're sure this made perfect sense at the time.)

Walter Chrysler, as you've probably guessed, had the Chrysler Building built as his avatar. John Jakob Raskob, the founder of General Motors, opted to join forces with the owners of DuPont Chemicals not just to build the world's tallest building, but also to build it as fast as humanly possible. They broke ground in March of 1930 and, using a force of 3,000 workers, were able to have the entire 102-story buildings finished and opened to the public just a year and two months later. Arguably, you could say that General Motors won that round.

The White House

Earliest known daguerrotype of the White House, taken by John Plumbe (1846)

George Washington got the shaft. Sure, he got to be our nation's first president, got to work with urban planner Pierre L'Enfant on the design for Washington, D.C., and got to be part of the committee that chose the winner of the 1792 "Design Your New Leader's House" contest (architect James Hoban, who won $500 for his troubles) - but, despite all that, the man never got to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The White House wasn't completed until 1800, just in time for Washington to step down and the newly elected President John Adams to move in. Unfair.

In all honesty, however, living in the White House hasn't always been an exercise in luxury. When the Adamses moved in there weren't any amenities like the swimming pool, bowling alley, and movie theater that grace the current mansion. In fact, there wasn't even running water. Servants had to carry the president's H2O in buckets from a spring five blocks away.

Worse, the building was still somewhat under construction, so the "yard" was essentially a pile of dirt and mud; the lamps hadn't been hung yet, forcing the Adamses to get by with randomly placed candles; and much of the interior finishings had yet to be installed - including the main staircases! For a while, the Adamses and their guests had to climb upstairs via temporary wooden steps and platforms.

Things got a little better over the years, but when your home repair and improvement budget has to be allocated by Congress, it's hardly a surprise that your house is bound to end up falling apart. By the time the Trumans had settled in, in the late 1940s, things had gotten so bad that some politicians had suggested tearing the building down and starting from scratch. In fact, according to legend, the president decided that the White House officially needed a major renovation when he found his bathtub was sinking into the floor. Between 1948 and 1952, the White House went through a major, "This Old House" style overhaul. As a result, President Truman and his family spent most of their term living across the street.

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House at night. Photo: Adam J.W.C.

How's this for an audacious construction plan: when architect Jorn Utzon's won a contest to design a new opera house in Sydney, Australia, in 1957, there was no existing building technology capable of bringing his plan to life. Seriously. Out of the 300+ designs the government of New South Wales had to choose from, they picked the one that literally couldn't be built. Now, this might seem like a good reason to scrap the idea, but the plucky Australian government opted to move forward, charging Utzon with finding a way to get his series of soaring roofs off the drawing board and into Sydney.

That part alone took Utzon and a team of engineers more than four years to solve. But the building's troubles weren't over. Given that builders were performing what amounted to an engineering miracle, the costs associated with the construction quickly skyrocketed. After Utzon figured out how to make his sail roof work, a large portion of the building - already completed - had to be rebuilt to support the ceiling. In 1966, the government of New South Wales briefly discussed pulling the plug on the project altogether, rather than deal with a bill that was spiraling out of control. Luckily, someone came up with the bright idea of letting the People fund the construction. Not through a tax, mind you, but by lottery. The Opera House Lottery eventually collected the equivalent of more than $101 million U.S. dollars from a series of 496 individual lottery contests - coming extremely close to recouping the building's entire cost.

Unfortunately, relationships proved more difficult to repair than pocket books. The working partnership between Jorn Utzon and the New South Wales government became increasingly strained over the years. In 1966, when the politicians threatened to bail, Utzon called their bluff - quitting on his own building. The task of completing the job - which took another seven years - fell on the shoulder of different architects.

Eiffel Tower

Photos of Eiffel Tower Construction (Image: L’histoire de la tour Eiffel et sa construction, vues par son architecte, un album publié en 1900)

Believe it or not, the Eiffel Tower was originally supposed to be in Barcelona. But thinking the thing would end up looking like an eyesore, the city rejected Gustave Eiffel's plans, and he was forced to repitch the project elsewhere.

Luckily, Eiffel found a home for his idea in Paris, where the Tower could serve as the main archway for the 1889 International Exposition. Amazingly, the Tower didn't exactly go over well with the Parisians, either. The enormous iron structure was immediately belittled by critics, and one especially harsh reviewer referred to the thing as a "metal asparagus."

Truth be told, the Eiffel Tower wasn't supposed to stay up for very long. In fact, it was offered for sale as scrap and was spared only because it proved useful to the French army. (they found that its 984-foot height worked nicely as a communications tower.)

Thankfully, however, Gustave Eiffel's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad structure has managed to endure; the structure received its 200 millionth visitor in 2002, and has become one of the world's most recognizable man-made landmarks the world over.

More: The Eiffel Tower Story

Taj Mahal

Photo: amla [Flickr]

Legend has it that once the construction of the Taj Mahal was complete (c. 1648), the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan had his architect blinded. Apparently, the Shah wanted to ensure that the designer could never again create a structure was beautiful as the tomb he'd built for his wife Mumtaz. Just to be on the safe side, though, Shah Jahan also cut off the architect's hands.

The article above was reprinted with permission from mental_floss' book In the Beginning.

From Big Hair to the Big Bang, here's a Mouthwatering Guide to the Origins of Everything by our friends at mental_floss.

Did you know that paper clips started out as Nazi-fighting warriors? Or that cruise control was invented by a blind genius? Read it all in the book!

National anthems: we've all sung them in school or at sporting events ... but what do you really know about them? Did you know that The Star-Spangled Banner got its tune from a drinking song? Or that the Dutch national anthem, "Het Wilhelmus" was once co-opted by the Nazi? Read on:

Great Britain: This One's for Hymn!

In most languages other than English, the word for what we call a "national anthem" translates roughly to "national hymn." And, to be fair, that's probably an accurate portrayal of these songs, which pay solemn homage to one's country and leaders in a style that isn't too far removed from religious praise. Unlike the content of your local hymnal, however, most national anthems weren't intentionally written for the role they now fill. Rather than poet laureates, their authors tend to be random patriots and they usually earn their vaunted place in society not by decree, but by popular acceptance. By the time politicians get around to legally making the anthem national it's already been loved by the public for decades ... if not longer.

Prime example: "God Save the King," the national anthem of choice for the people of Great Britain. Nobody has any idea who wrote this puppy, but it must have been composed at some point prior to the 16th century when the words - in Latin - first appear in print. But, while the general theme ("Hey we sure do like the king and we hope that things go well for him") has remained intact, the specific lyrics have fluctuated considerably over the years and no official version has ever been canonized.

The lyrics appear to have been compiled from a number of different sources, including the Bible, where the quote "God save the King" appears no fewer than three times. The entire second verse, meanwhile, was probably cribbed from a Church of England prayer associated with the commemoration of the foiled 1605 Gunpowder Plot to kill the King and members of Parliament. (And, speaking of plagiarism, it's worth noting that Norway's national anthem is, essentially, "God Save the King" translated into Norwegian.)

By the late 1500s, the song had become so popular that its key lyrics were incorporated into a series of passwords for the British Navy. To identify fellow navy men you hadn't previously met all you needed to do was walk up and say, "God save the King." If that peculiar fellow also had his sea legs, he'd reply, "Long to reign over us."

The Netherlands: It Could be Verse

Another common feature of national anthems: they usually have far more verses than you're used to singing. Take the Netherlands' anthem, "Het Wilhelmus." When attending to matters of state (and sporting events) the Dutch commonly sing this as a two-verse medley. However, what they're actually belting out are the first and sixth verses of a 15-verse extravaganza written in honor of the Dutch Prince William of Orange in 1568.

Oh, and did we mention that it's all written in first-person? To sing the song, Dutch people everywhere must briefly adopt the persona of William of Orange, as he vows to remain true to his country, to God, and to the fight against tyranny, and (oddly for a Dutch national anthem) to the King of Spain.

Weirder still, it turns out that the tune of "Het Wilhelmus" has led a seedy life. During the 1930s and '40s, the music (set to vastly different lyrics) was co-opted as the "Treuelied," the Nazi SS song of loyalty.

The United States: Dive Bars and Stripes Forever

On the night of September 13, 1814, at the height of the War of 1812, lawyer (and sometime poet) Francis Scott Key was sent by the U.S. government as an emissary to pick up a minor POW named Dr. William Beanes from where he was being held on a British military ship near Baltimore. Beanes had been arrested for "harassing British soldiers" after they'd conquered Washington, D.C., a few weeks previously. (We like to imagine this involved a lot of rude gestures and early attempts at "ye mother" jokes.)

At any rate, the British agreed to release Beanes, but told Key that he and the doctor would have to wait until the morning to leave. As it turned out, Key had shown up right as the British were preparing to attack Baltimore and its Fort McHenry.

Bombardment of Fort McHenry

Key ended up with a prime view of the ensuing firefight, watching it from the deck of one of the ships doing the attacking. When, at dawn, he saw the American flag still flying over the Fort, Key was so relieved that he immediately scribbled down the first couple verses on an envelope. But don't blame him if you can't hit the high notes. Key had nothing to do with the tune. At some point after his poem was published, some unknown person attached it to the music of an older song: The theme of the Anacreontic Society.

Thanks to YouTube, here's the Anacreontic Society's song: Link [YouTube]

So, what was the Anacreontic Society? Believe it or not, it was a gentleman's club (read: excuse for rich guys to get together and drink) that was popular in England during the 18th century. Dedicated to the booze and babes-filled poetry of the Greek writer Anacreon, they composed a stirring, epic, and perhaps intentionally difficult-to-sing anthem for him in 1870. Not surprisingly, the song was written to be sung at "meetings" with each verse ending with the lyrics, "and besides I'll instruct you like me, to intwine/ The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus' Vine."

Japan: Serious Mourning Glory

One of the oldest national anthems in the world, the "Kimigayo" was officially canonized back in 1888 (in contrast, "The Star Spangled Banner" didn't become our anthem until the 1930s). However, the components of the song are even older still.

An imperial court musician put together the tune in 1880, opting for a mournful, dirge-like melody that set the "Kimigayo" apart from its march, waltz, and drinking-song-influenced counterparts.

A Sazare-ishi, a kind of boulder grown from pebbles, on the grounds of the Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto. Photo credit: Wikipedia

The lyrics, meanwhile, are several hundred years old, dating to the 10th century when they were first written down in a poetry anthology. They're written as a "tanka," a stylized haiku-like poem composed of five lines and 31 syllables. As such, they're also extremely beautiful. To wit: "May the reign of the Emperor continue for a thousand, nay, eight thousand generations and for the eternity that it takes for small pebbles to grow into a great rock and become covered with moss." Wow. Now that's what we call lyricism!

The article above was reprinted with permission from mental_floss' book In the Beginning.

From Big Hair to the Big Bang, here's a Mouthwatering Guide to the Origins of Everything by our friends at mental_floss.

Did you know that paper clips started out as Nazi-fighting warriors? Or that cruise control was invented by a blind genius? Read it all in the book!

Long before Prince Charles proved that love is blind by cheating on his beautiful wife with Camilla Parker-Bowles, blue bloods had already proudly renounced monogamy. Over the centuries, they've coveted their neighbors' wives countless times, sure, but what about their neighbors' livestock? It's time to separate the perverted facts from the perverted fiction about royal sex lives.

1. Catherine the Great (1729 - 1796)

The reign of Catherine II, the German-born czarina of Russia, began when she overthrew her alcoholic, incompetent, and purportedly impotent husband, Frederick (the not so Great), in 1762. If there was one thing Catherine the Great would not stand for, it was impotence.

Although grossly overweight, Catherine loved men - a great many of them, in fact - over the course of her 34-year reign. And then, it was rumored, she died during a botched attempt to make love (if it can be called such a thing) to a horse. The rumor may have been spread by Catherine's Polish enemies, who resented her for annexing much of Poland. (On the list of European royalty's leisure activities, "overrunning Poland" has historically been a close second to "Sex.")

At any rate, Catherine never had sex with a horse, and one wonders why anyone felt compelled to make up such a story, since her actual death was plenty humiliating. While straining on the toilet, she had a stroke.

2. The Tale of Two Georges

In what seems to be an outlandish coincidence, England's king George II (1683 - 1760) also died of a stroke while on the commode. Some sources say that although he was quite happily married to his wife, Queen Caroline, George took mistresses as to maintain his reputation. After all, a mistressless king could be seen as weak or worse still, impotent.

His son, George III, however, broke that streak of monarchial infidelity when he married the notoriously homely Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1761. Seeing her for the first time on their wedding day, George is said to have winced in disgust, but the two came to love one another immensely (and frequently - they had 15 kids), and George III was never unfaithful.

3. Another Royal Horse

The Roman emperor Caligula (12 - 41 CE) redefined sexual debauchery during his reign. Aside from fancying himself a god and having an altogether creepy sexual fascination with his sister Drusilla, Caligula supposedly engaged in many orgies (which inspired a famous adult film). Plus, he had a suspiciously intimate relationship with his favorite horse, Incitatus.

Some Roman historians claimed that Caligula intended to make his horse consul, but that appears to have been kind of a Roman urban legend. Roman historians despised Caligula so intensely that it's difficult to sort out the actual facts of his reign. And while Caligula did like his horse (he apparently built Incitatus a house), there's no reason to believe he "liked him" liked him.

4. Jahangir (1569 - 1627)

Though there are plenty of excellent candidates for most sexually insatiable king ever, including Hal the Horny (the oft-married Henry VIII of England), our vote has to go to Jahangir, the fourth Mughal emperor of India.

Jahangir had little to do with the day-to-day running of the empire - that work was accomplished by his favorite wife, Nur Jahan. (The Taj Mahal was built for Jahan's niece, Mumtaz Mahal.)

While Jahan became one of the most powerful women of the 17th century, Jahangir busied himself with loving. He supposedly had 300 wives (296 more than allowed by the religion, Islam, he supposedly followed), 5,000 female concubines, and 1,000 male concubines. Jahangir also kept a massive herd of 12,000 elephants, but we won't speculate.

5. And, of Course, Prince Charles! (1948 - )

Of all the recent sex rumors about the British royal family, none had kept quite so quiet as that of Prince Charles's supposed bisexual affair. For weeks in the late 2003, the British press printed banner headlines about a royal sex scandal but, conscious of Britain's strict libel laws, never came out and openly revealed the accusations.

Instead, they engaged in all manner of hints and innuendo. This led to the strange phenomenon of the royal family issuing a statement denying allegations that had never publicly been made. The rumor: Prince Charles had a love affair with his advisor Michael Fawcett.

Scandalous, sure, but unlikely - it seems the prince only has eyes for Camilla. After decades of courtship, they finally wed in 2005.

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!

Call it a power nap. Call it a break. Whatever you call it, don't assume that somebody who sneaks in a few winks in the middle of the day can't also take care of business ...

1. Thomas Edison: Highly Inventive Napping

Prolific inventor Thomas Edison didn't like to go to bed at night. In fact, he didn't like to take his clothes off or change into pajamas because he thought it somehow interfered with his creativity.

The solution? The "Wizard of Menlo Park" chose instead to sleep a few hours at night - often no more than three - then catch naps in the lab around the clock, whenever he felt tired. Colleagues referred it to as his "genius for sleep."

After Edison built his laboratory and home together in Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1876, he could indulge in his odd sleep habits with little trouble - except with his wife, Mary, who found his eccentric hours bothersome. But he kept on doing it anyway.

Edison loved to stretch out atop a lab table when catching a quickie, but he was known to make do on a stool if nothing more comfortable was handy.

2. Warren G. Harding: Late to Bed and Early to Rise

Although he seldom went to bed before midnight and frequently stayed up until 2 a.m., President Harding was not a very late riser. In fact, he always got up at 8.

His White House schedule, however, left him increasingly fatigued, perhaps signifying sleep deprivation, but also a sign of advancing heart disease that would kill him in office in 1923. Friends told Harding that he would be more rested if he stayed in bed in the morning but the president refused, saying that to do so would be "too much like a woman."

Irwin "Ike" Hood, chief usher of the White House, recalled that instead, the sleep-deprived president would steal the occasional presidential power nap in the Oval Office.

3. Salvador Dalí: Surreal Sleep

Salvador Dalí, the Spanish Surrealist painter, arrived at the startling images of his most productive period - between 1929 and 1937 - using what he called the "paranoiac-critical method." Apparently, this involved fishing "delirious associations and interpretations" out of his unconscious. It's less than clear how he accomplished this, but he used no intoxicants. "I don't do drugs," he once said. "I am drugs."

Dalí wasn't above manipulating his consciousness in other ways, though. He reportedly took odd little catnaps that brought him right to the edge of deep sleep, but then jerked himself out of it. His method was simple: Seated in an armchair, Dalí held a metal spoon in one hand. Then, next to his chair, he'd place a metal pan. He'd quickly nod off, and as soon as he was relaxed enough to let go of the spoon, it would fall against the pan. The sudden clang waking him up, Dalí was immediately reacquainted with his subconscious, and went back to work.

4. Samuel Goldwyn: Cinematic Snoozer

One of Hollywood's most prominent film producers for over 30 years, Sam Goldwyn believed in hard work. Indeed, he demanded it from his employees. He also believed in taking care of himself. Every day after lunch, Sam would take a siesta, disappearing into a room adjacent to his office, changing into pajamas, and sleeping for an hour.

According to biographer Arthur Marx, Goldwyn - the man behind such classics as Wuthering Heights and The Best Years of Our Lives - belived a 60-minute afternoon nap was the secret to good health.

One day he recommended the practice to two writers working on a script for a Danny Kaye picture. "You ought to try it, too" he said. Then, realizing that he didn't want the scribes sleeping on company time, he added, "In your cases, eat a half hour, sleep a half hour."

5. Ronald Reagan: To Nap or Not to Nap?

Ronald Reagan supposedly took a nap every day. In fact, it was frequently mentioned in newspaper columns and widely accepted as fact.

But First Lady Nancy Reagan vehemently denied the accusations. What he did, Nancy said, was take a short break in the afternoon, away from staff, visitors, and the press. It was, after all, on doctor's orders after Reagan was wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt. Maureen Reagan, the president's daughter, also insisted that Reagan hated to take naps.

So maybe the Gipper didn't nap in private, but as a president who was nearly 70 when he took office, he was definitely observed from time to time nodding off in public. Reagan even joked about falling asleep in cabinet meetings and once dropped off in the middle of a speech by Pope John Paul II.

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!

Even before the Gulf War and the Iraq War, the Middle East has seen a lot of tension and conflicts. Here are three of battles that took place there well before the start of the Middle Ages:

1. The Battle for Mecca

Unlike Jesus or the Buddha, Muhammad founded a religion and a political party. As the leader of the early Islamic community in Mecca, Muhammad found himself at odds with his clan's pagan leaders. Facing annihilation, Muhammad and his followers fled Mecca for Medina in 622 CE.

Over the next eight years, the Muslims periodically engaged in bloody battles over Mecca (in one, the Prophet's uncle was partially eaten by the wife of a Meccan tribal leader).

However grand a general he was, Muhammad was an even better negotiator: In 630, the Muslims finally overtook Mecca via a treaty with tribal leaders. After almost a decade of casualties, nary a drop of blood was shed in the final battle for Islam's holiest city.

2. The Battle of Karbala (Which Has Nothing to do with Madonna)

Although the fighting lasted only a couple hours and the result was never really in question, the Battle of Karbala has come to symbolize the divide between Shia and Sunni Muslims - and, for many Muslims, represents the last stand of Islam's golden age.

After the Prophet Muhammad's death, the Islamic community was led by a succession of four "Rightly Guided" caliphs. By 680 CE, however, a ruthless and distinctly Wrongly Guided caliph named Yazid held court, and the Prophet's grandson Husayn set out to defeat him.

Husayn and just 72 followers (many of them young boys) met Yazid's massive army at Karbala, in present-day Iraq. And though Husayn and his supporters were slaughtered, the martyrdom is still remembered by Shia Muslims today with passion plays and public mourning.

3. The Crusades

Not content to let Muslims fight among themselves, Christian Europe decided to get into the act in 1095 CE. For the following two centuries, European Christians undertook eight major expeditions hoping to conquer Jerusalem and control Christ's tomb, the Holy Sepulcher (which seems like a lot of trouble - waging eight wars over a cave where Jesus spent three measly days). Armed with plenty of manpower, the Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099, but Saladin then reconquered it in 1187.

Long story made short, the back-and-forth kept on until everyone got tired and decided to postpone fighting over Jerusalem until the mid-20th century. Of course, the Crusades had a lasting effect on the therefore fairly peaceful relationship between the Islamic world and the Christian one, but they also deepened the divide between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, particularly when the Catholics decided to sack Constantinople during the fourth Crusade.

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!

Contrary to the old adage, crime really does pay - at least for a while. Here are the stories of 6 rich criminals who, while didn't know how to live good, they did know how to live very well.

1. John Palmer (ca. 1947 - )

British bad boy John Palmer suckered over 16,000 people in a phony time-share scheme. Currently ranked Great Britain's wealthiest criminal, having amassed ill-gotten wealth of over £300 million, the notorious Mr. Palmer owns a fleet of cars and several houses all over England, including a huge estate at Landsdown in Bath. He even has a cool nickname: Goldfinger. Which doesn't mean he has a golden rep.

Palmer defended himself in the fraud trial, lost, got eight years in the clink, and has so far been slapped with fines of £5 million. But this wasn't his first criminal activity. In 1983 he took part in the U.K.'s greatest-ever robbery, in which he and a partner stole £26 million in gold bullion from a cargo storage company at Heathrow Airport. He smelted the gold himself and was arrested when police found two gold bars, still warm, under his sofa. (Photo: BBC)

2. Pablo Escobar (1949 - 1993)

Picture every stereotypical South American drug dealer you've ever seen in a movie. They're all based in part on Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, head of the Colombian Medellin cartel.

Escobar ran his empire from a lavish pad complete with Arabian horses, a miniature bullfighting ring, a private landing strip, a Huey 50 helicopter, and a private army of bodyguards. Clearly money wasn't an object for the man. After all, he could afford to pay local authorities $250,000 each to turn a blind eye. Plus, he used his money to build schools and hospitals, and was even elected to the Colombian senate.

But eventually the pressure from authorities, including the American DEA, got to be too much and he turned himself in. Of course, incarceration didn't stop him from living the lush life. Escobar used some of his loot to convert his prison into a personal fortress, even remodeling all the bathrooms and strengthening the walls.

Once he left, he was a fugitive again, but he wasn't hard to track down. An obsessive misophobe, Escobar left a conspicuous trail of dilapidated hideouts with shiny, expensive new bathrooms. In the end, the cocaine kingpin was killed when the secret police tracked his cell phone to an apartment, stormed the building, and shot him. Many, many times.

3. Mother Mandelbaum (1818 - 1894)

One of New York City's earliest criminal godfathers was actually a godmother. Fredericka "Mother" Mandelbaum, or "Marm" to her friends, was the top "fence" (buyer and seller of stolen goods) in post-Civil War New York. From 1862 to 1882, she's estimated to have processed almost $10 million in stolen stuff.

In fact, Mandelbaum made enough money to purchase a three-story building at 79 Clinton Street. Running her business out of a bogus haberdashery on the bottom floor, and living with her family in opulence and comfort on the top two floors, "Mother" often threw lavish dinners and dances for the criminal elite, which included corrupt cops and paid-off politicos. Ma Mandelbaum could afford to eat well, too, and allegedly tipped the scales at over 250 pounds.

But like any good criminal, she gave back. Well, kind of. Mandelbaum ran a school on Grand Street where orphans and waifs learned to be professional pickpockets and sneak thieves. She was finally arrested in 1884, but fled to Canada with over a million dollars in cash before the trial. She remained there in comfort and safety until her death in 1894.

4. L. Dennis Kozlowski (1946 - )

OK, so he's not a criminal in the classic "bang bang, shoot 'em up" kind of way. But this scumbag still has it coming. The former CEO of Tyco International, along with CFO Mark Swarz, allegedly embezzled an estimated $600 million from his company, its employees , and its stockholders.

He borrowed $19 million, interest free, to buy a house, a debt that the company then forgave as a "special bonus." He got an $18 million apartment in Manhattan and charged the company $11 million more for artwork and furnishings, including a $6,000 shower curtain and $2,200 garbage can. He even threw his wife a little 40th birthday soiree on the island of Sardinia that cost the company over two million clams. Special musical guest: Jimmy Buffett.

And while a mistrial was initially declared in April of 2004, the best lawyers couldn't keep Kozlowski and his cohorts from changing residences from their very big house to the Big House.

5. Leona Helmsley (1920 - 2007)

The famous New York real estate mogul and class-A witch lived the American Dream. Well, except for the whole prison thing.

Leona was a divorced sewing factory worker with mouths to feed before she met and married real estate tycoon Harry Helmsley (the fact that he was already married mattered little).

In 1980, Harry named Leona president of his opulent Helmsley Palace Hotel, which she ruled like a despot. Her tendency to explode at employees for the smallest infraction (like a crooked lampshade) earned her the title "Queen of Mean." The tyranny didn't exactly last.

In 1988, Leona and Harry were indicted for a smorgasbord of crimes, including tax fraud, mail fraud, and extortion. And after numerous appeals, Leona served 18 months in prison and was forced to pay the government $7 million in back taxes. A healthy dose of irony for the woman who once said, "Only the little people pay taxes."

Of course, that doesn't mean things turned out that badly for poor Leona. Said to be worth over 2.2 billion bucks, the dreaded Ms. H. still owns the lease to the Empire State Building and lives in luxury with her aptly named dog, Trouble.

[Ed. note: Leona Helmsley died in 2007, two years after this article was first published]

6. Al CApone (1899 - 1947)

He killed people. He bought cops by the precinctful. He bootlegged liquor. He ran Chicago like his own personal kingdom. He was damn good at what he did, and he did it with style.

Al Capone (aka Scarface) maintained a swank Chicago headquarters in the form of a luxurious five-room suite at the chic Metropole Hotel (rate: $1,500 a day). And when those Chicago winters proved a little too chilly for him, he bought a 14-room Spanish-style estate in Palm Island, Florida, which he spent millions turning into a well-decorated fortress.

Capone's total wealth has been estimated at over $100 million (not a penny of which was kept in his vaults, as Geraldo Rivera learned on live TV). Not bad for a guy whose business card said he was a used furniture dealer. Of course, he didn't pay taxes on any of it, which is what eventually sent him up the river.

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!

The California Raisins

Who They Are: The Marvin Gaye-crooning, raising-selling, 1980s-defining claymation rock band that became the ultimate in fad-driven ad icons. They first appeared in 1987 and became an immediate hit. They quickly landed a CBS Christmas special, their own Saturday morning cartoon, and even TV ads for takeout pizza. (After all, nothing tops a pizza quite like clay raisins.)

Who They Shill For: The California Raisin Advisory Board, which, not surprisingly, reported a spike in raisin sales in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

You May Not Know: Raisin creator and claymation pioneer Will Vinton won an Academy Award in 1975 for "Closed Mondays," a short about a drunk walking around an art museum. Amazingly, this isn't the only Oscar won by a fruitspokesperson pioneer.

Fruits of the Loom

People dressed up as Fruits of the Loom characters, costumes by Pierre's Costumes in Philadelphia.

Who They Are: First appearing in 1975, the fruits of this loom included humans dressed as oversize produce - two grape clusters, a fig leaf, and an apple. (The gooseberries in the actual logo are left out.)

Who They Shill For: Fruit of the Loom underwear - a company owned by no less a genius than Warren "the Oracle of Omaha" Buffett, the billionaire famed for rarely making a poor investment.

You May Not Know: F. Murray Abraham, the widely lauded actor who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in "Amadeus," played the original Fig Leaf. But you probably do know what the creators of the ad clearly don't: A fig leaf is not a fruit.

Mr. Peanut

Who He Is: With his dapper top hat, cane, and monocle, Mr. Peanut screams sophistication.

Who He Shills For: The Planters Company, which was founded in 1906 by Italian immigrant Amedeo Obici and brother-in-law Marion Peruzzi. Today, it is still owned by a hard-working, mom-and-pop company known as Kraft Foods North America.

You May Not Know: In 1916, Planter's held a contest in search of an advertising mascot. THe winner, 13-year-old Antonio Gentile, submitted a prototype Mr. Peanut, for which he was paid five whole dollars.

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Miss Chiquita Banana

Who She Is: The fruit equivalent of a mermaid or satyr, Miss Banana was originally a cartoon drawing with the legs of a woman and the body of, well, a banana. Her initial job was to teach Americans about "exotic" fruit through song ("Bananas like the climate of the very, very tropical equator / So you should never put bananas in the refrigerator").

Who She Shills For: Chiquita, once known as United Fruit. More than a little political, the company used its ships to help overthrow the Guatemalan government in 1954 and provided support for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

You May Not Know: The original Miss Chiquita was drawn by Dik Browne, who created the comic strip "Hägar the Horrible." The syndicated stirp, starring an irascible, rotund Viking, manages to appear in 1,900 papers every day, even though it's the only comic less funy than "Hi and Lois." Of course, Browne created that one, too.

(Image: TV Acres)

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!