Robert and Rita Lucas got a divorce in 1988 after 29 years of marriage. In the settlement papers, Rita requested a clause specifying that if Robert won a Nobel Prize before October 31st, 1995, that she would get half the prize money. Robert Lucas is an economics professor at the University of Chicago (and still is). It was an odd clause, and fairly unprecedented in divorce settlements, but Robert agreed to it. You can guess what happened then. 

Robert was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics on October 10, 1995 — 21 days before the clause would have expired.

Asked about having to pay half the prize to his ex-wife, he noted philosophically that, "A deal is a deal." But added, "Maybe if I'd known I'd win, I would have resisted the clause."

That shows that a wife can learn a lot about her husband in 29 years. Rita Lucas, a trained pharmacologist, apparently learned a lot about money and probability in 29 years. Read a more detailed story of the incident at the Los Angeles Times.

Also: Albert Einstein’s first wife got his future Nobel Prize money in a divorce settlement, but he arranged that himself. When he and Mileva Marić divorced in 1919, Einstein expected to win the prize eventually. He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. The agreement stated that the prize money would go into a trust, from which Marić could use the interest, but Einstein had to approve any use of the principle. The purpose of the plan was to support their two sons. 

This mural at 1583 Bardstown Road in Louisville, Kentucky, features four world-famous Kentuckians. Muhammad Ali, on the left, was born, died, and lived most of his life in Louisville. Abraham Lincoln was born in Hancock County, Kentucky, although Illinois claims him because he represented their 7th district in Congress. Colonel Harland Sanders was born in Indiana, but put Kentucky on the map with the fried chicken recipe he developed. Secretariat, at the far right, was foaled in Virginia, but the 1973 Triple Crown winner lived most of his life at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky. The mural was painted by artist Margaret Morely in 2013.  

Some time in the 1970s, we got a look at Cookie Monster’s favorite cookie recipe, when it was published in Big Bird's Busy Book. You don’t have to squint and read the page, because the recipe is typed out at The Kitchn. -via Nag on the Lake

The latest in Mode’s 100 Years of Fashion series shows us shoes. Lots of shoes. All high heel dress shoes.

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While there’s no doubt they’ve gotten more comfortable in those 100 years, those shoes from the 1920s and ’30s sure look nice.  Strangely, they left out the huge platform disco shoes from the ‘70s, although they were there in the '40s and '90s and '10s. -via Buzzfeed

The BBC has a quiz that will determine how well you know wild cat species. Oh sure, everyone knows lions and tigers and cougars, but the world is full of smaller and more obscure wild cat species. The good news is that this quiz has a lot of cats you’ve seen here at Neatorama. If you’ve been paying attention, you should do well. Get a pencil and paper, because there are no buttons to push in this quiz from the BBC. The answers are at the bottom. I got 100%, because I’ve written about almost all of them. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Flickr user Charlie Marshall)

Honestly, I had never heard of Nashville Hot Chicken until KFC started advertising it (for a limited time). But people who’ve lived or spent considerable time Nashville sing its praises. The common experience is that you love it while you’re eating it, then it causes pain, then you dream of eating it again. For around 80 years, several restaurants in Nashville have served hot chicken, with slightly varying recipes. But in the past few years, it’s become a phenomena, so much that foodies make pilgrimages to Nashville, Tennessee, to eat chicken. How did the dish come about in the first place?  

The story remains such a foundational part of hot chicken’s allure that it bears repeating (and, frankly, it never gets old): Back in the 1930s, there was a man named Thornton Prince, who had a reputation around town as a serial philanderer. His girlfriend at the time, sick of his shit and spending her nights alone, decided to do something about it. After a long night out, Prince came home to breakfast. His girlfriend made fried chicken, his favorite. But before serving it, she caked on the most volatile spices she had in the pantry — presumably cayenne pepper and mustard seed, among other things. If it didn’t kill him, at least he would reevaluate his life choices. He didn’t do either — Prince fell harder for the over-spiced piece of chicken than he did for any woman he’d ever courted. Prince implored her to make it for his family and friends — they all loved it, too.

An act of revenge became a neighborhood treasure, and Nashville’s one true indigenous food. The identity of Prince’s girlfriend (the real innovator here) has been lost to time, but the fearful flashes of mortality that hot chicken eaters have experienced for more than 80 years gives a particular angel in heaven her wings.

Danny Chau ate hot chicken at three different Nashville restaurants, all well-known for their hot chicken. He tells the story of each experience, and rates the food for those who may want to follow. -via Digg

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Every once in a while, John Green tries out the tips that are passed around the internet to see if they work. On this week’s episode of the mental_floss List Show, he tests quite a few that are aimed at parents of young children. I hate to break the news to him, but that’s not a gallon of paint. Did anyone really expect clothes to get dry in a salad spinner? But the best part is when John tries to decorate a cake and can’t help but laugh at his own pathetic efforts.

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

Which item in your bathroom carries the most germs? No, it's not the toilet. Toilet paper? No.

The most likely candidate for most of us is our toothbrush.

According to a 2010 research study conducted by the University of Manchester in England, the average toothbrush hosts up to 100 million bacteria. These include various strains of staphylococci, which cause skin rashes; E. coli, which can cause diarrhea; and the viruses that cause all three types of hepatitis.

A damp toothbrush not only picks up germs from our mouth (which contains more than 600 different species of bacteria), it is also vulnerable to spray from a flushed toilet, which coats all objects within six feet in a fine bacteria-rich mist.

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

1. Americans consume 16 billion hot dogs annually.

2. Americans eat 150,000,000 hot dogs on the 4th of July alone (two billion in the month of July)!

3. Dick Stuart, first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates, led the league in errors a record seven years in a row. Dick was once given a standing ovation when he fielded a hot dog wrapper that was blowing across the field.

4. Elvis Presley recorded the song “Hot Dog" for the 1957 movie Loving You.

5. Elvis liked his hot dogs boiled in a pot filled with sauerkraut. Elvis enjoyed munching on plain hot dog buns too- no hot dog, just the buns!

6. Charlie Kazan, age 89, has had hot dogs for dinner every night since he was 11 months old. (He eats his hot dogs on rye bread with the crust torn off.)

7. The “Oscar Meyer Wiener Song" has been recorded by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, a teen folk band, a string ensemble and a Nashville country-western group.

8. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra once performed the “Oscar Meyer Wiener Song" for a commercial.

9. The average hot dog is consumed in 6.1 bites.

You know what Labor Day means: summer is over, vacation is over, it’s back to school time. That may be sad for those who didn’t spend all summer working. But cheer up! I have two daughters in college, and one has a 6-week Christmas break. The other has a 5-week Christmas break. Makes me wish I was a student again. This comic is from Justin Boyd at Invisible Bread.

The Brothers Grimm collected so many folk tales that the entire Disney catalog barely scratches the surface. Some are too short for their own feature films, while others just don’t make much sense at all. And a few are definitely nightmare material. Check out five fairy tales that you may have never heard of at mental_floss, featuring several talking sausages, clever and not-so-clever animals, and drunk sewing implements.

The Teddy Bear became a very popular toy during Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency. When he left office in 1909, toymakers were concerned that Teddy bear sales would drop off, so they wanted to come up with something new. The new president William Taft was known to like possum -to eat, that is. When Taft was presented with a plush opossum toy at an Atlanta banquet (after he ate one), toy manufacturers were inspired.

The Georgia Billy Possum Company formed, churning out thousands of the stuffed toys. (The company’s slogan was “Good-bye, Teddy Bear. Hello, Billy Possum.”) The year’s Stone and Webster Public Service Journal said, “Thousands of little possums are being made, which promise to be as favorably received as was the teddy bear.”

So began the Down-With-The-Teddy-Bear! rhetoric. The Los Angeles Times, for example, wrote that “the teddy bear has been relegated to a seat in the rear, and for four years, possibly eight, the children of the United States will play with Billy Possum.”  

Of course, the Teddy bear is still around, while Billy Possum is so obscure it’s worth a blog post. Read the story of what happened at mental_floss.

Some high schools schools take their football really seriously. In November of 1965, Silliman Hall at Northfield Mount Herman School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, caught on fire during their game with Deerfield Academy. After a delay, the teams continued the game. But really, what else should they have done? Nateynate’s dad was at the game.

Believe it or not, my dad watched the whole thing. He was a Junior at Northfield Mount Herman when that happened. It is pretty much as you've suggested -- the firemen said it'd be better if everyone just stayed out of their way and didn't panic. So, back to the game they went. He keeps a coffee cup around that has that picture on it.

It was a heated competition illustrating a red-hot rivalry. Ultimately, Deerfield Academy won the game, 20-14. Silliman Hall was the school’s science building, and was actually quite a bit further from the game than this photograph would indicate. The fire was found to be caused by the electrical wiring, and the building was a complete loss. Read the whole story of that game at the New York Times. -via reddit

(Image credit: Robert S. Van Fleet)

Sergey Bubka was a talented pole vaulter from Ukraine. He won the world championship in 1983, but that only started a string of wins that made him a household name among pole vaulters. Besides other world championships, he set 35 world records. He kept breaking his own records, and he only bested himself by a fraction of an inch each time he did it. But why? The answer is quite understandable, once you read the story at mental_floss.

CGP Grey talks about traffic, specifically, what causes traffic jams when you can see no apparent cause, and what we can do about them. This seems like common sense to me, and his solution is something I’ve driven home to the many kids I’ve trained as drivers. Don't tailgate! But like driving slowly in the left lane, it’s something many people have never even considered.

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Spacing out cars properly would help with highway traffic, but it’s not going to do much about intersections. Good drivers like to keep a bit of distance between them and the air ahead while moving, but if you stopped at an intersection with a car-length space between you and the car in front of you, you’d probably get some quizzical stares, or even road rage. -via reddit