The Hollywood sign is an iconic landmark. It was first erected and officially dedicated on July 13, 1923. Originally, it didn't just say "Hollywood" but "Hollywoodland", as a means of selling property in that area of Los Angeles.

A century later, it is still standing on Hollywood Hills, although it has seen many makeovers and facelifts, and it even got auctioned off to stars like Alice Cooper and Gene Autry. After decades, they will be lighting up parts of the Hollywood sign to celebrate its centenary.

Originally, the Hollywood sign was a wooden sign but after several years, many of the letters had already deteriorated and vandals had sullied the letter H. When the locals asked that the sign be torn down, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in and offered to get it renovated.

In 1949, the new sign read "HOLLYWOOD". However, even that didn't last long, and in the 1970s, some of the letters had once again fallen in disrepair, particularly the first O transforming into a lower case "u", with its accompanying O completely falling over. So, Alice Cooper launched a public campaign to have the sign restored.

He donated $28,000 to sponsor the restoration of the sign along with eight other stars including Gene Autry, Hugh Hefner, and Andy Williams. Each one of them sponsored one letter on the sign with Cooper getting the first O, Autry, the second L, Hefner, the Y, and Williams, the W.

The Hollywood Sign Trust recently had the sign repainted in celebration of its 100th anniversary. For a gallery of the Hollywood sign's 100-year history, check out this article from Deadline.

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

About 12 years ago, this catchy song came out and if I remember correctly, for a time the song and the artist became somewhat of a meme. That song was Friday, by Rebecca Black. She also released a music video for it featuring her and some of her friends, presumably.

Now, there was one particular scene in that video which showed Rebecca Black's friends driving a convertible, at which point, the lyrics say, "Kickin' in the front seat, sittin' in the back seat, gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?"

My friends were having a discussion about this, saying how ridiculous the lyrics were, because there was obviously just one place for her to sit. Of course, there were other silly lyrics in the song, such as, "Yesterday was Thursday, Today is Friday... Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards".

In the same spirit, Reddit user TimeyxWimey asked redditors on the subreddit Pop Culture Chat what some funny or awful lyrics from songs are. He started the ball rolling with Hilary Duff's So Yesterday, which had the lyrics "If the light is off, then it isn't on".

Another redditor Ok-Land7757 shared this image of Jennifer Lopez with the lyrics from her song Emotions saying "I feel good 'cause I don't feel bad".

But perhaps, my favorite submission was this image from thrash_particle who had commented it after wonderful9235 had shared Lil Yachty's lyric on his song Peek a Boo. The explanation is hilarious.

(Image credit: wolf137946825/DeviantArt; TimeyxWimey, Ok-Land7757, wonderful9235/Reddit)

It has been said that Qin Shi Huang, China's self-proclaimed first emperor, was driven mad by an unquenchable thirst for power. He is considered a tyrannical ruler, who unified the seven warring kingdoms of ancient China and founded the Qin dynasty.

Born Ying Zheng, Shi Huang had taken over the kingdom of Qin after his father died. At the time, he was only 13 years old, but brazen and aggressive, he conquered the other six kingdoms and created a strong centralized government which was responsible for connecting the various fragmented state walls into the Great Wall of China as well as the construction of the Terra Cotta Army.

Researchers found documents which stated that Shi Huang believed that his reign will last 10,000 generations. And so, to see his vision come to life, he had his administrators look for the elixir of life said to give immortality to any who would drink it.

Unfortunately, none of them were able to find the elixir, and had to send awkward replies about their failed quests. Furthermore, his Confucian scholars denounced the quest as charlatanry. However, what these documents do show is how efficient his government was and how it attests to the strength of Shi Huang's leadership.

His quest to immortality actually inspired the creation of the Terra Cotta Army as he believed that the stone guards will guide him through the afterlife.

(Image credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

When I watched some true crime documentaries, I was quite surprised how many of those occurred in small, quiet towns or the suburbs. Maybe it's because people are less suspicious of others or being a part of a relatively smaller community gives them a sense of security and reassurance since everybody knows everybody else.

However, there are many small towns in the US where violent crime rates can go as high as 33.1 per 1,000 residents like in Bessemer, Alabama for example, with a population of 26,000. So, based on FBI and Census Bureau data compiled by NeighborhoodScout, Visual Capitalist created a map that showed which US cities were the safest.

Take note that the dataset only included cities with a population of 25,000 or higher, and violent crimes referred to arson, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, murder, rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault.

The results showed that almost 40% of the safest cities were in Massachusetts, mostly around Boston. The safest city is Ridgefield, Connecticut with a total crime rate of 1.9 per 1,000 residents. The chances of someone being a victim was 1 in 510. Meanwhile, Carmel in Indiana was the only city in the top 100 to have a population of over 100,000.

The team also found that many of the safest cities were near some of the most dangerous ones. One such example was Detroit, ranked among the top ten most dangerous cities in the US, whose neighboring towns like White Lake have very low crime rates. -via Reddit

(Image credit: Visual Capitalist)

In the last moments of RMS Titanic, as depicted in the 1997 film, we saw an elderly couple lying in bed, holding each other in an embrace, slowly awaiting their death.

Jack and Rose may have been fictional characters, but that elderly couple was actually based on Isidor and Ida Straus, and the film was able to depict the gist of their true-to-life story. Granted, they were not holding each other in bed, but they did decide to not get on the lifeboats and sink with the ship instead.

Isidor and Ida were both Jewish immigrants from Germany, married in 1871, and had seven children. Isidor's father had a pottery business which later became part of Macy's, and through Isidor's hard work, he eventually became a co-owner of Macy's.

Originally, the couple had no intention of traveling on the RMS Titanic, and they weren't even supposed to be in Europe at the time. However, the untimely death of Isidor's business partner, A. Abraham, caused them to take a vacation in Europe instead of southern California.

At the time, the couple had brought their newly-hired English maid, Ellen Bird, with them. As fate would have it, the ship they were supposed to board had to give its coal to the Titanic, and so they went with the luxury liner.

When the Titanic had begun to sink and the lifeboats were being filled, Ida Straus was urged by Col. Archibald Gracie, who had struck up a friendship with Isidor along the voyage, to get on one of the lifeboats. But Ida was adamant, telling Isidor, "We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go."

We see the generosity of the couple as they made sure that their new maid was able to get on a lifeboat, and Ida even gave her long mink fur coat so that Ms. Bird could keep herself warm. Later on, Isidor's body was found, but neither Ida's nor their valet's was ever recovered.

Afterward, Ellen Bird got in touch with the couple's daughter, Sara Straus Hess, to give back Ida's coat. Sara thanked her but refused to take the coat back as she believed her mother would have wanted Ms. Bird to keep it.

In honor of the couple, a bronze statue in Straus Park (also named after the couple) in Manhattan has been dedicated to them.

(Image credit: 20th Century Fox; Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

Over 80 years have passed since US Army Air Forces (USAAF) second lieutenant Warren Singer went missing along with the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane he had been maneuvering as he and 165 others crossed the sea toward Italy to conduct air raids on Manfredonia and Foggia.

Out of the 166 P-38s that had left, only 137 successfully completed their task. The rest had to turn back as they encountered mechanical issues. According to some of Singer's comrades' eyewitness accounts, they had seen Singer signaling that he was struggling to drop his fuel tanks, so he had to turn back.

However, on his way back, something must have happened, because nobody had seen him or his aircraft again. A year and a day after he went missing, he was officially declared deceased on August 26, 1944.

Now, the wreckage of the P-38 has been found by Italian divers about four miles off the coast of Manfredonia. Dr. Fabio Bisciotti, one of the divers who located and identified the wreck, said that Singer must have ditched the plane but possibly struggled and drowned, as Singer's remains were not in the wreckage.

Still, this provides much-needed closure for the family that Singer had left behind. He was only 22 years old when he went MIA, about five months after he had married his wife, Margaret, and was expecting a baby daughter, Peggy, who was born in January 1944.

Despite his unexpectedly short life, Warren has 12 descendants, along with his grandson Dave Clark who spoke with the media after the discovery of his late grandfather's aircraft.

(Image credit: US Air Force/Wikimedia Commons)

Eleven years ago yesterday, a monkey in a fluffy winter coat was seen walking around alone in an IKEA parking lot in Toronto, after he escaped from his cage and opened the door of the car it was in. The six-month-old Japanese macaque, named Darwin, instantly became one of the biggest memes of 2012. Keeping a macaque as a pet was illegal, though, and Darwin was taken from his owner.  

You will be happy to learn that Darwin is alive and well and thriving at Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary in Ontario. The macaques and lemurs who live there enjoy relative freedom and privacy compared to the homes, zoos, and research facilities they were taken from. It's not as good as being free in their native habitats, but for monkeys who did not grow up learning to live in the wild, it's the best life they could ask for. Japanese macaques normally live in a cold climate, so Darwin is not out of his element in Ontario. This species can live to be around 30 years old.  -via Boing Boing

Pantone Color of the Year 2024: PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz.

A velvety gentle peach whose all-embracing spirit enriches mind, body, and heart.

Learn more about PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz:https://t.co/323jbOLiTA#pantone #pantonecoloroftheyear #pantone2024 #peachfuzz pic.twitter.com/9cjGBY9bsY

— PANTONE (@pantone) December 7, 2023

The Pantone Color Institute has announced that their Color of the Year for 2024 is PANTONE 13-1023, also called Peach Fuzz. They describe it as "a velvety gentle peach whose all-embracing spirit enriches heart, mind, and body." While it is "enriching and nurturing," the color is also "quietly sophisticated and contemporary." The color is soft and gentle, unobtrusive enough to be considered a neutral color, yet more interesting than most true neutrals. It's too pink to be orange, and too orange to be pink, and much more pastel than either color.

Some companies are already offering products in conjunction with Pantone like wallpaper, fabric, and rugs. This is a color I could get behind, but I'd rather taste it than use it to paint the walls. This is the institute's 25th Color of the Year, which they have presented as a forecast for the coming year since 1999. You can see many of them in our previous posts. I guess that makes them the grandaddy of "influencers." Smithsonian has a roundup of reactions from various sources.

One of the concerns people have about electric vehicles is charging the battery. In some places, charging stations are still few and far between. The ability to plug in a car at your home is not yet universal. And even if there were plenty of charging stations everywhere, it takes some time to get a car fully charged. Wouldn't it be quicker and more convenient to just swap out a low battery for a charged one? That technology already exists, in China and a few places in Europe. From the license plate and text on the walls, it appears that Tom Scott is in the Netherlands, checking out a battery-swap from the Chinese automaker Nio. What's even more amazing is that the swap station is completely automated! Nio cars will self-park, and the station itself lines up the car precisely so that a robot can take out the old battery and install a new one. Neat, huh? Only time will tell if this infrastructure will ever be cost-efficient enough to equip that vast United States with Nio charging stations.  

Today, I ran across the above image on Twitter. It made me laugh because it reflects the historical reality of the industrial disparity between the United States and Japan during World War II. The Japanese Empire was doomed because it gravely misunderstood both American culture and the importance of industrial capacity in a war waged in the 1940s.

To my knowledge, the United States did not have a ship dedicated to producing birthday cakes. But it did have a vessel devoted entirely to the mass production of ice cream for sailors. This was a BRL (Barge, Refrigerated, Large) of the US Navy that could manufacture 1,500 gallons of ice cream every day.

Yes, my sources are unclear about whether it's 1,500 gallons per day or or per hour. But at that point of ice cream production, it no longer matters which is correct.

-via The Last Great Arrakian Dynasty

During the Japanese invasion of Korea in the 16th century, the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi had one brutal but relentless command to his troops: to kill all and bring their heads back to Japan. The massive slaughter of civilians piled up to the tens of thousands, and it became so large that the troops had difficulty sending the decapitated heads back to Japan. So, what they did was to cut off the noses from the corpses and ship those instead.

According to Stephen R. Turnbull, a British historian who specializes in Japanese military history, particularly the samurai period, the head count rose up to over 200,000 with 185,738 Korean heads and 29,014 Chinese heads.

However, when it came to noses, it's unsure whether the count reflected a corpse or not, as soldiers devised a clever way to inflate the body count by simply cutting off living people's noses. Apparently, these Koreans lived the rest of their lives without noses. Sometimes, without ears as well.

The noses have been buried in two places, Kyoto and Okayama. The Kyoto site of the noses was on the grounds of Hokoji Temple, and atop sits a shrine to honor the victims, which according to the chief priest of the temple, showed Hideyoshi's "great mercy and compassion". Initially, the shrine was called hanazuka, or "mound of noses", but they changed it to mimizuka, or "mound of ears", because the first one sounded too cruel.

The Japanese public were generally unaware of the presence of these mounds or the history attached to them until a few decades ago, in the 1980s, when they decided to teach that part of Japanese history in schools.

(Image credit: Epachamo/Wikimedia Commons)

Back in the 60s, when there were no Ubers or surrogate drivers or designated driving services, Turkey had a very popular service for drunk people. Küfeci (pronounced "koo-FEH-ji), or basket men, were called upon to bring the drunks home. The term came from the root "küfe" which refers to someone who was so drunk that they could no longer stand up or walk. There's even a saying "Kufelik Olmak" which roughly translates to "needing to be carried home in a basket."

One might think, "For what reason would these men be doing such a laborious task?" Well, these küfeci actually have day jobs as porters, carrying people's baggage and other belongings. When the sun sets, they do side jobs carrying the people instead.

Of course, the drunks themselves were not hiring these basket men, as one can imagine they would be too drunk to even string anything intelligible. Rather, the pub owners are the ones who call on these küfeci to lug the drunks back home safely, so that the owners can close up shop.

It's an interesting way of getting some extra cash, though I'm not entirely sure about the logistics of the whole matter. But, I guess the porters must be strong enough to carry full-grown men, put them inside a basket, then transport them home. It's also possible that several people would help put the drunks inside the basket and leave the rest to the küfeci.

(Image credit: History in Memes)

Our family Christmas card for 2023 🎄❤️

📸 Josh Shinner pic.twitter.com/X9du9EkpaI

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) December 9, 2023

The Prince and Princess of Wales have just recently uploaded their family Christmas card photo for 2023. It features Prince William and Kate Middleton with their three children: George (10), Charlotte (8), and Louis (5). They're all fabulously wearing a casual white shirt and trousers, with the photo being shot by Josh Shinner indoors on a gray background.

If you look closely at the photo, as user Mendee Menkyu astutely points out, you will notice at the left hand corner of the chair that there seems to be two sets of legs, which apparently looks like they were a Photoshop edit gone wrong. Since Charlotte is wearing the same type of sneakers, perhaps it had been a different shot that got mashed up with the final one.

However, several users clarified that there was no Photoshop mishap, but rather just a little bit of an optical illusion, in which William's leg just happened to line up with Louis' black shorts making it look like there are a pair of legs unaccounted for.

Another user, BossyMother, also thought that they had Photoshopped Louis' fingers, making them look like as if he has six. However, as others corrected, the placement of his hand on the armchair only made the gap between his middle and ring finger appear as though a finger is hidden underneath. Although, to be honest, this one is a bit of a stretch.

(Image credit: The Prince and Princess of Wales/X)

In 2016, the cast of Will & Grace had a get-together to film a short video about the 2016 presidential campaign, encouraging Americans to vote in the elections. The video received so much attention that the old producers of the show thought there was enough to make a revival of the show. NBC brought the show back in 2017, and it ran for three seasons until 2020.

Two years ago, the Friends cast made a reunion special as an extra to accompany the 236 episodes of the original series which were released along with the launch of HBO Max in 2021. Although it didn't spark any interest in reviving the series, the special, along with the ten seasons of Friends, did contribute to drive subscriptions to HBO Max.

Now, the surviving cast of M*A*S*H, will have their own two-hour reunion special set to air on New Year's Day. After over 40 years since the last episode aired, this reunion special will feature interviews from the producers and cast members, never-before-seen footage, behind-the-scenes photos, and tributes to all the cast and crew who have since passed.

(Image credit: MASH/Fandom Wire)

The child in the photographs is Hans-Georg Henke, who was only 15 years old when he was forced to enlist in the Luftwaffe, the German air force. There are two conflicting accounts about the story behind those photos. The first comes from the child in the photo, and the other from the photographer who took it.

According to Henke, the moment that photo was taken, their troops were stormed by the Soviets in Stettin. After retreating to Rostock, they were completely overwhelmed by the Soviets and captured. He said that his tears came from the realization that he had lost everything he had ever held dear.

However, the photographer, American photojournalist John Florea, had a different recollection of what happened that day. First of all, he said that the photo was taken in Rechtenbach, not in Rostock. Furthermore, Florea asserted that American forces, not the Soviets, captured Henke and his troops. Finally, Florea said that he believe Henke had been crying not from a feeling of defeat, but from combat shock. As an added bonus, although Henke repeatedly stated he had always worn rags on his feet, the photos show that he was wearing boots.

What then could have explained Henke's alternate version of events? Most likely, he had changed the facts of the story to get on the good side of the East German Communists, who were wary of anyone who had surrendered to American troops. Henke died on October 9, 1997, and he went to his grave telling the same story all throughout his life.

(Image credit: Rohit Singh/Quora)