History will never forget Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon or the Wright Brothers’ first moments of flying through the sky. However, some historical firsts—mundane things—never quite stood the test of time.

Fortunately, historians and archaeologists have taken the time to track these things down. Thanks to their tireless work, history will never forget those moments so vital to human development—like the one when the first fart joke was cracked.

10 First Drinking Straw Was Made Of Gold
3000 BC

Drinking straws aren’t one of those things you imagine coming hand in hand with the dawn of civilization. But the cheap plastic bending tubes you use to keep your clumsy kid from spilling have been around since the world’s first empire—although back then, they were a lot fancier.

The oldest drinking straw was found in a 5,000-year-old tomb and was made out of gold encrusted with precious blue stones. The owner was so proud of his straw that he even put a seal in his tomb that showed him using it to drink out of a jar, lest anyone forget that he liked to sip drinks with his sippy straw.

There’s a reason. Sumerians used straws to drink beer, which was as thick as porridge in those days. That might sound disgusting, but Sumerians considered beer to be a gift from the gods. So using a gold straw was just giving beer the respect it deserved.

9 First Recorded Gay Couple Were Manicurists
2400 BC

As it turns out, gay marriage is about as traditional as it can be. According to Professor Greg Reeder, the first recorded gay couple in history was Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, two manicurists working for an Egyptian pharaoh.

The pair was buried together as a married couple, facing nose to nose as if getting ready to kiss. There are also puns around their tomb about their being united together for life, suggesting that these two men were more than just close friends.

Reeder’s theory of the pair as a gay couple is controversial. Some who disagree have pointed out the picture of Niankhkhnum’s wife in the tomb. Reeder responds that somebody purposefully tried to scratch the picture off the wall—meaning that, unfortunately for his wife, Niankhkhnum may not have realized some things about himself until late in life.

8 First Fart Joke Was Etched In Stone
1900 BC

The first fart joke in recorded history also happens to be the first joke of all time. Etched into a stone tablet in Babylon, archaeologists found a message that someone preserved for all time:

Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.

Likely, there had been earlier fart jokes. But this was the first time a man was so inspired by his own wit that he chiseled his joke into the side of a stone so that people thousands of years in the future would be able to enjoy it.

In another 300 years, the first non-fart joke emerged when an Egyptian wrote on a piece of papyrus:

How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish.

7 First Pregnancy Test Grew Crops With Urine
1350 BC

History’s first pregnancy test was etched onto a papyrus sheet more than 3,000 years ago. The ancient Egyptians had a weird way to find out if a woman was carrying a child and to determine if it was a boy or a girl.

First, the woman would pee on a bowl of barley and wheat seeds. She would let them stew for a few days and then plant them in the fields. If the barley grew first, she was carrying a girl. If it was wheat, she was carrying a boy. If nothing grew, she wasn’t pregnant.

Surprisingly, it actually worked. Although it probably couldn’t determine gender, researchers found that the test could detect pregnancies with an impressive 70 percent accuracy rate.

6 First 20-Sided Die Made In Ancient Egypt
300 BC

Anyone who has ever played Dungeons & Dragons has used a 20-sided die. It’s a key component of the game, essential in almost every situation that involves sitting in the basement imagining you’re a wizard.

As it turns out, though, the 20-sided die wasn’t invented for tabletop gaming. It was created a good 2,000 years earlier.

A 20-sided die carved from a rock was found in Egypt and looks shockingly familiar. In fact, other than the Greek symbols carved onto each side, it’s almost identical to the ones we use today to roll for initiative.

It’s not clear what the Egyptians used it for, but the symbols appear to represent either letters or numbers—meaning that even the symbols on the side might be the same as those on a modern die.

5 First Vending Machine Dispensed Holy Water
100 BC

Today, it’s almost impossible to imagine a vending machine being used for anything other than hawking cheap products. When the first one was created, though, it was used to dispense holy water.

The vending machine was invented by Hero of Alexandria, an engineer credited with countless innovations of his time. Hero’s vending machine used the weight of the coin to push a platform down. Then a valve opened and a little trickle of holy water would come out.

He set up vending machines in temples all across the country, finally giving people a way to get holy water on the go without all the bother of talking to a priest.

4 First Marketing Pun Was Found In Pompeii
AD 79

Companies with puns for names seem like a staple of business, but they had to get their start somewhere. From locally grown businesses like Hair Force One and Pho Shizzle to bars like Tequila Mockingbird, naming a business with a cheesy play on words is a time-honored way to pull in a few stray eyes.

It all started in Pompeii. While excavating the ruins of the buried Roman city, archaeologists stumbled upon the oldest marketing pun ever found. A brand of wine called Vesuvinum was still there—a portmanteau that combined the name of a nearby mountain with the Latin word vinum (“wine”).

3 First Selfie Was Also The First Portrait
AD 1839

When Robert Cornelius, an amateur chemist fascinated with the new photography craze, set up a camera in the back of his family’s store, he knew he was about to make history. He just didn’t know how.

Cornelius didn’t have the funds to hire a model or the ambition to find a proper subject in nature. So he figured he would just photograph himself. He was, after all, only trying to test his new equipment.

He turned on the camera, ran into the frame, and stood as still as he could for the minute it took for the camera to do its work. Then he rushed back to the other side and closed the lens. When the photograph came out, he proudly wrote on the back that it was “the first light picture ever.”

History, though, would remember it as something else: the first selfie.

2 First Child To Imitate An Airplane Was The First To See One
AD 1904

Pretending to be an airplane seems to be an almost instinctive act for children—so much so that even the first child who ever saw one did it. When the Wright Brothers tested their flying machine, they weren’t in complete seclusion. There was a family who caught the sight—and with them, a young boy.

When a reporter asked the young boy to describe the flight, he instinctively threw his arms out and ran around making engine noises. So children have literally been pretending to be airplanes ever since the first child saw one.

1 First Message Over The Internet Was ‘LOL’
AD 1969

On October 29, 1969, a group of scientists conducted the first test of ARPANET—a moment that’s sometimes considered to be the first time the modern Internet went online. In the process, purely by chance, they typed a message that would dominate the Internet for years to come.

A programming student named Charley Kline sat down to type the first message that would be sent to a computer 645 kilometers (400 mi) away: “LOGIN.” When he started typing, though, he had a problem. He entered the letters “L” and “O.” But before he could finish, the computer crashed.

Kline rebooted the system and tried again. This time, he got his full message out without any problems. By pure prophetic chance, though, the first three letters ever typed on the Internet became “LOL.”

A hybrid is the love child of two different species. Some are born in nature, while others blend together in a petri dish. However, a special club exists within this strange world—hybrids that are seen for the very first time.

When hybrids are created by scientists, novelty is not a factor. Hybrids can save critically endangered species and cure human disease. Nature is all about oddball mixes. When exotic pets are released into the wild or rare creatures cannot find their own mates, the drive to pass on genes is often strong enough to cross the species barrier.

10 The Wholpin

When researchers worked around the Hawaiian island of Kauai, they noticed something odd. A dolphin-like creature kept showing up. Photographs suggested that the animal was a hybrid because it displayed physical traits of different species.

In 2018, a year after it was discovered, scientists shot it. The dart was harmless and harvested a skin sample. The DNA analysis showed that the creature’s father was a rough-toothed dolphin and his mother a melon-headed whale.

This “wholphin” was the first of its kind to be recorded and even received a scientific name: Steno bredanensis. Although this rare hybrid could very well turn out to be sterile, its own birth was not really unusual.^[1]

The melon-headed whale is a dolphin. Technically, if they wanted, these misnomers could churn out plenty of wholpins with other dolphin species. Clearly, this is not happening, but the rarity of the melon-headed whale in Hawaii could have something to do with it.

9 Cotton Candy Grapes

People who like healthy snacks and carnivals can now enjoy a strange fruit—grapes that taste like cotton candy. Those who hate genetic engineering or artificial flavors can also breathe easy. This grape variety is the result of natural breeding.

Horticulturalists from California chose two species to work with. The first was a type of Vitis vinifera, one of the most common types in grocery stores. The other was a Concord-like grape. This variety is used in Welch’s jellies, juices, and jams.

Both are seedless varieties and cannot reproduce naturally. This forced scientists through an arduous process of extracting grape embryos, growing them in test tubes, and then planting them in a vineyard. It took about 100,000 test tubes before the Cotton Candy grape hybrid was born.^[2]

Packed with 12 percent more sugar than other grapes, the fruit was a hit when it became available to the public in 2011. The high sugar content prevents an old produce malady—fruit that is often tasteless by the time of purchase.

8 Hybrid Hope For Rhinos

In 2018, the last northern white rhino male died. The last females, his daughter and granddaughter, are infertile. Thanks to frozen sperm and the only rhino species not listed as endangered (the southern white), there is hope for their virtually extinct northern cousins.

The two are distinct species, but scientists managed to create hybrid embryos from the sperm of four northern rhinos and two southern females’ eggs. This is the first step in a long struggle to resuscitate the species. Even if surrogates successfully carry the four hybrids to term, the calves represent a fraction of what is necessary to establish a herd.

Future plans include harvesting eggs from the last two northern white females. (They have eggs but cannot carry embryos to term.) This will allow researchers to create full northern white rhinos. Another ambitious plan is to create sperm and egg cells from their skin cells, something already done with mice.^[3]

7 Florida’s Hybrid Pythons

The Burmese python is the premium choice of exotic snake owners in the United States. However, some people could not deal with them and released the snakes into the wild. Measuring 7 meters (23 ft) and weighing up to 91 kilograms (200 lb), these pets soon acclimated to Florida. Their presence was known since 1980, and eventually, thousands slithered about.

In 2018, researchers analyzed tail samples from 426 pythons from southern Florida and discovered that 13 were not pure. Although mostly Burmese, this baker’s dozen also contained the DNA of another invasive species released as unwanted pets—the Indian python.^[4]

Native to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, they were smaller but quicker. Intriguingly, the genetic signature suggested that the two species did not recently spawn the first crossbreeds. They blended long before the Florida pythons reached a large population.

The newly discovered hybrids could be stronger and more adaptable than their parent species, which is a problem. Native animals, especially small mammals, are regularly captured by the huge reptiles.

6 The Galveston Dogs

Red wolves once roamed the southeastern United States. The human factor killed so many that the last ones were taken to breeding facilities in 1980. Only 17 were pure. From this group, breeding produced enough animals to establish a pack in North Carolina (about 40 strong) and 200 animals in captivity.

In 2019, a biologist took photos of wild dogs in Galveston, Texas. He chanced upon them but was convinced that they looked different from the local coyotes. He sent an educated guess—that these were red wolf hybrids—along with photos and physical samples. The latter were procured from animals killed by cars.

Surprisingly, the biologist’s hunch was not only correct but it could end up saving the rare predator. The Texas pack contained DNA exclusive to the red wolf and “ghost alleles.” These alleles matched no known canine genes, including those of the red wolf.^[5]

This genetic material was probably lost during breeding programs but survived in the Galveston dogs. Scientists hope to use the dogs to restore this genetic heritage to the wolf as well as to bolster their numbers and health.

5 Chicken With Dinosaur Legs

Recent fossils proved that some dinosaurs survived and evolved into modern birds. In 2016, scientists from Chile wanted to watch how dinosaur leg bones changed over time. Like modern birds, they had two bones in the lower limb, the fibula and tibia. Their fibula was a long tube that reached the ankle. The tibia was around the same length, positioned alongside it.

Evolution brought the next batch of avian dinos—the pygostylians. By then, the fibula had shortened and developed a splinter-like end. Modern bird embryos show signs of developing lengthy dinosaur fibulae, but they soon shorten and grow pygostylian ends.

To see this evolution in action, scientists suppressed the IHH gene in chicken embryos. This caused equal-length leg bones to grow down to the ankle, very similar to dinosaurs.

The dino-chickens did not live to hatch, but they revealed that IHH actively blocked the modern bones from reverting to a dinosaur state. This was also the first time that researchers viewed the dinosaur-bird transition in living creatures, which previously could only be seen in the fossil record.^[6]

4 Human-Sheep Hybrids

It may sound bizarre to create a human-sheep, but the motivation behind this hybrid is lifesaving. If researchers can take things to the next level, this combination could solve the world’s lack of donor organs. It might even cure type 1 diabetes.

In 2018, Stanford University created the first embryos with human and sheep cells. These embryos were allowed to mature for some time inside a surrogate animal before she was slaughtered. Unfortunately, the law does not allow hybrids to survive past 21 days.^[7]

Although the project had to end there, this was the root stage for growing unlimited human organs—specifically, the pancreas—inside farm animals. Experiments had already cured a diabetic mouse with another mouse pancreas grown inside a rat.

Researchers plan to grow modified sheep lacking the organ and hope that the animal’s human DNA will step up and create a pancreas. However, to reach that stage, the experiment must run at least 70 days, which would require special permission from regulators.

3 Burket’s Warbler

In Pennsylvania, two warbler species (respectively, blue and golden-winged) often interbreed. Depending on their colors, their hybrids are known as either Brewster’s or Lawrence’s warbler.

In 2018, an avid bird-watcher photographed what he thought was a Brewster’s. However, when Lowell Burket examined the pictures afterward, his experienced eye noticed that the bird had out-of-place markings.

The two chest patches belonged to an entirely different genus. Suspecting that the bird was the offspring of a chestnut-sided warbler and a blue-gold hybrid, Burket patiently waited for it to sing. Warbler species have distinctive songs, and when this odd bird opened its beak, it sang exactly like a chestnut-sided warbler.

The birdwatcher sent images, videos, and his theory to ornithology experts. They were so convinced by his evidence that they helped Burket to catch the bird. Blood samples confirmed that the warbler’s mother was a Brewster’s hybrid that bred with a chestnut-sided male. The ultrarare three-species hybrid was named “Burket’s warbler” in honor of the man who found it.^[8]

2 Extinct Tortoise Could Be Alive

About 150 years ago, a giant tortoise was declared extinct. The last one was seen on Floreana Island, which is a part of the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Chelonoidis elephantopus had a saddle-shaped shell, while the shells of other tortoise species on the islands were domed-shaped.

These giant tortoises were spectacular, measuring up to 1.8 meters (6 ft) long and weighing 408 kilograms (900 lb). In recent times, researchers noticed a change in another giant species.

Chelonoidis becki lives on Isabela Island, located around 322 kilometers (200 mi) from Floreana. Some had saddle shells when they should have been domed. Samples were taken from 1,669 tortoises. Incredibly, 84 had enough genetic markers to suggest that one parent was the extinct C. elephantopus. More encouragingly, 30 of the hybrids were under 15 years old.^[9]

Their genetic variety also suggested that at least 38 different C. elephantopus left offspring on Isabela. Given that they can reach 100 years of age, some might even be alive. If so, this is the first rediscovery of a species thanks to the hybrid offspring it left behind.

1 The Hybrid That Became A Species

The Amazon is known for weird animals, but one bird surprised even the experts. In 1957, a new manakin was identified and named the golden-crowned variety. The small bird was clearly a species with its own population and territory. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then it disappeared for 45 years until 2002.

In 2018, genetic tests showed that the rare birds were hybrids. They carried 20 percent of the snow-capped manakin’s genome and 80 percent of the opal-crowned manakin’s. It sounds like just another crossbreed, but this was the first hybrid bird species found on the planet.^[10]

More remarkably, the parent species spawned the new one around 180,000 years ago. Overcoming epic hurdles that nearly all hybrids fail, the golden-crowned bird became a real species.

Apart from proving that not all hybrids are recent, the bird also looked different from its “parents.” All three had green bodies but different head shades. The snow-capped had white feathers while the opal-crowned shimmered with iridescent colors. The golden-crowned manakin evolved a bright yellow cap.

It’s always interesting to see how American states led the way in various categories. Michigan can lay claim to being the first in automobile development and the car culture that is everywhere today. In that same vein, give California credit for being the first state to really go all-in on the freeway system that dominates American transportation nowadays. Colorado can lay claim to its pioneering marijuana legislation—and Washington, too. And, of course, no state can beat Delaware for being the first state to, well, become a state when it was first to ratify the Constitution!

But while there are plenty of notable and well-known state “firsts,” there are also a million strange ones. Recently, we looked over a series of strange and unexpected “firsts” on this very website, and that seemed to be a big hit with many of you. So, why not do it again? Below, you can read all about ten MORE strange, random, and even funny state “firsts” from American history.

Related: Ten Intriguing Facts about America’s First Murder Trial

10 California: Good Fortune!

There is one thing we know for sure: California can lay undoubted claim to the proud title of being the first state to invent and produce the fortune cookie. The question gets a bit thicker than that, though, when it comes to figuring out exactly where it happened within the Golden State.

Many historians believe that a man named Makoto Hagiwara created the very first modern fortune cookie when he was at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park as early as 1914. After he came up with the idea and sketched out the plan, the cookies themselves were reportedly made by a local San Francisco bakery called Benkyodo.

But there’s drama! Down in Los Angeles, a man named David Jung claimed that he actually invented the fortune cookie in 1918 when he was the owner and operator of LA’s Hong Kong Noodle Company. He said that he was the one who came up with the concept and popularized it and that his San Francisco fortune foes simply took the cookie idea and then tried to retroactively claim they’d come up with it first.

For decades after that, it looked like there would be two competing fortune cookie origin myths. If you were from NorCal, you sided with Hagiwara, and if you were from SoCal, you sided with Jung. Perhaps that was the first great NorCal-SoCal debate that now gets carried out in sports rivalries and the like!

Fortune cookies are evidently some serious business, though. In 1983, the San Francisco Court of Historical Review took up the case to investigate. Their judgment came back in favor of Hagiwara, pointing to evidence that he was indeed first to market with the cookie. The city of Los Angeles cried foul, but it all sort of fizzled out from there.

Regardless, for the purposes of this list, California can undoubtedly lay claim to being the first state that made and dished out fortune cookies, even if the city of origin has been up for debate.^[1]

9 Washington, D.C.: TV Time

The oldest regularly broadcasting television station in American history belongs not to a state but to Washington, D.C.! Back on July 2, 1928, a television station known as W3XK began broadcasting from a studio in the nation’s capital. Its broadcast didn’t carry very far—the signal could barely get into the outskirts of Maryland’s then-small-town suburbs just outside of northern D.C.—but it didn’t matter. It was a history-making affair all the same!

While earlier radio broadcasting companies had fiddled around with television a bit, including the network we now know as NBC, W3XK was the very first television station to broadcast a regular schedule. And so its inventor and owner Charles Jenkins and his hometown of Washington, D.C., get the “first” nod on this one!

If you’re looking for an actual state, though, we might be able to give this one to Maryland, too. After a couple years of broadcasting within Washington, Jenkins eventually moved the W3XK television studios to a small town in Maryland called Wheaton. The station pioneered the broadcast of a 48-line picture there, and then in 1930, it also pioneered the move to a 60-line picture.

The Great Depression hit Jenkins and his Charles Jenkins Laboratories company hard, though, and by March 1932, his television firm was liquidated. A radio broadcasting company acquired all the assets and then went bankrupt a few months later. RCA eventually bought out everything from W3XK in the ensuing mad rush, but they turned full-time to radio, and television moved fully to the backburner for another couple of decades.^[2]

8 Hawaii: Bye Bye, Bags!

In May 2012, Hawaii became the first state in the U.S. to ban the use of plastic bags at grocery stores. The ban was taken on by leaders in various city councils around Hawaii for a few years before that. Maui officials, Kauai leaders, and others opted independently to ban the use and spread of single-use plastic grocery bags in establishments on their islands leading up to 2012.

Then, in late April 2012, the city council of Honolulu voted to put forth a ban on single-use plastic grocery bags all across Oahu. That motion carried through with ease at the council’s meeting that month, and on May 11, 2012, the plastic grocery bag ban was signed into law. All four of Hawaii’s County Councils fully followed suit, and the state thus underwent a complete plastic bag ban.

Now, it took a while for the ban to go into effect. In Honolulu’s case, the ban wasn’t officially enforced until 2015. In those three years, they intended to allow time for stores to get rid of their supply of plastic bags and major corporate grocery chains to redirect their plastic bag supply chains to other places. Plus, they wanted Hawaiians to get acclimated to shopping with reusable bags and give them time to adjust to the new normal with the ban on plastic single-use bags.

In turn, the anti-plastic pollution push quickly spread out from Hawaii to the rest of the country. Cities, municipalities, and states all over the nation ban plastic bags now. As of early 2024, eight states had plastic bag bans of various levels, along with many cities nationwide. But the Hawaiians did it first!^[3]

7 North Carolina: Airplane Passengers!

North Carolina can lay claim to being the “First in Flight” thanks to the Wright Brothers’ successful attempts at flying out on Kitty Hawk in the state’s Outer Banks region in December 1903. But did you know that North Carolina is also the first state to ever record a flight with an airplane passenger? And it didn’t happen in 1903 when the Wright Brothers first got out to Kitty Hawk! It actually happened a full five years later when they returned with the express purpose of figuring out if they could fly a plane with a full-weight adult human passenger going along for the ride!

At the time, the U.S. government (and specifically the Army) was very interested in the flight technology that the Wright brothers were developing. However, they were decidedly less interested in it unless the planes they were making could carry a passenger to go along with the pilot.

So, the Wright brothers became consumed with trying to figure out how to add weight to their machines while still allowing the airplanes to take off. After all, they’d been trying to make the planes as light as possible to fly in those early days. So having to add a lot of poundage in short order wasn’t the easiest thing in the world! For a while, they experimented with sandbags, but before too long, they needed the real thing.

That’s where a man named Charley Furnas comes into play. In the spring of 1908, he was a 28-year-old mechanic living and working in Dayton, Ohio. His job was as a machinist, and his working floor was only a couple blocks away from the Wright Cycle Company in Dayton. He had previously done odd jobs for the brothers as a younger man, too. And through the previous five years, he’d been pestering them to teach him how to fly.

Well, in early April 1908, he got his chance. Furnas turned up at Kitty Hawk, and the Wright brothers decided to put him on a plane. On May 14, Charley flew for about 800 feet (243 meters) as Wilbur’s passenger, becoming the first-ever airplane passenger in history. Later that day, he and Orville made it more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) in the plane together. Charley (and North Carolina) made history. But were there any in-flight drinks served?!^[4]

6 Connecticut: Are They in the Book?

After telephone technology began to take hold in the United States in the latter half of the 19th century, it took a little while before documentation caught on. Today, we all know about the phone book, of course. (Well, maybe the youngest readers among us don’t, with everything having gone digital…)

But back in the day, the phone book had to be a thing that was invented! And in November 1878, the state of Connecticut was the place where that happened. Late that month, a company then known as the Connecticut District Telephone Company released the world’s very first phone book in the city of New Haven. In the book were the names and addresses of 391 subscribers who paid $22 per year to be listed in that service. But weirdly, there were no phone numbers! So it was a phone book produced by a phone company… with no numbers in it at all.

Regardless, it was very much a precursor to the “yellow pages” that came out en masse decades later. In addition to the names listed of New Haven residents, there were a ton of advertisements printed at the back of the book. Phone book technology very quickly took a leap forward from there in several ways.

For one, future phone books actually contained the phone numbers of the people listed within. And a year later, an enterprising Massachusetts man got the idea to alphabetize the names in the phone book so it’d be easier to find the person for whom you were searching. What an idea! Regardless, Connecticut can firmly lay claim to being the state to produce the first phone book.^[5]

5 Arkansas: Senate History

The state of Arkansas can lay claim to a very bold and important distinction: they are the first state to ever send a woman to the U.S. Senate in a full-term election. See, before Arkansas residents voted for a woman to go into the Senate in 1932, women who had served in that federal governing body had been sent there as special appointments after the sudden deaths of their husbands in office.

For Hattie Caraway, that’s initially what happened, too. On November 6, 1931, U.S. Senator Thaddeus Caraway, who represented Arkansas, died in office. With no one else to fill his shoes, the feds turned to Hattie to fill the vacancy of his seat in the Senate until a full election could be called. Just like it was always done, right?

Well, Hattie filled the seat for a few months after being appointed by the governor of Arkansas, Harvey Parnell, to do so. In January 1932, a special election was held to determine who would fill the seat for the rest of Thaddeus’s term—and Hattie won that election. Then, almost exactly a year after Thaddeus’s death, on November 8, 1932, a full and regularly scheduled Senate election took place—and Hattie won that one as well!

In running through those electoral victories, Arkansas made history by voting in the first-ever woman elected to the U.S. Senate beyond special appointments and decrees from governors. By the way, Hattie herself also later made history as the first woman ever to preside over the U.S. Senate. Not bad!^[6]

4 Alaska: The Time Zone Shuffle

Alaska can officially be known as the first state in the Union to change time zones in the modern age. Time wasn’t working for them, so they just up and flipped their clocks to make things better. Just like that! See, right now, Alaska is officially covered by two time zones: the Alaska Time Zone, which covers the vast majority of the state, and the Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone, which covers lots of Alaska’s far western reaches, including the Aleutian Islands (and, yes, Hawaii way far south of that).

That hasn’t always been the case, though. In fact, up until the 1980s, Alaska was covered by FOUR time zones, and doing business from region to region within that area made things very frustrating at times. On September 15, 1983, Secretary Elizabeth Dole signed a statewide change to cut the number of time zones that snaked through Alaska in half. It was no longer a four-time zone state, and just two weeks later, the change became official.

Today, more than 90% of Alaska residents, including all those who live in the state’s major cities like Juneau and Fairbanks, are on Alaska Standard Time. That’s only one hour behind Pacific Time and places like Los Angeles and Seattle. And it makes sense, right? Alaska participates in Daylight Savings, too, which links them with the rest of the nation in that way.

But wait! It gets crazier! In 2016, Alaska lawmakers seriously began considering the passage of a bill that would put Alaska into Pacific Time and completely eliminate the Alaska Time Zone. That bill would have also eliminated Daylight Savings Time in Alaska, which most states still follow, and would have set them apart in that way.

The 2016 proposals went nowhere, though, and currently, most Alaskans remain within the Alaska Time Zone. Still, Alaska was the first state to time travel, as it were, by cutting its time zone allotment in half forty years ago. And maybe they’ll be the first state to do that twice should any new bill like the 2016 proposal ever come to pass!^[7]

3 Illinois: Look UP!

There is some debate about what technically constitutes the “first skyscraper” and where it was built. Still, most historians and architects today have come to a consensus: It happened in Chicago, and it was the Home Insurance Building.

It is true that New York City buildings were being built high up into the sky in the late 19th century. The New York Equitable Life building constructed in 1870 was the first office building to use an elevator, for example. NYC’s Produce Exchange building also made noteworthy architectural advancements when it was built in 1884. However, the 1885 creation and construction of the Home Insurance Building in Chicago is widely regarded as the first skyscraper ever truly built.

That’s because the Home Insurance Building was the first building to use a then brand-new lattice of structural steel. It was woven into its innovative metal frame design, and the pioneering combination allowed the Home Insurance Building to stand extremely sturdy and extremely tall. Okay, so it wasn’t that tall—at least not by our modern standards. The building, designed by William Le Baron Jenney, only stood 138 feet (42 meters) tall at its highest point. And it only contained ten stories!

Compared to the skyscrapers of today, that’s absolutely nothing at all! But at the time, it was a pioneering achievement in architecture. And the building’s ingenious internal metal framing combined with traditional wrought iron meant it could withstand anything that came its way. Thus, Illinois gets to take home the trophy as the state with the first skyscraper. Sorry, New York!^[8]

2 Illinois: Repealing Hate

Illinois—a state so nice, we listed it twice! Not only does Illinois have the distinction of being the state that housed the very first skyscraper, but they were also the first state to get rid of its sodomy law. In turn, that meant Illinois was the first state in the Union to decriminalize homosexuality. That happened during the legislative session held by state lawmakers there in 1961.

Then, when the calendar turned to January 1, 1962, the law went into effect. Or we should say the sodomy law was repealed. And homosexuality suddenly became something that was no longer criminalized all across Illinois! Sadly, gay rights had a very long way to go even after that, but at least the wheels were finally in motion in Chicago and elsewhere in the Land of Lincoln.

Interestingly, even though Illinois may have led the way in repealing sodomy laws, it took other states a very long time to follow. Idaho initially repealed a bunch of “bedroom policing” laws, too, at the recommendation of the American Law Institute. However, upon learning that they’d actually repealed the sodomy laws and decriminalized homosexuality, conservative Idaho lawmakers immediately walked back their bill.

Other states didn’t get in on the act until way past then, in 1971, when Connecticut repealed its anti-sodomy laws. Then, nineteen other states followed up throughout the 1970s, including California, Hawaii, Maine, Nebraska, Vermont, South Dakota, and more. But Illinois was first!^[9]

1 Kentucky: All in for Beethoven

Beethoven’s name is known the world over when it comes to classical music. However, in the United States, he was mostly ignored during his lifetime. In fact, he was only first heard by American ears just ten years before his 1827 death! The state of Kentucky got the unlikely distinction of being first in the U.S., where a Beethoven concert was performed by a symphony orchestra.

You might think that would have happened in New York City, Washington D.C., or perhaps Philadelphia, or really, anywhere else more traditionally “cultured” than the relative backwoods of Kentucky. But don’t knock the Bluegrass State! They came through for Beethoven before anybody else in America did when a performance was held there in 1817.

The story of Beethoven being brought to Kentucky is itself an interesting one. The man behind the move to make Beethoven heard in Louisville was a fellow by the name of Anthony Philip Heinrich. Born in Bohemia, in present-day Czechoslovakia, in 1781, Heinrich visited the United States several times as a boy and young adult. He loved it so much that in 1817, he emigrated there full-time. But again, instead of settling in a big city, he chose to strike out for himself in a log cabin in tiny Bardstown, Kentucky. Strange, right?

Well, it gets stranger. Heinrich was an absolutely prolific composer of classical music, piano tunes, and vocal compositions. He composed music, and so much of it was of such a high quality that later in life, he came to be known as “the Beethoven of America.” So it makes sense that he was the driving force behind having a Beethoven symphony performed live in Kentucky. And he helped the state make history in that way!^[10]

The United States is the land of firsts. States all across the great country love to claim that they were the first place to do this or that. Aviation is a great example of this. North Carolina claims they were the “first in flight” because that’s where the Wright brothers successfully set off in their primitive plane way back at the very beginning of the 20th century. Yet Ohio also claims to be the “first in flight” because that is where the Wright brothers lived full time and owned the bicycle shop and other businesses in which they first tinkered with the idea for an airplane. And so on and so forth—every state lays claim to being the first at something (or many things).

But what about weird and wacky firsts? Not every state “first” is one to be proud of or one to lord over other states. Some are just plain random—and bizarre! In this list, we’ll take a look at ten state “firsts” that you almost certainly have never heard of before. They are funny, quirky, and original—and while these states may not use them to boast in promotional materials and tourism brochures, they are definitely memorable all the same!

Related: 10 Strange Facts About KFC And Its One and Only Colonel

10 Alabama: The First 911 Call

In 1968, the very first 911 call ever made was made in the small town of Haleyville, Alabama. Before 1968, “0” was actually the emergency number all across the United States. You’d call the operator, and the operator would patch you through to the police, fire department, or whatever you needed.

But by 1968, officials realized that they needed a standalone dispatch office and a specific number that people could call with emergencies in order to streamline the process. Trained dispatchers could take the calls, they could send out fire, police, and EMS, and the whole process could happen a good bit quicker than it had been going for a while. And in Haleyville, city officials wanted to be the first-ever spot in America to implement the new system. So, on February 16, 1968, that’s exactly what they did.

That morning, the Alabama speaker of the house picked up a red telephone and made the very first 911 call. Tom Bevill, a Congressman from the state, was on the other end of the line and waiting for the 911 dial-in from his fellow politician. The duo exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, determining that the line was working and the dispatchers would be able to hear people loud and clear.

It had only been a couple weeks earlier that Congress had mandated 911 become the nationwide emergency phone number, so Haleyville’s turnaround to get it up and running was very quick. Soon after that, plenty of other municipalities followed suit. And today, well, the act of dialing 911 is ingrained in Americans’ heads pretty much from childhood. So the system worked!^[1]

9 Florida: The First Sunscreen

In 1944, the sunny sights in Miami, Florida, were a must-visit for intrepid tourists and a mainstay for beach-loving locals. World War II was soon to wind down, of course, and Americans were hopeful to one day get back to their lives in peacetime. With that came a rush of outdoor fun that began for stateside locals even before the war ended. And that’s where Benjamin Green comes in.

See, Green had been serving in the war as an airman, just like many of his fellow young men across the United States. But in his personal life, Green had some real medical knowledge; he was a pharmacist, and he knew quite a bit about the human body. He also loved to surf and spend time outside. And he was sick of getting sunburned!

The combination of all those facts made Green a natural to tinker with lotions and lathers until he came up with an appropriate product. That year, Green perfected and then marketed a lotion that would darken tans and leave skin bronzed without having the wearer get so brutally sunburned. Suntan lotion was born, and the idea that a lather could work as a sunscreen immediately took hold.

Miami residents started using Green’s invention, and they loved how it bronzed their skin but left them without the awful red burns caused by the sun’s most intense rays. In turn, Green’s business blew up. Today, you know the brand that came from his 1944 idea as Coppertone. And it all started in Miami!^[2]

8 Iowa: The First Computer

You may think of Silicon Valley in northern California as the tech hub to end all tech hubs, but way back in the day, that wasn’t the case. In fact, the first “tech” hub was… in Ames, Iowa! What? In 1937, a professor of physics at Iowa State University named John Vincent Atanasoff began to tinker with what ended up being the world’s first electronic computer.

Along with a physics graduate student named Clifford Berry, Atanasoff spent the next five years perfecting the massive, unwieldy device. Finally, by 1942, it was ready to be shown off for what it was: the world’s first-ever electronic computer! Appropriately named the Atanasoff-Berry Computer in honor of the two gentlemen, or the ABC Computer, it made history as the first device created to electronically compute, read, and write.

As with all old technologies like that, the ABC Computer wouldn’t have been recognizable to us today as a computer. It was as big as a desk, and it weighed more than 750 pounds (340 kg). But it had quite a few important functions that were consistently and successfully working by 1942: rotating drums for memory, a read/write system that recorded numbers, glowing vacuum tubes, separate memory and computing functions, electronic amplifiers used as on-off switches, circuits that specialized in addition and subtraction, and a now-standard binary system for arithmetic, counting, and more. Of course, technology surged far beyond the ABC Computer soon enough. But it all started way back when at Iowa State University!^[3]

7 New York: The First Brewery

The great state of New York can lay claim to what some will consider the most important item on this list: the first public brewery. And it was established long (long, LONG!) before you might suspect—all the way back in 1632! In those days, the Dutch were the ones who built up and controlled the city. This was long before the United States was an independent nation, of course, and back then, the Dutch called their colony “New Amsterdam.”

At the time, for the first decade or so of the Dutch running the show in what would later become New York, beer was mostly brewed at home. But that all changed in 1632 when an enterprising group decided to publicly brew beer and sell it to their neighbors for a profit. And with that, the massive and wildly profitable alcohol industry was born in the U.S.!

The commercial brewery itself was built early in 1632 on lower Manhattan’s appropriately named Brewery Street (which is now known as Stone Street). Grain, malt, and hops all grew in the vicinity of New Amsterdam, so from a logistical perspective, it was very easy for brewers to get what they needed to make beer. In just a few years, the idea proved so popular that beer-making grew to be New Amsterdam’s biggest industry.

Dutch brewers soon sprung up all over the city and started competing with each other to sell suds to the locals and get them all good and soused. It wasn’t quite the same as the craft beer competitions of the last few decades, but it was a wild land grab in the alcoholic beverage industry all the same. Cheers!^[4]

6 South Carolina: The First Opera

On February 8, 1735, an opera called Flora first premiered in a makeshift theater constructed in Charleston, South Carolina. It was a very popular opera in England for several years running, and theater producers were hopeful that its popularity would catch on in America, too. They were right.

Flora nearly instantly became a hit as what was known then as a “ballad opera,” and soon, Americans were demanding more from the very same genre. In that way, South Carolina then unwittingly made some history: They became the very first-ever state to house an opera. And they weren’t even a state yet! Obviously, all this happened before the American Revolution and the country’s fight for independence.

All this opera stuff might seem like small potatoes, but it was actually a very big deal for American theater. See, this “ballad opera” proved so popular in Charleston that future theater producers and playwrights altered how they told stories in order to attract American audiences. This meant that more than ever before, the songs performed in operas had to be central to moving the storyline of the entire play along.

In turn, that meant that American musicals became a very popular, long-lasting genre. And it should go without saying that today, musicals are still incredibly popular and sought-after. From Broadway shows and the rise in popularity of Hamilton, musical theater is everywhere. And we all have South Carolina and its pioneering performance of Flora to thank for that.^[5]

5 Maryland: The First Dental School

The state of Maryland holds the distinction of opening up the first-ever dental school in the United States nearly two full centuries ago. And in fact, it was the first-ever dental school opened anywhere in the world at the time! See, during America’s colonial era, dentistry was very much a hit-or-miss practice.

Some doctors picked up dentistry on the side and were reasonably good at it (you know, for the time period). Other people picked up the practice and mostly butchered their clients without really understanding what they were doing. The whole thing was unregulated and a mess, and it caused a lot of pain for a lot of people who were trying to find some relief from toothaches and jaw pain.

Enter the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. First founded in 1840, it became the first-ever regulated dental school anywhere in the United States. It was so far ahead of its time that it was a pioneer worldwide as far as dental medicine was concerned. Practitioners who went to that school turned out to be more capable at dentistry than any fly-by-night self-taught dentist who had come before them.

As the school churned out more students who were better skilled and more adept at careful and actually successful dental procedures, the country’s oral health slowly but surely improved. Eventually, the college was absorbed by Maryland’s public university system, and today, it is known as the University of Maryland School of Dentistry.^[6]

4 Maine: The First City

The city of York, Maine, became the first-ever officially chartered city in the history of the New World when the English made that designation way back in 1641. The area was first settled long before that, in 1624, by Captain John Smith. He had explored the area as early as 1614 but didn’t put down any roots there for a decade. But in 1624, thinking that the York area would be a good site for a town, he opted to settle the area and start building.

At first, the city was known as Agamenticus. Then, in 1641, another explorer of the American continent named Sir Ferdinando Gorges came through the area and officially endowed the city with a charter. Under the name Gorgeana (nothing like naming a city for yourself, right?), Sir Gorges quite literally put the city on the map. And with that, the first official city in America was born.

Eleven years after Gorges’s move to charter things, the Massachusetts Bay Company took over the explorer’s property there. They revoked the Gorgeana charter and re-upped it with a new one of their own. In their designation, they gave the city the name which is still in use today: York.

The name was given in honor of Yorkshire, England—and it stuck! It grew slowly for a while from there. Then forty years later, in 1692, it was nearly completely destroyed in a raid by the local Abenaki Indians. But it persisted! Today, York is a popular tourist attraction for history buffs seeking an old-time colonial feel. It boasts a small but comfortable population of under 15,000 full-time residents.^[7]

3 Michigan: The First Paved Road

Henry Ford’s Model T cars were sweeping Detroit and the rest of Michigan by storm at the very beginning of the 20th century. Local government officials realized they needed to build out public works to take care of them. So, in 1909, the very first paved road was built and smoothed over in the United States along a mile of Woodward Avenue in the city of Detroit. It wasn’t a highway as we know the term today, but back then, it was a groundbreaking (literally) move, and fans of the process called it “the world’s first concrete highway.”

See, brick pavers were already a thing long before that. Many streets in Detroit had them, and in cities elsewhere around the country and in other places across the world, too. But pavement that was concrete and smooth was non-existent. Unfortunately, early car models really struggled to navigate over bricks that were often remarkably uneven within blocks of road. So pavement was quickly seen as a better solution, and Detroit jumped on board to get that process started.

Throughout the spring of 1909, construction crews labored hard, and on April 20 of that year, the set-up was complete. For a one-mile stretch between Six Mile Road and Seven Mile Road, Woodward Avenue became paved for car traffic. The whole thing cost about $1,400—with roughly $1,000 in state funds contributing to the budget.^[8]

2 Minnesota: The First Mall

Minnesota leads the way in malls in the modern age with the notorious and incredibly massive Mall of America. The thing is truly huge—bigger and wider and longer than many small towns, and with more people, employees, restaurants, and in-mall amusements to boot. So it should maybe make perfect sense that Minnesota is where mall culture first really exploded in the first few decades after the end of World War II.

Soldiers returned home in and then after 1945, and over the next decade, they all got busy starting families, working jobs, buying homes, and making money. That, in turn, pushed enterprising business executives to create massive and immersive shopping experiences where you could buy nearly everything you could possibly need in one place.

On October 8, 1956, that idea debuted in full in the form of Southdale Center. Set off in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota, Southdale Center was the world’s first-ever fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping center. What we know today as the mall made its notorious debut there in Edina for all to visit and shop within its walls.

Of course, Minnesota winters are very harsh. So the fact that the mall was climate-controlled and totally enclosed meant that people could come there all year round and get whatever they needed. And show up, they did! They showed up in such high numbers that the idea of building a mall soon spread to every other major metropolis across the United States.^[9]

1 Arizona: The First Drive-Thru

The first-ever idea of a fast food drive-thru may have been thought about at various restaurants all across the nation, but Arizona catches the distinction of pioneering the practice. See, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, McDonald’s started thinking about how to better serve a driving-happy population in many markets. First, in Los Angeles and San Diego, franchisees started asking the corporate office about the possibility of putting in drive-thru windows so customers wouldn’t have to get out of their cars.

Executives liked the idea and tinkered with it some. Then, a franchisee in Oklahoma City came to them with the desire to put in the first drive-thru there. That McDonald’s had a perfect drive-up location and plenty of space for a line of cars. There was just one problem: the OKC restaurant badly needed to undergo renovations, so its drive-thru development was put on hold.

But the company still wanted to do the drive-thru idea ASAP. So into that space came a McDonald’s in Sierra Vista, Arizona. That restaurant was just down the road from the Fort Huachuca Army Base. At the time, the restaurant was seeing declining sales because of a then-new Army rule. The base had instituted a policy that soldiers had to stay in their vehicles while off-base when wearing fatigues or Army uniforms.

Because of that, they were not allowed to stop at McDonald’s, get out of their car, and pick up some food. The company realized that would be the perfect set-up to build out a drive-thru window, and so they did. Soon after that, other drive-thru windows popped up all over the United States. And now, it’s so commonplace that we think it’s weird when a McDonald’s doesn’t have a drive-thru window attached!^[10]

For roughly a century, bank robberies have been glorified in the media and on the silver screen. (Think Bonnie and Clyde, Public Enemies, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, to name a few.) The extent to which they have been romanticized in movies, however, can dull one’s sense of the sheer terror of such events.

All the same, bank robberies are very real events in which people can (and do) lose their lives, not to mention the aftereffects on those who survive. The following list takes a historical look at both the early days of bank robbery in the United States as well as inexplicably bizarre and shocking heists that have been largely forgotten.

10 Reconstruction Era

During the Civil War, bank heists were not considered to be robberies but acts of war. Case in point: the St. Albans Raid, which was carried out in Vermont by Confederate soldiers in 1864. Such acts were viewed not only as revenge on the North but as strategic war tactics that pulled Union soldiers from the front lines while simultaneously lining the pockets of an impecunious Confederacy. That all changed on February 13, 1866, when a group of horsemen rode into Liberty, Missouri. On that snowy afternoon, ten to 13 “bushwhacking desperados” raided the Clay County Savings Association, leaving one college student dead.^[2]

In time, the James-Younger Gang would be implicated for the deadly heist, along with an innumerable amount of other fatal robberies. The heist has been noted as the first successful daylight bank robbery during peacetime in American history. As we will see, it most certainly wasn’t the first bank robbery, period.

While Jesse James set his sights on anything and everything—banks, trains, stagecoaches, etc—former Confederate soldiers still held a passionate and unremitting disdain toward the North. This resulted in a series of robberies aimed at banks that held the funds of former Union soldiers. The Northfield Bank in Minnesota, for example, was specifically targeted due to their client Adelbert Ames, a despised former Union general.

9 Age Is Just A Number

In 2018, the Pyramid Federal Credit Union in Tucson was robbed at gunpoint by a career criminal the state of Arizona would not soon forget. The suspect, Robert Francis Krebs, is undoubtedly a rarity in his line of work, given his ripe old age of 80.^[2] After serving more than 30 years in prison for a 1981 bank robbery in which two employees were left handcuffed in a vault, the geriatric bandit was destined to return to his favorite pastime. Surprisingly, the title for “America’s oldest bank robber” actually goes to J.L. Hunter “Red” Rountree, who committed his last heist in 2003 at the age of 91. He died in prison the following year.

Though it’s safe to assume there is a scarcity of gun-wielding great-grandpas, there has been an increase in the United States of robberies conducted by minors. According to FBI statistics, nearly 18,000 boys and about 1,900 girls younger than 18 were arrested for robbery in 2008, amounting to a 38-percent increase in less than a decade.

In 1981, a midtown Manhattan bank was robbed at the hands of a nine-year-old boy. In a risibly creative defense, the child’s attorney argued that he was influenced by television and that he was “only playing” when he aimed the toy gun at the bank teller: “Robert is a victim of shows that are on television, depicting violence and breaking the law.”

8 The Monk

The journey of one of Ireland’s most infamous criminals began at an early age. From jumping over counters in banks to racking up more than 30 convictions before his 18th birthday, Gerry “The Monk” Hutch is credited—albeit disputably—with pulling off two of the biggest heists Ireland has ever seen. In 1987, at the age of 24, Hutch and his crew robbed a Securicor van for £1.7 million, making him enemy number one for the Gardai (the state police force of the Irish Republic).

Such a flattering title, however, did little to deter Hutch, despite the fact that the Gardai preferred shooting armed robbers as opposed to apprehending them. The Monk’s biggest score would come in 1995, when he made off with IR£3 million from Brinks Allied in Dublin. Throughout the years, the Gardai did everything in their power to capture Hutch, and even then, prosecuting the criminal mastermind seemed fruitless given the lack of evidence.^[3]

Eager for a conviction and with little to go on, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) targeted Hutch for money laundering in 1999. Hutch eventually reached a settlement with the CAB. These days, he lives a more quiet life as a businessman with a taxi fleet and property interests.

7 Gladbeck

The Deutsche Bank robbery in Gladbeck will forever be the epitome of abysmal failure pertaining to the handling of a hostage crisis. It all began in West Germany on August 16, 1988, when Dieter Degowski and Hans-Jurgen Rosner held the bank’s employees captive in what has now become known as “The Gladbeck Hostage Drama.” Over the next three days, the antics of the murderous duo became a public spectacle with the help of eager reporters determined to make a name for themselves.

The media’s extraordinary access to the crime in progress not only hindered police involvement but indisputably allowed the incident to escalate. While millions watched on television, the two men gave impromptu interviews as if they were movie stars, all while holding guns to the heads of their quivering hostages. Fifty-four hours after the start of the madness, Degowski and Rosner were in custody, while victims Emanuele di Giorgi, 15, and Silke Bischoff, 18, lay dead in the street.^[4] One police officer had also been killed.

It became evident, only after the horrifying end result, that the journalists clearly overstepped their boundaries. Their involvement and behavior were deemed “unethical,” spurring the German Press Council to rewrite their own guidelines. Due to this, reporters in Germany are no longer allowed to interview hostage takers, negotiate on their behalf, or intervene in any crime in progress—guidelines that were too little, too late for three people.

6 Hasty Getaway

At 10:30 AM on August 13, 1909, two men entered the Santa Clara Valley Bank armed with revolvers. Staring down the barrels of their guns, the cashier had no choice but to hand over $7,000 in gold to the unmasked bandits. Just as swiftly as they arrived, they were gone, out the front door and into an awaiting car. Nevertheless, the feeling of jubilation was fleeting, given that the automobile broke down 1.6 kilometers (1 mi) out of town. Taking off on foot, the two men and their getaway driver were soon overtaken by a posse led by the sheriff, chief of police, and a pissed off mob of citizens. That hot August morning in 1909 became the first bank robbery in which the culprits used an automobile as a means of escape.^[5]

Two years later on December 21, 1911, the Bonnot Gang would employ the automobile for their expedited route to freedom. The notorious band of anarchist murderers and thieves struck terror into the hearts of Parisians, killing anyone who stood in their way. Seeing as the automobile was a guaranteed method to elude authorities, who relied on horses, the men were determined to get their hands on a vehicle. Their opportunity arrived on a desolate open road far from society when a De Dion-Bouton limousine crossed their path.

As mercilessly as was to be expected, the men executed both the driver and the passenger before heading into town to pull off the perfect heist. In spite of being pursued by authorities and locals much like in Santa Clara, the revving engine of the limousine, along with the Bonnot Gang’s firepower, allowed them their lives and freedom, both of which would be short-lived. This incident is considered the first successful use of a getaway car in a bank robbery.

5 16-Millimeter

With fantasies of getting rich, Steven Ray Thomas and Wanda DiCenzi calmly walked into the St. Clair Savings & Loan Co. with nothing but a measly, yet convincing, starter pistol. It was April 12, 1957, when Thomas, 24, and DiCenzi, 18, made off with $2,376 to an awaiting getaway car driven by 18-year-old Rose O’Donnell. The brazen holdup would have been nearly flawless, had it not been for the hidden 16-millimeter camera capturing the culprits on film for the world to see. Before then, surveillance technology was primarily for military use and unheard-of in public settings, thus making the crime the first bank robbery ever captured on film.

Less than 24 hours later, the Cleveland bank heist became international news, with still shots of Thomas and DiCenzi plastered on the front pages of newspapers throughout the United States. In a panic, Thomas fled town, making it to Indianapolis before coming to the realization that his hopes of a successful escape were futile. Collapsing to the pressure of their inevitable capture, all three voluntarily surrendered to authorities within days of the robbery. Following Thomas’s sentencing in October 1957, headlines read “Star Gets 10-to-25.” Meanwhile, both women were given probation. Ironically, the camera that opened the door for a new kind of law enforcement had been installed the day before the robbery.^[6]

4 Edward Green

On December 15, 1863, in Malden, Massachusetts, a bitter drunkard with heavy debts walked into the Malden Bank to exchange a torn dollar bill for a new one. Noticing that he and the bank teller, 17-year-old Frank E. Converse, were the only ones present, Edward Green formulated a plan to end his financial troubles.

Green returned home, retrieved his pistol, and immediately headed back to the bank. Without a moment’s notice, he raised his gun and shot the young man in the center of his head at point-blank range. Following the ruthless murder, Green made off with $5,000, spurring a nationwide manhunt. The crime would go unsolved for some time.

By early winter the following year, locals took notice that Green had begun to pay off his debts. Chatter throughout the community ultimately led to an investigation. Authorities ascertained that he had paid off a two-year debt of $700. An examination of the bills Green used later revealed that they were from the Malden Bank, sealing his fate.

Upon his arrest, Edward Green confessed to murdering the teenager and robbing the bank. Two years later, on April 13, 1866, the murderous drunk met his fate at the gallows, becoming the first armed bank robber to be hanged in the United States.^[7]

3 False Imprisonment

On the night of August 31, 1798, an unbelievable sum of $162,821 was stolen from the Bank of Pennsylvania at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia. Police immediately suspected blacksmith Pat Lyon as the culprit, given that he had changed the locks to the iron vault the day prior. When word reached Lyon that he was the prime suspect, he immediately turned himself in to authorities in order to clear his name. During a lengthy interrogation, the blacksmith spoke about his own suspicions concerning a “stranger” loitering around the bank the day before the heist. With the police certain that it was an inside job, Lyon was arrested and sent to the Walnut Street Prison.

Interestingly enough, the stranger Lyon spoke about was arrested soon after. The conspirator, Isaac Davis, was able to gain access to the inside of the bank with the help of his accomplice, Thomas Cunningham, who slept in Carpenter’s Hall the night of the robbery. Within days of their thievery, Cunningham succumbed to yellow fever, leaving all the loot in Davis’s possession. What would have been the perfect heist—a deceased accomplice and another man taking the fall—ended in a comically pea-brained fashion; Davis had the bright idea to deposit the stolen money into the very bank he’d robbed it from.

Upon his foreseeable arrest, the harebrained burglar gave a full confession and made a deal to return all the money with the promise of a pardon. Soon after, Davis was once again a free man. Meanwhile, Pat Lyon remained in prison. After he’d spent nearly three months imprisoned in harsh conditions, law officers grudgingly agreed to release him. A grand jury officially cleared Lyon the following year, and in 1805, he won a civil case for false imprisonment and was awarded $12,000. In the end, the Bank of Pennsylvania at Carpenters’ Hall will be remembered as being the first bank robbery in the United States of America.^[8]

2 Postwar Japan

On January 26, 1948, a man identifying himself as a health inspector entered the Imperial Bank in Tokyo and deceived 16 people into drinking poison. Within minutes, the unsuspecting victims were writhing on the floor as the callous killer raided the bank, stealing cash and checks. By the end of the heist, 12 had succumbed to the toxic effects.^[9] It took six grueling months for police to make an arrest. Their suspect, Sadamichi Hirasawa, matched the description of the murderer, his handwriting was similar to an endorsement on a stolen check, he had a record of unexplained bank deposits, and, ultimately, he confessed.

Over the years, however, Hirasawa gained a growing number of supporters who maintained that the United States was behind the brutal plot. Many believed that the culprit was a member of the Japanese army—which was protected by US military authorities. Theories circulated that the robbery was a ploy in order to conduct experiments for the military’s germ warfare unit. The unfounded notion only strengthened following Hirasawa’s recanting of his confession. Despite incessant legal battles for his release, 18 petitions for a new trial were rejected, along with five for a pardon. After 32 years on death row, Hirasawa died of pneumonia in 1987 at the age of 95.

1 Bizarre Phenomenon

“The party has just begun!” exclaimed Jan-Erik Olsson after discharging a submachine gun into the ceiling at Sveriges Kreditbanken in Stockholm, Sweden. It was August 23, 1973, when the brazen robber took four bank employees hostage. The incident would ultimately bring to light a condition that would baffle psychiatric experts for years to come.

The demands were straightforward: more than $700,000 in Swedish and foreign currency, a getaway car, and the release of a fellow bank robber and cop killer, Clark Olofsson. Within hours, the demands were met. In the meanttime, the hostages, cramped up in a vault, began forging a bond with Olsson as well as Olofsson, who was permitted inside the bank. By the following day, everyone was on a first-name basis. Perhaps it was the compassion the men showed toward their captives, such as draping a wool coat over a shivering Kristin Enmark, consoling a petrified Birgitta Lundblad, and allowing Elisabeth Oldren to leave the vault when claustrophobia set in. In time, the hostages began fearing the police more than their captors.

Five days after the ordeal began, tear gas was pumped into the vault, prompting the surrender of the two perpetrators. Standing in the vault’s doorway prior to the men’s arrest, the four hostages embraced, kissed, and shook hands with Olsson and Olofsson as tears streamed down their faces. Even after the two were imprisoned, their former hostages made jailhouse visits. According to psychiatrists, the four became emotionally indebted to their captors for being spared death. Months later, psychiatrists officially dubbed the bizarre phenomenon Stockholm Syndrome.^[10]

Adam is just a hubcap trying to hold on in the fast lane.

McDonald’s used to advertise under the Golden Arches just how many burgers they’d sold. Until the mid-90s, they would update this sign regularly, but they stopped counting around 99 billion. That’s great and all, but do you ever wonder who ate the first McDonald’s burger? We make a big deal out of firsts – first phone call, first man on the moon, even your first kiss. But some firsts are a little more obscure than others and more unexpected.

10. Evidence of the First Murder Dates Back 430,000 Years

With the popularity of True Crime stories and podcasts these days, it’s worth looking at what has to be the oldest murder mystery in history. The world’s first murder victim dates back 430,000 years. 

In 2015, a skull was discovered inside a Spanish cave. Someone had bashed the victim’s head in with some kind of foreign object, and when the bones were dated to 430,000 BC, it seemed clear that this might be the world’s first murder victim. 

Scientists cannot determine how old the victim might have been, the sex of the victim, or even what species of human it was. The skull predates homo sapiens, so this unlucky person was one of our ancestors. They could determine that some foreign object had been used to smash the skull, like an awl or an axe. 

9. The Mowing Devil Was the First Known Reference to Crop Circles in 1678

Crop circles have appeared throughout the 20th and 21st centuries but have become much more widespread and complex in the last few decades. Research also indicates that they are not as random as they seem and often appear near roads, medium-sized towns, and easy-to-access places.

The origin of crop circles goes back further than most people realize. The first recorded circles were mentioned in 1678. A tale called The Mowing Devil, about the devil mowing a farmer’s oats included crop circles as a major plot point and even had pictures. In the story, the devil cuts down the field of oats in a circle pattern, laying every stalk perfectly on the ground to show off his skill and ability by doing something no man could ever do. 

8. An Accountant From Sumeria Is The First Person To Have Ever Recorded Their Own Name

This first is one of the most obscure and unusual you’ll ever come across. It’s the story of an ancient Sumerian accountant named Kushim and why we even know his name. 

Kushim lived in the city of Uruk between 3400 and 3000 BC. He was counting barley and made an error in his accounts, which he signed with his own name. So he was a bad accountant if you just check his math. But more importantly, he signed his name when no one’s name was written on anything that survived. 

While many historical figures are named in books you can read today, people recorded them after Kushim had put his own name into the historical record. Even Kings and rulers were only named somewhere after the Kushim Tablet was written.

7. Henry VIII May Have Been the First Catfish Victim in 1539 

Catfishing is the term we use to describe a situation where a person online pretends to be someone they’re not. Often this is used in scams or fake romance situations where this false persona takes in an innocent person. They may end up sending money to this fake person, or sometimes even going to meet them in person, then discovering they’re nothing like who they said they were. MTV even made a TV show about it.

Modern catfishing is heavily dependent on computers to work. People will talk via text and never see each other’s faces for any number of reasons. The catfish can claim to live far away, so they never need to meet and only send stolen photographs to attempt to verify who they are.

Historically, there have been instances of what could be considered catfishing well before the Advent of computers. The earliest and most famous example of this occurred in 1539 when Henry VIII chose to marry Anne of Cleves after seeing a portrait of her and hearing of her beauty. Upon seeing her in person, he is quoted as saying, “I see nothing in this woman as men have reported of her.”

The prevailing theory is that Henry was repulsed by his wife-to-be, but it was too late to cancel the wedding, and he had to go forward with it despite her not resembling her portrait. The truth may be far more complex. Alternate theories that she had already given birth once, that Henry was impotent and couldn’t consummate, or that being with her wasn’t politically beneficial by the time she arrived have all been offered up for why the marriage was annulled after six months.

6. The First Recorded Gay Couple May Have Been in Ancient Egypt

Gay rights are still a hot button issue for some people, but gay couples are far from new. The first record of a gay couple that we have access to, at least in the eyes of many scholars, dates back to Ancient Egypt. Two men, Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, were royal court manicurists in the city of Saqqara in 2400 BC. They were buried together, nose to nose, in an embrace, in a tomb like any other married couple. The pair were originally considered brothers.

The way the men were buried is not consistent with siblings. Writing and images in the tomb place Khnumhotep in the position normally reserved for wives. The two men are seen embracing, holding hands, and possibly kissing. The names of the men are also used in a way that could indicate being joined in life and death.

Evidence shows that at least one of the men had a wife and children, so not everyone agrees that the men were a couple. But just as it’s never explicitly stated they were lovers, nothing says brothers, either. We can never say for sure that this was a same-sex couple, but the evidence for it is still strong.

5. The First Recorded Strike by Workers Happened in 1152 BC

It is safe to assume that people have been unhappy about working for as long as people have been working. Especially if you work for someone else. There will always be a problem or a dispute between employer and employee. And when this gets bad enough, the result will be a strike by workers looking to improve their situation. While unions in the modern era are usually what we think of when we hear that workers are going on strike, the concept is much older than that.

The first evidence we have of workers going on strike dates back to 1152 BC. Artisans working at the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina under Pharoah Ramses III were fed up and went on strike to make their feelings known. 

Egypt was in something of an economic downturn at the time. They had just won their third war against the mysterious Sea Peoples but suffered great losses. The country was less wealthy than it had been in previous eras, and the war had likely cost them many laborers and farmers. The Pharaoh had sent out armies to raid other lands to replenish the country’s resources, but they had come up shorter than anticipated.

The cost of refurbishing ancient temples and monuments would have greatly strained the country’s economy in these lean times, but Ramses wanted them in accordance with tradition. Artisans working on these projects and preparing for a massive celebration in honor of the Pharoah’s 30th anniversary in power found themselves getting paid late. 

Late payments became commonplace until finally, after waiting 18 days for payment, the workers refused to work any longer. 

4. First Recorded Use of Dirty Words for Genitallia Date Back to 1230

The first recorded use of the F-word goes back to 1310. Fart, though generally less offensive, was still somewhat bawdy, which goes back to 1250. We know what a fart is and generally know what people mean by context when they use the F-word, but what about offensive words with specific meanings? Which is to say, the use of dirty words to describe human genitalia.

The oldest written reference to human genitals using modern dirty words takes us all the way back to 1230. A street in Oxford in England used the most diabolical of terms – the c-word. The street, known to be a place to procure prostitutes, was named and recorded as Gropec* Lane. Our ancestors were not a classy lot.

On the male side, the word bollocks, or in this case ballocks, can be traced to 1360. Various slang terms for male genitalia, such as the other c-word, only go back to references in the 15th century.  

3. First Pizza Delivery Happened in 1889

Americans eat three billion pizzas per year. Not all of it is delivery, but a lot of it is. The convenience of someone bringing it to your house went a long way to making it a staple of the American diet. Remember, home food delivery was dominated by pizza and Chinese food for decades before other restaurants got on board.

The first pizza delivery dates back to 1889. So the story goes, King Umberto I and Queen Margherita were in Naples, and the Queen wanted something different to eat. Pizza chef Raffael Esposito made up three pizzas on the spot and hand-delivered them because, of course, the King and Queen weren’t going out to a pizza place for dinner. 

This was also the origin of the Margherita pizza, as the chef made one to resemble the Italian flag featuring mozzarella, basil, and tomato which the queen liked the most.

2. First “Yo Momma” Joke Was On a 3,500-Year-Old Babylonian Tablet

Not so long ago, archaeologists determined that the first joke in history was a fart joke from Sumeria. They dated it to around 1900 BC. Thus began a tradition of making people laugh with crass humor that still exists today. Just a short 400 years later, and the Babylonians gave us the world’s first “yo momma” joke.

The year was 1500 BC, give or take a few decades, and someone wrote a series of riddles on a tablet. None of the surviving and translated riddles make much sense or are very entertaining, but that’s not the interesting part. The very last would-be riddle is incomplete due to damage. What remained was the line “..of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What/who is it?”

You don’t need to know the rest of what was written to appreciate that it had to be an insult about someone’s mother. 

1. The First Known Author Was a Woman Named Enheduanna

The oldest written story we know about is the Epic of Gilgamesh, dating back to around 2000 BC. Beowulf is the oldest epic poem in English, though the English it uses looks far different than our modern language. Both of these stories have a lack of authorship in common. We don’t know who wrote them. The first author we do know about is a woman named Enheduanna, who wrote back around 2300 BC.

A poet and priestess, Enheduanna hailed from Mesopotamia and was the daughter of the Akkadian king Sargon. When she was appointed high priestess of a moon goddess, she began writing poetry, some of which survived on an alabaster disk discovered in 1927. The disk had a likeness of her and her name on the back. Her name means “Ornament of Heaven,” and she wrote three poems and 42 hymns that we know of.