Dance is an important facet of a culture, so it’s no surprise that some dances have extremely rich and unique histories. Many emerged not from the joyous celebrations where they would later be performed but from much darker times of a people’s past.

Dance was a way to escape oppression or to express oneself when society silenced you. And even when a dance is just fun and games, some people still find a way to twist it into something it was never meant to be.

10 Gumboot Dancing

During the apartheid period of South Africa’s history when racial segregation laws were instituted purely to keep whites in power, black mine workers were forced to toil in dangerous conditions. Aside from many mines forbidding their workers from even speaking to each other, the white mine owners deemed it cost-inefficient to deal with the mines’ flooding problems. Instead, they gave their workers gumboots (rubber boots) to avoid health problems that would prevent them from working.

Not being able to speak was an impediment to work, and the employees quickly devised a Morse code style system to communicate by slapping their boots with their hands to send messages. It seemed to have been catchy because the workers eventually developed this system of slapping their gumboots into a style of dance.

The miners came from diverse parts of Africa to work, so a variety of cultures added to the creation of gumboot dancing. Tribal costumes were outlawed during that dark time in South Africa’s history, but the movements of the traditional dances were incorporated into a style that flourished into a new kind of dance.^[1]

Dancing was not under the rules that mine operators controlled. As a result, songs were also incorporated into the style as it developed into the whole body dance that it is today.

9 The Dance Of Death?

The dutty wine is a dance started in Jamaica that involves wild gyrations of the neck. The dance is so intense that some Jamaican doctors are cautioning would-be dutty winers not to perform it. Physicians say that the dance, particularly the neck twirling, causes too much stress on the spine and can harm to the dancer.

Some doctors say that the dance may be performed without issue with appropriate training, but others maintain that the movements are dangerous no matter how much physical preparation the dancer has done. They warn that the dance places too much strain on the neck and spine to walk away without injury.

Nevertheless, the dance grew in popularity when Jamaican DJ Tony Matterhorn created a song of the same name. The dance spread beyond Jamaica and eventually overseas, where Beyonce also used it in one of her videos.^[2]

This happened despite rumors that the dutty wine was the cause of one 18-year-old’s death. Allegedly, she was doing the dutty wine when she died in a dance house. However, it is unclear if the dance itself was responsible for her death or if the blame lay elsewhere.

8 The Hokey Pokey
200 Years Old And Hotly Contested

It is odd that “The Hokey Pokey” (aka “The Hokey Cokey”) would be anything but a simple, fun song that everyone knows, enjoys, and does a little dance to. But it actually has a long, complicated, and contested history.

One of the earliest versions of the song was the “Hinkumbooby,” a Scottish folk song mentioned in the 1826 Popular Rhymes of Scotland. This variation was similar to the modern song, and other versions were likewise created throughout the years.

Some people even claim that “The Hokey Pokey” was not fun and games at all but a mockery of Catholic mass. They say that the name actually came from “hocus pocus.” But it was only when songwriters in the UK and the US claimed it as their own that things really got heated.

On the eastern side of the Atlantic, a legal battle erupted after two men each claimed that they had written a song called “The Hokey Cokey.” Both said that they originally called it “The Hokey Pokey” but changed the name when a Canadian soldier suggested that the word “cokey” would be better than “pokey” because it was Canadian slang for “crazy.”^[3]

The legal battle was settled out of court.

Similarly, another lawsuit ensued in the United States between two different groups claiming to have written “The Hokey Pokey.” This battle apparently ended with the royalties being shared.

7 The Hula Is A Story

While movies often depict hula in a stereotypical way, grass skirts, coconut bras, and swaying hips do not capture what hula truly is. Ancient hula was accompanied by chanted poetry, and each gesture of the dance held deep meaning.

It was the sacred text of the Hawaiian people written in movement, a traditional method of passing legends and shared histories down from generation to generation. Hula is a story.

Hula was banned by the missionaries who landed on the island in the 1800s. They considered it a pagan practice and condemned it. Soon, hula and native Hawaiian culture in general was slowly dying away until a cultural explosion in the 1970s revived the traditional dance.

There are now two types of hula. Hula kahiko hearkens back to the traditional methods, using percussion instruments and chants that tell stories of the old ways and gods. Hula ‘auana is the kind more familiar to contemporary culture, with the graceful movements performed to more modern instruments.^[4]

Regardless of which style is performed—and there are many subdivisions—hula was never intended to be a simple dance. It is a spiritual exercise of telling the story of one’s heart, which is perhaps why it now has so many practitioners around the world.

6 Dance Or Brawl?

The tinku is Bolivia’s national dance. It has its origins in a tradition where different communities would gather in a designated area to release tensions by beginning a dance that erupted into a ritualized brawl.

The tinku involved forming circles of dances separated by gender. It began at a fast pace, transitioned into a stomp, and finally transformed into ritualized combat. Any blood spilled was seen as an offering to the gods for a good harvest. And any deaths, which occasionally occurred due to the nature of the festival, were likewise seen as a sacrifice.

The modern-day tinku looks somewhat similar to the original practice except that the combat has (ideally) been toned down to ritualistic combat-like movements. However, the festival where the tinku is performed usually involves heavy drinking, and tensions between communities or neighbors can still turn from dance into a brawl.^[5]

Tourists who visit Bolivia during the festival period have said that while the tinku was indeed a spectacle, it was not one they wish to repeat. Tensions can run high during the period for anyone, and it has been advised not to make any provocative gestures lest visitors risk getting caught up in the tinku themselves.

5 The Chicken Dance Is Not A Chicken Dance

Most people know the silly, wordless (but not always) “Chicken Dance” song popular at parties. But no one actually knows who first called it the chicken dance. Originally, it was not associated with chickens in any way.

Initially called “The Duck Dance,” it was composed by Swiss accordion player Werner Thomas who performed it for patrons at his local restaurant. Spontaneous dancing erupted from those who listened, so Thomas eventually incorporated more birdlike movements and renamed it “Tchirp-Tchirp” after the sound of birds.

Even though it was a hit in his town, the song languished in obscurity until a Dutch publisher took a liking to it, added words, and spread it across Europe. Even then it was not a “chicken dance.” Instead, it was called “Little Bird Dance” or “Birdie Dance.”

Both in Europe and the US, the dance had a history of being thrown around until finally making it big and becoming famous after years of modest acclaim. Publisher Stanley Mills acquired the publishing rights in the US, but he only called it “Dance Little Bird” because that title sounded more commercial than “Little Bird Dance,” as it was known in Europe.

Mills also added English lyrics to the song, but they never really caught on. It wasn’t until a record label called up Mills about the “Chicken Dance” that it acquired its popular name, seemingly out of thin air.^[6]

4 The Sacred Dance Outlawed By The British

The female costumes of the Manipuri dance can be unique. Some are long, stiff skirts decorated with gold, silver, and mirrors that give dancers the appearance of wearing fashionable barrels. The spinning motions of the dancers can have an almost mesmerizing effect.

The dance experts of the Manipuri region were known as “Gandharvas” in ancient Vedic texts. They used their dances to celebrate Hindu values and spirituality.

This was why Christian missionaries actively discouraged the dance once the Manipuri region came under British colonial rule. The government soon outlawed all dancing in Hindu temples in the hopes of stopping spiritual and cultural dances like the Manipuri dance.

Nevertheless, the dance survived in secret. Once the Indian freedom movement took hold, it was revived alongside many others. Although many Indian dances once again became public traditions, the Manipuri dance in particular received help when the Nobel Prize–winning author Rabindranath Tagore became entranced by it.^[7]

He invited a famed Manipuri dancer to join him at an Indian cultural and study center. The Manipuri dances were dance-dramas that told ancient Hindu tales, and his work helped rekindle interest in and knowledge of the old ways.

3 Physically Integrated Dance

Physically integrated dance is not what people imagine when they think of dance. It uses people with and without disabilities who share the same stage and dance to the same piece of choreography. Whereas some might imagine the dancer with a disability playing a lesser role, physically integrated dance creates a choreography where all dancers’ unique traits are expressed.

There are many types of physically integrated dance, with styles ranging from traditional ballet to modern contemporary. The dances are like showcases of different body types (though not in a pitying or exploitative way). They are journeys into what each can do.

The dance often poses a challenge for both the critics and audience. Critics do not want to criticize performers who are disabled, and dance troupes like The GIMP Project challenge the audience with monologues detailing what viewers may be thinking when they watch the performance.^[8]

The style of dance was not built to “make up for” disabilities but to use them to create new forms of dance that are not possible under normal circumstances. For example, a dancer without legs will work with another performer to create a unique type of aerial silk act.

Despite this, directors of the dance companies often run into those who pity the disabled dancers and do not hold them to the same standards of others in their field.

2 “La Cucaracha” Has No Standard Lyrics

The origins of “La Cucaracha” (“The Cockroach”) is anything but clear. While most attribute it to Mexico, that is only where it gained popularity, especially with folk dancing. Some books have it dating back to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain. Others record it being carried across the Atlantic Ocean to Mexico by Spanish Marines.

The song is primarily associated with Mexico because it was used by both sides of the Mexican Revolution as propaganda (and probably just to pass the time).

The lyrics of “La Cucaracha” were modified according to the values of the people who sang it. It was often heavily influenced by the events of the time period in which it was sung. This was especially true of political events.^[9]

The lyrics tend to focus on one person—the “cockroach” from which the song gets its name. Whoever the cockroach is determines the lyrics, which are metaphors for whatever nefarious dealings the singer/songwriter believes to be going on.

With such an extensive history, the song has gone through a lot of revisions. It may be better to think of “La Cucaracha” as an oral history of displeasure with political figures (and anyone else who happens to be in charge).

1 Affranchi
The Dance That Came Full Circle

When the French colonized Haiti, they enslaved the locals and put them to work on plantations. The enslaved Haitians were banned from publicly performing European dances, but their slave masters would still have them perform their native African dances for the masters’ amusement.

After the slave revolt of 1804, class barriers began to crumble and Europeans began intermarrying with women of African descent. The descendants of these common-law marriages were known as Affranchi and created a new style of Haitian dance.

The Affranchi (folk dance) was named after the new class that created it. It incorporated some movements from their enslaved ancestors, but their rhythmic movements were more reserved than the dances that were once secretly performed to drumbeats of voodoo ceremonies.

Although the final stage of the dance was freestyle, they wanted to retain what they saw as European poise. The Affranchi dance remained largely based on European dance structures that incorporated African elements.^[10]

It was a prestigious class of dancing. As it spread beyond Haiti and moved into modern times, Affranchi began to incorporate a greater range of movements. More of the original African elements were reincorporated, including voodoo drumbeats and a greater link to Haitian heritage. It became more than something emphasizing European structures. It was now a dance associated with Haiti itself.

Mike lives on the East Coast and pays too much for beach parking.

You may think that the elderly are inferior in every way and do nothing but drag society down. Well, get ready to throw all preconceptions out the window as research shows us just how awesome they really are.

10They Handle Stress Better Than Young People

Contrary to our view of elderly people as cranky old coots, findings say they actually exhibit a more optimistic outlook on life than their younger peers. Not only that, they can deal with stressful life events far better, readily accepting the outcome with less anger or anxiety.

Researcher Mary Shallcross explains these findings by noting that people acquire a wealth of experience in dealing with life’s unpleasantness over time. Thus, the older a person becomes, the more readily they accept the outcome of unpleasant events such as the deaths of loved ones.

However, this ability reaches its end with truly advanced age. In the final years of life, emotional health deteriorates.

9Overweight Seniors Live Longer

The elderly, just like everyone else, should strive to be healthy. But according to an Ohio State University study, older adults (especially those in their fifties) are actually better off with a few extra pounds on their waistlines.

Assistant sociology professor Hui Zheng found that slightly heavier adults outlive their slimmer peers of the same age range. Older people are more susceptible to disease and its accompanying weight loss. The few extra pounds could help stave off a potentially life-threatening loss of weight. Not only that, the extra weight would serve as a sort of emergency food supply for old people too sick to eat.

However, Zheng warns that the benefits apply only to slightly overweight people who maintain their weight. Overweight people who continue to pack on the pounds as they grow even older risk dying a lot earlier.

8Nostalgia Is Therapeutic

Ever had that grandpa or grandma who keeps telling you stories about the “good ol’ days?” If so, we’d forgive you for a natural hatred of nostalgia. Defined as a melancholic reflection on past events, nostalgia acquired a bad rap originally. It was first viewed as a medical disease in the 17th century and then a psychiatric disorder in the 20th century. However, modern researchers have found that nostalgia is actually beneficial, especially for the elderly.

University of Southampton psychologist Constantine Sedikide, notes that modern researchers are just really beginning to find out the psychological benefits of nostalgia. For one, it can help to battle the effects of loneliness, increasing an individual’s self-esteem. It can also serve as a bridge from the past to the present, keeping people in touch with reality and giving meaning to their lives.

7Old People Helped Mankind Evolve

The elderly have been instrumental to mankind’s evolution. According to anthropologist Rachel Caspari and her colleague Sang-Hee Lee, human evolution took a huge leap forward more than 30,000 years ago, specifically during a certain time period that saw a four-fold increase in the number of people going into old age.

Although the exact cause still remains unclear, the anthropologists speculate that the population explosion occurred when people decided to keep the old folks around to tend to their children and homes while the parents were out hunting and gathering. As a result, the survival rate of the elderly increased substantially.

With more and more old people settling down together, ideas and experiences could be shared and exchanged, resulting in a significant spread of information that would be felt by future generations. As Lee puts it, old people became the figurative computer hard drives for early mankind.

6They Still Get Plenty Of Sex

The idea that old people live a sex-free life couldn’t be any further from the truth. According to a 2013 study done in the US, the elderly enjoy far more sexy time than any of us would have ever imagined. For example, more than 50 percent of interviewees belonging to the 57–75 age bracket reported giving or receiving oral sex, while one-third of those in the 75–85 range reported indulging in the act.

As significant as the study was for breaking stereotypes, it also opened a can of worms: elderly STDs. According to the CDC, the number of geriatrics acquiring STDs has risen since 2007, mainly because of lack of education in using safety measures. Public health expert Emmanuel Ezekiel encourages health professionals to assist the elderly with sex education since sex comes naturally for people living in close proximity (in retirement homes, for example).

5Their Driving Has Improved Greatly

Good news to all users of the road: A 2012 study by the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that accidents and crashes involving older drivers have significantly decreased in the last decade. Those who do get in accidents are now far more likely to survive with fewer injuries.

Since 1997, older driver fatalities have dropped by 42 percent, supported with a similar decrease in non-fatal incidents. For the Institute, this was a surprising find, since they expected that the ever-increasing elderly population would create more accidents on the road.

This positive trend could be attributed to modern cars being generally safer than previous models. Another critical factor is the improving physical and mental health of the elderly, which have helped to curb the number of accidents.

4They Could Be The Key To World Peace

The Roman Empire had a long period of peace called the Pax Romana, and some say that we’ll soon have our own version, thanks to our elderly.

Mark Haas from Harvard’s International Security Program notes that a rapidly aging population will force the United States to spend more of its budget on pensions and healthcare for the elderly instead of on tanks and aircraft. The foreseeable future will still see the US as the dominant economic and military power because rival countries including Russia and China will be hit even harder by the aging trend.

Supporters of the US’s current foreign policy say that the forced “Pax Geriatrica” will have its downsides. The US will be less able to police the world and intervene in localized conflicts. Decreased military and security spending could also leave the US more vulnerable to renegade terrorist attacks.

3Our Genes Command Us To Respect Them

We don’t just respect our elders out of good manners and maturity. We may be programmed to.

In 2010, France’s University of Rennes closely observed communication habits among a group of Campbell’s monkeys. The team noted that that older monkeys who called out tended to be answered more often, even though they communicated far less often than the younger ones. This indicated that the older monkeys—because of their greater experience in survival and higher rank in the social hierarchy—were far more influential in the group, leading younger monkeys to pay more attention to them.

Some may interpret the findings as a sociological phenomenon rather than a biological one, and some may think the results only extend to the study subjects. But the researchers conclude that respect for elders is as an evolutionary trait, which may be found generally in all primates, including humans.

2Their Brains Work Slower (Only Because They’re Full Of Wisdom)

While we young whippersnappers crack jokes at how excruciatingly slowly old people think and speak, they only do that because their brains have stored so much information. Combined with the fact that their brains need less dopamine than before, old people are also more thoughtful and far less likely to act on impulse than their younger peers. The elderly can still process new information, albeit at a slower pace for the same reason that they speak slowly.

These unique characteristics of an aging brain make up what researchers believe to be the biological root of wisdom. As University of Dallas Center for Vital Longevity’s Denise Park summarizes, “There’s a reason why we don’t have 20-year-olds running the world.”

1Older Workers Outperform Younger Peers

To learn how often cognitive performance fluctuates among workers, Berlin’s Max Planck Institute for Human Development divided participants into two groups based on their age range (20–31 and 65–80). All participants performed a series of cognitive tasks repeatedly for 100 days.

The older group’s cognitive performance varied much less than those in the younger group. In other words, they did their work more consistently. The researchers attributed the old workers’ steady performance to their being more emotionally stable as well as being more experienced to handle the various tasks.

Marc V. is always open for a conversation, so do drop him a line sometime.

Everyone has heard of the world’s most famous slums: Hell’s Kitchen, Skid Row, most of Detroit, etc. But there are slums everywhere, even in the last places you would expect to find urban decay. Sometimes, the causes of the deplorable conditions found there are also unexpected.

10Vancouver, British Columbia’s Downtown Eastside

Consistently voted one of the world’s best cities to live in by travel magazines, Vancouver is known for its scenic views and beautiful architecture. Just east of Main Street, however, lies one of the very worst examples of urban squalor in the modern day.

The downtown eastside is the poorest urban postal code in all of Canada. It’s home to thousands of drug addicts, many of whom are HIV-positive. Weirdly enough, many of those afflicted with the deadly disease are huddled within an 18-block radius. Hepatitis C cases are also too numerous to count. The thriving Hastings Street Market, where stolen goods are openly sold, operates along the main drag.

Theft, prostitution, murder, and mental illness plague the district, and the homeless and disenfranchised can be found everywhere within the blighted area. The infamous Robert Pickton found most of his victims in this area, as the transient nature of its population made them easy targets.

Despite massive efforts at renewal and clean-up over the years, conditions on the eastside only seem to get worse. Many continue to fall into the drug-riddled lifestyle surrounding them, only to disappear within a few years and never be heard from again. An excellent documentary about the truly horrific conditions of the downtown eastside called Pain and Wastings was made in 2008.

9Canada Real, Madrid

Over 16 kilometers in length, Canada Real Galiana is Europe’s largest shantytown, home to over 30,000 people. Situated right next to Madrid’s garbage incineration site, the area’s residents can often be seen picking through the refuse to scrounge up usable goods to resell or use themselves.

Most of the homes in the area were built by the residents themselves, often from whatever scraps of wood and metal they could find within the desolation. The area is Spain’s drug capital, and a busy stretch of the only paved road is known as a “shooting gallery,” where all sorts of illegal substances can be bought. The people who have the misfortune to call this area home are trapped, receiving no assistance and no official recognition from their government.

Spanish authorities have even taken steps to demolish the area entirely, knocking down the homes of people who have known no other way of life. Left with no resources and nowhere to go, these people simply raid the demolition sites where the scraps of their previous homes are dumped and rebuild what was torn down. Should they have no luck, they are often left to squat in the hole in the ground where their home once was.

Local social workers often try to help the residents but have to do so on their own time and with little notice, as the area is essentially “no man’s land” in the eyes of the government. Only a few dozen people try to reach out to the families of this slum, and due to its bulging population, help is scarce indeed. For now, the area is seen only as a problem to be concealed if not eradicated.

8Colonias in Texas

Found in various parts of Texas and the American Southwest, the communities that form the sprawling shantytowns known as colonias consist mainly of Hispanic people. Some have come from Mexico to America seeking a better life, while others have been born in the colonias and know nothing else of the outside world. Just under 2,300 of these makeshift communities exist along the border and around the state, home to an estimated 500,000 people. Since the majority of those who live in these communities are undocumented residents and transient in nature, getting an official headcount is nearly impossible.

Most of these communities sprang up in the 1950s, rising from plots of land that were sold to desperate immigrants looking for a better life. For the most part, these poor communities remain as they were initially formed: shantytowns with no real infrastructure. In some communities, well-built homes equipped with running water and electricity can be found, but this type of dwelling is still very rare. The residents eke out meager livings as farm laborers or construction hands.

To their credit, the American government and legislators in Texas have both proposed laws protecting these communities and provided them with resources. Unfortunately, the overwhelming scale of the task and complications of carrying it out still prove challenging.

7Mahwa Aser, Yemen

Found next to Sana’a, the capital city of Yemen, the area known as Mahwa Aser is one of the poorest and most dangerous on Earth. Home to the Akhdam, a people of African descent who are treated as second-class citizens in Yemeni society, the area serves almost as a prison to its 17,000 residents. They are barred from all civil service in Yemen, cannot vote, and have almost no rights.

This leaves them trapped in conditions few Westerners could even imagine. There is no sewage system, electricity, arable land, or real infrastructure in the area, and they are left to either beg for whatever the goodwill of their fellow man will provide or work as street cleaners in the nearby capital.

During the famous “Arab Spring” that swept across the Middle East and North Africa in recent years, the Akhdam people took advantage of the spirit of the times to stage a number of strikes and protests, only to face the full might of Yemen’s military. Hundreds of protestors were killed by military forces, and it was only after a massive strike by the street cleaners that some concessions were made by the government to build infrastructure and homes in the area.

Unfortunately, not much was done to permanently change the slum’s conditions. To this day, an entire ethnic group of people, unknown to almost everyone in the outside world, faces not only endless squalor but the continued wrath of their own government.

6The Cage Slums Of Hong Kong, China

Sometimes, living in poverty can feel like a prison, but there are people in this world who live in literal cages. Amazingly, they can be found in Hong Kong, one of China’s most prosperous cities.

An estimated 200,000 people live in such conditions in the city. Some of the cages are stacked on top of each other, 10 cages high or more. Some of the people who call these places home have lived there for decades, and some were even born into the lifestyle. Life within these homes offers no protection from the weather, no sense of privacy, and a constant atmosphere of noise and pollution.

A small step up from the “cage homes” are the “coffin homes,” which are little more than sleeping spaces hollowed out from a building’s walls, where 25 or more people may live. Those who dwell in cage or coffin homes may see themselves as the lucky ones in the Hong Kong slums. Those who cannot afford a home of any kind are forced to sleep under bridges or directly on the streets.

For decades, the situation of these slums has only gotten worse, thanks to inadequate social systems, high real estate prices in the extremely crowded city, and the unscrupulous landlords who are willing to rent unsuitable living spaces to the desperate and needy. The list of applicants for subsidized housing numbers in the hundreds of thousands, many of whom die from their horrible living conditions before they get the opportunity to live a normal life. Unfortunately, the problem of poverty in Hong Kong is now so massive, with more and more impoverished new residents moving in every day, that there seems to be no solution.

5City Of The Dead, Cairo

Unbelievable in modern times, an actual necropolis exists in Egypt, known as the “City of the Dead.” Known to have existed for over 700 years, Cairo is so overcrowded that about 500,000 of its 18 million residents are forced to live among the tombs of their ancestors. The number of dead “residents,” an estimated one million tombs within an area spanning 6.5 kilometers (4 mi), is also staggering.

The houses themselves appear almost normal, with kitchens, courtyards, and even gardens. In the tombs, men and women are buried separately, each grave simply covered with a stone slab. However, electricity is rare, there is virtually no police force or security of any kind, and the streets connecting the various homes are unpaved and confusing. Crime is rampant, and many residents live among the dead illegally, though the Egyptian government does very little to enforce property laws.

The future of the people living this modern-day city of the dead remains uncertain. The Egyptian government is taking steps to relocate its residents, but since real estate is so expensive in Cairo and accurately recording and tracking the slum’s residents is tricky, the task seems nearly impossible. For now, steps to provide more of the residents with running water and electricity seem to be the only positive action that the government is able to take.

4The Tent Cities Of Seattle, Washington

Tent cities spring up all over from time to time, but in Seattle—especially in an area known as “Nickelsville”—they seem to be a permanent fixture. Around 275 people call these makeshift communities home, not counting the hundreds more who “camp out” each night only to pull up their stakes and disappear the next morning. Whether permanent or temporary, all of the residents are poor and most are unskilled, with little in the way of job prospects or hope of a better life.

In the 1970s, a series of tragic fires led to the closure of several complexes of cheap and secure housing units known as “SROs” (Single Room Occupancy), which forced many of Seattle’s less fortunate onto the streets. This new breed of Seattle’s homeless are forced to live in constant fear of arrest for illegally camping. The only solution they had was tent cities, in which an individual can pack up and move on if needed in less than one minute. Safety and security are minimal within these places, and electricity and sanitation are nonexistent. The people who call these places home live hand to mouth, sometimes even hunting local wildlife for food.

It seems the residents of these dwellings have little hope for improvement, at least for now. Seattle came up with a 10-year plan to eliminate homelessness within the city over a decade ago, obviously to little effect, and police within the city mostly treat tent city residents as criminals. Fortunately, some members of the public have been kind enough to drop off donations and advocate for a better solution than merely herding them around.

3Paris, France

The city of romance hides a dark secret just a 10-minute train ride away. An area known as La Courneuve has been labeled by the local police as a “no-go zone,” one of 150 that dot the French landscape, mostly around Paris.

La Courneuve and other makeshift communities like it sprang up with a wave of Middle Eastern and Roma immigration during the middle of the 20th century that authorities at the time were too slow to deal with. As a result, the children of these people, and their children after them, grew up as generally unrecognized citizens within their own country. This attitude and the residents’ dissatisfaction with their living conditions have sparked massive riots throughout the last decade.

Although the rage of their impoverished citizens has subsided for the most part, little has changed within the worst parts of Paris. Since most residents have no hope of employment due to a combination of racism and a lack of available jobs, they spend their days getting high and outwitting corrupt police officers looking to arrest them so they can use the drug themselves or resell them. The area is, as one resident put it, entirely gray. “The buildings are gray. The people are gray. Everything is gray. It’s the same people, and there is nothing to do, nothing to do. You wake up every morning looking for work. But why? There isn’t any.”

2Hollywood, California

In the place where dreams are made, some are forced to live in places straight of your worst nightmare. Countless hopefuls flee to the city every year to make it big in the world of show business, but maybe if they saw firsthand the living conditions of La-La Land’s less fortunate, they would turn back in horror.

Famous for its Skid Row, Los Angeles now has more slums within Hollywood itself than its more well-known cousin. They began to appear with the boom of the movie industry and only grew worse from there, with the advent of “B-movies” and the pornography industry in the 1970s increasing the number of poor flocking to the city exponentially. Some buildings hold hundreds of residents in conditions that seem unlivable. The usual parade of drugs, prostitution, crime, and despair can be found within Hollywood’s worst areas, magnified by the more unprincipled members of the film industry who seek to con those seeking a shot at stardom out of their meager savings.

Although recent efforts by local residents have won some concessions in restoring grandeur to the area, both city officials and residents agree that it is a losing battle. It seems that as soon as one building is condemned or demolished, another springs up in its place. As thousands of fame- and fortune-seekers come to the city unprepared every year, the stars in their eyes overtake the plans in their head, leading to a problem that is growing like a cancer within one of America’s most cherished national treasures.

1Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Dubai seemed like a miracle to most outsiders until the worldwide financial meltdown of 2008, after which its ugly side was exposed for all to see. The city that boasts some of the world’s most expensive buildings also houses some of the world’s worst slums.

Less than 1 percent of Dubai’s population is native-born, and many of these foreigners are unable to legally obtain citizenship. In the government’s effort to retain some semblance of cultural identity, laws that should apply to everyone are biased in favor of those who were born there.

As such, countless thousands of workers who came to the country for jobs found themselves impoverished after the 2008 collapse, with no social safety net and no other recourse but to settle in areas that the city would rather you didn’t know about. Although actual statistics on some of the worst areas are hard to find due to government interference, pictures speak a thousand words.

The sad fact is that most of modern Dubai was built from slave labor, mostly by immigrants from Pakistan and India who came to the country for work only to end up in one of Dubai’s well-hidden slums, or worse yet, the many labor camps that have popped up around construction projects. These people are Dubai’s forgotten, left to fend for themselves in a city where they remain unwelcome even though they helped construct it.

Damien B. is a part-time writer and basketball lover who is interested in history, politics, crime, and of course, basketball.

Erectile dysfunction—a persistent failure to achieve or sustain an erection—is a widespread problem; in the USA alone, estimates suggest there are around 18 million men who are afflicted. Achieving sexual arousal involves an intricate combination of brain, nerve endings, hormones, emotions, and blood vessels; it is not surprising that things can go wrong.

We are all probably familiar with some causes of erection failure: old age, smoking, alcohol misuse, and diabetes. But there are a number of other, more obscure factors that can contribute to the male member failing to rise to the occasion.

10High Blood Pressure

To achieve an erection, the penis needs to be inflated with blood. We might reasonably expect that someone with high blood pressure would possess a more powerful pump to achieve this aim and therefore might be less likely than the average man to suffer erectile failure.

Research has shown, however, that around two-thirds of males with high blood pressure (a disorder known medically as “hypertension”) experience some degree of erectile dysfunction. Persistently high blood pressure is believed to damage the blood vessels that supply the penis, preventing their full expansion and consequently denying the penis a sufficient blood supply. In addition to impeding the ability to gain an erection, high blood pressure may also dampen sexual interest and prevent ejaculation.

If a man’s erection manages to survive the effects of high blood pressure itself, it still might succumb to the medications used to treat it. Both diuretics (often referred to as “water pills”) and beta-blockers, commonly employed to reduce blood pressure, can dampen erectile potency.

9Antidepressant Medication

We could be forgiven for assuming that pills that improve mood and counter misery would enhance a person’s sex life. But this is often not the case. Both the older type of antidepressant (the “tricyclics”) and the newer versions (the “SSRIs”) cause a range of sexual difficulties in both sexes, including erectile problems in males.

The reason for this unfortunate side effect is that antidepressants change the levels of our nervous system’s chemical messengers, such as serotonin and dopamine. This has the effect of dampening the sensitivity of the sexual organs and impairing both sexual interest and arousal. Serotonin may be particularly potent in this regard due to its inhibition of nitric oxide, a chemical that plays a central role in the relaxation of smooth muscle to allow blood flow to the penis.

So on top of the despair and feelings of worthlessness associated with depression, the medication widely used to treat it will often inflict the shame of impotence upon the sufferer. Who said that the pharmaceutical industry didn’t have a wicked sense of humor?

8Snoring

A German research study suggested that excessive snoring might contribute to erectile problems. The study proposes that both the maintenance of an open airway and ensuring sufficient blood flow to the penis rely on the same biological mechanism. The implication for the ladies is that the louder and more persistent the snoring from the man sleeping next to you, the less likely he’ll be to provide sexual satisfaction when he wakes up.

However, the evidence for a direct link between snoring and erection failure is inconsistent. A questionnaire study of over 800 men in Minnesota compared heavy, moderate, and non-snorers on a range of sexual measures. While those in the “heavy snoring” category reported significantly less sexual satisfaction, no significant differences between the groups were found for ejaculatory function, erectile problems, and sex drive. It seems, therefore, that snoring is associated with a general reduction in sexual fulfillment (particularly in older men) rather than erectile dysfunction per se.

7Trying Too Hard

No pun intended, but trying too hard to achieve a stout erection might be the very reason why it fails to materialize. Unlike most tasks in life, where the amount of effort we expend corresponds to the likelihood of success, excessive mental and physical energy devoted to realizing a rock-hard penis may be counterproductive.

Particularly unhelpful is a process often referred to as “spectatoring,” whereby the man continuously tries to monitor his performance during sexual activity. Attending to the potential consequences of not performing impairs sexual arousal. Rather than enjoying the erotic sensations, the man typically asks himself questions: How am I performing? Am I satisfying my partner? Is my penis hard enough? It’s as if he is not directly involved in the physical intimacy but is, instead, watching his own performance like a spectator at a sporting event. The associated anxiety can be self-fulfilling, with the apprehension around sustaining an erection directly causing its demise.

6Peyronie’s Disease

Peyronie’s disease is a disorder that afflicts around 1 percent of men. It involves the buildup of scar tissue along the penis, causing it to bend—painfully—during the process of arousal, thereby softening the erection. The causes of the disorder are unknown, although experts believe it might be a combination of genetic inheritance and injury to the penis. The speed of onset of the disease varies considerably, ranging from very gradual to a rapid, overnight emergence.

In a non-aroused, flaccid state, the problem may not be apparent, but during erection pain is experienced and a bend in the penis becomes visible. In rare instances, the curvature can be severe. In up to 20 percent of the cases, the disorder will spontaneously rectify itself without treatment. The majority of sufferers, however, may require active intervention involving either medication or surgery. Nevertheless, given the potential for natural improvement, doctors often recommend watchful waiting for a couple of years before starting active treatment.

5Anti-Baldness Drugs

It is often claimed that bald men are more virile than their hairy counterparts. If there is any truth to this assertion, it may be because the hairless men opted not to resort to medications in an attempt to reverse their baldness. Several studies have linked the popular hair loss drug, Propecia, to subsequent erectile failure. During the 1990s, the drug company Merck & Co., the manufacturers of Propecia, had reported that any sexual side effects associated with the medication were rare and could be reversed by stopping the drug. Both these assertions were later shown to be incorrect.

The erectile impairments caused by Propecia are due to its active ingredient, finasteride, interfering with the metabolism of testosterone. A recent study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine described how 20 percent of hair loss patients who took the drug suffered sexual difficulties after three months of treatment. Strikingly, almost all the men in this sample continued to suffer sexual dysfunction for many months (sometimes years) after discontinuing the drug.

4Women’s Tears

The teardrops of weeping women may dampen more than their cheeks.

In a bizarre experiment, men were instructed to sniff the tears of women who had recently watched sad movies. Afterward, their sexual interest and arousal were compared with a control group of men who had sniffed a salt solution. The research study involved a “double-blind” design in which neither the participants nor the researchers knew whether the liquid being smelled was tears or saline. The tear sniffers were subsequently found to be less sexually aroused by pictures of women and to have reduced levels of testosterone circulating in their systems.

One explanation is that female tears may contain a chemical that lowers testosterone as a means of countering male aggression, a function that might have evolutionary benefits. The subsequent dampening of sexual arousal may be a secondary effect.

3Anabolic Steroids

Ladies, the next time you find yourself drooling over a muscular male body in the gym, bear in mind that all that masculine bulk might contrast starkly with what resides beneath the Speedos. Many bodybuilders resort to anabolic steroids as a means of accelerating muscle development and to help them recover more quickly from intensive training sessions.

But these benefits might come at a cost. Although steroids boost the level of testosterone and might therefore be expected to enhance sexual arousal, prolonged use interferes with the body’s natural production of the hormone. This has the effect of shrinking the testicles and increasing the risk of erectile failure. Awash with all this additional, artificially induced testosterone, natural producers of the male sex hormone become lazy. Therefore, when the person stops using anabolic steroids, the body is often rendered incapable of generating sufficient amounts of testosterone to achieve erections.

2Bowel Surgery

Those of us who listened in a school biology class will know that our bowels and intestines are physically and functionally separated from our genitals. Yet research has shown that over three-quarters of men who underwent bowel surgery to remove cancerous tissue suffered erectile dysfunction in the aftermath.

The reason for this link between bowel surgery and sexual malfunction is that nerves supplying the sexual organs are often damaged during the operation. As a result, the messages to the penis to generate an erection are weakened or even lost altogether.

Doctors often deploy “nerve-sparing” procedures during bowel surgery in an effort to minimize the collateral damage, but sometimes the key nerves are obscured from the surgeon’s view. Even when a skilled surgeon manages to avoid severing these essential, erection-producing nerves, the trauma of the operation often impairs their functioning, causing temporary erectile problems that may last up to two years.

1Prolonged Cycling

Riding a bicycle on a regular basis is an excellent form of exercise that burns calories and strengthens the heart. But some experts have suggested that too many hours in the saddle might be associated with an unwanted side effect. A serious male cyclist, perched on a narrow saddle, may put the bulk of his weight on the perineum—the strip of skin between the anus and testicles. Since the perineum acts as a conduit for the nerves and blood vessels supplying the penis, its prolonged compression can evoke erectile dysfunction. The risk is highest in those men who spend more than three hours per week in the saddle.

The risk of erectile failure can be reduced by deploying a wider saddle with a less prominent “nose,” thereby allowing the man’s weight to be redistributed so that the buttocks absorb more of the pressure. The good news is that erectile dysfunction associated with cycling is almost always a temporary affliction. Furthermore, numbness and tingling in the perineum will act as an early warning sign long before erectile failure develops into a significant problem.

A recent study has challenged the idea that there is a direct causal link between cycling and erectile problems. Yet the findings did suggest that long periods in the saddle may increase the risk of prostate cancer in men over 50 years of age.

I am a freelance writer who recently opted for early retirement following 33 years of continuous employment in the UK’s psychiatric services, mostly as a clinical psychologist. Since retirement, my writing focus is shared between criticisms of western psychiatry, general interest articles and humor. My book, Tales from the Madhouse: an insider critique of psychiatry, is due to be published by PCCS books in January 2015.

More of my mental health stuff can be found on gsidley.hubpages.com or at twitter.com/GarySidley.

For humor articles and chit-chat, visit brianjonesdiary-menopausalman.blogspot.co.uk, facebook.com/gary.sidley, and bubblews.com/account/108867-gsidley.

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]

Cars are one of the primary forms of transportation for many individuals across the world. The World Economic Forum reported that over 70% of Americans used cars as their main source of transportation. Unfortunately, with cars being as highly utilized as they are, they have contributed to their fair share of accidents.

USA Today reports that as of 2024, “car crashes are the leading cause of death in the United States.” Cars are such a popular mode of transportation that it’s easy to forget how heavy and powerful they are! Luckily, car manufacturers have introduced features that make cars safer for drivers and pedestrians. However, there are a few features of cars that, if used incorrectly, can put people on the road at risk. So, buckle your seatbelts as we go through 10 unexpected ways your car might endanger you or others!

Related: Top 10 Cool Car Hacks Every Driver Should Know

10 Car Touch Sceens Can Be Worse for Drivers Than Texting

If you’ve purchased a car in recent years, there’s a good chance it has CarPlay or Android Auto. These systems intend to boost efficiency by taking away the use of mobile devices while driving, but they may be doing the opposite of their intended functions. The European Transport Safety Council found that “using touch control resulted in reaction times that were even worse than texting while driving.” Additionally, they found that driver reaction times were “more than 50 per cent slower” when using car touch screens and that “controlling the vehicle’s position in the lane and keeping a consistent speed and headway to the vehicle in front suffered significantly.”

Drivers still need to take their eyes off the road to view and control the car screens, which counts as distracted driving. So, while Apple CarPlay and Android Auto can take your eyes off your phone screen, it’s important not to let your eyes linger on your car screen, either!^[1]

9 Dark-Colored Cars May Be Blending in Too Well on the Road

Hazards on the road might be closer than you think! Shockingly, studies have found that the color of your car might determine your likelihood of getting into a car accident. A study published in the National Library of Medicine stated that “There was a significant increased risk of a serious injury in brown vehicles” and that “the risks for black and green cars were also raised.”

This is likely due to darker cars’ abilities to blend into the road and their lowered visibility in dark conditions. A study by Monash University further supports this point, stating that “black, grey and silver vehicles were estimated to have the highest crash risks” compared to lighter-colored cars.” With white cars having the lowest rates of accidents, it might be time to reconsider your taste in car colors!^[2]

8 Ultra-Bright Headlights May Need to Be Toned Down

If you’ve driven down a dark road at night, you may be familiar with the feeling of being blinded by a driver who forgot to turn their high beams off. The bright, beaming lights can be disorienting and distracting for drivers. Unfortunately, car manufacturers are beginning to default to bright LED lights for headlights as opposed to more gentle light sources. As an article from NBC News states, “Vehicle headlights have shifted from primarily warm-yellowish halogen to cool-bluish LED, which human eyes are more sensitive to.”

The growing presence of bright LED headlights may be more convenient for the driver due to increased visibility, but this may be to the detriment of other drivers on the road. An article from The Telegraph reports that “around 300 accidents now occur every year due to headlight glare, with one survey finding that 91 per cent of motorists felt that headlights were too bright.” Since there’s not much that the average consumer can do to control the intensity of car headlights, it’ll be interesting to see if changes are made or if our eyes will just have to adjust!^[3]

7 Self-Driving Cars Aren’t as Advanced as We’d Like Them to Be

Self-driving cars have been a popular topic of discussion ever since they were conceptualized. The idea of being able to multitask while a car takes you to your destination sounds like a dream! However, this futuristic idea still needs tweaking before it becomes fully feasible. Cars with self-driving capabilities can put drivers at risk if they put full reliance on the car’s autopilot function. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that “self-driving vehicles are involved in double the number of accidents per mile driven as traditional vehicles.”

Car manufacturers are struggling to calibrate self-driving capabilities that are able to adapt to real-life, spontaneous situations such as unexpected obstacles, narrow streets, or undetected pedestrians. So, for those of you who have been saving up for a self-driving car, it might be time to reroute!^[4]

6 Tinted Windows Can Dull Your Visibility

Having dark-tinted windows provides its fair share of perks. Increased privacy, improved UV protection, and glare prevention make it easy to see why drivers would desire window tints. However, these perks may be outweighed by the safety hazards that come with tinted windows. A study published in the National Transportation Library researched the effects of window tints on traffic safety and found that “low contrast targets that are difficult to detect through untinted glazing at dusk, dawn, or at night will be harder to see or be undetectable when viewed through tinted windows.”

Additionally, an article by AAA cited that windows with dark tints “prevent a driver from communicating their intentions to other drivers and pedestrians, and vice versa, making driving inherently less safe.” If you’re still interested in getting your windows tinted, it probably is best to ensure that they meet your state’s standards so you can stay safe!^[5]

5 Bigger Cars Are Safer for the Driver at the Expense of Others

Cars are getting bigger, which has introduced new concerns among pedestrians, bikers, and drivers of smaller cars. Unfortunately, research has shown that the bigger the car, the bigger the danger to others on the road. A BBC article states that “SUVs and vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches (102cm) were about 45% more likely to cause fatalities than those with a height of 30 inches (76cm) or less.”

While the dangers for smaller cars are high, the dangers for pedestrians and bikers are much higher. A CNBC article reported that “the bigger the vehicle, the heavier they are, the more deadly they are during a crash, especially with vulnerable road users like pedestrians and bicyclists.” Fortunately, with the increased buzz around the sizing disparities among cars, there is a good chance that increased protections for smaller cars and pedestrians/bikers will become available in upcoming years.^[6]

4 Catchy Music Has Its Risks on the Road

If you drive a car, it’s more than likely that you listen to music during your commute. However, a recent study indicated that this may be a risk factor for younger drivers. A study published in the National Library of Medicine studied a group of young, novice drivers and found that while listening to music, “all participants committed at least 3 driver deficiencies; 27 needed a verbal warning/command, and 17 required a steering or braking intervention to prevent an accident.”

Having music in the background also “produced the most frequent severe driver miscalculations and inaccuracies, violations, and aggressive driving.” However, for music lovers, don’t lose heart! The study also observed “elevated positive moods and enjoyment for trips with driver-preferred music.” There is no need to avoid your favorite songs on your next road trip; just drive with caution while jamming out!^[7]

3 The Volume of Your Music Can Put You at Risk, Too

The next time you play music in your car while practicing caution on the road, make sure to pay attention to your volume as well. A study conducted by Memorial University of Newfoundland reported that “loud volume intensities impair human performance during simple vigilance and simulated driving tasks.” A study published in the Journal of Science and Medicine delved further into this statement by analyzing reaction times in relation to music volume.

The study found that “increased music volume yields slower reaction times in people under the age of 25, and this could present a problem for safe driving as the delayed reaction time of drivers can mean the difference between life and death when operating a motor vehicle.” But again, no need to fully cut out music from your commutes! As long as drivers know their own reaction times and observational skills in relation to their music, there’s no need to fear!^[8]

2 Overreliance on Safety Tech Could Be Drivers’ Downfalls

With the rising risks that are appearing on the roads, car manufacturers are trying to minimize accidents and injuries by implementing safety technology in cars. Backup cameras, blind spot monitoring, collision warnings, and ABS systems provide drivers with increased awareness and perception on the road. However, many drivers overestimate the capabilities of their car’s safety technology, and this can lead to hazardous situations.

A Forbes article reported that “Nearly 80% of drivers with blind spot monitoring systems were unaware of limitations or incorrectly believed the systems could accurately monitor the roadway behind the vehicle or reliably detect bicycles, pedestrians and vehicles passing at high speeds.”

With such a high percentage of drivers overestimating their car safety technology, this can lead to a higher rate of accidents and injuries if something goes wrong. So, if you have a car with safety technology, make sure you’re still checking your blind spots and paying attention to your surroundings!^[9]

1 Cars Are Risky, So It’s Important to Stay Safe!

Now that you know the risks of the road, it’s important to focus on safety. Cars are essential forms of transportation for many individuals, and the best thing you can do is stay up to date on how to best maneuver the roads to maximize both your safety and the safety of others.

Fortunately, as stated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “After spiking during the pandemic, traffic deaths are continuing to slowly come down.” However, we still have a long way to go before cars become a fully safe form of transportation. As long as you practice caution and care to other drivers and inspect your car to be 100% hazard-free, you’re helping the roads become a safer place!^[10]

It’s hard to believe, but it happened, and it was less than 100 years ago. In what was perhaps the biggest flop in US legal history, the federal government passed a constitutional amendment in 1920 forbidding the selling of alcohol. Prohibition would stand for nearly 14 long years.

While the whole thing left most people shaking their heads in disbelief, there were some pretty cool consequences of that ill-fated amendment (especially that it ended, but that’s a given).

10 Speakeasies

If there was ever a time and place more ill-suited to Prohibition laws, the cosmopolitan US during the Roaring Twenties might have been it. Women all over the country were experimenting with breaking traditional standards for their sex, jazz music was bursting out of artistic seams, and large numbers of people continued to relocate to the cities. All of this was happening in a time when the government forced people to drink in secret. In short, the speakeasy was born.

By 1925, in New York City (sort of the capital of Prohibition drama) alone, estimates for the number of speakeasies ranged from 30,000 to 100,000. Think plush couches, colorful cocktails served in fancy glasses, live music, enthusiastic dancing, good vibes, and the sexy ambiance that results from bending the rules.

The very cool part is that a handful of these venues still run today and remain fun places to visit and throw back a legal alcoholic beverage.^[1] Besides the bars that have stayed in operation, Prohibition gave way to a style of establishment that night-lifers can be thankful for even today. Funky hidden bars and speakeasies dot cities around the world, from San Francisco to New York City to Melbourne, and make for one great night of class and intrigue.

9 Emergence Of Cocktails

There was a cocktail culture before Prohibition (the first book of cocktail recipes was published in 1869), but we have this silly legislation to thank for mixology really taking off.

Given that a lot of the liquor was distilled using dubious ingredients and under sketchy circumstances, it didn’t always have a flavor that gave way to being served straight or on the rocks. Nevertheless, the people wanted what they wanted, and bartenders nationwide set to work to make whatever came their way nice and palatable. Soon employed were various fermenting techniques (thus the emergence of bathtub gin), mixers, and more.^[2]

Beloved cocktails with Prohibition origins include the Manhattan, martinis, gin Rickeys, the French 75, and champagne cocktails in general. In a delicious irony, Prohibition changed the culture of cocktails for the better, forever.

8 The Booze Cruise

Thank you, Prohibition.

If you’ve never been on a booze cruise (aka party cruise), put it on your must-do list. The name pretty much says it all. You hop on a big, fancy ship, head into the ocean, and party your heart out.

Prior to Prohibition, cruise ships had primarily been used to transport people between Europe and the States. Forward-thinking entrepreneurs put international waters to an even greater use after public consumption was outlawed, and many a fancy flapper took to boats to sip to their heart’s content. Ranging from a few hours to a few days and from distances as small as a circle and as large as a round trip from NYC to Cuba, an entire industry of oceanic partying was formed.^[3]

It’s not so much the fact that such cruises and events still exist as the fact that fiery men and women from the time actually partied on ships that makes this consequence of Prohibition so awesome.

7 FDR Being Super Awesome

So, this happened:

Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned for the presidency partially on the promise that he would get rid of the 18th Amendment if elected. Not only was enforcing the law becoming more and more of a drain on the country’s resources, but as the US sank deeper into the Great Depression, Prohibition started to seem more and more ridiculous to have as a priority.

Roosevelt actually lived up to his promise and started the arduous process of repealing the law shortly after being elected. (A US president can’t just toss out a Constitutional amendment overnight.) FDR quickly signed a bill allowing booze with a low alcohol content to be sold. Afterward, he reportedly said, “What America needs now is a drink.”

FDR supposedly then drank a martini in celebration.^[4] Some claim that he asked for a beer. Either way, it might have been one of the coolest things a US president ever said, and the fact that he actually drank after makes it that much cooler. Cheers, Mr. Roosevelt.

6 Home Brew Beer

Home brewing might be all the rage these days, but it wouldn’t be so widespread if it wasn’t for Prohibition forcing people into their homes to mix the good stuff.

The connection is pretty clear: The 18th Amendment outlawed the public sale and consumption of alcohol but did not technically forbid people from making their own booze. Resourceful people around the country set to work fermenting anything they could get their hands on, and the home brew industry was born. And an industry it was. Malt syrup alone, sold in 500–600 stores nationwide prior to Prohibition, could be found in 25,000 stores by 1928.^[5] Overall, sales for home brewing supplies stood near $136 million by the mid-1920s.

Prior to Prohibition, beer was widely available to men in any number of different establishments. These ranged from the neighborhood saloon, which enticed customers with a free meal to go with their drink, to fancy membership-style parlors for the snobby drinker. Considering how inexpensive and accessible beer had been for men prior to ratification, home brewing would likely not have become mainstream had it not been for people being forced into their homes to source the suds.

5 Thunder Road

Numerous underground organizations, businesses, and entire industries were created in the efforts to “run” booze during the years of Prohibition. In order to literally outrun law enforcement, automobiles were modified, enabling determined drivers to leave pesky cops in the dust and moonshine in the glasses.

We all know how some men are with their cars. Before long, the mechanically inclined were racing each other. Muscle cars and drag racing were born. The cult classic Thunder Road is about the adventures of such characters and is an impressive example of 1950s filmmaking in its own right. The movie is still known for its stunts and special effects, which revolutionized the industry. (It is said that one forgets that the movie is filmed in black and white while watching.) Thunder Road is considered to have started the long succession of muscle car movies, a tradition that continues to this day.^[6]

The film, in turn, inspired the Bruce Springsteen track by the same name, which is one of his most highly acclaimed songs.

4 Jazz Music

Prohibition had a great way of bringing people from all walks of life together in the seedy underground. Before 1920, it was rare to see men and women drinking leisurely together in public. Local saloons, where men drank beer and congregated until all hours of the night, were considered to be the source of many societal problems by the fans of the 18th Amendment. These saloons vanished with the new liquor laws and were replaced by many more speakeasies.

Competition was stiff, and proprietors had to act quickly to keep ahead of other speakeasies. Entertainment was quickly employed as a way to lure people to their establishments, and the sky was the limit. Given that so many social barriers were already being broken in the speakeasies, interracial mingling became more and more acceptable, and jazz music became the entertainment of choice for all the hippest clubs.^[7] (Black musicians were also preferable in the early years, as they attracted less attention to the clubs.)

Jazz music went on to inspire countless musicians, as well as an entirely new way of performing and writing music, and was directly responsible for changing the face of popular culture forever.

3 Wine Bricks

That wine bricks were ever a thing is what makes them super cool. Then again, if you’re a wine lover, you might have preferred wine bricks to be on the list of reasons why Prohibition was super lame, but nevertheless . . .

One of the (arguably) ingenious ways that retailers got around the laws of the 18th Amendment was by exploiting the allowances it gave to religious groups to continue to drink (as prescribed by scripture, of course) as well as the various other technical loopholes that existed in the law.[3] I won’t bore you with an explanation of the loopholes themselves, as even today, trying to both understand and explain them can confuse and frustrate even the most patient of historians. Let’s just say that determined winemakers were able to stay in business because they were allowed to sell grape juice and, apparently, grape powder, as long as it didn’t contain alcohol.

If law-breaking citizens bought said products and fermented the juice in the privacy of their own homes, what could law enforcement do to stop it? For safety’s sake, bricks of grape powder were all labeled with a clear caution against fermenting them, lest wine materialize. How caring.

Yet another industry was created, and wine bricks could be found in every pharmacy in the union. Don’t agree with me that it was a good consequence? Come on, it’s a brick of wine! It’s awesome.

2 Women’s Right To Vote

Yes, the temperance movement led to the success of the next Constitutional amendment, good old #19, which gave women the right to cast a vote.

One of the most powerful forces for the women-weary to be reckoned with, the partnership between Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, started in temperance activism. The two women ended up forming a collaboration that would eventually lead to women getting the vote.

Why was temperance effective in bringing early feminists together? For starters, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, domestic violence, abandonment, and neglect by husbands and fathers were all prevalent, particularly in the large cities. Many concerned individuals, especially other wives and mothers, saw drunkenness as the root of these evils. Furthermore, during this time, temperance organizations and events were among the few realms that accepted females as part of their leadership. Before long, the movement was full of suffragists. ^[9]

Luckily, the majority of women within the temperance movement broke off to focus on abolition and women’s rights.

1 Prohibition-Inspired Terminology

Necessity is truly the mother of all invention. The English language has this unfortunate period in history to thank for many a term that we still use today. To name just a few: “white lightning,” “bathtub gin,” “boozehound,” “dry,” “hooch,” “bootlegger,” “moonshine,” “speakeasy,” “hush money,” and “blind pig.” From booze running to partying and everything in between, it was a time of much novelty, and language had to hurry to keep up.

Last, but not least, was “the Real McCoy,” named for boat designer and booze runner William McCoy. McCoy was so well-known and had such an impeccable reputation for transporting the highest-quality alcohol from the Bahamas to New England that those selling his product soon started using his name as evidence that the drinks were genuine.^[10]

Prohibition may not have stopped many people from drinking, but it changed the way many people were speaking and added a huge dash of creativity and innovation. Thanks again, Prohibition.

Janice Formichella is an American-born traveler of the world currently residing in Bali, Indonesia. She loves history, gin, girl talk, her bullet journal, and a good list. You can follow Janice and her adventures on Twitter @JaniceLikes and on Instagram @Janiceonthemove.

Hollywood seems like a wonderful place to those of us who don’t read too deeply about its history. It’s where movie magic is made, and it’s full of shiny celebrities, and that seems really nice. 

Actors are elevated to great heights in our minds because of the roles they play and the people we want them to be in real life. The stories behind those roles aren’t always what you think, however. Sometimes an actor stumbles into a role for some very unexpected reasons.

10. Bill Murray Thought Garfield Was a Coen Bros Movie

At this point in his career, Bill Murray is as much an urban legend as he is a man. There are stories of random people meeting him in the most unexpected places and being briefly befriended by the eccentric comedian and it happens so often that someone made a documentary about it. It’s hard to know if everything you think you know about Bill Murray is true.

As for what Murray has had to say about his own work, it’s just as weird. For instance, he famously voiced Garfield the Cat in the animated movie that came out in 2004, something he later made a joke about in the movie Zombieland.

Murray, who started out doing comedy and is more known for quirky, prestige comedy dramas these days, seemed like he was slumming it in the movie Garfield and people wanted to know why. So, in an interview, he explained what happened.

Garfield was written by a man named Joel Cohen. According to Murray, he mistook him for Joel Coen, one of the famous Coen brothers from movies like Fargo.

Murray explained that once they agreed to pay him enough, he finally went to record his lines after only reading a couple of pages, and they were all terrible. He complained so much that someone had to explain it wasn’t the Joel Coen he was thinking of.

That story’s all fine and good, of course, but he did return for a sequel as well, so it seems like maybe the job wasn’t that confusing after all.

9. Coolio Was Promised a Role in Batman 5 to be in Batman and Robin

The Batman franchise has been an absolute rollercoaster through pop culture. From the original comics to the campy ’60s show it was always something the public had a general idea of. Then Tim Burton brought a dark and quirky Batman story to the big screen with Michael Keaton in the title role and kicked off what could be considered the modern superhero blockbuster era.

That Batman franchise had four parts with three different actors in the cowl. Each film was received a bit worse than the movie before it once Burton left the director’s chair, too.

By 1997’s Batman and Robin starring George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the franchise had run its course. The movie was critically shredded, and the franchise died for over a decade before it was rebooted by Christoper Nolan with The Dark Knight in 2008.

Batman and Robin was notable for giving us Batgirl and bat-nipples on the bat-suits, but it also featured rapper Coolio in an extremely weird cameo. He doesn’t do much except oversee a race, and it’s odd that such a recognizable face filled the role.

According to Coolio, it wasn’t just because he wandered by the set one day. He says director Joel Schumacher promised him a role in the planned sequel, what would have been Batman 5, as the villain Scarecrow. His appearance in Batman and Robin would have just set him up as an in-universe character. But that sequel never happened and Coolio never got the role.

8. Patch Adams Agreed to The Movie About His Life in Exchange for Funding He Never Got

Patch Adams was one of Robin Williams’ most famous roles, in which he plays the titular doctor who uses humor to help treat his patients. In real life, Dr. Adams has been accused of being a bit of a jerk and not nearly as lovable as Williams made him seem. 

If the man isn’t so loving and fun, why did he ever agree to a goofy yet heartfelt movie about his life? Turns out he may have been duped a little, and that could be why he’s a jerk. This is a chicken or egg situation.

Adams is on record saying he hated the movie, and it’s not just because it was a little sappy. He says that the producers agreed to help fund his nonprofit healthcare project in exchange for making the movie. But then they never paid for anything. 

Adams also had issues with his portrayal in the film, which he felt made him and the work he did seem dumb at best. Critics agreed, and the movie has a very poor rating overall, something which the real Adams felt was a kick in the teeth in terms of the actual work he does and the people he tries to help. 

7. Brian Cox Thought the 007 Reality Show He Hosted Was a Movie

In 2023, a James Bond-themed reality show called 007: Road to a Million debuted on Prime. The show forces couples – friends, siblings, spouses, or whatever – to solve clues and find money in exotic European locations in what is loosely related to the idea of spies and James Bond. It was hosted by Succession star Brian Cox, which gave it some clout.

Cox later said he agreed to be on the show because he was called and asked about it. He was very excited to be in a James Bond movie, which is what he thought he was agreeing to, so he signed up. He had wanted to be in one for years. It was only later that they clarified for him that this was not a 007 movie, but a reality show. 

6. Will Smith Did Fresh Prince Because He Was Broke

Will Smith’s career may have started as a sort of goofy, PG-rated rapper but it was his turn as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that made him a household name and propelled him to stardom. From there he became, for a time, one of the biggest actors in the world. 

There’s a world in which Smith never became the Fresh Prince, though, and it’s easy to imagine. He was not eager to become a sitcom star; it hadn’t been his big dream or the goal of his career. Instead, it was something he agreed to because he was in a financial bind with the IRS and it was an easy way to get out. 

He once explained that, after his song “Parents Just Don’t Understand” hit it big, he was not entirely responsible with his money. He was soon famous but entirely broke, and needed to pay taxes on all the money he’d wasted. 

The IRS repossessed most of what Smith had bought, things like a car and motorcycle. His second album was not a hit, so a girlfriend suggested he “hang around the Arsenio Hall Show” and try to meet someone famous. That advice is absolutely baffling but not as baffling as the fact it worked. Smith ran into Quincy Jones, the two got to talking, and he pitched the Fresh Prince idea. The rest is history. 

5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Agreed to be in Airplane! For a Rug

It’s rare that a pro athlete becomes an actor, or at least a prolific one, but many athletes have had a turn or two on camera. Back in 1980, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had a memorable role in the comedy Airplane! And the story of how he ended up in the film is as goofy as the movie itself. 

The co-pilot role was originally written for baseball player Pete Rose, but he declined. The producers were able to get in touch with Jabbar, but he had a stipulation. He wanted an additional $5,000 on top of the promised salary because there was a rug he wanted to buy. That was the only way they’d get him on board.

Producers agreed to the rug bonus, and Jabbar starred in the movie, delivering some of its most memorable lines.

4. Leonard Nimoy Only Agreed to Wrath of Khan Because Spock Died

The cast of the original Star Trek was known to have their ups and downs over the years in terms of how they felt about fans, about the show, and each other. The show debuted in the ’60s, after all, and then had a resurgence in the ’80s with films that led to The Next Generation and now a massive Trek universe of shows and movies. 

Back in the ’80s, Leonard Nimoy was happy to distance himself from his role as Spock. He was not a fan of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and didn’t want to return to make Wrath of Khan because he didn’t want to make another bad movie. 

Nimoy was talked into starring in the movie when they told him Spock would die. He agreed killing Spock would be better than just not appearing at all, so he came back. He would come back for part three as well when the studio allowed Nimoy to direct as well as star.

3. Celine Dion Only Agreed to Record My Heart Will Go On as Demo

You could make a good argument that Celine Dion’s most famous song is “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. Being one of the highest-grossing films ever, the song had a lot of reach that none of her other music ever could. The fact she never wanted to sing it makes it even more interesting.

On the day she recorded the song, Dion wanted to skip it. She says she was tired; it was probably late, and the song never appealed to her, anyway. It was her husband who convinced her to try it as a demo track if nothing else. Just something she could bang out quickly, and then they could go home.

She recorded it and that recording ended up being what was used in Titanic, a song that stayed in the number one Billboard spot for 16 weeks. 

2. Randy Savage Only Agreed to Wrestle a Hamster If It Was a Boy

Besides a long career of parody songs, Weird Al has had several moments to shine on TV and in movies. His show The Weird Al Show from the 1990s was as weird as you’d expect and featured skits, music, and guests. In one episode he had wrestler Randy Macho Man Savage on, and part of his appearance involved wrestling a hamster.

Wrestling a hamster is goofy and that should be all you need to know about it but it was not all Randy Savage needed to know. For whatever reason, Savage had a hard time understanding the joke. In the skit he’s supposed to lose and, apparently, it was very hard to get Savage to understand this because he felt like he should not lose to a hamster. He thought it would be bad for his image. 

When he finally understood the joke, he had one caveat that needed producers to confirm before he agreed to the part. The hamster had to be a boy, because he didn’t want to lose to a girl. 

1. The Cast of Starship Troopers Agreed To the Shower Scene Only If The Director Also Got Naked

Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers is, on its surface, a very goofy sci-fi action movie full of vaguely dumb characters blowing up bugs in space. But there is some serious satire of war and governments behind all that, the sort you’d expect from the man behind RoboCop. 

One of the most well known scenes in the movie takes place in a shower. The entire squad, male and female, shower together. It’s very casual in the movie and the idea is that these are soldiers and they do everything together, who cares if it’s co-ed. But in real life, these were actors being put into an uncomfortable situation.

Before they agreed to do the scene, one member of the co-ed cast had a demand of Verhoeven. They’d get naked if he agreed to do it with them. That was probably part joke, part challenge, and part effort to feel less exploited overall. 

Verhoeven had “no problem” with the request, so when you watch that scene know that not just the cast, but the director and also his cinematographer, who apparently came from a nudist colony as a youth, stripped down.

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]

The word “overdose” typically brings illegal drugs to mind. But it is not only street drugs or the abuse of prescription medications that can overwhelm the body and cause damage or death. Substances that are considered harmless or even healthy can become poisonous when misused.

The items listed below range from benign to beneficial in small amounts but become toxic in higher quantities. These seemingly harmless substances can land you in the hospital—or the morgue—if you overdo it.

10 Soy Sauce

In 2013, a 19-year-old man from Virginia drank 0.9 liters (1 qt) of soy sauce after being dared by his friends to do so. He went into a coma and nearly died from the extreme levels of salt in his body.

Hypernatremia is a condition in which there is too much salt in the blood. When the bloodstream becomes saturated with salt, it draws water from other parts of the body, including the brain, in an attempt to lower the salt concentration. When the brain loses water, it can shrink and bleed.

After the Virginia teen drank the soy sauce, he began having seizures. His friends brought him to the hospital, but by the time he arrived, he had already fallen into a coma. Doctors flushed the salt from his system using a mix of water and sugar dextrose.

His sodium levels returned to normal five hours later, but he remained in the coma for three days before waking up on his own. Doctors said that the young man was lucky to be alive. He is the first person to overdose on such a high amount of salt and survive without any lasting neurological problems.^[1]

9 Tea

An Arkansas man suffered kidney failure as a result of drinking too much iced tea.

The 56-year-old man drank about 16 240-milliliter (8 oz) cups of iced tea every day. In May 2014, the man was admitted to the hospital after complaining of nausea, weakness, and body aches. Doctors discovered that his kidneys were extremely clogged and irritated. They started him on dialysis, which he will probably be on for the rest of his life.

The damage to the man’s kidneys was caused by a chemical called oxalate. This chemical occurs naturally in black tea as well as other foods such as rhubarb and spinach. Too much oxalate can lead to kidney damage.^[2] The man from Arkansas was consuming 3–10 times more oxalate than the average American.

According to the Harvard School of Public Health, consuming up to four cups of tea per day is a safe amount. Sixteen cups per day is too many.

8 Nutmeg

Nutmeg is popular this time of year, but be sure not to sprinkle too much on top of your eggnog. Ingesting as little as approximately 4.4 grams (2 tsp) of the spice can result in nutmeg toxicity.

Usually, people who ingest large amounts of nutmeg are looking for a high. The spice contains a natural compound called myristicin, which has hallucinogenic effects in large doses that are similar to the high from LSD.

Using the spice as a drug is a practice popular with teenagers and prison inmates because of its accessibility. But even though nutmeg is legal and easy to obtain, there are some very unpleasant side effects of ingesting the amount required to experience a high.

Within an hour of consuming a large amount of nutmeg, users typically suffer severe gastrointestinal problems. After a few more hours, people can begin experiencing heart and nerve problems. This is especially dangerous for anyone with an undiagnosed heart problem.

Hallucinations do not occur until several hours after ingesting nutmeg, which can lead people to consume additional amounts if they think they failed to take enough the first time.

Using the spice as a drug is not a modern development. Widespread nutmeg intoxication cases were seen in the early 1900s and then again in the 1960s before resurfacing more recently.^[3]

7 Toothpaste

Too much toothpaste can have tragic results. In the early 1990s, toothpaste labels contained basic warnings that said, “Do Not Swallow. Use only a pea-sized amount for children under six.”

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not believe that these cautions addressed the true dangers of consuming toothpaste. So in 1997, a poison warning was added to toothpaste products that contained fluoride.

The American Dental Association as well as toothpaste manufacturers thought that this requirement was an overreaction by the FDA. However, the FDA argued that fluoride is a drug associated with toxicity and, therefore, requires a strong warning for consumers.

Whether or not the warnings are too severe, consuming toothpaste is not a good idea. Swallowing a large amount of fluoride-free toothpaste will likely result in nothing more than an upset stomach. However, swallowing a large amount of toothpaste containing fluoride can be fatal.

Children are more susceptible to fluoride poisoning because their smaller bodies are affected by smaller amounts of the substance. A single tube of children’s fluoride toothpaste contains enough fluoride to kill a child weighing less than 30 kilograms (66 lb). If a child were to ingest only 3 percent of the tube, he would still experience acute fluoride poisoning, which causes flu-like symptoms, dizziness, and gastric pain.^[4]

6 Cruciferous Vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables are a family of nutrient-rich, leafy green plants such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and kale. These veggies are often recommended because they contain high levels of antioxidants and other health benefits, but eating too many leafy greens can have negative results.

In 2011, a man was hospitalized after overdosing on Brussels sprouts at Christmas dinner. The man had a mechanical heart and was taking anticoagulants. Like most cruciferous vegetables, Brussels sprouts contain high amounts of vitamin K, which promotes blood clotting. The anticoagulants were necessary for the man’s mechanical heart to operate effectively.^[5]

When too much vitamin K counteracted the effects of the man’s medication, he began experiencing sudden heart problems. Once doctors realized that the problems were due to the man eating too many Brussels sprouts, they were able to treat him. Fortunately, he recovered quickly.

Eating too much broccoli or kale can also result in hypothyroidism (an underactive thyroid) where the thyroid gland fails to make enough thyroid hormone. Nutritional experts say that “reasonable amounts” of cruciferous vegetables offer many health benefits. The negative effects of eating too many leafy greens only happen when people consume high doses. Once a person is diagnosed with hypothyroidism, they are warned to avoid cruciferous vegetables.

5 Star Fruit

Carambola (aka star fruit) can do some major harm inside the body if too much is consumed. For people who already have weak kidneys, kidney damage or failure can occur from eating just a small amount.

Star fruit contains a toxin that is capable of wreaking havoc on the renal system. People with healthy kidneys can typically filter the toxin with no ill effects, but anyone with existing kidney damage is warned against consuming star fruit.^[6]

The fruit is especially dangerous for people who are unaware that they have early stages of kidney damage. In addition to people who have existing kidney problems, those who eat the fruit on a regular basis or drink star fruit juice on an empty stomach are at highest risk for star fruit toxicity.

Symptoms of star fruit toxicity include nausea, weakness, insomnia, seizures, and hiccups, which are the most common symptom in mild cases. Doctors can treat severe cases of star fruit toxicity with dialysis, but kidney function may never return to normal after the damage occurs.

4 Tuna

Warnings about consuming tuna are generally directed at pregnant women and small children, but the rest of us are also at risk if we overdo it at the sushi bar.

Raw, cooked, and canned tuna all contain mercury. Mercury is found in most types of fish, but bigger predatory fish contain higher concentrations. Tuna eat smaller fish, so they also consume the mercury content of smaller fish, which raises their mercury level.

Mercury is toxic to humans. Small amounts can be filtered out, but larger amounts will build up and result in mercury poisoning. The earliest signs of poisoning include poor coordination and numbness in the fingers and toes, followed by tremors and vision problems. Long-term mercury poisoning can affect memory function and impair the learning process. Severe cases can result in kidney problems, respiratory failure, and death.

Many people are aware of the dangers of eating too much tuna but are unaware of the actual amount that is “too much.” Certain types of tuna, such as the popular albacore, contain higher levels of mercury.

For a person weighing 68 kilograms (150 lb) or more, the FDA recommends consuming no more than one 170-gram (6 oz) can of albacore tuna every nine days. That means an every-other-day habit of tuna on rye for lunch would easily be enough to cause mercury poisoning.^[7]

3 Muscle Cream

Muscle cream can provide relief from aches and pains, but using too much can have fatal consequences.

Methyl salicylate is an anti-inflammatory found in products that soothe sore muscles, such as Bengay and Icy Hot. Though muscle cream is applied topically, the substance enters the body through the pores and permeates muscles and nerves as well as the bloodstream.

In 2007, Arielle Newman died from an accidental overdose of methyl salicylate.^[8] The 17-year-old track star regularly used muscle cream as well as adhesive pads containing methyl salicylate.

Newman’s overdose was a result of repeated applications of high quantities. Her body absorbed the methyl salicylate over time until the chemical reached toxic levels.

She also applied muscle cream before participating in a track meet, which is believed to have been an additional factor in Newman’s death. The heat that was generated as she ran would have opened her pores, causing increased absorption.

2 Black Licorice

Black licorice can be dangerous, especially for people over age 40. The FDA released a report earlier this year cautioning against the effects of consuming black licorice on a regular basis or in large quantities. The warning from the FDA came after a 2016 case where someone who often consumed black licorice experienced heart problems that were attributed to the chewy candy.

Eating just 57 grams (2 oz) of black licorice, which is about three 2.5-centimeter (1 in) pieces, every day for two weeks can cause heart problems. Black licorice contains glycyrrhizin, a compound that causes potassium levels to decrease. When potassium levels fall, people are at risk of suffering from abnormal heart rhythms, high blood pressure, and even congestive heart failure.

People with existing heart problems are at higher risk of experiencing an adverse effect from consuming black licorice.^[9]

1 Vitamins

Vitamins are supposed to improve our health, but taking too many supplements can actually cause cancers well as other health problems.

Some types of vitamins are water-soluble. Excess levels of water-soluble vitamins get flushed out through urine. But other vitamins, such as vitamin A, are lipid-soluble. These types of vitamins are stored in body fat and do not get flushed out the same way. Lipid-soluble vitamins can build up to toxic levels and cause liver damage, birth defects, central nervous system disorders, and cancer.

In 1985, a group of doctors began a trial in which participants took high doses of beta-carotene, a vitamin A supplement that was believed to reduce the risk of getting cancer. The trial was shut down early because the regimen backfired and caused cancer in some of the participants instead of preventing it. Specifically, male smokers who took beta-carotene supplements were 18 percent more likely to develop lung cancer than those who did not.^[10]

A 2001 study conducted by the National Cancer Institute resulted in a similar outcome. The study assessed the effectiveness of vitamin E in preventing prostate cancer. The findings showed that men who took vitamin E supplements were actually 17 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than those who did not.

Water-soluble vitamins such as vitamin C are typically flushed from the body before toxicity occurs, but there can still be negative effects from high doses. Overdoing it on vitamin C can result in diarrhea, stomach cramps, and even kidney stones.