Things I Learned in May 2025
Serendipitous Factoids 16: Colorful kitchens, non-clergy Pope, and an ancient travel guide.
Trivial things I’ve learned while looking for something else…
Sesame Street debuted in 1969. In 1970, Mississippi banned it because it was “too controversial.” What was the problem? Cookie Monster’s atrocious diet? Oscar the Grouch’s attitude issues? Nope. Incredibly, in 1970, it was because the show had a mixed race cast. Fortunately, public outrage caused the ban to last only a month.
The seat belt was invented by British engineer George Cayley. It was designed to protect the occupant of a vehicle you wouldn’t expect: Cayley’s monoplane glider. It happened in a time period you also would not expect: in the early 1850s (Cayley died in 1857).
The first kitchen appliance to be offered in a variety of colors was the stove. In 1949, the Chambers Company of Shelbyville, Indiana, started selling their stoves in black, red, blue, gray, yellow, and green. This started the trend in the 1950s towards colorful kitchens which ultimately culminated (or collapsed) with harvest gold and avocado of the 70s.
The papal conclave that recently elected Pope Leo XIV was fairly short. The shortest enclave lasted a scant 10 hours and resulted in the election of Pope Julius II in 1503. On the other extreme, there was a papal conclave that lasted over 1,000 days, from November 1268 to September 1271. The people of Viterbo, Italy, the town where the enclave was being held* got so fed up with the never-ending enclave that they locked the cardinals in the local palace, walled up the doors, reduced the cardinals’ food to bread and water, and even removed the palace’s roof (ostensibly to let the holy spirit in to guide the cardinals). Finally, on September 1, 1271, Teobaldo Visconti - who wasn’t even a priest - was elected and became Pope Gregory X. There was a cost to this: during the enclave three cardinals died and one resigned. Oh, and Teo V/Greg 10 wasn’t anywhere near Italy when he got tapped as Pope. He was in Palestine with King Edward I of England, laying siege to Acre during the Ninth Crusade. Those were very different times.
*They moved around in those days since it would be over 100 years before the Vatican was a thing. This enclave was held in the town where the previous pope, Clement IV, died.
That backward P with two legs (¶) used when editing documents is called a pilcrow.
There were seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Why seven? Surely there were more than seven wondrous things back then. Let’s blame some guy named Philo of Byzantium who was the first to write them up in in 225 BC in a work titled "On the Seven Wonders." It was basically a travel guide. Philo figured since there were (back then) seven celestial bodies (the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) and seven days in a week, so why not just seven Wonders?
Those Wonders are: the Great Pyramid of Giza (the only one still in existence), the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Statue of Zeus, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
The TV series The Addams Family was shot in black and white - it was, after all, 1964 and very few people had color TVs then. That actually fit the ghoulish, gothic feel of the family’s abode. But in reality the set was brightly colored, with salmon pink, sea glass green, and buttercup yellow having prominence. Check out the color picture in the link below.
That’s it for now. The Goblins of Minutiae that live in my head are signing off for this month! They’ll be back to enlighten you in bite-sized bits in June!
2W:LYK