The Golden Gate Bridge is the most recognizable part of San Francisco’s misty skyline, not least because of its vibrant orange color, but the iconic structure was almost painted an entirely different hue — or rather, two entirely different hues. The idea of connecting parts of California’s Marin County with San Francisco via a bridge dates back to 1869, but plans for the architectural wonder didn’t take shape until 1916. Despite a hefty $35 million bill amid the Great Depression, the bridge project broke (underwater) ground in 1933. When it came time to choose a paint color two years into the build — a necessity to prevent rust on the steel caused by the underlying salt water — there was no obvious choice. The U.S. Navy, for one, recommended a black-and-yellow-striped design intended to increase visibility for ships and airplanes operating in foggy weather, while the Army Air Corps reportedly favored red and white stripes. Architect Irving Morrow rejected the idea (along with the commonly used gray and silver), settling instead on the vivid “International Orange” after seeing the bridge primed in a vermillion hue and believing the color would complement the surrounding landscape while providing high visibility. The bridge officially opened on May 27, 1937, painted in its gleaming new hue.

The Golden Gate Bridge has its own fog horns.

fact

FIB

Ready to reveal?

Confirm your email to play the next question?

sign up!

Please enter valid email.

Sign up

Oops, incorrect!

It's a fact

Despite its blazing hue, the Golden Gate Bridge is known for disappearing into San Francisco’s famous fog. Two fog horns protect the bridge from boats below, blaring upwards of five hours a day — or more — during August’s peak fog.

Exactly how the Golden Gate Bridge maintains its iconic glow is something of a maintenance marvel that’s shrouded in myth. Popular theories suggest that the 1.7-mile overpass is entirely repainted from end to end annually, or just once every seven years, but in fact caretakers continuously have paint brushes in hand. Crews note areas of the bridge where paint has worn away, then spot-paint sections as needed. The work is tedious, requiring high climbs atop the structure’s 746-foot towers and its underbelly, which sits just 200 feet above the bay. Workers use specialized equipment and brushes to remove old paint, prime the underlying steel, and lacquer on the standout shade. The bridge has been fully repainted only one time — beginning in 1968 — to remove its failing, original lead-based paint; the task took 27 years and wasn’t finished until 1995.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Email

Who knew the California gold rush would spin off a fashion trend that has lasted nearly 150 years? Probably not the gold miners who donned Levi Strauss’ first denim pants. The jeans we wear today as casual apparel initially had a different function, marketed as sturdy work pants that could withstand a day in the mines or manual labor on a farm. And they had a different name, too: waist overalls.

Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant who ran a dry goods store in San Francisco during the 1850s, catered to prospectors and settlers looking to strike it rich in California’s gold claims. But while Strauss’ name is sewn into the history of jeans, the idea for heavy-duty apparel actually came from Jacob Davis, a Reno, Nevada, tailor who was a customer at Strauss’ store. Around 1872, Davis approached Strauss with a concept for work pants that used copper rivets and stitching to bulk up the weakest points of traditional pants; within a year the duo had patented their design for denim workwear, initially available in indigo or brown hues. Strauss marketed the waist overalls under the Levi Strauss & Company name, first commissioning seamstresses to stitch the pants together from their homes before building a factory in the 1880s. Over time, Strauss added designs for other reinforced work clothes such as shirts, true overalls, and coats.

Indigo dye was once used as currency in the United States.

fact

FIB

Ready to reveal?

Confirm your email to play the next question?

sign up!

Please enter valid email.

Sign up

Oops, incorrect!

It's a fact

Denim originally obtained its distinctive color from indigo dye, an expensive pigment so valued that traders exchanged it for goods around the time of the American Revolution. Inexpensive synthetic dyes first emerged in the 1850s, and today, most jeans are colored with artificial hues.

As the gold rush era wound down, the popularity of jeans grew with the help of Hollywood Westerns of the 1920s and ’30s. World War II skyrocketed denim “dungarees” to popularity thanks to their durability; jeans became standard issue for soldiers and factory workers alike. But it was the postwar ’50s and turbulent ’60s that cemented the pants as everyday wear. Actors such as Marlon Brando in 1953’s The Wild One and James Dean in 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause gave denim a counterculture reputation and helped usher in a trendy, new name: jeans, a centuries-old name for denim that originally came from the French name for the port of Genoa, Italy: Génes.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Email

When we think of pirates, some instantly recognizable iconography comes to mind: eye patches, peg legs, treasure maps, parrots. But as it turns out, only some of these ideas are grounded in truth. For one thing, as far as we know, pirates did not, in fact, make treasure maps. Though they are believed to have buried treasure on occasion — those ill-gotten gains had to go somewhere — there are few documented cases of them doing so, and even fewer (read: none) of them creating a map where “X” marks the spot. Treasure maps are a double-edged cutlass, after all: For as much help as they might be to the pirate in question, they could also fall into the wrong hands. 

Pirates made people walk the plank.

fact

FIB

Ready to reveal?

Confirm your email to play the next question?

sign up!

Please enter valid email.

Sign up

Oops, incorrect!

It's a fib

Like drawing treasure maps, walking the plank is thought of as a classic pirate activity. But there’s little evidence that it ever happened, and it seems we have Daniel Defoe and other writers to thank for creating the myth in the first place.

The myth of treasure maps may have originated with the legendary exploits of Captain William Kidd, who was believed to have buried some of his riches on Gardiner’s Island in the 17th century. Novels like Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1881-1882) helped further popularize the idea of buried treasure in general and treasure maps in particular.

In fact, many of our ideas about pirates come more from novelists (and, of course, screenwriters) than from historians, which makes it difficult to separate truth from legend when it comes to the seafarers, who have long occupied an outsized place in our collective imagination. There is some good news, though: It seems likely that some pirates really did have parrots — among other exotic pets.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Email

The very first pencils arrived around the dawn of the 17th century, after graphite (the real name for the mineral that forms a pencil’s “lead”) was discovered in England's Lake District. But the eraser didn’t show up until the 1770s, at the tail end of the Enlightenment. So what filled the roughly 170-year-long gap? Look no further than the bread on your table. Back in the day, artists, scientists, government officials, and anyone else prone to making mistakes would wad up a small piece of bread and moisten it ever so slightly. The resulting ball of dough erased pencil marks on paper almost as well as those pink creations found on the end of No. 2 pencils today. 

The writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau invented a popular American pencil.

fact

FIB

Ready to reveal?

Confirm your email to play the next question?

sign up!

Please enter valid email.

Sign up

Oops, incorrect!

It's a fact

Known best for literary works such as “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau and his family owned a pencil company where Thoreau mixed clay with graphite to make a variety of pencils, including the first No. 2.

But in 1770, English chemist Joseph Priestly (best known for discovering oxygen) wrote about “a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the marks of a black lead pencil.” This substance, then known as caoutchouc, was so perfect for “rubbing” out pencil marks that it soon became known simply as “rubber.” Even today, people in the U.K. still refer to erasers as “rubbers.” (The name “lead-eater” never quite caught on.) 

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Email