In 1998, Mattel redistributed Barbie’s proportions from 39-18-33 to a more politically correct 36-27-38.

Alan Smithee, Allen Smithee, Alan Smythee, and Adam Smithee are pseudonyms used between 1968 and 1999 by Hollywood film directors who wanted to be dissociated from a film for which they no longer wanted credit.

TV remotes in hospital rooms contribute to staph infections, which cause 90,000 annual deaths from infection acquired in hospitals.

Due to strict new city ordinances in the Farmers Branch suburb of Dallas, it is against the law to have flowerpots without plants in them in front of one’s home.

A Brit invented the Champagne-making process, but it was French monk Dom Perignon who popularized it.

This article appears in October 5 • 2007.

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