Americans ordered more than 200 million gluten-free meals in restaurants last year. You can now obtain gluten-free communion wafers.

The United States’ three main power grids – one for the eastern U.S., one for the west, and one serving most of Texas – include more than 450,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines. That’s enough to wrap around the Earth’s equator 18 times.

Jabba the Hutt was a hermaphrodite.

“Born in the U.S.A.” was originally called “Vietnam,” and the original chorus was “You died in Vietnam!” According to The New Yorker, even Bruce Springsteen himself called the single “the most misunderstood song since ‘Louie, Louie.'”

Harry Houdini had an imaginary son named Mayer Samuel Houdini.

This article appears in December 12 • 2014.

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