The Hill Country hamlet of Bandera counts Tysmenytsia, Ukraine – famed for its fur factory – as a sister city.

Ernest Hemingway’s nickname for his penis was “Mr. Scrooby.” President Lyndon B. Johnson’s nickname for his was “Jumbo.”

Edmond Rostand’s 1897 verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac is based on a real person, Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-55), who was a well-known libertine and writer.

The first human-engineered hybrid animal was the kunga from about 4,500 years ago. It was a cross between female donkeys and male Syrian wild asses.

According to author Vidya Krishnan, in the early 1900s, women’s hemlines rose by several inches because doctors claimed their trailing skirts swept up and spread bacteria that causes tuberculosis.

This article appears in Guide to SXSW 2022.

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