In Canada, meteorologists call our heat index the humidex.

Chemistry professor Benjamin Stillman set up the first soda fountain in a drugstore in New Haven, Conn., in 1806.

A Charlie Brown Christmas almost didn’t premiere in 1965 because network executives thought its pace was too slow and it needed a laugh track. Charles Schulz refused the laugh track part.

The term “paper tiger” comes from ancient Chinese and was introduced to modern audiences in 1946 by Mao Zedong. In trying to diminish the significance of the U.S. atomic bomb, Zedong was saying it meant a regime that is superficially powerful.

A 2018 UK survey revealed that one in four women younger than 25 had stopped shaving their armpits.

This article appears in July 11 • 2025.

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