There was a fake student officially enrolled at Georgia Tech in 1927 who accomplished some amazing things!
You are probably wondering how a fake person could be enrolled at a school, let alone accomplish anything, yet George P. Burdell has “achieved” feats most people only dream of!
William Edgar Smith first thought of the idea when he was enrolled at Georgia Tech. He originally thought it would be interesting to see how long he could keep it going without being caught. He enrolled his fictitious student in all the same classes that he took and named him George Burdell. Smith would do all the homework twice and slightly change the answers for Burdell.
By 1930, Burdell had earned a bachelor’s degree and only a few years later received a master’s. In the same year, he was inducted into the ANAK Society, which is Georgia Tech’s oldest secret society. Throughout his fake life, Burdell fought in World War II, served on Mad Magazine's Board of Directors, and was the leading candidate for Time's person of the year! He became a legend of sorts at Georgia Tech and his story is now told to all incoming freshman at the school!
The rose is a symbol of socialism!
The rose has had a long and illustrious history as a symbol. It has commonly been used to represent love, passion, beauty. It’s been used by Shakespeare, Dante, and most men. However, it was also used by British, Irish, French, Spanish, and other European labour, socialist, or social democratic parties after WW2 to symbolize socialism or social democracy.
This isn’t the only non-romantic symbolism of the rose. Medieval Christians identified the five petals of the rose with the five wounds of Christ. The red rose was eventually adopted as a symbol of the blood of Christian martyrs.
Oprah was sued for $11 Million because of ‘The Oprah Effect’! What is it?
The popular talk show host, Oprah Winfrey, has been responsible for skyrocketing books to the top of the best seller’s lists after saying she enjoyed reading them. However, it can be said that Oprah Winfrey can use her powers of persuasion to sway people AWAY from something as well!
While filming a show about mad cow disease with Howard Lyman in 1996, Oprah said that she wouldn’t eat another burger. Texas cattlemen sued her as well as Lyman in the early months of 1998 for “false defamation of perishable food” as well as “business disparagement”. The farmers claimed that Oprah’s comments dropped cattle prices and cost them $11 Million!
During this lawsuit she hired a man named Phil McGraw to study the jury in order to help her win, which she did. McGraw impressed her so much she invited him to come on her show as a regular participant. After being on her show many times, he started his own show, and called it Dr Phil. Click the source to learn more about the Oprah Effect!
During slavery times, a slave wanting to escape was considered a mental disorder!
Drapetomania was described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 as the mental illness which causes black slaves to flee captivity. He claimed that the disorder was the result of white owners treating their slaves as equals, which in turn caused the slave to not fulfill his or her duty. The treatment for symptoms were to simply never treat slaves like equals, and to speak to them more like children than adults.
If a slave truly suffered from drapetomania, the “cure” was the removal of the big toes. Cartwright’s article was widely dispersed in the South, yet even at the time was known to be flawed and widely mocked throughout the North.
Male puppies purposely let female puppies win while playing.
If you’ve survived that cute nuke, let’s get on with the story. A new study has found that when young male dogs play with young female dogs, they will often let the females win even if the males have the physical advantage. They sometimes place themselves in potentially disadvantageous positions that would make them more vulnerable to attack.
Such “self-handicapping” has been documented in red-necked wallabies, squirrel monkeys, hamadryas baboons, and of course, human beings. The study has found that this act of puppy chivalry tends to occur in conjunction with play bows. A play bow is when a puppy playfully bows to signal to its companion that it doesn’t have any serious intentions; that it just wants to have a little fun.
