It’s time for another edition of The First Time News Was Fit To Print, where we travel into the archives of The New York Times and find the first time the paper covered various subjects. If you have a suggestion for a future installment, leave a comment. Automated Teller Machines October 9, 19...

The ladies (and gentlemen – there must be some gentlemen, right?) at Ladies Home Journal have kindly named mentalfloss.com one of their six favorite blogs. Thanks, Ladies (Home Journal)! * * * Like every other media outlet, we’ve jumped into the Twitter pool (well, maybe not jumped. I’...

1. Last month, my co-workers and I found out that a healthy portion of our emails were not being delivered, and we were not receiving all the messages intended for us. This led to numerous awkward moments where someone thought someone else was intentionally blowing them off, and it cost our readers ...

‘Odds/Ends’ is our least popular regular feature. I mix in random facts with housekeeping announcements and updates on current and former _flossers. Enjoy! I know many of you have been clamoring for a “Where Is He Now? Gary Condit” article. Tucked away in the last paragraph o...

In the early 19th century, German mineralogist Friedrich Mohs developed a practical method for comparing the hardness of minerals. Reader Anna M. Powlus of Berwick, Pennsylvania, wants to know how many of the ten minerals in Mohs’ scale you can name in 3 minutes. Take the Quiz: Mohs’ Har...

We’re making some updates to our quiz tools right now, and there’s a chance this will turn us into the harshest of graders this weekend. As in, no matter what you answer on certain quizzes, you will be marked wrong. Please don’t take this undeserved failure too hard. I’ll let...

For the last of our January book giveaways, we asked you to design a class for the fictional mental_floss_university. To help determine the hypothetical curriculum, I consulted with intern Andréa Fernandes, who is our Senior College Correspondent (and a college senior). Before announcing a winner, ...

Today’s winner of our ongoing name x in y minutes contest is Tucker Cummings, who was the first entrant to suggest this European Union challenge. There are currently 27 countries in the European Union. How many can you name in 10 minutes? Take the Quiz: Name the EU...

Everyone has to start somewhere. Even Dick Cheney, Oprah and John Krasinski. Before they were stars, they were interns, and today’s quiz challenges you to match the celebrity to the internship that started it all. (Or in some cases, the internship that just passed the time before said celebrit...

We’ve all done some pretty stupid things in our lives. If you’re looking for evidence, here are some of the confessions our readers made in an effort to win a copy of the latest Darwin Awards book. Before announcing the winner, let’s run through a few of the highlights. (Note: Ther...