1

He secretly wrote under a woman's name

While most of today's teenagers are finishing high school and wondering what their first job might be, Benjamin Franklin was already writing newspaper columns under a secret identity .

At just 16, Franklin began writing a series of satirical letters to his older brother James’s newspaper, the New-England Courant in Boston. He wrote them under the name Silence Dogood, a fictional middle-aged woman who offered witty observations about colonial life, morality, and politics. But the public wasn’t the only one "fooled" by the writer. Franklin secretly slipped the letters under the printing-house door at night so his brother wouldn’t know who was behind them. James and his friends enjoyed the letters so much that they published them without realizing that their teenage apprentice was the author. Young Benjamin eventually revealed the secret, and according to historical sources, his brother was not amused.

2

He loved "air baths"

As a Founding Father, Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Postmaster General of the United States, and U.S. ambassador to France, we know plenty about Benjamin Franklin’s public life, but much less about his everyday habits.

One of the strangest was what he called his "air baths." In a letter from 1768, Franklin explained that he disliked the shock of cold-water baths. Instead, every morning he would get out of bed, remove all his clothes, and sit by the open window of his bedroom for up to an hour while he read, wrote, and worked. He believed that exposing his body to fresh air helped keep him healthy. But what’s interesting is that, despite his dislike of cold water, he still bathed regularly, and later became a fan of warm baths after experiencing them while serving as ambassador to France .

3

He dropped out of school when he was 10

Despite being one of the most intelligent and well-educated men of his time, Benjamin Franklin left school when he was still a child.

Few people know that Franklin attended grammar school for only about two years before leaving formal education at around age 10 because his family could no longer afford to keep him in school. But neither his family’s financial hardship nor his lack of formal education held him back. He educated himself through extensive reading and writing, studied science and philosophy, learned French, Italian, Spanish, and German, and eventually pursued his passion for electricity. As a consequence, the boy who had left school at 10 went on to become one of the best-known intellectuals of his era.

4

He created a musical instrument that impressed Mozart

Along with famous inventions like the lightning rod and bifocal glasses, Franklin created several other inventions that fascinated people of his time.

One of the most unusual was the "glass armonica," a musical instrument he created in 1761 while living in London, England, made of spinning glass bowls that produced tones when touched with wet fingers. The instrument became a sensation across Europe. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was so impressed that he composed Adagio and Rondo for Glass Armonica, Flute, Oboe, Viola, and Cello (K. 617) for it in 1791, and Ludwig van Beethoven also wrote music for the instrument.

5

He became a French fashion icon

Intellectual, politician, writer, inventor: these are all words that describe Benjamin Franklin. But who would have thought he was also a fashion icon?

While serving as a diplomat in France from 1776 to 1785, Franklin embraced some French customs, but he also brought a distinctly American style to Paris. At a time when the French elite wore elaborate powdered wigs, Franklin often appeared in a distinctive fur cap , which helped create his image as the charming, rustic American sage. His look became such a sensation that Parisian women began wearing tall hairstyles inspired by his fur cap, a fashion known as the coiffure à la Franklin .

6

He adopted a vegetarian lifestyle

Writing for a newspaper under a female pseudonym wasn’t the only surprising thing Franklin did at age 16.

Around that time, he also decided to become a vegetarian, something quite unusual for a young man in the early 18th century. In his Autobiography , written from 1771 until shortly before his death in 1790, Franklin recalled reading a book by Thomas Tryon that promoted a "vegetable diet" and deciding to try it. He had two good reasons: first, he disliked the idea of killing animals for food, and second, eating less meat would save money for books . But the experiment wasn't long-lasting. About a year later, during a sea voyage, Franklin watched fish being caught and noticed that some of them were eating one another. He later joked that if fish could eat each other, perhaps he could eat fish, too, and he returned to eating meat.

7

He never actually patented an invention

Inventions were a huge part of Benjamin Franklin’s life, but he didn’t make money from them . And it wasn’t because he couldn’t; he simply didn’t want to.

Franklin never patented his inventions because he believed useful ideas should be shared freely for the general good. The lightning rod, bifocals, and Franklin stove could all have brought him money, but he chose not to claim exclusive rights to them. In fact, when Pennsylvania Deputy Governor George Thomas offered him a patent monopoly for his energy-efficient stove in 1744, Franklin politely turned it down.

8

He became a millionaire, but not from inventions

Born into a humble family, Benjamin Franklin went on to become a wealthy man , but not because of his inventions.

As we’ve seen, Franklin never patented his inventions, so he didn’t make money from them. Instead, his intelligence and business sense helped him build a fortune as a printer, publisher, and investor. His Poor Richard’s Almanack, published annually from 1733 to 1758, became hugely popular, selling roughly 10,000 copies a year. Over time, Franklin accumulated enough wealth to retire from active business while he was still relatively young.

9

He made his first invention at 11 years old

Franklin invented a pair of hand paddles for swimming when he was just 11 years old. His aquatic skills later earned him an induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

10

He helped create America's first volunteer fire company

1

A renovation project saved thousands of lives on 9/11

On September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., killing 189 people. Few people know this part: the death toll could have been much higher. But there was a renovation project underway at the time of the attacks.

The Pentagon’s five-sided structure is divided into five "wedges," and workers had been renovating them one at a time. Flight 77 struck the wedge that had just been completed. Of the 4,500 people who normally worked in that section, only about 800 had moved back in. Without the reinforced construction and the incomplete occupancy, experts believe the casualties would have been catastrophically higher.

2

The Cold War and the hot dog stand

In the middle of the Pentagon’s five-acre center courtyard once stood a modest hot dog stand. According to a Cold War legend (one still retold by official Pentagon tour guides on every public tour), between the 60s and the 80s, Soviet satellite images tracked large groups of high-ranking military officials converging on that small building at the same time every day.

Soviet intelligence reportedly concluded the structure must be the entrance to some underground bunker in America. In reality, all it did was sell lunch. In 2006, the original stand was torn down, and a sandwich shop was built in its place.

3

Its construction began on September 11th, exactly 60 years before the attack

Builders broke ground on the Pentagon on September 11, 1941. That was exactly 60 years to the day before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that would strike the same building.

Construction had been ordered by Army Brigadier General Brehon Somervell, who wanted a permanent headquarters for the Defense Department to replace its then-17 scattered offices across Washington, D.C.

The project was extraordinarily ambitious: plans called for the world’s largest office building to be completed in just 16 months. In the end, the conception, design, and construction of the entire Pentagon building took a total of 15 months.

4

The same person oversaw its construction and the Manhattan Project

Colonel Leslie Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers took charge of Pentagon construction in August 1941. He worked six days a week and drove his team relentlessly, at one point employing more than 15,000 workers around the clock.

When the Pentagon was finished in January 1943, Groves was assigned to lead the Manhattan Project, America’s secret program to build the atomic bomb . His deputy, Captain Robert Furman, followed him into the Manhattan Project as chief of foreign intelligence. Together, the men who built the world’s largest office building went on to produce the weapon that ended World War II.

5

Why is it shaped like that?

The Pentagon’s iconic five-sided shape was the consequence of a geographic accident. The original site selected for the building, near Arlington Cemetery, **happened to be bordered on five sides by roads. **Architects designed the structure to fit those boundaries, producing a pentagonal floor plan. Then President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened: worried the massive building would obstruct the view of Washington, D.C. from Arlington, he ordered the site moved to its current location along the Potomac River. But the five-sided design had already been drawn up, and nobody changed it.

6

It was the first desegregated building in Virginia

When the Pentagon was designed in 1941, segregation was the law in Virginia. Original plans called for doubled bathroom facilities: separate ones for Black and white employees, as required by Virginia statute. But President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 8802 in June 1941, prohibiting racial discrimination in federal employment and government contracting.

As a federal building, the Pentagon was exempt from Virginia law. It became the only building in the state where segregation was not enforced. A fully desegregated federal workplace that opened in 1943. The doubled bathrooms were built anyway, as the plans were too far along to revise, but were never used as separately designated spaces.

7

Its construction was surprisingly frugal and incredibly fast

Ground broke on September 11, 1941, and construction finished on January 15, 1943, just 16 months later. More than 15,000 workers were on site around the clock. Wartime office shortages were so severe that employees moved into completed wings before the rest of the building was finished. Steel was too scarce to use extensively, so builders relied almost entirely on reinforced concrete. The 689,000 tons of sand and gravel required came directly from the nearby Potomac River, cutting transportation costs. The project was budgeted at $35 million, but the final bill was $63 million, which would translate to over $900 million in today’s dollars.

8

You can walk between its farthest points in only 7 minutes

The Pentagon is the world’s largest low-rise office building: 6.5 million square feet of space, which is three times the total floor area of the Empire State Building. Each of its five outer walls is 921 feet long. It has 7,754 windows and 17.5 miles of corridors. Approximately 26,000 military and civilian employees report for work there every day.

Despite that scale, the building’s concentric ring design is so efficient that it takes only about seven minutes to walk between its two farthest points.

9

The man who secretly lived inside its walls

During construction, Colonel Groves drove his deputy, Captain Robert Furman, so relentlessly that Furman rarely left the building. To cope, Furman had contractors build him a small, windowless apartment hidden inside the walls of the Army’s Ordnance Division. In this private room, he could sleep and shower without leaving the premises.

When construction ended and personnel dispersed, knowledge of the hidden room was never passed on to building management. Months later, when Furman returned to Washington on Manhattan Project intelligence business, he found the apartment undiscovered and exactly as he’d left it.

For over a year, he would slip back to the Pentagon, pop open a wall panel, spend the night, and emerge in the morning with his suitcase. He was finally caught in 1943 and forced to surrender the keys. It was never disclosed whether the secret apartment was maintained or eventually absorbed back into the official floor plans.

10

It houses over 30 restaurants, including everyone's favorite chains

The Pentagon feeds roughly 26,000 people a day, and its dining options read less like a military headquarters and more like a mall food court. The main Concourse Food Court, which opened in September 2009 and seats 875 people, is the largest of several dining areas.

Confirmed chains currently inside the building include McDonald’s, Five Guys, Subway, Popeyes, Starbucks (multiple locations), Dunkin’ (two locations), Panera Bread, Taco Bell, Panda Express, Baskin-Robbins, Potbelly, Jamba Juice, and Moe’s Southwest Grill, among others. The building also houses a CVS pharmacy, a florist, a jeweler, and a dry cleaner. In the summer of 2024, Potbelly became the first restaurant to open in the center courtyard. Yes, the very spot where the legendary Cold War hot dog stand once stood.

1

Point Roberts, WA: The 49th parallel accident

Imagine if you had to cross two borders just to get to the market for a gallon of milk. That’s actually a reality for residents of Point Roberts, Washington. That’s because, following the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, the 49th parallel divided Canada and the U.S. In 1846, the line was extended westward and then officially recognized by the International Boundary Commission in 1925.

However, a tiny tip of the Tsawwassen Peninsula poked out just below that line. Since then, the locals have lived in a boundary quirk. To get to the rest of Washington State by land, they must drive through Canada, show their passports, and do it all over again on the way back.

2

Statue of Liberty: Common misconception

If you want to start a friendly argument at a dinner party, ask whether the Statue of Liberty lives in New York or New Jersey. The funny thing is, both answers are technically right . While the statue physically sits in the waters of the Garden State, Liberty Island is legally an exclave of New York. This dates back to a 1664 land grant by the Duke of York in a document so vague and confusing that it took a 1834 Compact between the two states to settle the deal. New Jersey gets the water and the submerged lands, but New York keeps the monument.

However, the Federal Government actually manages the site through the National Park Service (NPS), providing security and maintenance.

3

The State of Franklin: Failed 14th state

In 1784, three counties in North Carolina felt neglected by their government and decided to strike out on their own . They even elected a governor, John Sevier, and printed their own money. They came just two votes short of being recognized by Congress as a formal state.

Eventually, things got heated, and North Carolina sent troops, leading to a small civil war between the locals. By 1789, the dream of Franklin was buried, and the territory became part of Tennessee.

4

Kentucky Bend

If you look closely at a map, there’s a piece of Kentucky that looks like it doesn’t belong. That’s the Kentucky Bend, also called the New Madrid Bend, a tiny peninsula in Fulton County that is almost completely separated from the rest of the Bluegrass State . The strange situation was the consequence of the massive series of earthquakes that took place in that area between 1811 and 1812, which were so violent they famously caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards for several hours. When the dust settled, the river had carved a new path that looped around this small patch of land, surrounded by Missouri and Tennessee instead of Kentucky. The 9 residents living there today go through Tennessee just to get to their home state.

5

The State of Deseret: The empire that almost was

Imagine a state so big it makes Texas look tiny. That almost happened back in 1894, when Mormon pioneers proposed the State of Deseret. The territory comprised what we now know as Utah, most of Nevada, parts of Arizona and Colorado, and a massive chunk of the California coast, including San Diego.

Had it been formalized, it would have been a powerhouse with its own seaport and total control over the West. However, Washington, D.C. wasn’t so keen on one group having that much territory and power, so they whittled it down, and we ended up having the states we know today.

6

The lawless "No Man's Land"

Have you ever wondered what happens when two governments simply give up on a piece of land? Between 1806 and 1821, there was a strip of land in what is now western Louisiana that was, literally, No Man’s Land. Neither the U.S. nor Spain, which owned part of the territory, could agree on the border, so they declared it "Neutral Ground" to avoid armed conflicts . The plan backfired as, with no laws to contain it, it quickly became a favorite for the outlaws in the West —meaning deserters and bandits hiding there were legally untouchable. The conflict was resolved by the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty, which officially set the Sabine River as the legal boundary.

7

The Republic of the Indian Stream

In the early 1830s, people living in a small area between New Hampshire and Quebec were fed up, and in this case, taxes were the problem. Both Canada and the US were trying to collect taxes, and nobody likes being double-billed . In 1832, the residents essentially said "neither of them can tax us" and formed their own country called the Republic of the Indian Stream. They had their own constitution and Capitol for four years, until 1836, when the militia marched on the disputed territory to reclaim the land. It wasn’t until 1842, when the land dispute and the double taxation were definitively resolved by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty, which assigned the land to New Hampshire.

8

The Northwest Angle: Mapping mistake of 1783

When the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783 to end the Revolutionary War, the mapmakers used a chart that was flat-out wrong. They thought the Mississippi River started much further north than it actually did. Because of that mistake, a piece of Minnesota got cut off from the rest of the country . To this day, the "Northwest Angle" is the only place in the lower 48 states north of the 49th parallel. Much like Point Roberts, you have to cross a massive lake or drive through Canada just to visit it.

9

The District of Columbia’s "lost" corner

If you look at a map of D.C., you’ll notice it’s missing a chunk; it’s not a perfect square as it was originally intended. Originally, the capital was a perfect ten-mile square diamond , taking land from both Maryland and Virginia. But by 1846, things got tense. Residents in the Virginia portion, which included Alexandria and Arlington, were worried the federal government would abolish slavery in the District, which was the backbone of their economy. They successfully petitioned to have Virginia "take back" that portion of the land and subsequently changed the shape of the national capital forever.

10

UN Headquarters: International territory

If you want to feel international, go to the United Nations Headquarters on the East River in midtown Manhattan, New York. Once you cross that gate onto the 18-acre site, you are technically leaving the United States. You don’t need to show your passport, but that’s international territory, which means it has its own laws , its own security force, and even its own postal service. It is a legal hole in the middle of New York City.