1

The Gerber Baby - Gerber Baby Food

For decades, parents opening a jar of Gerber baby food saw the same sweet, sketched baby face staring back. But almost nobody knew who that baby was.

In 1928, the Fremont Canning Company, later Gerber, held a contest for a new advertising image. While most artists submitted elaborate paintings, Dorothy Hope Smith entered a simple charcoal sketch of her four-month-old neighbor, Ann Turner Cook. The judges loved the sketch exactly as it was and told Smith not to finish it. Because model releases weren’t standard at the time, rumors about the baby’s identity spread for years, with names ranging from Elizabeth Taylor to Humphrey Bogart. Cook stayed quiet for decades, partly to avoid attention, before revealing the truth around the sketch’s 50th anniversary in 1978. She later became a teacher and a mystery novelist. She remained remarkably private despite being one of America’s most recognizable advertising (baby) faces.

2

The Trix Rabbit - Trix Cereal

Every Saturday-morning kid knew the routine: the Trix Rabbit would create some ridiculous disguise, get dangerously close to the cereal, and then hear those four familiar words: "Silly rabbit, Trix is for kids." But the rabbit wasn’t even Trix’s first mascot.

When the cereal launched in 1954, a flamingo appeared on the box. The rabbit arrived five years later as a hand puppet created by writer Joe Harris, who also came up with the famous slogan. For years, General Mills deliberately kept the rabbit from eating Trix, believing it sent the wrong message about instant gratification. An astonishing 99 percent said the rabbit deserved a bowl, so he finally got his taste in 1980, although it has remained a rare event. In 2016, the company held a nationwide search for a real rabbit to appear on limited edition boxes. A two-pound Holland Lop bunny from Houston named Cinnabun won the honor.

3

Chuck E. Cheese - Chuck E. Cheese

The next time a Chuck E. Cheese birthday brings back memories of flashing arcade lights and tokens, remember that the restaurant almost had a much stranger name.

Nolan Bushnell, who co-founded Atari, wanted a family restaurant where people could eat pizza and play arcade games. For his mascot, he thought he had ordered a coyote costume — but got a rat costume instead. Bushnell embraced the mix-up and initially planned to call the chain "Rick Rat’s Pizza." Fortunately, his business partners stepped in and vetoed the idea, pointing out that marketing a rat-themed restaurant wasn't the best way to sell pizza to families. He settled on Chuck E. Cheese, partly because the alliteration reminded him of names like Mickey Mouse. The first Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre opened in San Jose, California, on May 17, 1977. After filing for bankruptcy in 1984, the company merged with rival ShowBiz Pizza Place, creating the chain that is beloved today.

4

Cap’n Crunch (a.k.a. Horatio Magellan Crunch) - Quaker Oats

Back in the 1960s, a TV commercial showed a bowl of cereal waiting, and a cartoon ship called S. S. Guppy sailing across the screen, commanded by a captain with a giant jaw. That’s Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch.

Quaker Oats hired the animation studio behind Rocky and Bullwinkle to draw a mascot in 1963, and writer Allan Burns, who later went on to co-create The Mary Tyler Moore Show , based the captain on the fictional British naval hero Horatio Hornblower. But the name came from a much simpler place: Quaker wanted a cereal that stayed crunchy even in milk. More interestingly, the Cap’n’s crew, young sailors named Alfie, Brunhilde, Carlyle, and Dave, were named using the first four letters of the alphabet so kids could remember them easily. And here’s the twist: even though he’s a Captain, his uniform only has three stripes, which technically makes him a Commander. In any case, 60 years later, he hasn’t earned a fourth stripe, but has gained America’s love.

5

Charlie the Tuna - StarKist

If you hear "Sorry, Charlie" and think of a cartoon tuna desperately trying to get canned, you’re not alone.

In 1961, copywriter Tom Rogers created Charlie for StarKist, basing the character’s beatnik personality, beret, and thick glasses on his real-life friend Henry Nemo, a musician known for his hip style and slang. In TV commercials, Charly was always trying to prove he had "good taste." He painted pictures, dressed like an intellectual, and offered cultured opinions to get StarKist’s attention. Instead, a hook would appear with a sign saying "Sorry, Charlie," because StarKist wanted tuna that tasted good, not tuna with good taste. The joke became part of everyday language. Charlie’s distinctive Brooklyn voice came from actor Herschel Bernardi, who played him for more than two decades. Though the character faded from advertising in the 1980s, StarKist brought him back in 1999.

6

Lucky the Leprechaun - Lucky Charms

If you grew up pouring a bowl of Lucky Charms, you probably remember chasing down every last marshmallow shape before the oats disappeared. That cereal, and its green top-hatted mascot, came from a fairly ordinary lunch break.

In 1963, General Mills product developer John Holahan was looking for a new use for the company’s cereal lines. Inspired by his own favorite candy, Circus Peanut, he chopped some up and mixed them into Cheerios. The result became Lucky Charms, and on St. Patrick’s Day 1964, an animated leprechaun originally called L.C. Leprechaun introduced the cereal to the country in a splashy, expensive ad campaign. But the mascot’s reign wasn't entirely uninterrupted. In 1975, General Mills tested swapping him for a gentle, absent-minded wizard named Waldo, hoping a friendlier character would appeal to kids. Although Waldo tested well with focus groups, he couldn't match the leprechaun's charisma, and General Mills scrapped the national rollout to let Lucky reclaim his pot for good.

7

Woodsy Owl - U.S. Forest Service

If an elementary school assembly in the 1970s included a lesson about littering, Woodsy Owl may have been part of the show. Created by the U.S. Forest Service with artist Harold Bell, Woodsy emerged from the environmental movement surrounding the first Earth Day in 1970.

He officially debuted on September 15, 1971, when Agriculture Secretary Clifford Hardin introduced him in Washington, D.C. His famous message, "Give a hoot, don’t pollute," became so recognizable that Congress passed the Woodsy Owl Act in 1974 to protect his name and image from misuse. Over time, Woodsy’s message expanded beyond littering to conservation and environmental responsibility, eventually becoming "Lend a hand, care for the land." Alongside Smokey Bear, he remains one of America’s best-known government-created characters, with more than five decades of classroom posters, songs, and public-service campaigns behind him.

8

The Quaker Man ("Larry") - Quaker Oats

The round-faced man wearing a wide-brimmed hat on a Quaker Oats canister has been around for generations. Many assume he is William Penn, the Quaker who founded Pennsylvania. He isn’t.

Quaker Oats registered its trademark in 1877, describing it simply as "a figure of a man in Quaker garb." The company chose the image because Quakers were associated with honesty, integrity, and purity, qualities the brand wanted attached to its oats. Officially, the man never had a name. Unofficially, people inside the company have reportedly called him Larry for years, although nobody seems to know exactly where the nickname came from. He has also had several faces over the decades.

9

Slats, Jackie and Leo the Lions - MGM Studios

Anyone who has watched a classic MGM movie knows that roar. But the famous lion mascot actually began with a college connection.

In 1916, advertising executive Howard Dietz needed a symbol for Goldwyn Pictures, a studio that would eventually become part of MGM. Dietz had attended Columbia University, whose mascot was a lion and whose fight song included the words, "Roar, Lion, Roar." He borrowed the idea. The first MGM lion, Slats, appeared in 1924, but there was a funny problem: movies were still silent. Slats never actually roared for audiences. That changed in 1928 when Jackie became the first MGM lion whose roar could be heard on film after synchronized sound arrived. Since then, seven different lions have played the role. The most familiar, simply called Leo, debuted in 1957 and remained MGM’s symbol for more than six decades, making him one of the longest-running mascots in entertainment history.

10

The Burger King - Burger King

Long before the unsettling Burger King mascot began appearing in commercials, the character was simply a cheerful drawing sitting above a restaurant sign.

The first version appeared in 1955 above Burger King's original Miami location, seated on what the company called a "burger throne." He remained mostly decorative until the early 1970s, when an animated version began appearing in children's commercials. Then came the strange version many longtime viewers remember. In 2003, an advertising agency reportedly found an oversized Burger King helium-balloon head for sale on eBay. That discovery helped inspire the silent, giant-headed King who suddenly appeared beside beds , in doorways, and even around celebrities. In 2015, he joined Floyd Mayweather’s boxing entourage in a stunt reportedly costing Burger King $1 million. The company officially retired that version of the King in March 2026, ending a bizarre chapter of the brand’s mascot.

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

Woolworth’s

Woolworth’s was the place to buy everything from school supplies and toys to household goods and candy—or even to grab lunch. The first store opened its doors in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1879. It was a five-and-dime shop, and the chain soon became one of America’s most recognizable retail names, with over 3,000 stores nationwide at its peak. So, why did it disappear?

With the steady rise of suburban shopping centers and large discount stores, Woolworth’s couldn’t keep up and began a slow decline in the 1960s that culminated in 1997, when it closed its final stores for good.

2

A&P

A&P used to be the spot to get everyday groceries. It began as a tea and coffee business in 1859 and later evolved into one of America’s biggest supermarkets with more than 16,000 stores in the country at its peak. But despite pioneering high-volume retailing, A&P couldn’t stick around.

Over the decades, newer competitors entered the market, and grocery shopping became more and more competitive. Walmart, Target, Aldi, Whole Foods—A&P failed to adapt and filed for bankruptcy twice, first in 2010 and again in 2015, and finally shut down in November 2015.

3

Blockbuster

Blockbuster was the go-to for movie rentals . It dominated the market with 9,100 stores worldwide by 2004, about $6 billion in revenue, and thousands of movies to choose from—it was hard to imagine Blockbuster ever falling, but it did.

The rapid advancement of technology hit Blockbuster hard, with newer options like DVD-by-mail services, Redbox kiosks, and the final blow: streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and more. All Blockbuster corporate-owned stores closed by January 2014; however, you can still visit one holdout location in Bend, Oregon.

4

Montgomery Ward

Long before Amazon, consumers could buy almost anything from Montgomery Ward from the comfort of their homes , and the company would ship it directly to them. It felt like online shopping before the internet. So why did it vanish?

To adapt to newer shopping habits, Montgomery Ward opened physical stores and started competing with brands like Sears; but once suburban malls and discount stores became widespread in the 1980s, Montgomery Ward couldn’t keep pace and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 1997 and again in 2001.

5

Circuit City

Circuit City started in 1949 and quickly became the source for TVs, stereos, VCRs, video games, and just about every kind of electronics , especially during the 1980s. The company continued growing by the early 2000s, expanding to more than 600 stores, though one controversial decision made it trip and fall.

Circuit City was already struggling to compete with Best Buy and Walmart. And in 2007, it replaced its commissioned sales staff with low-paid hourly workers, damaging customer service—often considered one of Circuit City’s biggest strategic mistakes. By March 2009, the chain was gone.

6

Caldor

There was a time when one trip to Caldor could cover almost everything on your shopping list. Founded in 1951, it became a major one-stop discount department store . By the 1990s, it had grown to more than 150 stores across New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, but in 1995 it filed for bankruptcy. What happened in between?

Big box stores like Walmart and Target were expanding rapidly, and Caldor simply fell behind as people moved toward newer retail formats that combined department stores and supermarkets. Plus, the company took on a lot of debt in 1991, which only made things worse. Caldor finally closed for good in 1999.

7

Borders

Borders is a reminder of a time when buying a book was an experience, rather than just clicking a few buttons online. It opened in 1971 and set itself apart from other modern bookstores. At Borders, you could spend an entire afternoon browsing not just books, but music and DVDs or even grabbing a coffee.

Around 2003–2004, Borders had more than 1,200 stores worldwide , but it failed to adapt to an inevitable growing trend: online book sales. Amazon eventually took over, and Borders couldn’t stay in the game, closing its final location in September 2011.

8

G.C. Murphy

Much like Woolworth’s, G.C. Murphy was a five-and-dime store that sold a little bit of everything and had lunch counters or snack bars where people would hang out. The company opened in 1906, and it operated more than 500 stores by 1976.

But once the traditional five-and-dime model came under pressure from discount giants, G.C. Murphy was forced to adapt. The chain did make some efforts and experimented with bigger stores and different formats, but it wasn’t enough, and G.C. Murphy filed for bankruptcy in 1985.

9

Zayre

Zayre entered the market in 1956 as a classic discount department store that looked more like a warehouse . It was a no-frills, self-service shopping experience with massive stores, wide-open interiors, and exposed ceilings where you could find lots of everyday items like clothing, household goods, or appliances at low prices.

While it was pretty successful, especially across the Northeast and Midwest, Zayre struggled to keep up with giants like Target. It tried to reinvent itself by founding TJ Maxx in 1977, but eventually sold the remaining Zayre stores to Ames in 1988, and the Zayre name vanished by 1990.

10

Service Merchandise

Service Merchandise was founded in 1934 and, unlike typical retail stores, it introduced a strange new concept called the " catalog showroom " in 1960, where display floors showcased single working samples of products, and the actual inventory was stored in an adjacent backroom warehouse. Customers would look at a catalog, place an order, and an employee would bring it to them.

The concept proved successful, and Service Merchandise operated more than 400 showrooms by the mid-1990s. But Service Merchandise’s model meant longer waiting times, and traditional discount stores began offering a faster and easier shopping experience. The company tried to modernize by introducing electronic inventory systems, but it didn’t work out. By 2002, Service Merchandise was gone.