Five Interesting Facts About the World

The Hidden Factoids of Newspapers by Shivam Patel

Greetings - Let’s welcome a spooky spirit by starting off this installment of Five Fun Facts About the World with some freakish, ghoulish, downright chilling factoids as we push into the second edition of the Griffin Post. Again, I am so happy to be sharing these tidbits with you, and I hope that you appreciate these factoids a little bit more than I do (If humanly possible)!

Traveling to Haiti first, we rewind a little bit in time, up until about the 17th - 18th centuries, where slavery and spiritual tradition (Bokongo and Haitian Voodoo) mingled to create a metaphorical and spiritual monster: the zombie, or ‘zumbi’ as it was called there. The story starts with the bokor, a character in Haitian belief that is relatable to the western ‘evil sorcerer’. The bokor, in vengeance for a sin or crime, will take and resurrect the body of the dead to serve the bokor without will. Another type of zombie, one that was easier to spread - though didn’t catch much attention worldwide - would be the zombie astral, the belief that the bokor could take the spirit of a now deceased person and capture it, using and selling it as a charm of good luck and profit. Either one embodies the two cultural significances of the time: the underlying concept of Dual Soulism (where the soul has two parts: flesh and spirit) and the more resonating concepts of slavery and civil injustice at the time. (This is most noticeably emulated inside the concept and essence of the zombie - something that fueled its popularity.)

(Picture description: A depicted drawing of a zombie at twilight, in a corn field)

Going from zombies to vampiric creatures, we find ourselves staring down the barrel of an interesting question: why do vampires hate garlic? This simple question actually has science behind it, but to understand, we must go back to the roots of vampires. Vampires are thought to originate from a misconceived perspective on the blood disorder Porphyria, whose side effects include an uncanny sensitivity to light, an irregularity of the hormone Heme, and a corpse-like appearance (pale skin, eroded gums and teeth, etc.) This disease also brings about the intolerance of allicin (found in garlic) and sulfur-rich compounds (also found in garlic). So when the creation and cultivation of the idea of the vampire took place, it was commonly assumed that because of this disease, the antibacterial and moreover essence of garlic would shun or even kill a vampire. Vampires were thought to live on this disease, though it wasn’t recognized as Porphyria at the time. In fact, real people with the disease also avoid garlic – it makes their gums painfully shrink, so it is thought that this effect transferred into the popular myth of the vampire! (Picture description: A clove of garlic )

Following this eerie trend of pale and discolored skin, our queries take us to Frankenstein’s Monster, a pitied character that is unusually portrayed… green? Now this may not seem like much of a question – something must have stimulated Mary Shelley to include that detail. Although, to all of you who have read the book, you know the book described it (he, if you want to personify it) as having yellowish pale skin, not green. The true origins of this magnificent colorflash occurs in the silent era of moviemaking, when the first movie of the book (1931 adaptation, directed by James Whale) was adapted into the stereotypical black and white orthochromatic (that highlights green and blue) film of the time. Little do many know that the green originated from this adaptation; the makeup artist, when selecting a color of skin for the actor, noted that green colors specifically reflect interestingly on the film, giving the skin a ghastly hue. Further adaptations kept the green as it distinguished the creature quite nicely - becoming the green we know and love today!

(Picture description: an image of Frankenstein's Monster on orthochromatic B&W film)

Scooting to Europe we travel back in time to a most peculiar sight: before witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, there were werewolf hunts going back to the 15th – 18th centuries, where people, moreover beggars and people on the poorer side of society, were accused of lycanthropy, a special process where a human transforms into a werewolf. Often other charges were pressed: witchcraft, sorcery, and other crimes associated with dark magic. The punishment were severe: beheading, execution, and imprisonment awaited those convicted, and many times over there were

cases of innocent people confessing due to pressure and torture from prosecutors. These trials, though most prominently practiced in Switzerland, France, and Germany, unfortunately spread across most of Europe - killing many across the continent. (Picture description: a depiction [sketch] of a werewolf attack)

Shifting once more to monstrous mysteries, focusing this time not on the appearance of this apparition but rather the sound of it. Ghosts have been saying BOO for a long time, going back to Latin and Greek origins or even further at least from the middle ages. The sound was first associated with an alarming sound when its first uses were the Latin and Greek ‘boare’ or ‘βoâv’ respectively, meaning something along the lines of I am here or a general sound of attention or presence. Later it started to evolve into a word that was used to warn people: beware, watch out. In Scotland, it evolved into a word that was actually described as “to scare crying children”, as was the case for similar sounds like bo or bu (Hobgoblins being later named bo-man or bu-man for this reason). Eventually, due to the volume of the syllable and the sharp b sound that comes before the body of the syllable, it was adopted to be associated with frightening or jumpscaring people, soon being commonized with monsters, and eventually became accustomed with the ghost. A fun tidbit: the figure of a ghost used to be of a talkative apparition, though over time the ghost’s vocabulary was replaced with the more desultory sound of BOO!

(Picture description: an artist rendering of an apparition)

GENERAL SOURCE:

https://halloweenalley.ca/things-you-didnt-know-about-these-six-classic-monsters/

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The Hidden Factoids of Newspapers by Shivam Patel

Hi! If you have read the ‘by’ section of the title, you are probably wondering why the name changed from the last few years. Let me introduce myself. My name is Shivam Patel, and I am a 6th grader here at GATE starting out on FIFAW at the Griffin Post. I love getting and displaying fun factoids, and I am sure these factoids will get better through the editions. Let’s get started with the first ever 2025-2026 FIFAW entry in the Griffin Post! Today’s topic: The hidden factoids of newspapers around the world!

Let’s start off with a little bit of history. Tracing back through the lineage of old – though still continued – newspapers, we find ourselves at Wiener Zeitung, the oldest daily newspaper that is still continued. This newspaper is based in Vienna (The name literally translates to ‘Vienna Newspaper), Austria. This old paper is thought to have been established in 1703 by Johann Baptist Sh Johann Baptist Schönwetter. Diving back further, we find another old relic, which is the Post- och Inrikes Tidningar, a Swedish newspaper started back in 1645 and is continued to this day, though switched to a continual digital format starting January 1st, 2007. A little tidbit: Post- och Inrikes Tidningar actually translates to ‘postal and domestic newspapers’ in its original language, Swedish. (Pictures descriptions: front: first issue of the Wiener Zeitung, released on August 8th, 1703. behind: fifteenth issue of Post- och Inrikes Tidningar, published on the 9th of April, 1645)

Continuing our spiel in Europe, we move to the UK, where a nostalgic tradition remembered by many shakes up curiosity in many young minds. The “Fish-&-Chips-served-in-newspapers” tradition goes back decades, though seeing its peak in the 1930s, has seen a recent decline. The dish Fish (or Cod) and Chips was originally wrapped in newspaper and regular paper layers, as this paper was said to be more absorbent than any other, and was ideal for soaking up the oil. More recently, this practice was discontinued, as it was found to be somewhat unhygienic. Newspaper also was found to be cheap and available, and also insulatory, keeping the dish rather warm inside the wrappings. It is said that instead of regular newspaper paper, people used printed newspapers, resulting in a rather inky taste in the food. Toxic mineral and lead inks that were being used posed a serious health risk to the users or consumers of the food. Surprisingly, restaurants are now printing food safe ink in a newspaper-like design onto the food safe paper that they use for this dish to create a more authentic feeling!

From food to feud, we find ourselves back further in time, all the way to the Civil War, where we come to the most inconspicuous part of the daily news: the advertisements. In the Civil War, confederate troops and regiments communicated with one another through messages in personal advertisement columns, where these newspapers, such as the Daily Herald, easily reached other generals and civilians who would then pass it on to higher commanding army officials. Interception was unlikely, as though the Daily Herald was mostly used for its widespread reach, there were small town weeklies, monthly news-magazines, and over 400 semi-major newsletters to choose from. The same practice of newspaper manipulation also occurs in the Ohioan regiments, and further north for the same reasons - easy though hard to pick through. Repeated and edited prints made this total substantially larger - 4 million prints!!! Going even further back to the civil war, we can see that newspapers have taken a major role in intelligence, as newspapers brought in from Britain and from British publishings can give great insight into the state and motives of the British side. (Picture description: The New York Herald clipping, dating to the Civil War.

We take ourselves back a little in history to the first ever comic in a newspaper, the successful Yellow Kid comic, first installed in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and later in the New York Journal. This extravagant yet simple comic, created and drawn by Richard F. Outcault. Here’s a little background on the ‘Yellow Kid’, or Mickey Dungan. He was an Irish tenement mischief maker, who came to New York. The comic itself is mostly of relatively slapstick humor, though also contains a great deal of social commentary. The comic is famous for being the namesake of the idea “yellow journalism”, the idea of stories that were made widespread for the pure purpose of selling newspapers, as was the case for the Yellow Kid comic – the strip originated out of a feud between the New York World and New York Journal, both installing the comic out of means of increased sales. (Picture Description: Mickey Duncan)

Another beloved part of the newspapers is the crossword, a puzzling yet delightful brain teaser that is especially appealing to many people. Though this treat mostly comes in 15x15 to 22x22 square grids, this is sometimes exceeded. The largest crossword in a newspaper is a special feature of the NYT newspaper called the Puzzle Mania, characterized by the gargantuan 50x50 grid with a whopping 700+ clues, up and down! The New York Times, an already famous newspaper, released the competition for this fascinating puzzle first in 2016, continuing the tradition with an annual Puzzle Mania, exclusively featuring the Cryptic Crossword, the famed crossword that was mentioned earlier. Puzzle Mania was originally created to bring revenue and to bring a new and exciting interruption to the regular NYT puzzles, though this feature has since taken over as a hallmark for many solvers - a treat that for some is just a little difficult to swallow!

GENERAL SOURCE:

https://www.yourframedarticle.com/blog/10-fun-facts-about-newspapers?srsltid=AfmBOoq5RwelSYzMgcR0ufA3ADB1Qkk9xiEv16lLNOSDnbWUgOwR_7wJ

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