No, not an elaborate April Fool. Many cats have lived at the Museum over the years. Perhaps the most famous was Mike, who guarded the main gate between 1909 and 1929. When he died, his obituary appeared in the Evening Standard and TIME magazine. The picture above shows Mike in action.

 

The British Museum was founded in 1753 when Sir Hans Sloane left his collection to the nation. But before the Museum could open to the public, a suitable site needed to be purchased. One of the locations considered was a place called Buckingham House, which was later rebuilt as Buckingham Palace! But the Trustees agreed instead to move into Montague House, the site of the current Museum, and the rest is history! Or should that be geography?

There are quite a few landmarks around the Harvard campus. The most famous one is known as the statue of three lies. It’s called so to account for its three inaccuracies. The sculpture states that it is of John Harvard, the founder of Harvard and that Harvard was founded in 1638. However, John Harvard was not the founder of the university, he was the first major benefactor. Also, Harvard was founded in 1636 and not 1638. What’s more? The sculpture isn’t of John Harvard at all, but that of some unknown student.
 

Harvard is prestigious, it's Ivy League, and it has rich and influential alumni. We are well aware that Harvard has a lot of money. But do you know just how much? Harvard has the largest academic endowment in the world, $40.9 billion (2021). The interest from this endowment alone can buy you a private island.

The most prestigious university of America cannot have its students getting distracted from school now, can they? Commercial filming on university grounds is banned at Harvard and it has been a no-film zone since 1970. Movies like The Social Network (2010) and some others found a loophole; although set at Harvard they were filmed elsewhere, complying with university regulations.

There is a gruesome murder tale set at Harvard, famously known as the Parkman-Webster murder case. Parkman, a high-profile businessman and Harvard alum lent money to Webster, a Harvard professor. Parkman visited Webster to confront him about the repayment and ended up burnt and dismembered in Webster’s laboratory. The trial of Webster was a milestone for the US legal system as it was reportedly the first case in US history where forensic anthropology has been used to prosecute the murderer. Harvard went on to embrace the field of forensics. Allegedly, there is a class at Harvard devoted to saying witty things while putting sunglasses on.

Here’s a fact that we can expect from Harvard. We all know that the process of getting into Harvard University is super rigorous and unbelievably hard. But did you know that the selection rate is just 4.6%? Meaning that for every 100 applications that Harvard receives yearly, around 95 are tossed out.

Harvard holds real estate totaling 5,457 acres of land, the size of over 4000 football fields! But it hasn’t always been this large. Classes at Harvard began in the summer of 1638 in a single-frame house and a college yard. Of the total land owned, the main university campus holds only about 4%.

Harvard University holds a record number of honors and awards with 161 Nobel Laureates, 23 heads of state, and 132 Pulitzer Prize winners. Harvard has been producing quality graduates right from the second president of the USA back in 1797 – John Adams. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, Harvard had educated seven US presidents.

With all that land, there has got to be a couple of libraries, right? Harvard has some of the world’s most famous university libraries that boast a collection that is the oldest in America. There are 79 libraries, the main and largest one is known as the Widener Memorial Library. It houses about 3.5 million works in over 100 languages and 92 kilometers of shelves across ten levels. Four of the floors are underground because they needed to expand and could not go anywhere but down.

Here’s an interesting story! Back in 2012, about 125 students got caught cheating on a government class exam. Harvard went on to investigate this scandal, and most of the students caught were made to withdraw from the university. Yale – the arch-nemesis came up with a humorous shirt to wear during a Harvard-Yale football game, it read “Try cheating your way out of this one!” Harsh!

 

Harvard is an Ivy League school. These schools were first known to have highly competitive athletic teams. As the teams gained more funding, the universities improved their standards of education and as a result, these schools are now an elite group that produces distinguished graduates. Ironically, Harvard actually tried banning football twice because of its violent and dangerous characteristics. However, the pressure from alumni and students has helped keep Harvard’s football legacy intact. The first stadium was completed in 1903. Their biggest rival? Another Ivy – Yale!

If the Babylonians hadn't thought 12 was a neater number than 13, you could have been born under the sign Ophiuchus. The 13th constellation was dropped from the Zodiac calendar 3,000 years ago, NASA explains.

Going through a list of America's most notorious serial killers, two signs stand out above all the rest: Pisces and Gemini. Pisces are known for being loners, and Geminis are known for their charm—two characteristics commonly found in serial murderers.

As reported by Oprah Magazine, scientists have studied the way that the amount of Vitamin D via sunlight a person gets when their pregnant ends up manifesting in their child's personality and mental health. And that's largely dependent on when the child is born.

"People born in the fall are more likely to develop the panic disorder and/or drug abuse problems; in late winter and early spring to become schizophrenic; and in spring and early summer to have propensities for anorexia, suicide, and dyslexia," the publication says.

 

Go into any Starbucks, and you'll probably see two kinds of tables: round tables and rectangular tables. There's a reason for the round tables. According to Reader's Digest, the round tables are supposed to make you feel more at home when you're by yourself. 

 

If you order from Starbucks regularly, you know that there are three cup size options: tall, grande, and venti. But what you might not realize is that there are two other sizes as well. First is an 8-ounce "short" cup, which is what the kid's hot chocolate is served in. You can ask for it for anything, though. Then there's the Trenta, which holds 31 ounces and is only for iced drinks.

Chances are good that you've heard of the Starbucks "secret menu," which is basically a huge list of drink combinations that aren't on the menu. Going through all of those options would take a very long time because as Starbucks spokesperson Lisa Passe told The Wall Street Journal, "If you take all of our core beverages, multiply them by the modifiers and the customization options, you get more than 87,000 combinations."

Chances are good that you know that the Starbucks logo is a mermaid, even if you never buy coffee there. The mermaid, though, is actually a siren. Before 1987, it was super controversial, because the siren was naked and had exposed nipples. In 1992, they changed it to be a little more covered up.

Have you ever wondered where the name "Starbucks" came from? According to Thrillist, "Starbucks" refers to the first mate in Herman Melville's book "Moby Dick." The original name was going to be Pequod, the name of the "Moby Dick" whaling ship. 

 

For devotees, it sometimes seems like Starbucks can do no wrong, especially when it comes to new and creative drinks. But they have had a big flop, and it's called the Chantico. The Chantico came out in 2005 and was described as a "drinkable dessert."

It was a 6-ounce hot "drinking chocolate" that was supposed to mimic the sweet chocolate drink served in Europe. According to some employees, it failed because it couldn't be customized, while others say customers said it was too rich and heavy. Starbucks pulled the drink in 2006.

Statistics say that the average Starbucks customer visits the store about six times per month. If this seems low, they also show that a loyal 20% of customers go about 16 times per month.

As you may have heard, Starbucks offers a generous benefits package to their employees, including providing healthcare to employees who work 20 hours a week or more. In fact, according to Howard Schultz, CEO of the company in 2008, Starbucks spends $300 million annually on healthcare, which is more than what they spend on coffee beans.

Starbucks actually has a few secret shops, according to The Seattle Times. One is known as Roy Street Coffee & Tea in Seattle and they sell things that aren't on typical Starbucks menus. This includes things like wine, beer, and gourmet cheeses that can't be mass-produced. They sometimes use the secret shops to test out new products as well.