The Jane Goodall Institute was not amused by a 'Far Side' cartoon, but Goodall was

Tove Jansson's illustrations for 'The Hobbit' rankled some of its diehard fans

The Nordic illustrator was asked to contribute illustrations for the 1960 Swedish translation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit." Some fans were critical, though, arguing that the images didn't accurately represent Tolkien's Middle-earth. One of their most convincing pieces of evidence was Jansson's portrayal of Gollum, which she turned into a massive beast. After seeing it, Tolkien realized he needed to specify that the character was "a small, slimy creature."

Jules Feiffer revolutionized the political cartoon

Feiffer’s drawings for various newspapers functioned less as entertainment and more as editorial, skewering popular beliefs and accepted dogmas. In 1986, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work.

Tracey Ullman sued 'The Simpsons' after the cartoon left her show

The legendary and long-running animated show debuted as a series of shorts on "The Tracey Ullman Show" in 1987. Years later, after a standalone "The Simpsons" series became a breakout success, Ullman sued 20th Century Fox, the show's parent company, claiming she was owed royalties for merchandise based on the show.

Flannery O'Connor originally wanted to be a cartoonist

In college, the famed writer worked as a cartoonist for the school newspaper and literary magazine, using surreal black-and-white linoleum prints to comment on everything from student life to World War II.

One prankster started a movement to clothe animals in the mid-20th century

G. Clifford Prout founded the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, saying that animal nudity was rude and immoral. The campaign continued for years until CBS employees realized Prout was actually a comedian named Buck Henry.

The tragic Pulitzer Prize-winning image 'The Vulture and the Little Girl' (1993) generated controversy, raised concerns about ethics in photography, and eventually led to the photographer's death.

Loving bad art isn't always about mockery

Dr. John Dyck, an assistant professor of philosophy at Mississippi State, says admirers of "so good they're bad" works like "The Room" do not do so ironically. "They love it as a gorgeous freak accident of nature, something that turned out beautifully—not despite, but because of the failure of its creators."

This Harvard philosophy professor suggests we should rethink our relationship with animals

Christine Korsgaard, a professor of philosophy at Harvard, wrote a book arguing that humans are not more important than other animals and that we should improve our treatment of them. In her view, we have a duty to value the life of our fellow creatures not just for their utility, but for their existence as sentient and conscious beings.

Kurt Vonnegut's letter to the school board that banned his book

In 1973, a high school English teacher in North Dakota taught Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five," the classic time-hopping novel about World War II and the bombing of Dresden. The head of the school board was outraged by what he considered to be obscene material in Vonnegut's novel and ordered all of the students' copies of the book burned. When Vonnegut caught wind of those plans, he wrote this letter to the school board, protesting the decision.

Jane Austen used satire to critique women's place in society

Although the novelist is sometimes dismissed as a romance writer, her stories feature pointed societal critiques, especially of women's limited options and challenged popular notions that women were subservient and passive.

Illustrator Ian Falconer's 'Olivia' piglet character was based on his niece

The New Yorker illustrator first began drawing fun pictures of a young pig named Olivia in the 1990s for his niece of the same name. Now, the books have sold millions and have been turned into a TV show. Meet the real Olivia behind the character in this brief interview.

'The Vulture and the Little Girl' (1993) has a controversial story behind it

The tragic Pulitzer Prize-winning image taken by South African photojournalist Kevin Carter depicts a little girl suffering from starvation during a famine in Sudan in 1993. Carter faced criticism from the public for taking her picture instead of helping her. A few months later, Carter took his own life.

How one trial tested the limits of satirical music

The rapper Afroman, who earned jokey hits in the '90s with songs like "Because I Got High," was taken into court by police officers by police officers in Adams County, Ohio, who alleged that he'd defamed them in his songs. The music in question was recorded after those officers raided his house and satirized the situation, often in graphic terms. The rapper beat the case, but not before his satirical songs were analyzed in court.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

The philosophy of effective altruism was at the heart of Sam Altman's firing

OpenAI was originally created as a nonprofit to develop artificial general intelligence for humanity's benefit. However, skyrocketing computing costs made adherence to this belief difficult, as new influences, such as external investors, were introduced to accelerate growth with reduced safety.

Jane Maas was one of the first prominent female ad executives on Madison Avenue

Jane Maas started as a copywriter at the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather in 1964. She’s known for working on the famous "I Heart NY" tourism campaign alongside artist Milton Glaser. This interview provides a glimpse into what life was like for women like her on Madison Avenue.

The origins of World Laughter Day

Every first Sunday of May worldwide, World Laughter Day is observed, where people gather in public places and laugh. Dr. Madan Kataria developed the ritual based on the facial feedback hypothesis, which posits our facial expressions can affect our mood. The day, first started in 1998 in India, has grown exponentially in recent years. Meet the chortler-in-chief here.

Why both the left and the right use 'Animal Farm' as an allegory

Figures from both ends of the political spectrum have claimed Orwell's novella as their own, sometimes ignoring inconvenient aspects of the plot or details of Orwell's biography. This analysis of those political reactions explores why the text is so malleable.

A joke about mercury in an elevator led to the invention of emoticons

A false message about mercury contamination was posted in response to a physics problem on Carnegie Mellon's discussion board in 1982, which some users took seriously. The need to indicate which messages were jokes led to the creation of facial expressions using special characters.

Jay-Z and Marina Abramovic briefly feuded after collaborating

After appearing in Jay-Z’s music video for the song “Picasso Baby,” Abramović publicly accused the rapper of not donating to her institute, as he had previously promised. Jay-Z defended himself and shared his receipt, prompting Abramović to apologize about the misunderstanding soon after.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an avid fan of Star Trek

Dr. King praised the show’s vision of an integrated future and convinced African-American actress Nichelle Nichols to remain on the show, arguing her role offered a rare, powerful image of racial equality on American television.

The Wall Street Journal compiled the best parts of Warren Buffett's annual letters

Over the years, Buffett has quoted Yogi Berra and Mae West, as well as country songs and the Bible. Many turn to his letters as a source of inspiration and wisdom.

Salvador Dalí once conned Yoko Ono

A quirky story often told about Salvador Dalí claims that in 1969, Yoko Ono offered him $10,000 for one of his famous mustache hairs. Allegedly wary of occult intentions, Dalí instead sent her a blade of grass. While the tale is debated, it fits neatly into Dalí's eccentric public image and his later-life reputation for turning playful stunts into profitable moments.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Charles Darwin studied goose bumps by scaring zoo animals in London with a stuffed snake

Read the famous naturalist’s work from the late 1800s, detailing how he sought to draw comparisons between how animals and humans respond to fear. As part of that work, he exposed monkeys and a peccary to a stuffed snake and noted the animals’ hair-raising fear response.

This scientist treated her own cancer

Virologist Beata Halassy treated her own breast cancer by injecting the tumor with lab-grown viruses. Though this self-treatment worked, it has not been approved for widespread use. Read to learn more about her fascinating experience, and how it has led to conversations about safety and ethics.

A gallery of medical illustrations from NIH

The National Institutes of Health provides educational materials for broad use. The institute hosts a Flickr account with many different image galleries, including this one (with over 70 images to date) that illustrate and annotate curious phenomena, from the life cycles of a malaria parasite to the comparison of male and female bladders. Explore the gallery here.

Parton is famously apolitical

Unlike some of her contemporaries, Parton refrains from expressing her political opinions publicly or endorsing political candidates. President Donald Trump offered her the Presidential Medal of Freedom twice, but she declined both times. After Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) used Parton's song “9 to 5” at a campaign event, Parton’s team requested that Warren stop using it.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Experimental hantavirus vaccines and therapies, still under development, have long been funded by the US military.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.