There are several theories for how the Oscar got its name

The Oscar statue was created in 1927

The statue of the golden knight that Academy Award winners receive (aka the Oscar) might be nearly as recognizable as the winners themselves. Oscar was born when art director Cedric Gibbons sketched him out and handed him over to sculptor George Stanley to bring to life.

Oscar snubs and losses can generate controversy

Comedian Bruce Vilanch's podcast "The Oscars: What Were They Thinking?" takes listeners behind the scenes at the Academy Awards to get the inside scoop on everything from the nominating process to the celebrity spats backstage. For example, "This One Hurts!" is about the 2010 Oscars battle for best picture between "The Hurt Locker" (directed by Kathryn Bigelow) and "Avatar" (directed by James Cameron, her ex-husband).

Oscar winners are selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The organization includes over 10,000 members who work in various aspects of the film industry. Specific branches nominate for relevant categories, but once nominees have been selected, all members can vote for the award winners. For most categories, the nominee with the most votes wins. Best picture, however, uses ranked-choice voting.

Steven Spielberg purchased Oscars won by Clark Gable and Bette Davis and donated them back to the Academy

Since 1951, all Oscar statuettes have been awarded with a caveat—if the recipient wants to sell their Oscar, they have to first offer it back to the Academy for the price of $1. As a result, there's now a black market for the golden knights. Some buyers are anonymous movie buffs, but some are the stars themselves.

Who gets thanked the most in Oscar speeches?

This resource analyzes nearly 2,000 Oscar acceptance speeches. It shows the average number of words spoken, the themes discussed, and how these trends have changed over the years. Scroll through the results and see if Harvey Weinstein was thanked more often than God in past years.

Take a peek inside those $225,000 Oscar gift bags.

Even the losers will win big at the Academy Awards, thanks to all of the free swag. Here’s what they’ll take home this year.

Two individuals are credited with making the Oscars red carpet a destination for fashion

Much like the Met Gala, fashion is now an inextricable part of the Academy Awards. But it wasn't always that way. In the 1950s and '60s, costume designer Edith Head was responsible for making sure the stars looked their best on television. In the 1990s, Fred Hayman brought luxury back to the stage after the excess of the 1970s and 1980s. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

The Oscars of food

Every year, the James Beard Awards spotlight the best in food, media, and hospitality—often called the “Oscars of the food world.” But behind the prestige is the story of James Beard himself: a failed actor turned culinary icon.

'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

- Playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

The Tonys got their name from Antoinette Perry

In 1946, trailblazing director Antoinette Perry died after decades of creative success. The following year, Perry's professional partner, Brock Pemberton, founded a series of awards to honor her. While handing out an award at the first ceremony, Pemberton referred to it using Antoinette's nickname of "Tony," and the name caught on.

Hollywood, explained

It all began in 1887 when Hollywood was registered as a small town before merging with Los Angeles in 1910. Filmmakers moved west to avoid Thomas Edison’s patent lawsuits, and the sunny California climate provided the perfect setting for year-round production. By the 1910s, studios like Paramount and Warner Bros. established themselves, and Hollywood's global dominance was cemented during its golden age from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Comedic roasts, an ironic inversion of toasting, took off in the 20th century

Ribbing amongst friends likely goes back to the dawn of man, but formalizing the act caught on with fundraisers held by the Friar’s Club, a New York organization for theater agents. Rather than raising their glasses to good fortune and health, comics eviscerate an “honoree”—along with everyone else on stage—though they usually conclude with an earnest toast.

One pop-culture historian fooled the nation with a fake origin story of April Fools' Day

In 1983, Joseph Boskin, a professor at Boston University, was interviewed by the Associated Press to discuss the history of April Fools'. Boskin shared a made-up story about a jester who took over Rome for a day and proclaimed that April 1 would henceforth serve as 24 hours of silliness. AP published the fib about "King Kugel," creating buzz and confusion for news outlets around the country.

Soap operas earned their name thanks to the sponsorships of soap brands

Many early 20th-century radio programs for women were sponsored by brands that introduced each new episode. Because these dramas were aimed at women, many of their sponsors were for household products, like soap. The association led some to refer to the shows as "soap operas," a title that stuck.

An ‘auteur’ is another name for the chief creative mind of a film

“Auteur” is French for author. In film studies, the word refers to a film director who is considered the principal creative mind, or author, behind a film. Directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, Steven Spielberg, and Greta Gerwig are often considered auteurs.

The standing ovation comes from an ancient Roman military tradition

Ovation is derived from the Latin for “I rejoice” and was a ceremonial salute to military generals who'd been victorious in battle.

Dinosaur names have shifted from ancient languages to pop culture references

Early dinosaur names used Greek and Latin roots, often just attaching “-saurus” (lizard) to another word describing a notable trait. Over time, this convention has evolved to incorporate the names of where the discovery was made, local languages, and even celebrities.

The Sundance Film Festival is named after a Robert Redford character

Redford purchased a plot of land in Utah in 1969, calling it Sundance Mountain Resort, a nod to his role in the film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Soon after purchasing the land, he began hosting workshops to develop young artists. The Sundance Film Festival (originally called the Utah/US Film Festival) was first held in 1978 and was intended to draw attention to independent cinema.

10 Shakespeare authorship theories

Although William Shakespeare is widely considered to be the authentic author of the plays attributed to him, there are still dozens of theories suggesting that others are responsible for the classic works. Was it actually his contemporary, Christopher Marlowe? Or maybe his wife, Anne Hathaway? This list explains the 10 most popular theories that have been proposed, much to more than a few Shakespeare scholars' chagrin.

Why Christopher Walken is so eccentric

Cultural icon and actor Christopher Walken has attained a unique status in Hollywood as a beloved eccentric, inspiring countless hilarious stories. This quick write-up dives into some of the elements that mixed to form his unusual personality and style, from growing up around immigrants to his embrace of improvisation.

Valentine's Day's namesake is unclear

Valentine, which means "powerful" or "worthy," was a popular name in the Roman Empire. Considering that, it's no surprise that there's more than one St. Valentine. In fact, three different men named Valentine were martyred on February 14, and none of them, despite some unproven legends, were ever associated with love or romance.

Minnelli is the goddaughter of Kay Thompson, the author of the 'Eloise' books

Many people speculate that Eloise, the little girl living at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in Thompson's popular series, is Minnelli. The actress, however, denies the claim. Still, people continue to theorize that Minnelli likely influenced the privileged, precocious character's traits.

In 2020, Loyola University Maryland removed O’Connor’s name from a dormitory

The decision was made after a student petition, citing private letters using racial epithets. Hundreds of writers and academics wrote an open letter criticizing the move, including novelist Alice Walker, who said, “We must honor Flannery for growing. Hide nothing of what she was, and use that to teach.”

'Shoofly pie' was named after a molasses named after a mule named after a song

Although most people assumed the sweet dessert earned its name for its ability to attract flies, etymologists believe it can be traced back to a molasses brand named after a boxing mule (Shoofly the mule), who was named after a song ("Shoofly Don't Bother Me") that was a play on slang of the time.

What it means to call a bracket 'chalk'

If the tournament is rather boring, you might hear a curious word getting thrown around: "chalk." In short, it means that the favorites have been winning. The word's origins go back to horse racing and its sportsbooks, where bookies would post odds on chalkboards. Over time, the bookies came to be known as "chalk" and, years later, tournaments (and their brackets) that seemed to favor those bookies earned the name, too.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

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

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

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.

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

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

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

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

Ebola species have historically been named after where they were discovered, stigmatizing residents who live there, including Bundibugyo, in Uganda.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

Shooting stars, or meteors, are fragments of asteroids and comets that burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating streaks in the sky called meteor showers.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight