Mark Twain was an early influence on stand-up

One actor made a career out of playing Mark Twain

Hal Holbrook toured in the one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight!” for over six decades. In the performances, Holbrook wore Twain’s iconic white suit and offered witticisms similar to Twain’s famous lectures. Holbrook won a Tony Award in 1966 for a Broadway run of the show.

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

Mark Twain had many gripes with the US Postal Service

Twain often complained about the cost of postage and the service's inefficiencies, often sharing these criticisms in newspaper opinion pieces. Still, in 1907, the USPS issued a commemorative stamp featuring his face.

Many consider Twain 'the father of American literature'

In "Green Hills of Africa," Ernest Hemingway declared that all modern American literature sprang from Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." That's a sentiment shared by many scholars, who assert that Twain's book changed American fiction by challenging the country's racist history and incorporating a more realistic vernacular.

He was one of the first writers to cover surfing

For his 1872 travelogue “Roughing It”, Mark Twain visited Hawaii and described a then-peculiar sport: surfing. He even recalls his own attempts to catch a wave, writing, “I got the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed the connection myself. The board struck the shore in three-quarters of a second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time, with a couple of barrels of water in me.”

Stand-up arrived in the late 19th century

Vaudeville theaters featured family-friendly comics, often working in teams, to execute tightly written comedic back-and-forths. Burlesque, vaudeville’s bawdier offshoot, often featured single comics delivering rapid-fire, joke-filled sets.

Clemens' pen name 'Mark Twain' is a nautical reference

Samuel Clemens became a steamboat pilot’s apprentice in 1857 while writing a travelogue for a small newspaper, and earned his pilot’s license two years later. During that time, he learned the term “mark twain,” which meant 12 feet, something shipworkers would yell when they were approaching shallow waters. In 1861, he signed a travel letter under the pseudonym “Mark Twain” and used it for the rest of his career.

Thomas Edison captured the only known footage of Mark Twain

The inventor was a pioneer in the early film industry and made his own motion pictures. In 1909, he shot a short film featuring Twain at Stormfield, his property in Connecticut. In it, Twain wears his iconic white suit and drinks tea with his daughters.

Twain didn’t start wearing his iconic white suit until later in life

The writer first wore the white suit in 1906, at the Library of Congress. “I have reached the age where dark clothes have a depressing effect on me,” Twain told the Washington Post. “I prefer light clothing, colors, like those worn by the ladies at the opera.”

Bob Hope's radio shows brought stand-up to the masses

Bob Hope’s 1930s variety shows featured comedic monologues. Unlike the tightly scripted and evergreen sets of vaudeville, Hope’s monologues leaned into topical and political humor, sometimes to the disapproval of his network.

Twain claimed to possess 'mental telegraphy'

In an 1891 essay, the writer claimed to possess psychic powers. It’s something that seemingly supported by his mother and his own death: Twain predicted he would die the day after Halley’s Comet returned in 1910, which did indeed happen.

Whitman led a Lincoln lecture late in life

Whitman toured several cities with “The Death of Lincoln,” a lecture series about the slain president that sought to establish him as a crucial figured in American history. The talks attracted famous figures, including Mark Twain and General William Tecumseh Sherman.

Mark Twain invented an unsuccessful board game

“Memory Builder” was based on pinning historical events in their correct chronological order. It was test-marketed in 1891, but never took off. One critic said, “The game looked like a cross between an income tax form and a table of logarithms.”

Steve Martin was a wildly successful stand-up—and abruptly quit doing it

In the ‘70s, few stand-up comics were bigger than Steve Martin, who released multiplatinum albums and regularly sold out arenas. As he detailed in his 2007 memoir, Martin had grown disillusioned with his success as a stand-up and pivoted into film.

Stand-up Marc Maron invented the modern comedy podcast

In 2009, Marc Maron created his podcast “WTF,” featuring the stand-up holding long, candid conversations with an eclectic selection of guests. That template now defines modern podcasting, including some of the medium’s most popular shows.

Kurt Vonnegut sought to invert the 'shapes of stories'

Kurt Vonnegut is among the most popular postmodernists, renowned for his humor and willingness to move between genres. This clip from a lecture on narrative is a perfect example of those tendencies, with Vonnegut diagramming typical story structures only to mock their predictability. It's not only an enlightening look at the way stories are told—it's also just good comedy.

Charlie Chaplin's 'Modern Times' blended slapstick and satire

The 1936 film thrust Chaplin's iconic Little Tramp character into the Industrial Revolution, satirizing how mass production was dehumanizing individuals. The movie was not only a hit, but it was also the product of a burgeoning Hollywood: Chaplin had founded his own company (United Artists) in 1919.

Tom Robbins wrote comedy for the counterculture

Robbins passed away at the age of 92, leaving behind a catalog filled with surreal and comic explorations of the American counterculture. But his early success led some to disregard the prophetic and nuanced storytelling in his books.

10 ways David Letterman changed late-night TV

Late-night TV is an American institution with its own tropes and traditions. While Johnny Carson is often noted as the model for late-night hosts, the modern notion of the format owes just as much (if not more) to David Letterman, who redefined the model in the early 1980s. This list from ABC News ranks the 10 ways Letterman accomplished that, using one of Letterman's classic bits to honor the man's legacy.

Satire often employs irony

Satirists often make their point indirectly through ironic statements, indirectly highlighting the foolishness of the thing they’re mocking. An example is Mark Twain's satirical 1882 essay, “Advice to Youth.” “Build your character thoughtfully and painstakingly upon these precepts,” he wrote, “and by and by, when you have got it built, you will be surprised and gratified to see how nicely and sharply it resembles everybody else’s.”

Cook’s ‘Travellers Handbooks’ were precursors to the travel guide

Long before Rick Steves or Lonely Planet, Thomas Cook’s “Travellers Handbooks” offered maps, recommendations, and tips for 19th-century tourists in unfamiliar locations.

Dickens' live readings sometimes used visual projectors that predated cinema

Dickens was interested in adapting his work in various forms. With his live readings, he sometimes used a 'magical lantern,' a popular tool that projected moving slides. In addition, some stage plays of Dickens' work that included ghost scenes used the magical lantern to cast apparitions on stage.

A professor explores the 21st-century impact of Gilbert and Sullivan

Willard Spiegelmanis, a former English professor at Southern Methodist University, details his childhood love for musical theater legends Gilbert and Sullivan, known for operettas like "The Pirates of Penzance" and "The Mikado," and profiles the theater companies keeping their shows alive.

Jean-Paul Sartre was amazed by American jazz

The French philosopher wrote about a 1947 trip to a New York jazz club as a transcendent experience, describing the magic of the relationship between performer and audience: "You shout, they shriek, they whistle, they are possessed, you are possessed."

King sets many of his stories in Maine

In the process, he has created a few fictional towns. This extensive travelogue by a superfan explores the writer's favorite haunts, pinpointing specific details from and inspirations for King's fiction. Helpfully, it also provides plenty of photos, allowing you to venture through King's haunted version of the state without ever leaving the comfort of your home.

Spinal Tap began as a sketch on a short-lived TV show

The fake band might be best known for "This is Spinal Tap," 1984 movie that effectively created the comedy mockumentary, but the premise began with an appearance on a short-lived ABC show called "The TV Show."

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

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

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

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

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

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

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

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.

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

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.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

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

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

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.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

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