John D. Rockefeller’s father was a well-known con artist

John D. Rockefeller’s father had a nefarious past

William A. Rockefeller Sr. earned his money via various schemes that included pretending to be a doctor to sell “herbal medicines” and posing as a deaf person to peddle for money.

How John D. Rockefeller became the world's first billionaire

From a young age, John D. Rockefeller knew he was interested in business. He worked as a bookkeeper and sold candy prior to starting the business empire that would help cement the Rockefeller name in history: Standard Oil.

A timeline of the Rockefeller family

The Rockefeller family timeline (as it relates to the business world, at least) starts in 1839 with John D. Rockefeller’s birth. In the nearly 200 years since, his offspring have gotten involved in everything from the Watergate scandal to the McCormick & Company spice business.

Standard Oil's predatory business practices included temporarily operating at a loss to drive competitors out of business

Rockefeller's oil monopoly had a dark side, including cutting oil prices so low that Standard Oil was sometimes temporarily operating at a loss in order to drive competitors out of business.

'If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.'

- Billionaire John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)

The Rockefellers funded the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg

John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his wife spent millions of dollars restoring Colonial Williamsburg and turning it into the tourist attraction it is today. You can go back in time via video footage from before and after the restoration.

In 1931-32, JP Morgan Jr. paid no income taxes due to his company’s losses

This legally reduced his taxable income under existing laws. Similarly, the Rockefellers leveraged charitable foundations to minimize taxes, allowing them to preserve wealth while directing funds to their preferred causes.

Charles Dickens' novels inspired a young Norman Rockwell

Rockwell is considered a narrative painter who tells stories through his portraits of everyday Americans. The interest in using images to tell stories began at a young age, when his father read Dickens aloud to him while the young Norman illustrated the books’ scenes.

Soybean oil fraud almost decimated American Express in 1963

A New York commodities trader who had defrauded the American government over uninspected meat for school lunches, Anthony "Tino" De Angelis, used American Express warehouses to sell soybean oil. However, Angelis had actually filled the tanks with water and placed just enough soybean oil on top of the tanks to pass inspection. American Express was liable for many of the tanks and its stock faced a huge downturn, opening the door for a then 33-year-old Warren Buffett to make his first purchase in the company.

Ray Dalio grew up in New York City, and his dad was a jazz musician

Dalio grew up in the Jackson Heights neighborhood in Queens—though his family moved to the city's suburbs when he was eight-years-old. His father played music in famous Manhattan nightclubs like the Copacabana, while his mother stayed home.

Before his final answer, the first US ‘Millionaire’ winner called his dad to tell him he’d won

John Carpenter was the first US contestant on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” to win the top prize. Impressively, he did it without using any of his “lifelines,” which could provide hints. Well, that’s not exactly true: Carpenter did use his “Phone a Friend” lifeline, but it was just to let his father know that he’d be winning a million bucks.

Listen to the details of Henry Ford's widely speculated affair and secret child

Henry Ford married Clara Bryant in 1888, but is widely rumored to have had a longstanding affair with Evangeline Cote Dahlinger—with whom he's believed to have had a secret child named John. Allegedly, Henry Ford had the manager of Ford Farms, Ray Dahlinger, marry Evangeline and raise their son, John Dahlinger, to protect his reputation. Later in life, John Dahlinger wrote that Henry Ford was his real father in a book titled "The Secret Life of Henry Ford."

A teenage Springsteen struggled with his father

Springsteen’s father didn’t understand why his son was interested in pursuing a music career, leading to a tense relationship that was often exacerbated by his father’s struggles with mental illness.

Why America is obsessed with the stories of scammers

A "grifter" is someone who exploits systems at a high level. Notable cases like fake heiress Anna Delvey, Fyre Festival creator Billy McFarland, and startup faker Elizabeth Holmes, who deceived their way to success, captivate our culture. These...

The strange story behind President Jimmy Carter's brother's 'Billy Beer'

During Carter's 1976 presidential campaign, his brother, Billy Carter, became a sideshow attraction as a country bumpkin. The Louisville-based Falls City Brewing Company decided to capitalize on the attention and hired Carter has a brand ambassador to promote his own "Billy Beer." What followed was a strange, suspicious bit of guerilla marketing and hucksterism, all of it documented in this Mental Floss retrospective.

Twain was a notoriously bad investor

After becoming a famous writer, Twain invested in railroad stocks, a magnetic telegraph, and a printing press that weighed four tons. Eventually, he founded his own publishing company, which ultimately led to his bankruptcy. “He is, in business,” one lawyer said, “just a big overgrown boy.”

A DJ helped popularize the term 'rock 'n' roll' to resell R&B to a broad audience

Cleveland DJ Alan Freed launched his radio show "Moondog's Rock 'n' Roll Party," rebranding R&B records, largely performed by Black artists, as "rock 'n' roll" to appeal to a largely white audience. The name was a double-entendre, describing the sound and the sexual activities it was said to induce.

Jeff Bezos’ biological father and mother married as teenagers—and had Jeff a year later

His biological father, Ted Jorgensen, was a circus performer at the time. He later gave up custody of Jeff and became a bicycle repairman in Phoenix, Arizona. Ironically, the last time Jorgensen saw Jeff as a child was in a Walmart where Jorgensen worked. This video dives into the relationship between Jeff Bezos and his estranged biological father, who passed away in 2015.

Many stories about George Washington are legends without evidence

The famous cherry tree story—where a young Washington admits, "I cannot tell a lie"—was created by biographer Mason Locke Weems. Washington's "wooden teeth" were also a myth: His dentures were made of ivory, metal, and animal teeth.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother

Dalí's parents found the miracle of his birth nine months after his brother died to be profound, telling him he was his brother's reincarnation. Dalí carried this belief into his adult life and often cited its deep influence on him, including his preoccupation with death and mortality.

Shakespeare's father was a professional ale taster

The Bard's dad was Stratford-upon-Avon's official "conner," the title reserved for those who tested the strength and quality of locally brewed ale. The job was not as easy as it might sound: He was expected to see if the ale had spoiled, meaning he sometimes had to drink bad beer.

David Ogilvy’s brother helped get him into the advertising business

Ogilvy sent a copy of his stove sales manual, "The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker" (which Fortune magazine later called "probably the best sales manual ever written”) to his brother, who was working at London ad agency Mather & Crowther at the time.

Watch Johnny Cash’s 1969 concert at San Quentin

Johnny Cash is one of the most recognizable names in country music, but by the 1960s, he was also a rock icon. Part of that status was due to his outlaw identity and willingness to play for true outsiders. This documentary from one of his most famous performances shows why.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

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

Edward Jenner, the father of vaccinations

The British physician was the first to attempt to inoculate someone from smallpox using its milder cousin, cowpox. His innovations and documentations would prove crucial to the deployment of widespread vaccinations.

The Texas Ranger turned 'serial killer whisperer'

Texas Ranger James Holland earned a reputation for squeezing confessions from suspected serial killers, including the country's most prolific serial killer, Samuel Little. This reputation led the LA Times to declare him "a serial killer whisperer of sorts." With methods ranging from hypnotism to lies, this award-winning article dives into the question of whether this ranger's legal lasso ever ensnared innocents and diluted witness testimony.

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 idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

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.

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

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

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

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

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.

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

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

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.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

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

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

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

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Brian Wilson wrote the Beach Boys' 'Don't Worry Baby' for the Ronettes, but the legendary girl group rejected it.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Urushiol, the oily toxin in poison ivy, can remain allergenic on clothing for years.