EY 'Yip' Harburg is the lyricist behind 'The Wizard of Oz'

The 1939 ‘Wizard of Oz’ reimagined Baum’s book for a new age

Technological breakthroughs brought high-quality, synchronized sound to films by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, the movie-musical, a genre that blended artful cinematography and Broadway-style musicals, became more popular. “The Wizard of Oz” evolved the form further by structuring the plot into episodes anchored by memorable, revelatory songs.

'Over the Rainbow' became a widely covered standard

Judy Garland’s original 1939 version won the Academy Award for best original song, though it never appeared on the Billboard pop singles chart (which didn’t appear until 1940). Twenty different versions of the song by other artists—including Willie Nelson, Patti LaBelle, and Israel "Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole—have appeared on numerous Billboard charts.

'Defying Gravity,' from 'Wicked,' references 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'

The melody in a crucial part of the song uses the first seven notes of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," an intentional reference that composer Stephen Schwartz calls an "easter egg" that acknowledges the influence of the 1939 film.

'The Wizard of Oz' was panned by some contemporary critics

A 1939 New Yorker review by Russel Maloney said the movie displayed ''no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity.'' The New Republic's Otis Ferguson wrote, "It has dwarfs, music, Technicolor, freak characters, and Judy Garland. It can't be expected to have a sense of humor as well."

Baum wrote 14 'Oz' novels in total

Following the success of ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,’ Baum continued writing about the fictional world until his death, turning the world into a lucrative brand. One of the books, “The Patchwork Girl of Oz,” was turned into a silent film and released in 1914.

Some believe L. Frank Baum wrote 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' on vacation

The writer vacationed in Macatawa, Michigan, in 1899. His great-grandson claims most of the book was written while staying there on the shores of Lake Michigan. The nearby town of Holland commemorated the book with the Oz Sculpture Garden.

A theory about Pink Floyd and 'The Wizard of Oz' was popularized by a 19-year-old

Pink Floyd’s seminal album “Dark Side of the Moon” eerily synchronizes with “The Wizard of Oz,” offering a psychedelic soundtrack for the movie. Journalist Charlie Savage popularized the phenomenon when he was 19. He’d go on to write for the Boston Globe and New York Times winning a Pulitzer Prize.

Judy Garland's body double wore a sepia dress in the movie's most famous scene

A famous scene from "The Wizard of Oz" features Dorothy leaving behind her home in Kansas and walking into Oz. The filmmakers wanted the character to exit a colorless world and enter a Technicolor one, though the nascent technology required more than some clever postproduction tricks. The scene was painted sepia, as was Judy Garland's body double's dress. As she walks through the door, into Oz, the camera turns away. Then, Judy Garland strides back into frame, wearing her iconic blue dress.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of 'Wicked,' is named after 'The Wizard of Oz' author

Gregory Maguire named the Wicked Witch of the West after L. Frank Baum. “I tried Lafaba, I tried Lafeyba," he said. "And then I tried Elphaba. As soon as I got Elphaba, I thought, oh, that's it.”

'The Wiz' reimagined Baum's story for Black America

The 1978 film, produced in part by Motown Productions, starred several popular stars: Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, Nipsey Russell and Lena Horne. The music—composed by Charlie Smalls and Luther Vandross, and overseen by Quincy Jones—mirrored songs from the 1939 film.

Shirley Temple was rumored to be a potential Dorothy

The child star—who was a huge fan of Baum’s books—mentioned in a 1988 autobiography that she’d heard she was being discussed for the role before Judy Garland was officially cast. She said that Garland was, ultimately, the right pick. “Sometimes, the gods know best,” she wrote.

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 poem behind 'Strange Fruit'

"Bitter Fruit" was written by Abel Meeropol, a teacher, under the pseudonym Lewis Allen, after seeing a photograph of a lynching. Eventually, he set the words to music, and the song was then performed by his wife and other singers. In 1938, he played it for Holiday, who began performing it at the New York's Cafe Society. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Dolly Parton wrote the song '9 to 5' on the set of the movie '9 to 5'

She’d agreed to star in the film if she could write its theme song, which she began while shooting the movie. As Parton tells it, the song’s genesis was clacking her long acrylic nails together.

Watch an orchestra perform Danny Elfman's theme for 'The Simpsons'

The composer (and former member of new wave band Oingo Boingo) said that the show's main theme, one of the most recognizable in TV history, came to him while driving. It's become a widely performed orchestral piece, including by the all-volunteer Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra, which you can watch below.

After Warner Bros signed him at 18, Prince wrote a song to thank them

The label scooped the young artist in 1977, eager to ink a deal with the promising young savant. In response, Prince wrote a song called "I Hope We Can Work It Out," which suggested together they'd make "Music for the young and old, music bound to be gold." An official recording of the song was never released, but the Minnesota Historical Society acquired the original handwritten lyrics in 2017. You can see them below.

A Disney architect designed Epic's headquarters

Epic Systems provides electronic medical records in the US—but its offices are far from bland. The HQ has five different campuses that are inspired by "Harry Potter," "The Wizard of Oz," and "Alice in Wonderland."

'Rear Window' was based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich

Hitchcock's 1954 film, which many consider among the director's greatest, was based on Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder." The story is characteristic of his dark, claustrophobic work.

The Brill Building was a breeding ground for girl group classics

The Brill Building was a building in New York City that housed the working offices for over 160 music industry professionals, including some of the country’s finest songwriters, such as Neil Diamond, Burt Bacharach, and George Clinton. Below is a 1959 picture of three more Brill Building pros: Carole King, Paul Simon, and Gerry Goffin.

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.

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

- Playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

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

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 speech framed World War II as a global fight for universal rights

Eleven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt outlined four fundamental freedoms that, in his words, people "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy—speech, worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

Every city has a song: Music writers identify one tune that represents their hometown, from Chicago to Buenos Aires

Staffers from SPIN magazine wade into the contentious waters of official anthems, making the case for their chosen track, from Chicago's "Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins to the Bobby Bare rendition of "The Streets of Baltimore."

Broadway's nickname is 'the Great White Way'

Thanks to the advent of electricity, by the middle of the 19th century, theaters in the Broadway area were illuminated by lampposts and marquees. The nickname “the Great White Way” describes how it looked at night. The term is still used today.

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.

Langston Hughes poems inspired Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream'

In 1959, King wrote to Hughes, saying, "I can no longer count the number of times and places … in which I have read your poems." Scholars believe that Hughes' words—particularly his poems "Harlem" and "I Dream a World"—inspired King's most famous speech, "I Have a Dream."

In one of Ogilvy’s most well-known ads, he put an eyepatch on the ad’s star for ‘story appeal’

A 1951 campaign for men’s clothing brand Hathaway’s shirts featuring a distinguished man … wearing an eyepatch. Ogilvy has said he added it for “story appeal,” the idea that an ad should make viewers want to know the full story. The campaign ran for more than a decade. Ogilvy explains story appeal and more of his creative principles in this video.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

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

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 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.

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

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.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

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.'

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

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

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.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

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.

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.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

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.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

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

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.