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Culture of the United States

  • BatmanIn September 2024, Batman became the first fictional superhero to receive a Hollywood Walk of Fame star.
  • McDonald'sIn 1948, the McDonald brothers fired all 20 of their carhops and cut the menu to nine items.
  • The SimpsonsMatt Groening sketched The Simpsons in a lobby after deciding not to sign away his comic strip rights.
  • SupermanThe first Superman was a homeless man tricked into taking a drug. Jerry Siegel wrote him as a villain in 1933.
  • Wonder WomanWonder Woman's creator invented a device crucial to the lie detector.
  • Scooby-DooScooby-Doo, the American animated franchise about four teenagers and a talking Great Dane, owes its hero's name to a bit of scat singing. According to creators Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, executive Fred Silverman was on a red-eye flight to a…
  • Coca-ColaCoca-Cola began as a morphine addict's attempt to invent a cure. John Pemberton first sold it in Atlanta in 1886.
  • Sesame StreetTest children lost interest in Sesame Street's human-only street scenes, so producers re-shot them with Muppets.
  • The MuppetsThe Muppets are an American ensemble of puppets, and Jim Henson told the story of their name two different ways. At first he claimed he coined the word as a blend of marionette and puppet. Later he denied it. The mystery suits a cast built…
  • BarbieBarbie sold about 350,000 dolls in her first year, and Mattel could not make enough for three years.
  • Rock musicThe Beatles' first Ed Sullivan Show appearance in 1964 drew an estimated 73 million viewers.
  • The Addams FamilyThe Addams Family appears in a Christmas cartoon from 1946 in which the household greets a group of carolers by pouring boiling oil on them. Charles Addams drew the scene, and readers liked it enough that it was later sold on Christmas…
  • DC ComicsDC Comics got its name from a comic that launched three months late. Detective Comics premiered in March 1937.
  • Sheldon CooperSheldon Lee Cooper has five sets of academic initials after his name: B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D. and Sc.D. He is a fictional theoretical physicist. Viewers first met him in the CBS series The Big Bang Theory, which ran from 2007 to 2019.…
  • Marvel ComicsIn 1971, Stan Lee published a Spider-Man drug story that the Comics Code Authority refused to approve.
  • Native Americans in the United StatesBy 1250 CE, the Native city of Cahokia held more than 20,000 people. Trade routes reached the Gulf of Mexico.
  • PopeyePopeye the Sailor Man began as a hired hand who was supposed to leave the story. In 1938, the newspaper strip that carried him ran in 500 newspapers. Over 600 licensed Popeye products were on sale, and his creator, Elzie Crisler Segar, was…
  • American footballThe first American football game used a round ball nobody could carry. Rutgers beat Princeton 6-4 in 1869.
  • Super BowlLamar Hunt said the name Super Bowl probably came from his children's toy. He owned the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs.
  • South ParkFox balked at a talking stool, and South Park's creators walked away from the deal.
  • PeanutsPeanuts, the comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, filled 17,897 installments before it ended. One description called that run "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being." The strip began in 1950, and its stars were small…
  • JuneteenthJuneteenth marks the day enslaved Texans learned they were free, 900 days after the Emancipation Proclamation.
  • American nationalismAmerica's first citizenship law, signed in 1790, limited citizenship to free white men of good character.
  • Cinema of the United StatesIn the mid-1940s, 90 million Americans went to the movies every week. Studios made roughly 400 films a year.
  • Country musicThe steel guitar in country music traces back to Hawaii, not Appalachia. Country's sound was a braid of many traditions.
  • Empire of LibertyJefferson's Empire of Liberty promised freedom, yet he obtained roughly a hundred million acres from Native Americans.
  • AmericanizationAbout 38,000 customers lined up for Moscow's first McDonald's on January 31, 1990.
  • American comic bookAmerican comic books began as a soap coupon giveaway. Funnies on Parade was mailed to coupon clippers in 1933.
  • Uncle SamUncle Sam was slang for the United States before the meatpacker legend began. A midshipman used it in 1810.
  • Hot WheelsHot Wheels began as a 98-cent toy car in 1968, and in 2000 a single pre-production example sold for close to $70,000. The brand is an American franchise of scale model cars. Elliot Handler, a co-founder of Mattel, invented it, and the…
  • Aunt JemimaThe Aunt Jemima brand of pancake mix and table syrup met the public in 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Beside a flour barrel twenty-four feet high, a woman named Nancy Green cooked pancakes and sang songs in the…

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