9 Facts About Buttons That Aren't Nuclear

Will, Gabe and Mango take the focus off the nuclear button, and put it squarely on all the other buttons out there that are feeling a little neglected, from colonial button molds to Jimmy Carter’s panic button accident in a bathroom.

This episode originally aired on January 4, 2018.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what will?

Speaker 2 (00:00):
What's that mango?

Speaker 1 (00:01):
So I'm not sure if you're on Twitter, but everyone's
been talking about buttons this week, Like Kim Jong un
was bragging about his which caused our Chief of State
to brag about the size of his nuclear button.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Yeah, I'm not sure if you have to be on
Twitter to have heard this news. It feels like it
has been everywhere this week.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah, and this is obviously a really fun game for
world leaders to play, but it's been driving up my anxiety.
And then I started focusing my attention on all the
other buttons in this world, Like did you know that
the Victoria's Secret model Carolina Kurkova was born with a
medical complication, so she has no belly button. Like every
time she's in a magazine, they actually have to photoshop

(00:40):
a button in.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Actually, I didn't realize humans could be born without belly buttons.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I thought that was just animals that hashed from eggs.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, well, I don't think she's a reptile, if that's
what you're implying. Like, she had an operation when she
was a child, so she has this strange, smooth belly.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
But apparently she's not alone.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
There are lots of people in the world without belly
buttons as well, And it isn't just an Adam and
Eve thing. But that's just the first of our button
facts on today's Nine Things. Let's dive in.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to part time genius sim
Will Pearson And as always, I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketter and the man on the other
side of the soundproof glass wearing a very fancy cardigan.
And those buttons are so big. I actually think are
those buttons on top of buttons?

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Mango? I think?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
So wow.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And it's a
real shame that our regular superstar Nine Things, guess Gabe
Luesier is not here in studio to appreciate this cardigan,
but he is joining us by sky.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Hey there, Gabe, Hey guys, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, let's talk buttons. You want to uh, you want
to go first? Do you have a good fact? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Definitely.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
So since Mango kicked this off by talking about the President,
I thought i'd tell you about the time that President
Carter hit a secret panic button in the bathroom. Apparently
he thought it was the button for a flush, but
was shocked when a Secret Service agent basically kicked the
door down, gun in hand, only to find the President
zipping up his trousers. According to the agent Marty Venker,

(02:22):
Carter was quote pretty chilly to him after that.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
No way, I really want to know, like where this
panic button was and how it could be placed somewhere
that could be confused for like a flush button.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's just on top of the toilet.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Ah, that is so weird. All right, well, I've got
a slightly different button.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Fact, I'll go next here.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
So I actually didn't realize this used to be a
thing in cars, but this was the floor mounted dimmer switch.
And this actually comes from our old friend Kara kovalcik
over at Mental Floss, and she told us about this.
But apparently the switch for high beams used to be
this little button that was next to the brakes and
so if you tapped your left foot on it, your
brightes would then turn on. So this is another one

(03:03):
for me. Was like, why was it ever thought to
put it right there? It just seems like a kind
of a strange place to have it. All right, Mango,
you got one?

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, definitely, so so you know, everyone knows about the
Staples easy button, right like it was featured in their
ad campaign forever ago. And you might have known that
the company sold easy buttons in their store and they
made a fortune off of them. But did you know
that they actually came in different varieties. So in addition
to the one that said that was easy like the

(03:31):
traditional button that they had, they also had an easy
for parents button that said things like of course, you're right,
and your house your rules, as well as an easy
for kids button that said go ahead and stay up
late and good news, no homework.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
It's always so strange to me when things like that
take off. I wonder how many of those they actually sold.
That's such a bizarre thing. Yeah, definitely, all right, Gabe,
what's your next fact?

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Here's something I'd never thought about until I came across
an article and slate, But apparently in early colonial America,
people used to make their own buttons at home, and
according to the article quote, working class families counted themselves
lucky if they owned a handheld button mold. So basically,
you'd heat up this mold on some coals, fill it
with lead, and then let it cool into a button.

(04:18):
Shape and then you'd you know, decorate the heavy button
or wrap it in fabric something like that.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
We're gonna do a little button history here too, because
I've actually got a button in fact, an old button
fact as well. So at one point, buttons were so
popular and often fashions so tiny that your fingers weren't
actually helpful in getting the button through the loop, and
so people kept these button hooks around and so basically
there were these scary looking kind of crochet type instruments

(04:48):
that you'd used to pull a tiny button through a
narrow eyehole. And often you'd have to have different button
hooks for different size. But it just seems like such
a hassle I have.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
To do all this.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
It is exactly the opposite of what Tristan's got going on,
where I think, for those huge buttons, you actually need
two hands to be able to get it through the
hoop there.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
All right, Mango, what's your next fact?

Speaker 1 (05:11):
That's a funny bit of history. So that actually reminds
me of something I read about why women's buttons are
on the left side of the shirt and men's are
on the right, And there are a whole bunch of
theories about this, like some people claim men needed their
dominant hand for holding weapons in the Middle Ages, so
the button on the right made it easier for their
non dominant hand to button the shirt. One handed or

(05:32):
mental flaw says this theory about how women tend to
hold babies with their left hand so that their right
hand is free to do things, and that's why the
buttons are on the left side of their blouses. But
the theory with the biggest support is that more fancy
women were dressed by others, and when you're buttoning a
lot of buttons for an impatient royal or a duchess
or whatever, having the buttons played to your dominant hand

(05:53):
is useful. So they're on the handmaid's right or the
noble woman's left to speed.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Up the process.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Oh, actually makes a lot of sense. All right, Gabe,
what's your last fact of the day.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
Here's a really cool one. So the first remotes for
TVs were called lazy bones, and they had a wire
that connected directly to the TV set. But Zenith improved
on this design in nineteen fifty six with their wireless
Space command remote, and it worked in a totally different
manner than you might expect. So when you press the button,
it would cause a tiny hammer inside to hit an

(06:25):
aluminum bar that would then cause an ultrasonic tone, and
the TV would interpret those notes as commands to change
the channel or turn the set on and off. According
to Time magazine, the hammer made enough noise when it
clicked down that people started calling the space command a clicker.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
All right, well, I've got one last fact that I
was saving this one because it's pretty gross, but also
because it relates to the Mango's belly button fact at
the beginning of the show, and that is that scientists
have figured out how to use bacteria from belly buttons
and adding milk to make cheese.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Which I know that.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Sounds disgusting, right, But the whole point of the exhibit,
which took place in Trinity College, Dublin, was to expose
people to the range of microbial communities in the human body.
But according to NPR, while people started by quote making
these grossed out faces, they then smell the cheese and
realize it just smells like a normal cheese.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
I'm not sure that makes it any less gross.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
That just makes me think that belly buttons smell like cheese.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
All right, Gabe.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
Since your long distance today, I feel like you get
to choose who wins today's nine Things.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
I got to give it to you then, I mean
you brought it full circle with that belly button fact,
so I think you take the trophy.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
I knew it. I was going to be disappointed if
I didn't well listeners.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
If we forgot any facts about belly buttons or buttons
in general that.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
You know, feel free to share those with us.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
You can always reach us part time genius at HowStuffWorks
dot com. You can also call us on our twenty
four to seven Fact hotline one eight four four pt Genius,
or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. It's been
really fun hearing from you guys, with lots of ideas
for some of our future nine Facts episodes, so keep
those coming and we'll be back tomorrow with a full
length episode.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Thanks for listening.