• Sarah Bernhardt, the French star of stage and early film, who was often referred to as “the most famous actress the world has ever known” and “the divine Sarah,” often slept in a coffin. She said it helped her to better understand tragic roles.

• Have you ever suffered from ottorrhea? If you’ve had a pus-containing discharge from your ear, you have.

• In the original “Star Trek” series, a pair of the false ears worn by Leonard Nimoy in the role of Spock would last only three to five days of shooting before they had to be replaced.

• I’m sure you’ve heard that President Richard Nixon was sometimes called “Tricky Dick,” especially toward the end of his troubled career, but you may not be familiar with other nicknames he had. In college his perceived lack of a sense of humor prompted the name “Gloomy Gus,” and his tendency to spend long hours sitting and studying earned him the moniker “Iron Butt.”

• Records show that during the last seven months of Elvis Presley’s life, he had 5,300 different medications prescribed for him.

• In 1938, Fortune magazine published a prediction that, in hindsight, turns out to have been rather egregiously off the mark: “Few scientists foresee any serious or practical use for atomic energy. They regard the atom-splitting experiments as useful steps in the attempt to describe the atom more accurately, not as the key to the unlocking of any new power.”