Grin and Bear It

"Not without mustard, mate."

Many sources claim that the teddy bear was born after President Theodore Roosevelt spared the life of a bear cub during a hunting expedition in Mississippi in 1902, but Donna Varga reports in the June issue of The Journal of American Culture that the truth is not so straightforward. According to her, the actual bear was a 235-pound adult, which was set upon by hunting dogs, beaten over the head by a guide, and tied to a tree. Shooting the bear was felt to be unsporting, so Roosevelt instructed the hunt manager to "put it out of its misery" with a knife, and the hunting party ate the bear meat over the following two nights.

Bless.