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10 remarkable things about Lucille Ball that made her totally fierce.

Lucy was way ahead of her time in so many ways.

1. She paved the way for female comedians.

Actresses like Tina Fey, Melissa McCarthy, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus can thank Lucille Ball for opening the door. She trained with Buster Keaton and Red Skelton to become one of the best physical-comedy actors of all time. She really earned her nickname "Queen of Comedy."


GIFs via "I Love Lucy."

2. First interracial couple on TV.

Lucy insisted that her husband, Desi Arnaz, co-star in her show. When producers refused, saying he was "too ethnic" for American viewers, she wouldn't take no for an answer. She and Desi took the show on the road, creating a huge fan base for him. Before long, he became her leading man on TV too.

3. First woman to run a major television studio.

Lucy and Desi co-owned Desilu Productions (yep, she made sure her name was in it) until she bought him out and ran it on her own. It had 2,000 employees, 36 sound stages, and 62 acres. She eventually sold it for $17 million (in 1967 dollars). The name was changed to Paramount Pictures. Now, that deserves a round of applause.

4. Married a younger man when it wasn't really acceptable.

He was only six years younger, which was nothing compared to the age gap of older male actors and their younger starlet wives. Think Lucy would let that double standard dictate who she would marry? Not a chance.

5. First pregnant woman to be shown as pregnant on TV.

Women had to hide their pregnancies on TV. They also worried they wouldn't be allowed to continue their careers and be moms at the same time. Lucy broke that mold by incorporating her pregnancy and her son into the show. She compromised with producers, promising not to use the word "pregnant." She used the word "expecting" instead.

6. Was 40 years old when she started "I Love Lucy."

Ageism is real. but Lucy wasn't going to be put out to pasture. In fact, she became America's #1 star with over 16 million weekly viewers. People still watch it to this day. That says a lot.

7. Reflected the frustration of women struggling for equality.

We need to put the show in the context of it's time. She pushed limits to show how gender roles oppressed women. At the same time, she knew she had to remain "likable" to a 1950s audience that mostly preferred "childlike" female characters. Using humor helped her walk that delicate line.

8. Didn't always act like a lady.

June Cleaver wasn't dirty, clumsy, or overtly funny. She also didn't complain, defy, or get too assertive. Lucy did all of these things. She made qualities deemed "unfeminine" become a little more accepted.

9. Left a man she loved because she deserved more.

"Desi was the great love of my life. I will miss him until the day I die. ... I just couldn't take it anymore," she said. Lucy's daughter said Lucy spoke with Desi just days before he died of cancer and quoted her as saying through tears: "I love you. I love you. Desi, I love you."

10. The world's favorite redhead.

She colored her hair so she would stand out from the typical Hollywood "beauty image."

She was courageous, pioneering, talented, funny, and ahead of her time.

And that's why we will always "Love Lucy."

See Lucy in action with the best clips from season 1:

Share the laughs in honor of an extraordinary trailblazer.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

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Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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