Jan. 18 is Winnie-the-Pooh day, in honour of creator A.A. Milne's birthday. He was born on this day in 1882.
To celebrate,here are 90 weird and wonderful facts about the Hundred Acre Wood.
1.Winnie-the-Poohwas published on Oct. 14, 1926 and was animmediate success, selling 35,000 copies in the U.K. and over 150,000 copies in the U.S.
2. Though A.A. Milne was British, Winnie-the-Pooh was not. The real bear who inspired him, Winnie, was a Canadian female black bear.¹
3. As author Lindsay Mattick describes in her children's bookFinding Winnie,the real Winnie was adopted as a cub by a Canadian veterinarian named Harry Colebourn in 1914. (Mattick is Colebourn's great-granddaughter.)¹
4. Colebourn, originally from Winnipeg, found the bear cub on a train platform in White River, Ont.¹ War trains wouldroutinely stop in White Riverfor four to six hours for maintenance and supplies, and to let the horses off for food and water.
6. After Winnie and Colebourn were stationed at the Canadian Forces Base Valcartier in Quebec for a bit, Winnie travelled overseas with the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade and was a mascot for the men.¹
7. When the time came to ship out to France, Colebourn drove Winnie to the London Zoo. His intention was to loan Winnie to the zoo during the war. Her stay there started on Dec. 9, 1914.¹
8. However, when Colebourn visited Winnie at the zoo at the war's end, he saw how happy the bear was and decided to make the loan a permanent one.¹
9. Colebourn returned to Winnipeg, where he worked as a veterinarian.¹
11. Christopher received a teddy bearon his first birthdayfrom his father, Alan Alexander Milne. It was an 18-inch bear from Harrod's department store in London, andit could growl.
12. The bear wasoriginally called Edward, but Milne and his son eventually renamed the stuffed teddy Winnie after the adorable black bear at the London Zoo.
13. The "Pooh" part of Winnie-the-Poohcomes from a swanthat Milne and his son encountered on vacation. They called the swan Pooh, which Milne described inWhen We Were Very Young.
14. The real Winniehad a sweet tooth— preferring condensed milk to raw meat.
16. Before writingWinnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne was a moderately successfulhumourist, playwright and mystery author.
17. Winnie-the-Pooh's first appearance was asan unnamed characterin A.A. Milne's 1924 collectionWhen We Were Very Young:"A bear, however hard he tries/Grows tubby without exercise."
18. As well as Pooh,Christopher Robin had a stuffed donkey, which would inspire Eeyore; a stuffed pig, which would inspire Piglet; a stuffed Kangaroo, which would inspire Roo; and a stuffed tiger, which would inspire Tigger.
19. Christopher Robininvented voices and personalitiesfor his stuffed animals, which inspired his father.
21. The toys recently underwent a major repair job, getting patched up, cleaned and vacuumed.Eeyore needed the most work.
22. The real Winnie died in 1934, living to be 20 years of age —that'stwo years olderthan the average American black bear would live to be in the wild.
23. The Royal College of Surgeons' Hunterian Museum in London, Englandput her skull on display.
24. Museum director Sam Alberti said Winnie's skull shows she lived with severe gum disease, likely because of thehoney on sticky bunsshe was fed by adoring visitors.
26.Winnie-the-Poohhas beentranslated in over 50 languages, including Catalan, Thai, Esperanto and Latin.
27. In 2014, a meeting was held in the tiny town of Tuszyn, Poland,to decide upon a new patron for a local children's playground.Pooh was suggested, but then denounceddue to his questionable attire (no pants). "It is half naked, which is wholly inappropriate for children," said Councillor Ryszard Cichy.
28. In a new collection of stories to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh in 2016, Pooh makes a new friend:Penguin.
29. The story's writer,Brian Sibley, said: "The thought of Pooh encountering a penguin seemed no more outlandish than his meeting a kangaroo and a tiger in a Sussex wood, so I started thinking about what might have happened if, on a rather snowy day, Penguin had found his way to Pooh Corner."
31. Milne said heliked to introduce new charactersin order to keep stories fresh for people reading them aloud.
32. The Hundred Acre Wood characters Owl and Rabbit were the only two that weren't inspired by Christopher Robin's toys. Instead their characterscame from real animalson Cotchford Farm, the Milnes' property in Sussex.
33. The Cotchford Farm estate was later bought by Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones. Hedied in the swimming poolthere in 1969.
34. Milne's first attempt at children's literature was a poem called Vespers.He did not intend to write any more in this genre after that but,bored on a rainy holiday, he ended up writing the collectionWhen We Were Very Young.
35. Goodbye, Christopher Robin, afilm depicting the life ofA. A. Milne, came out in 2017. It starred Domhnall Gleeson as A.A. Milne and Margot Robbie as Milne's wife, Daphnede Sélincourt.
36. Over50 million copiesof the Winnie-the-Pooh books have been sold worldwide.
37. Winnie-the-Pooh was voiced in Disney featurettes until 1977 by the actorSterling Holloway. Holloway also voiced the Cheshire Cat inAlice in Wonderlandand Sleepy inSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
38. A.A. Milne served in both the First and Second World War,despite being a pacifist.
39. The name "Winnie-the-Pooh"first appeared in print in a Christmas storyby Milne, published in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve, 1925.
41. Pooh Bear met the Queen (and her great-grandson Prince George) outside Buckingham Palace, and presented her with aspecial hum songfor her birthday.
42. Milne wrote asuccessful stage adaptationof Kenneth Grahame'sThe Wind in the Willows,calledToad of Toad Hall,in 1929. Prior to this, reviews of Grahame's book had been mixed; Milne's adaptation is credited withmaking the book a classic.
43. In the 1930s and 1940s, Milne went back to writing for adults, as he had beforeWinnie-the-Pooh.This includedan anti-war book,Peace with Honour.
44. The sign above Pooh's door says "Sanders," which led to rumours that Winnie's last name was Sanders.It's not.Milne explainedin a tongue-in-cheek waythat Sanders is just the name on the sign that Pooh lived under. Which makes us wonder, who was this previous tenant named Sanders?
45. The Hundred Acre Wood was inspired by Ashdown Forest in Sussex, England.
46. Ashdown Forest was adeer-hunting forestin Norman times. There are no records of any bears living there, but there are foxes, stoats, weasels and badgers.
47. Speaking of British animals, Gopher was never in the original Winnie-the-Pooh books.He was addedwhen Disney took over the brand, as a more relatable American creature.
48. The Milne family — along with illustrator Ernest H. Shepard — oftenvisited the forestin the summer.
49. Editors at Punch magazineintroduced Milneto his longtime collaborator, Ernest H. Shepard. Milne didn't really want his poems illustrated until he saw Shepard's work.
50. Milne loved Shepard's illustrations in the firstWinnie-the-Pooh. In Shepard's copyhe wrote this poem:
51. The American satirist Dorothy Parker wasnot a fanof Pooh Bear. She wrote this about the use of the word "hummy" to describe one of Pooh's songs: "It is that word 'hummy,' my darlings, that marks the first place inThe House at Pooh Cornerat which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up."
52. TheA.A. Milne Pooh canonconsists ofWhen We Were Very Young, Winnie-the-Pooh, Now We Are SixandThe House at Pooh Corner.There have been many new stories written by other authors since then.
53. Christopher Robin's stuffed animals took a U.S. tour in the 1940s. The collection wasinsured for $50,000and included Pooh's birth certificate, signed by Milne to ensure its authenticity.
54. Winnie-the-Poohinspired the bestsellerThe Tao of Pooh, which praises the honey-loving bear for being an "uncarved block," well in tune with his inner self.
56. You cansend birthday cardsto Winnie-the-Pooh courtesy of the New York Public Library, where Christopher Robin's original stuffed bear lives.
57. Kept in their bulletproof display case at the New York Public Library, Christopher Robin's original plush Pooh toyssee about 750,000 visitorsper year. They are extremely fragile and their environment isconsistently monitoredfor temperature, relative humidity and light levels.
58. The only original toy you can't see at the New York Public Library isRoo. Christopher Robin Milne lost it sometime in the 1930s in anapple orchard.
59. Ernest H. Shepard'shis favourite book to have illustratedwasn't Pooh, but Kenneth Greene'sThe Wind in the Willows.
60. There is a Russian cartoon version of Winnie-the-Pooh, called Vinni Pukh, and he is adorable.
61. Christopher Robinwasn't the biggest fanof his father's stories. Children at school used to tease him about Winnie-the-Pooh, and as Christopher got older, he felt that his father had earned his fame by standing on his son's shoulders.
62. In fact, both A.A. Milne and the books' illustrator, Ernest H. Shepard,came to resent Winnie-the-Pooh as well, feeling the bear overshadowed their other work.
63. A group of researchers in the pediatrics department at Dalhousie Universitypublished a reportentitled Pathology in the Hundred Acre Woodin the Canadian Medical Association Journal's winter 2000 lampoon issue. The satirical article assigns each Milne character at least one psychological disorder.
64. The article posits that Pooh hasADHD, OCD and microcephaly(due to his Very Little Brain); Piglet has generalized anxiety disorder; Eeyore suffers, evidently, from depression; and Tigger has a "recurrent pattern of risk-taking behaviours."
65. Kenny Loggins — that's right, the Footlooseguy — wrote this rather touching ballad about Winnie-the-Pooh:
66. There is a street in Warsaw,Ulica Kubusia Puchatka,named after Winnie-the-Pooh. It has a stone tablet of Winnie walking hand-in-hand with Piglet.
67. There's also a street named after him inBudapest(Micimackó Utca).
68. Arepatriation battle broke outover Christopher Robin's original Pooh toys in 1998, when British Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody started a campaign to bring them back from the New York Public Library, saying, "Just like the Greeks want their Elgin Marbles back, so we want our Winnie-the-Pooh back, along with all his splendid friends." New York'smayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, vowed to "do anything" to keep them. They're still in New York.
69. Remember how Pooh and the gang have a game they play called "Poohsticks"? Well,here's how you play it.
71. White River, Ont. — where the original Winnie was first found as a cub by Harry Colebourn — holds an annualWinnie-the-Pooh festivalin August. The 2016 edition included a historical re-enactment of the original purchase of Winnie, as well as a parade, a fish derby, a spaghetti supper and bingo.
72. Ryerson University in Toronto worked with Colebourn's great-granddaughter, Lindsay Mattick, to curate aspecial exhibitiondevoted to the real story of Winnie.Here's a videoabout the project.
73. Winnie-the-Pooh wasbriefly banned from some U.K. public schoolsin 2003, in fear that Muslim children would be offended by a talking pig. This edict wasoverturned by the Muslim Council of Britain, who voted to end the "well intentioned but misguided policy."
74. Forbes magazine has ranked Winnie-the-Pooh as thesecond most valuable children's character in the world, after Mickey Mouse.
76. Fred Colebourn, Harry's son, fought to have Winnie and his father's story properly recognized. Here he isbeing interviewed by CBCin 1987.
77. The Guinness World Record for thelargest "Pooh and Friends memorabilia collection"is held by Deb Hoffmann, from Wisconsin. Hoffmann received her first Winnie-the-Pooh when she was two years old, and as of the record-setting date in 2015, she had amassed 13,213 Pooh items.
78. In Grade 6, Hoffmannwrote a storybased on that same stuffed Winnie she was given at age two. Hoffmann had sneaked out of bed to go to the bathroom and saw her father come home with the toy. The title of Hoffmann's story wasPooh on the Toilet.
79.Disney animator and Orthodox Jew Saul Blinkoff hashidden various Jewish "Easter eggs" in his Winnie-the-Pooh films, including a mezuzah (a tiny Hebrew scroll in a case) on Winnie's door.
80. A2004 TV moviecalledA Bear Named Winnietells the story of Harry Colebourn (played by Michael Fassbender) and Winnie (played by three different bears: Chester, Charlie and Bonkers). It aired on CBC Television in December of that year.
81. Tigger's iconic line in the Disney adaptations, "T.T.F.N, Ta-ta for now," wasad-libbed by Tigger's voice actor, Paul Winchell, and it stuck.
82. Eeyore'sdowncast mannerapparently came from the fact that the real Christopher Robin's toy lost the stiffness in its neck stuffing as time went on, and his head started hanging down.
83.Kanga was a "he"in Milne's original notes, but was changed to become the only female character in the books.
84. A.A. Milne's father ran a private boarding school, which A.A. attended. One of his teachers was ayoung H.G. Wells,who went on to become an iconic science fiction author.
85. From the 1960s to 1980s, Sears had anexclusive North American licenceto sell Pooh merchandise. This included a line of "Pooh-rated" clothing. And yes, that's Gary Coleman in this 1977 ad:
86. Thanks to aquestionable Disney show from the 1980s, Pooh and the gang warn of stranger danger.
87. The Latin translation of Winnie-the-Pooh,Winnie ille Pu, is theonly book in Latinever to make it onto the New York Times bestsellerlist.
88. Thanks to an epic merchandising empire, Winnie-the-Pooh isestimated to be worth£3.75 billion annually ($6.3 billion CAD). In comparison, the Queen is estimated to be worth about £350 million annually ($588 million CAD).
89. Cambridge University's Pembroke CollegeWinnie-the-Pooh Societywas established in 1993. The Queen is apparently a member. They regularly meet at 4 p.m. every Saturday of the full term to drink tea, eat cake and read from the works of A.A. Milne. The annual membership fee is £2 ($3.35 CAD).
¹FromFinding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bearby Lindsay Mattick ©2015, published by HarperCollins, as well as files from Mattick's personal collection.
