National Geographic Magazine: 9 Things You Didn’t Know

"Afghan Girl" is a 1984 photographic portrait by journalist Steve McCurry which appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. In 2002, she was identified as Sharbat Gula. (Image via Wikimedia Commons) — “Afghan Girl” is a 1984 photographic portrait by journalist Steve McCurry which appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. In 2002, she was identified as Sharbat Gula. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

On this date in 1888, the first issue of National Geographic magazine was published.

Here are some things you may not have known about it.

The magazine is now known for its use of vivid photography. That wasn’t always the case. As a matter of fact, the magazine didn’t publish a single photo in its first 14 years.

The first photos were part of a photo essay on Tibet. Until that time, the magazine was a scientific journal about geography.

However, the coverage of geography didn’t extend to cartography until 1918, when it published its first map supplement.

The magazine gained its trademark yellow border on its cover in 1910. the border originally consisted of oak leaves and acorns with a crown of laurels.

The first true full-color photograph appeared in the July 1914 issue, called “A Flower Garden in Ghent.” Between 1910 and 1914, the color photos that appeared in the magazine were hand-tinted.

In 2014, the National Geographic Society sold the controlling rights to the magazine to 21st Century Fox, under a new company called National Geographic Partners.

The magazine’s circulation is about 6.7 million copies in almost 40 languages. The U.S. circulation is about 3 1/2 million.

Our question: What is the name of the 2005 documentary produced by National Geographic Films that went on to become the highest-grossing documentary in North American history

Today is Independence Day in Bulgaria and Mali. It’s also World Car-Free Day.

It’s unofficially World Rhino Day, National Ice Cream Day, and National Elephant Appreciation Day.

It’s the birthday of actor John Houseman, who was born in 1902; baseball manager Tommy Lasorda, who is 89; and musician Joan Jett, who is 58.

Because our topic happened before 1960, we’ll spin the wheel to pick a year at random.

This week in 1971, the top song in the U.S. was “Maggie May” by Rod Stewart.

The No. 1 movie was “Kotch,” while the novel “The Exorcist” by William Peter Blatty topped the New York Times Bestsellers list.