When was the word “period” first said in a TV commercial?

1985

Print advertising may have featured sanitary products since the roaring ’20s, but on-air advertising wasn’t allowed until 1972. And it was more than a decade before America’s trailblazing Friend, Courteney Cox, became the first woman to say the word, in a Tampax commercial. Now, that’s progress.

Source: Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation, Watch Here

When America’s first female astronaut, Sally Ride, prepared for her 1983 week-long space mission, how many tampons did NASA offer to pack just in case?

100

When Ride let her NASA engineers know that 100 wasn’t exactly the right number of tampons necessary for the trip, they responded, “Well, we want to be safe.” (For the record, the average woman uses about 20 tampons during her 3–5-day-long period.)

Source: NASA Johnson Space Center

What famous filmmaker(s) produced an animated short film called “The Story of Menstruation”?

Walt Disney

Is that a red spot on your dress, Minnie? In 1946, Walt Disney Productions teamed up with Kotex to create an educational cartoon shown to girls throughout U.S. schools well into the late ’60s. More a sign of the times and less progressively minded than today’s educators might prefer, the film filled with vapidly helpful tips like putting on makeup and keeping “well-groomed” is now preserved in the National Film Registry.

Source: Library of Congress

How much money does the state of California make from pad and tampon sales in a year?

$20 million

As in most of the U.S., feminine hygiene products in California are subject to a state sales tax. Many opponents argue that tampons and pads should be exempt from taxation and treated as a basic health necessity—like some states do with Viagra, despite still maintaining the controversial “tampon tax.”

Source: California Assemblymember Cristina Garcia 2016 Press Release

Which country started mandating “menstrual leave” in the 1940s?

Japan

Japan, it turns out, was way ahead of our fourth-period gym class. As record numbers of women entered the nation’s post-WWII workforce, the country passed a law granting seirikyuuka (physiological leave) for women suffering from painful cramps. Today’s high schoolers may still be trying to convince their coaches it’s a legit excuse—but for up to 20% of women, cramp pain can be so severe that it completely impedes daily activities. Ouch!

Sources: 1947 Labor Standards Law; The American Academy of Family Physicians

How many euphemisms for menstruation exist around the world?

5,000

A period by any other name is still just a period. After surveying 90,000 women from 190 countries, Clue (a period tracking app) and the International Women’s Health Coalition found that euphemism usage is extremely common—in fact, 78% of respondents used slang terms. Of the thousands that exist, some of our favorites include “ketchup week” (France), “the marquis has arrived,” (Italian), “Granny’s stuck in traffic,” (South Africa), and “surfing the crimson wave” (Clueless, 1995).

Source: Clue