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Piff, Puff, Poof: Historical Pop Culture Trivia for May 11

One of Peter, Paul and Mary’s hit songs became the #2 song in the country and chess champ loses a match to a computer.

May 11, 2026

2–3 minutes

Rumors about the song “Puff the Magic Dragon” have been a part of pop culture trivia for a long time now. Peter, Paul and Mary had a real hit on their hands when the song jumped to the #2 spot on the pop charts. But was this an innocent song for children or an ode to marijuana?

1963: ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ is #2

Peter Paul and Mary singing — *(Wikimedia Commons)*

The song, “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” made famous by Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers (aka Peter, Paul and Mary), appeared in the number two spot on the pop charts on this day. The lyrics for the song were based on a poem written by a nineteen-year-old Leonard Lipton who himself was inspired by the poem; Really-O Truly-O Dragon written by Ogden Nash.

It turns out that Lipton was friends with Yarrow’s roommate when they were in college together at Cornell University. The song is about an ageless dragon and his friend, Jackie Paper who outgrows him. An urban myth claims that the song was a reference to smoking pot, but Yarrow has said, that Puff “never had any meaning other than the obvious one” and is about the “loss of innocence in children”.

Travers said, “Believe me, if he wanted to write a song about marijuana, he would have written a song about marijuana.”

Pop culture trivia fun fact: Puff the Magic Dragon inspired the name for magician/comedian Piff the Magic Dragon.

1997: Computer Beat World-Champion at Chess

Chess master Garry Kasparov contemplates his next move of the game. — *(Wikimedia Commons)*

In 1985, Garry Kasparov became the youngest world champion in chess when he was 22-years-old. In 1996, the Russian chess master agreed to go against Deep Blue, a chess computer created by IBM and of course, he won the match. However, in 1997, Kasparov and Deep Blue became the subjects pop culture trivia questions.

It was on this day in New York City when Kasparov was beaten by Deep Blue during a re-match. The next three games were draws. And the sixth game lasted only a little over an hour after just 19 moves.

Kasparov continued beating humans at the game until 2000 when lost a 16-game championship match to Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.