SLASH’S HAT HAS BEEN ON A LONG STRANGE TRIP.

1. A vet named Pete Hodgson was known in New Zealand as one of the pit bulls of the Labour Party. Outside New Zealand, though, he is known for being appointed “Minister of the Rings” to promote the fact that The Lord of the Rings was filmed there. New Zealand has turned the trilogy into a tourism bonanza, since the movies highlighted New Zealand’s stunning landscapes.

In fact, the sets for The Hobbit were left up, expressly to become tourist attractions.

2. In 1956, Chicago’s fire academy was built, rather aptly, on the site of Mrs. O’Leary’s barn, at 558 W DeKoven Street, which was numbered 137 at the time of the fire.

The barn, or more precisely, a cow inside of it, was once blamed for burning the whole city down. In fact, the bit about the cow was made up, although we do know the fire started there.

3. Tandy and Coleco both became electronics companies and, by coincidence, both started out in the leather business. Coleco was the Connecticut Leather Company, specializing in shoes. By the 1980s, it was deep into the video game business.

Too deep. When the bubble burst, so did Coleco. Tandy was also in shoes but diversified into computers, until it acquired RadioShack in 1963. The new company eventually dropped the Tandy part of its name.

4. Best known for his time in Guns N’ Roses, Slash was born Saul Hudson in Stoke-on-Trent, England, in 1965, but his family moved to Los Angeles when he was 11.

His dad did album covers and his mom did costumes for musicians. Slash has his own fashion sense and a key part of that is his hat, which he shoplifted in 1985. As it happens, the hat was once stolen, in turn, from Slash, during a Grammys afterparty.