Why Do Stop Signs Have Eight Sides?

(via mental_floss) At the turn of the 20th century, American roads were chaos. Drivers didn’t need a license, lane lines didn’t exist, and stop signs hadn’t yet been invented. When the first official stop sign did appear in Detroit, in 1915, it was small, white, and square, nothing like the red octagon we know today. But in 1923, a branch of Mississippi’s highway department suggested a change…