50 Fun Facts About Hidden Figures

Which programming language does Dorothy teach herself from a smuggled library book in Hidden Figures?

Fortran is what Dorothy teaches her West Area colleagues so the new mainframe cannot replace them. The real Vaughan became an expert programmer in it at Langley.

Which Mercury capsule carries John Glenn into orbit at the climax of Hidden Figures?

Friendship 7 carried its number in honor of the seven original Mercury astronauts. It splashed down in the North Atlantic after three orbits.

Which Oscar nominee for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button plays Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures?

Taraji P. Henson won the approval of the real Johnson, who said the film's three leading ladies "did an excellent job portraying us."

What does Al Harrison knock down in Hidden Figures after Katherine explains her long absences?

A 'colored' bathroom sign comes down in the film, but the scene was invented. The real Katherine Johnson said she simply used the white restroom.

Hidden Figures lost Best Picture to which film, crowned only after La La Land was announced by mistake?

Moonlight was declared the winner minutes after the wrong title was read out. Hidden Figures left without a win from its three nominations.

Which Soviet cosmonaut's launch in Hidden Figures piles pressure on NASA to get an American into orbit?

Yuri Gagarin circled Earth in April 1961, ten months before John Glenn matched the feat for the United States.

Which Virginia Beach-born musician produced Hidden Figures and wrote its original songs?

Pharrell Williams comes from the same corner of Virginia as Langley, where the story is set. His songs for the film draw on 1960s gospel and soul.

Which actress earned an Oscar nomination for playing Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures?

Octavia Spencer lost on the night to Viola Davis, but became the first Black actress to follow an Oscar win with another nomination.

Which honor did Barack Obama give Katherine Johnson in 2015, the year before Hidden Figures came out?

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is America's highest civilian honor, and Johnson received it at age 97. The film's closing titles mention the award.

Which Big Bang Theory star plays Paul Stafford, the dismissive head engineer in Hidden Figures?

Jim Parsons plays a man who never existed: Stafford is a composite invented to stand for the attitudes Katherine's generation faced.

Before his flight in Hidden Figures, John Glenn tells engineers to get whom to check the computer's numbers?

"The girl" is how the real Glenn put it too: NASA records him saying that if she said the numbers were good, he was ready to go.

Which singer plays Mary Jackson in Hidden Figures and also performs two songs on its soundtrack album?

Janelle Monáe was new to acting on screen: her first two live-action films, both released in 2016, ended up competing for the same Best Picture Oscar.

Which actor plays Al Harrison, the fictional Space Task Group director in Hidden Figures?

Kevin Costner's character never existed: Harrison was written to simplify the layers of managers above the real Katherine Johnson.

Which everyday item labeled 'colored' appears in Katherine's Space Task Group office in Hidden Figures?

A coffee pot marked 'colored' turns up after Katherine pours a cup from the office's shared one. She later tells Harrison she lives on coffee from a pot nobody there wants her to touch.

In Hidden Figures, what does Paul Stafford order Katherine to take off the reports she has worked on?

Her name comes off because Stafford insists computers cannot author reports. In 1960 the real Johnson became the first woman in her division credited on one.

Which newly installed machine threatens to make Langley's human computers obsolete in Hidden Figures?

The IBM 7090 is shown as Langley's first electronic computer, though earlier machines were already there. Dorothy is the one who gets it running.

In Hidden Figures, why does Mary Jackson plead her case before a local judge?

To attend a white school for the night classes an engineer needed, Mary petitions the court on screen. The real Jackson only had to ask the city for permission.

Which author, the daughter of a Langley research scientist, wrote the book that Hidden Figures is based on?

Margot Lee Shetterly grew up among NASA families, and her father had worked alongside many of the women she went on to write about.

Langley Research Center, the workplace of the women in Hidden Figures, lies in which Virginia city?

Hampton was also Mary Jackson's hometown, so the future engineer grew up in the same city as the laboratory that would one day hire her.

In Hidden Figures, Paul Stafford tells Katherine there is 'no protocol for women attending' which events?

Space program briefings were closed to the real Katherine too, until she asked whether there was a law against her going and her boss said to let her in.

In Hidden Figures, Dorothy Vaughan agrees to supervise the new Programming Department only on what condition?

Her co-workers transfer too: thirty West Area women follow her into programming. The real Vaughan later joined a racially integrated computing division.

Hidden Figures puts Mercury mission control at Langley, but where was John Glenn's flight really directed from?

Cape Canaveral in Florida housed the Mercury Control Center. The film's control room also displays a six-orbit flight plan that was not flown until months later.

Katherine Johnson did the trajectory analysis for which Mercury astronaut's flight in May 1961?

Alan Shepard became the first American in space on that 15-minute flight, nine months before John Glenn reached orbit.

Before joining Langley, the three real women of Hidden Figures had all worked in which profession?

Teaching in segregated schools came first for all three: Vaughan for 14 years, Jackson for one, and Johnson both before and after starting her family.

Which toy maker's 2017 Women of NASA set dropped the Katherine Johnson figure included in the original proposal?

Lego needed sign-off from every woman depicted, and Johnson declined to have her likeness used, so the set shipped with four figures instead of five.

Which NASA building was renamed in 2021 for Mary Jackson, the agency's first Black female engineer?

Its Washington headquarters became the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters in a ceremony held online in February 2021, sixteen years after her death.

Which actor, later Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick, plays the first American to orbit Earth in Hidden Figures?

Glen Powell made the astronaut look about a decade younger than he was: the real Glenn was 40 when he flew.

Katherine Johnson, the math prodigy of Hidden Figures, was born in White Sulphur Springs in which state?

West Virginia later chose her as one of three Black students, and the only woman, to integrate its graduate schools.

Which president's wartime anti-discrimination order opened Langley's doors to Black women like Dorothy Vaughan?

Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 in 1941, and two years later Langley began hiring Black women to process its flood of wartime research data.

Which actor plays Katherine's suitor Jim Johnson in Hidden Figures and won an Oscar that same awards season?

Mahershala Ali collected Best Supporting Actor that February for a different film. The real Jim Johnson was an Army officer who stayed married to Katherine for 60 years.

Which actress plays Vivian Mitchell, the supervisor who finally calls Dorothy 'Mrs. Vaughan' in Hidden Figures?

Kirsten Dunst's character is fictional: Vivian Mitchell is a composite written to reflect the common attitudes of the period.

Which director made Hidden Figures two years after the Bill Murray comedy St. Vincent?

Theodore Melfi also co-wrote the screenplay with Allison Schroeder, reworking it to balance the women's home lives with their careers.

Which branch of mathematics earns Katherine her assignment to the Space Task Group in Hidden Figures?

Analytic geometry is the skill her supervisor cites when assigning her, and it makes Katherine the first Black woman on the team.

In Hidden Figures, what is left strapped to John Glenn's capsule to hold a possibly loose heat shield?

The retro-rocket pack stayed on in real life too: mission director Walter Williams overruled his flight director to keep it in place through re-entry.

Which organization gave Hidden Figures its top film prize in January 2017, a month before the Oscars passed it over?

The Screen Actors Guild honored the whole ensemble with its award for outstanding cast in a motion picture, nine actors sharing the prize.

Hidden Figures is set in Virginia, but in which state was the film actually shot?

Georgia stood in for 1960s Virginia, with shooting starting on the campus of Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Katherine Johnson left college with highest honors and degrees in mathematics and which other subject?

French was her second degree, earned alongside math in 1937. One professor had created new math courses just for her.

Mary Jackson, the NASA engineer of Hidden Figures, spent over 30 years as a volunteer leader in which youth group?

The Girl Scouts were one of her many causes: in the 1970s she also helped children at a community center build their own wind tunnel.

What was unusual about the sale of the Hidden Figures film rights?

The book was not yet finished: the filmmakers worked from a 55-page proposal, and the published book reached shops only months before the film.

Which real engineer led NASA's Space Task Group, the job given to the fictional Al Harrison in Hidden Figures?

Robert Gilruth went on to be the first director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, later renamed for President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Besides Katherine, Dorothy and Mary, which sonic boom researcher is featured in the Hidden Figures book?

Christine Darden joined Langley's computer pool in 1967 and rose to lead its sonic boom team, later reaching the top rank of the federal civil service.

Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson all belonged to which historically Black sorority?

Alpha Kappa Alpha ties ran through Langley: Katherine carpooled to work with a sorority sister who was also her neighbor and a fellow choir member.

In Hidden Figures, which centuries-old technique does Katherine turn to for calculating John Glenn's re-entry?

Euler's method, which Leonhard Euler set out in the 1760s, approximates a curve by taking many small straight steps.

Which Oscar winner for The Lion King's music co-wrote the Hidden Figures score with Benjamin Wallfisch?

Hans Zimmer shared a Golden Globe nomination for the score, which borrowed themes from the film's original songs.

Which closing-title statement in Hidden Figures is contradicted by NASA's own mission records?

John Glenn's flight ended early only on screen: the mission was planned for three orbits and came down at the expected time.

Why did Mary Jackson accept a demotion in 1979 after two decades as an engineer?

To help other women advance, she gave up engineering to run Langley's Federal Women's Program, pushing for the hiring and promotion of female scientists.

Which aeronautics agency employed Dorothy Vaughan from 1943 and was absorbed into the new NASA in 1958?

NACA stood for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. When it gave way to NASA, Langley's segregated West Computing office was abolished.

What did Dorothy Vaughan believe her 1943 job at Langley would be when she took it?

A temporary war job is all she believed it would be. She stayed until 1971, running West Computing for nearly a decade along the way.

What does Jim Johnson doubt on first meeting Katherine in Hidden Figures?

That women can handle such math is the doubt he voices at their first meeting. He apologizes, gets to know her three daughters and marries her before the film ends.

Which aerospace company named a 2021 space station cargo ship the S.S. Katherine Johnson?

Northrop Grumman announced the name on the first day of Black History Month, and the ship lifted off on 20 February, the anniversary of John Glenn's orbital flight.