These Facts About Oprah Winfrey Will Be Your New Favorite Things

1. Oprah was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi to unmarried teen mother Vernita Lee.

2. Her first name is actually spelled Orpah on her birth certificate after a biblical figure in the Book of Ruth, but people mispronounced it and Oprah stuck.

3. She grew up believing Vernon Winfrey was her biological father, however, in 2003, Mississippi farmer and World War II vet Noah Robinson Sr. came forward with a claim that he was her actual father. She refused a paternity test.

4. Oprah spent the first six years of her life living with her grandmother Hattie Mae Lee, who was so poor that the future media mogul often wore dresses made of potato sack. The unconventional clothing earned her the nickname "Sack Girl" among the local children.

5. According to Oprah, she used to endure some harrowing physical punishments at the hand of Hattie Mae. "I went to a well to get some water and carry it in a bucket. And I was playing in the water with my fingers, and my grandmother had seen me out the window and she didn't like it," she told David Letterman in 2012. "She whipped me so badly that I had welts on my back and the welts would bleed. And then when I put on my Sunday dress, I was bleeding from the welts. And then she was very upset with me because I got blood on the dress. So then I got another whipping for getting blood on the dress."

6. Hattie Mae also taught Oprah how to read by the age of three and would take her to church, where she earned the nickname "The Preacher" for her ability to recite Bible verses.

7. When she was six, she moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to live with her mother, who had given birth to another daughter, Patricia, in the six years that Oprah was living with her grandma. Patricia would later die of causes related to a cocaine addiction at the age of 43.

8. By 1962, unable to care for her two daughters, Vernita would send Oprah to live with her father Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee. While she was away, Vernita would give birth to another daughter (who she placed for adoption and was later named, coincidentally, Patricia) and a son, Jeffrey. Oprah wouldn't even learn of Patricia's existence until 2010. Jeffrey, however, died of AIDS-related causes in 1989.

9. As she revealed on her talk show in 1986, Oprah was molested by a 19-year-old cousin when she was only nine years old. For years after that, she was also assaulted by an uncle and a family friend. When she opened up about the alleged abuse at the age of 24 to family members, they reportedly did not believe her.

10. She became pregnant at 14 and prematurely gave birth to a baby boy, who died shortly after being born. The world learned of Oprah's secret pregnancy in 1990 when a family member sold the story to the National Enquirer. While Oprah didn't name which family member betrayed her when writing about the experience for O, The Oprah Magazine's February 2007 issue, the Associated Press reported it was her deceased half-sister Patricia who, as Oprah wrote, "sat in a room, told them the story of my hidden shame and left their offices $19,000 richer."

11. While in high school, Oprah returned to Nashville for good to live with Vernon, where education at East Nashville High School became a priority. There, she was voted Most Popular Girl and joined the speech team, which helped her secure a full scholarship to Tennessee State University.

12. Her first job as a teenager was working at a grocery store, where she was, ironically, forbidden from speaking with customers.

13. In 1971, after Oprah won Nashville's Miss Fire Prevention contest, the pageant's sponsor, radio station WVOL, offered her a job reading the afternoon headlines on air.

14. In 1972, she won Miss Black Tennessee and went on to compete in Miss Black America.

15. At just 19, she became both the youngest news anchor and first Black female anchor for Nashville's WLAC-TV, leaving TSU, where she was studying communications, to do so.

16. After an eight-year stint co-hosting a local morning show in Baltimore, Maryland, she relocated to Chicago to take over WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning show, AM Chicago, in 1983. Her first episode aired on January 2, 1984 and, within months, the show went from last place to besting Donahue as the highest-rated talk show in Chicago.

18. Before The Oprah Winfrey Show went national, Oprah was already a household name thanks to her work in Steven Spielberg's 1985 adaptation of The Color Purple. For her turn as Sofia in the film, Oprah was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 1986 Academy Awards.

19. In 1986, Oprah launched her multimedia production company Harpo Inc. The name is both her name spelled backwards and the name of her The Color Purple character's husband.

24. In 1996, Oprah launched the Oprah's Book Club segment on her show. Proving how much power her endorsement carried, each new book she announced as the latest in her club would go on to become a best-seller and the term "The Oprah Effect" was coined.

27. In preparation for the trial, Oprah hired the services of Phil McGraw and his legal consulting firm Courtroom Sciences, Inc. (the inspiration for the current CBS drama Bull) to help her analyze the jury. After her victory, she was so impressed with his services that she invited him on her show. So, what we're saying is that you have Texas cattle farmers to thank for the Dr. Phil show.

28. The popularity of The Oprah Winfrey Show in its heyday is also responsible for launching (or boosting) the careers of Dr. Oz, Rachael Ray, Iyanla Vanzant, Nate Berkus, Suze Orman, and, of course, BFF Gayle King.

29. When Ellen DeGeneres chose to publicly come out as a lesbian on Oprah's show in 1997, just before her sitcom character did the same to her therapist, played by the talk show host, it earned Oprah some not-so-positive reactions. "I played the therapist on that show... and got the most and worst hate mail of my entire career after doing it, like 'Go back to Africa' hate mail," she admitted in a 2013 episode of her show Oprah's Next Chapter.