- James Black, the blacksmith credited with crafting the famed "Bowie Knife" for Jim Bowie in 1831, had a secret, ten-step method of tempering steel. He tempered his blades behind a leather curtain to keep the secret even from his partners. In 1870, on his seventieth birthday, the aged and infirm Black decided to pass along his tempering secret … and he couldn't remember it.
- Scotch Tape®, introduced in 1930, was such a successful product that its maker, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M), was one of the few US companies that didn't have to lay off employees during the Great Depression.
- Roman fathers before Emperor Constantine could sell or even kill their children if they wished. Constantine said they had to have a reason to kill them.
- The Dutch started eating licorice in the 13th Century, and they currently eat an average of 4½ pounds each per year. In fact, they are the world champion candy eaters, munching 65 pounds per year each, more than three times the per capita consumption in the U.S.
- No one knows where the coconut palm originated. Coconuts float and take root anywhere they wash ashore. They've been drifting around - sometimes for thousands of miles - for too long to trace.
- Walt Disney changed the original villain in Snow White from an evil stepmother to an evil queen because he thought stepmothers had it rough enough already.
- Nicolas Copernicus is the Polish genius credited with the theory that the earth travels around the sun instead of vice versa. He was also the commander of Allenstein Castle during a 16th Century plague. He decided to try coating baked goods with a paste obtained from churned milk, to protect the food. It didn't stop the plague, but everyone liked his invention: buttered bread.
- There are still tunnels under Lyons, France. Silk merchants dug them centuries ago so they could move their wares undamaged on rainy days.
- DNA tests of ancient remains indicate that the residents of the Andes in South America are closely related to the residents of southern Japan.
- If for no other reason than postal addresses, it's good that no one uses the real name of the New Mexican capital, La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis.
- King Henry VIII - known for his fondness for women - was also a lover of footwear. One of his orders to the royal clothier (called the Great Wardrobe) called for seventy-eight pairs of assorted boots, shoes, and slippers, including one pair of football boots.
- Having married her brother, Cleopatra was her own sister-in-law.
- Scorpions are one of the oldest species known. Some scorpion fossils are over 400 millions years old.
- A funny thing happened on the pirate ship of Captain John "Calico Jack" Rackam. He had his mistress aboard his ship, dressed as a man. He captured a merchant ship and took the crew prisoner. His mistress, Anne Bonney, was attracted to one of the captives, got him alone, and propositioned him. That's when the captive revealed a secret: he was actually a she, Mary Read, also sailing disguised as a man.
- The water of Brazil's Rio Negro is black. In the Rio Solimoes, it's coffee-with-cream tan. These rivers join to form the Amazon, but for the first 12 miles, their waters flow side-by-side without mingling.
- While English astronomer Edmund Halley is best known for predicting the return of what is now called Halley's Comet, this "Renaissance Man" also fathered geophysics, pioneered the actuarial sciences, invented the diving bell, and studied the relationship between barometric pressure and weather. But Halley wasn't always right. In 1692, he said the Earth was a hollow sphere with an active social life inside.
- Archeologists in Oaxaca, Mexico sometimes dig up a cooking utensil they don't recognize. They often get correct identification and information on usage from local housewives. Cooking there has changed very little in 2,000 years.
- Sir Isaac Newton, considered to be one of the most intelligent men who ever lived, lost the equivalent of $2 million investing in South Sea Trading Company stock.
- Compress human history into one 24-hour day, and you will note that the hunters have been around for 23 hours, 45 minutes. The farmers? Fifteen minutes.
- In 525 B.C., a Persian army defeated the Egyptians at Pelusium in a novel way. The Persians carried animals that were sacred to the Egyptians - mostly cats - in the fronts of their lines. The Egyptian archers wouldn't shoot their arrows toward the oncoming Persians for fear of harming the animals. The Persians weren't so constrained and slaughtered their opponents.
- There is no reason you should know the name Danny Iamascia. He wasn't famous. But when he died in June, 1931, several thousand people attended his funeral. The procession from the church to the cemetery consisted of 125 carloads of mourners and 35 cars containing nothing but flowers. Danny Iamascia was a Dutch Schultz bodyguard who made the mistake of drawing his gun on a New York City police officer.
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