Trivia Today

historylover

historylover

RANDOM TIDBITS

Fireworks were made in China as early as the 11th century.
The Chinese used their pyrotechnic mixtures for war rockets
and explosives.

***

Uncle Sam was first popularized during the War of 1812,
when the term appeared on supply containers. Believe it or
not, the U. S. Congress didn't adopt him as a national
symbol until 1961.

***

Not all members of the Continental Congress supported a
formal Declaration of Independence, but those who did were
passionate about it. One representative rode 80 miles by
horseback to reach Philadelphia and break a tie in support
of independence.

***

The first two versions of the Liberty Bell were defective
and had to be melted down and recast. The third version
rang every Fourth of July from 1778 to 1835, when,
according to tradition, it cracked as it was being tolled
for the death of Chief Justice John Marshall.

***

The American national anthem, the "Star-Spangled Banner,"
is set to the tune of an English drinking song ("To
Anacreon in Heaven").

***

The iron framework of the Statue of Liberty was devised by
French engineer Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, who also built
the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
 
Last edited:
calpoon

calpoon

cool thread.

and a happy 4th!

blow some shit up and tell the government to fuck off! it's the American thing to do!

Let freedom ring!:thefinger
 
senob44

senob44

Yes, very nice thread. It's always good to read some trivia. Not to mention if so many of us are celebrating US independence, we might as well know some patriotic history in honor of this day!
 
gunslingingbird

gunslingingbird

Is there a chance that this will turn into a parallel of MiniD's Today in History thread, and you give us some random trivia facts each day? :D
 
Legzman

Legzman

what the fuck you lookin at?
calpoon said:
cool thread.

and a happy 4th!

blow some shit up and tell the government to fuck off! it's the American thing to do!

Let freedom ring!:thefinger
Click to expand...

true, true.
 
historylover

historylover

RANDOM TIDBITS

The telephone was not widely appreciated for the first 15
years because people did not see a use for it. In fact, in
the British parliament it was mentioned there was no need
for telephones because "we have enough messengers here."
Western Union believed that it could never replace the
telegraph. In 1876, an internal memo read: "This telephone
has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a
means of communication."

***

Irish scientist, Dr. Dionysius Lardner (1793 - 1859) didn't
believe that trains could contribute much in speedy transport.
He wrote: "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because
passengers ' would die of asphyxia' [suffocation]."

***

In 1966, Time Magazine predicted, "By 2000, the machines
will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will,
in effect, be independently wealthy." In that year too
CoCo Chanel said about miniskirts: "It's a bad joke that
won't last. Not with winter coming."

***

In the early 20th century a world market for only 4 million
automobiles was made because "the world would run out of
chauffeurs." Shortly after the end of World War II (1945),
the whole of Volkswagen, factory and patents, was offered
free to Henry Ford II. He dismissed the Volkswagen Beetle
as a bad design.

***

In 1894, the president of the Royal Society, William Thomson,
Lord Kelvin, predicted that radio had no future. The first
radio factory was opened five years later. Today, there are
more than one billion radio sets in the world, tuned to more
than 33 000 radio stations around the world. He also
predicted that heavier-than-air flying machines were
impossible. The Wright Brother's first flight covered a
distance equal to only half the length of the wingspan of
a Boeing 747.

***

In 1927, H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, asked, "Who the hell
wants to hear actors talk?" In 1936, Radio Times editor Rex
Lambert thought "Television won't matter in your lifetime
or mine."
 
senob44

senob44

Interesting stuff and also food for thought. These stories seem to indicate that perhaps embracing new ideas and technologies is the way to go. Foresight and imagination are key for inventors, pioneers and investors alike!
 
historylover

historylover

RANDOM TIDBITS

In the Middle Ages wearing spectacles signified knowledge
and learning. Painters of the time often included spectacles
when portraying famous persons even when depicting people
who lived before the known invention of spectacles. On
numerous paintings the religious teacher Sofronius Eusebius
Hieronymus (340 - 420 AD) is portrayed with a lion, a skull
and a pair of reading glasses. He is the patron saint of
spectacle makers.

***

It actually is true that eating carrots can help you see
better. Carrots contain Vitamin A, which feeds the chemicals
that the eye shafts and cones are made of. The shafts
capture black and white vision. The cones capture color
images.

***

Healthy eyes are so sensitive to light that a candle
burning in the dark can be detected a mile away. The human
eye can distinguish about 10 million different colors.
There currently is no machine that can achieve this
remarkable feat.

***

Roman tragedian Seneca is said to have read "all the books
in Rome" by peering through a glass globe of water. A
thousand years later, presbyopic monks used segments of
glass spheres that could be laid against reading material
to magnify the letters, basically a magnifying glass, called
a "reading stone." They based their invention on the
theories of the Arabic mathematician Alhazen (roughly 1000
AD). Yet, Greek philosopher Aristophanes (c. 448 BC-380 BC)
knew that glass could be used as a magnifying glass.
Nevertheless it was not until roughly 150 AD that Ptolemy
discovered the basic rules of light diffraction and wrote
extensively on the subject.

***

Venetian glass blowers, who had learned how to produce
glass for reading stones, later constructed lenses that
could be held in a frame in front of the eye instead of
directly on the reading material. It was intended for use
by one eye; the idea to frame two ground glasses using
wood or horn, making them into a single unit was born in
the 13th century.

***

In 1268 Roger Bacon made the first known scientific
commentary on lenses for vision correction. Salvino
D’Armate of Pisa and Alessandro Spina of Florence are often
credited with the invention of spectacles around 1284 but
there is no evidence to conclude this. The first mention of
actual glasses is found in a 1289 manuscript when a member
of the Popozo family wrote: "I am so debilitated by age
that without the glasses known as spectacles, I would no
longer be able to read or write." In 1306, a monk of Pisa
mentioned in a sermon: "It is not yet 20 years since the
art of making spectacles, one of the most useful arts on
earth, was discovered." But nobody mentioned the inventor.
 
senob44

senob44

Interesting! Makes me think of how difficult it must have been for presbyopic people before the invention of glasses. My eyesight is so poor I would probably get killed walking around without glasses or contacts.
 
historylover

historylover

In the interest of full disclosure, Trivia Today isn't published on weekends. Thus, I've been selecting ones from the recent past.

The one which I printed yesterday interested me because it offers splendid examples of the stagnation of business leader's thinking. An early Internet advertising banner (for me, anyway) went something like this: (From an IBM executive in the 70s), "There's a market for maybe two personal computers in the world."
 
historylover

historylover

RANDOM TIDBITS

Credit was first used in Assyria, Babylon and Egypt 3000
years ago. The bill of exchange - the forerunner of
banknotes - was established in the 14th century. Debts
were settled by one-third cash and two-thirds bill of
exchange. Paper money followed only in the 17th century.

***

The first advertisement for credit was placed in 1730 by
Christopher Thornton, who offered furniture that could be
paid off weekly.

***

From the 18th century until the early part of the 20th,
tallymen sold clothes in return for small weekly payments.
They were called "tallymen" because they kept a record or
tally of what people had bought on a wooden stick. One side
of the stick was marked with notches to represent the
amount of debt and the other side was a record of payments.
In the 1920s, a shopper's plate - a "buy now, pay later"
system - was introduced in the USA. It could only be used
in the shops which issued it.

***

In 1950, Diners Club and American Express launched their
charge cards in the USA, the first "plastic money". In
1951, Diners Club issued the first credit card to 200
customers who could use it at 27 restaurants in New York.
But it was only until the establishment of standards for
the magnetic strip in 1970 that the credit card became part
of the information age.

***

The word credit comes from Latin, meaning "trust".

***

The first use of magnetic stripes on cards was in the early
1960's, when the London Transit Authority installed a
magnetic stripe system. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit
installed a paper based ticket the same size as the credit
cards in the late 1960's.


***********************************************************

RANDOM TIDBITS

There are approximately 61,269 pizzerias in the United
States. Each man, woman and child in America eats an average
of 46 slices (23 pounds) of pizza a year.

***

Pepperoni is America's favorite topping (36 percent of all
pizza orders); we eat approximately 251,770,000 pounds per
year. Other popular pizza toppings are mushrooms, extra
cheese, sausage, green pepper and onion. Anchovies always
rank last on the list of favorite toppings.


***

Around the world, toppings vary greatly to reflect regional
preferences. In Japan, for instance, eel and squid are
favorites. In Pakistan, curry is a big seller. In Russia,
red herring is a topping of choice and Australians enjoy
shrimp and pineapple on their pies as well as barbecue
toppings. Costa Ricans favor coconut.


***

Modern pizza was born in 1889 when Queen Margherita Teresa
Giovanni, the consort of Umberto I, king of Italy, visited
Naples. Don Raffaele Esposito, who owned a tavern-like
place called Pietro Il Pizzaiolo, was asked to prepare a
special dish in honor of the Queen's visit. Esposito
developed a pizza featuring tomatoes, mozzarella cheese (a
never before used ingredient made from the milk of water
buffalo) and basil - ingredients bearing the colors red,
white and green for the Italian flag. He named it the
Margherita Pizza, after the guest of honor. Thus, the
modern-day tomato-and-cheese pizza was born.

***

Marie Antionette's sister, Marie Carolina, wife of Ferdinand
I of Sicily and Naples, had ovens built in the forest so
she could enjoy pizza while the Royal Hunting Party feasted
on wild ducklings and pigs killed in the hunt.

***

The world's largest pizza was built on October 11, 1987 by
Lorenzo Amato and Louis Piancone. The pizza covered 10,000
square feet and measured 140 feet across. It weighed in at
44,457 pounds, consisting of, among other items, 18,174
pounds of flour, 1,103 pounds of water, 6,445 pounds of
sauce, 9,375 pounds of cheese and 2,387 pounds of pepperoni.
The pie was cut into 94,248 slices and eaten by more than
30,000 spectators at the baking in Havana, Florida.
 
D

dave_rhino

Closed Account
historylover said:
The American national anthem, the "Star-Spangled Banner,"
is set to the tune of an English drinking song ("To
Anacreon in Heaven").
Click to expand...

Holy shit, I didn't know what.

That is fucking awesome! Extremely useful next time mentions patriotic songs.

Take that, yanks! :thefinger
 
senob44

senob44

MMM I wish I had some pizza, historylover!

That was interesting also about the credit cards. I had no clue until now when cards with the magnetic strip had been implemented.
 
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