Did You Know?
Uncommon Tidbits of Interest
A “Did you know?” – or DYK – is simply a fact, detail, or statistic that sticks in your mind for some reason and stays there. Most of these tidbits of information are not that important. Not many are momentous or life- changing. But they often are interesting, surprising, curious, or thought-provoking. A “Did you know” can be a great conversation starter or can help fill a lull in a discussion.
Here are a few DYKs you may find interesting…
- In 1939, The New York Times predicted that television would never become popular, because the average family would never have enough free time to spend watching it.
- In a standard pack of playing cards, the king of hearts is the only king without a moustache. One popular theory is that he originally had facial hair, but his mustache was lost as his image was reproduced and altered over time.
- The great Bob Marley gave credit for “No Woman, No Cry” to a friend named Vincent Ford, who ran a soup kitchen the singer/songwriter wanted to make sure remained open. The royalty checks Ford received from the song ensured the survival and continual running of the soup kitchen until his death in 2008.
- Some words like CIVIC, KAYAK and LEVEL read the same way forward or backward, while others mean something totally different when spelled backward, such as LIVE/EVIL, RAT/STAR, and STRESSED/DESSERTS.
- Beautiful Glass Beach, located on the California coast, was not always so scenic. It was a popular trash dump back in the early 20th century. But now, decades of ocean tides have turned old discarded bottles and other glass items that were once somebody’s unwanted rubbish into the beautiful pebbles of sea glass now blanketing the area.
- The word NERD was first coined by Dr. Seuss in “If I Ran the Zoo.” It is the name of a creature that narrator Gerald McGrew wants to collect for his imaginary zoo. Gerald also would like a NERKLE and a SEERSUCKER too.
- Almost everyone has heard the tale of Johnny Appleseed. While it is true, Johnny Appleseed did plant thousands of apple trees across the frontier of the United States, he wasn’t planting them to provide tasty fruits to be eaten whole. No, as the story goes, he was actually planting them to be made into hard apple cider.
- More than half the geysers on Earth are found at Yellowstone National Park. According to www.yellowstonepark.com, Yellowstone is the largest active geyser field in the world and home to 60 percent of the world’s geysers.
- The chocolate chip cookie was invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield in the mid-1930s. She owned the Toll House Inn, a popular restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts. Even today, every bag of Nestlé chocolate chips sold in the United States has her original recipe on it.
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