Just a few things I ran across that I thought were interesting…
Bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers were all invented by women.
The word “assassination” was invented by Shakespeare.
False eyelashes were invented by film director D.W. Griffith while he was making the 1916 epic, “Intolerance.” He wanted actress Seena Owen to have lashes that brushed her cheeks
In 4000 BC Egypt, men and women wore glitter eye shadow made from the crushed shells of beetles.
Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during W.W.I.
The condom – made originally of linen – was invented in the early 1500’s.
America’s first nudist organization was founded in 1929, by 3 men.
Levi Strauss blue jeans with copper rivets were priced at $13.50 per dozen in 1874.
The 1st personal computer, the Apple II, went on sale in 1977.
In 1945 a computer at Harvard malfunctioned and Grace Hopper, who was working on the computer, investigated, found a moth in one of the circuits and removed it. Ever since, when something goes wrong with a computer, it is said to have a bug in it.
Barbers at one time combined shaving and haircutting with bloodletting and pulling teeth. The white stripes on a field of red that spiral down a barber pole represent the bandages used in the bloodletting.
Catholic Popes who died during sex: Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack, John VII (955-64) was bludgeoned to death by the husband of the woman he was with at the time, John XIII (965-72) was also murdered by a jealous husband, Pope Paul II (1467-71) allegedly died while being sodomized by a page boy.
US Presidents who never had children: George Washington, known as the “Father of the Country,” James Madison, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, and Warren Harding.
Gerald Ford, George Bush, Tommy Lasorda, Ted Koppel, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Bill Clinton are (were) all left handed.
US Presidents who died on July 4th: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, James Monroe died in 1831.
Hans Christian Andersen, Cher, Tom Cruise, Albert Einstein, Whoopie Goldberg, Greg Louganis, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Gen. George S. Patton, are (were) all dyslexics.
Over 80% of professional boxers have suffered brain damage.
The kiss that is given by the bride to the groom at the end of the wedding ceremony originates from the earliest times when the couple would actually make love for the first time under the eyes of half the village!
The term “honeymoon” is derived from the Babylonians who declared mead, a honey-flavored wine, the official wedding drink, stipulating that the bride’s parents be required to keep the groom supplied with the drink for the month following the wedding.
A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
Dismal first-year sales of famous products:
1. VW Beetle (U.S.)–sold 330 first year.
2. Liquid Paper–sold 1,200 bottles first year
3. Cuisinart–sold 200 first year.
4. Remington typewriter–sold 8 first year.
5. Scrabble–sold 532 first year.
6. Coca-Cola–sold 25 bottles first year. (For total of $50; supplies and advertising ran $70.)
Louis Pasteur developed the vaccine for Anthrax in 1881