Refresh for new random facts
1. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
2. Dr. Lieven P. Van Neste owns more than 200,000 domain names.
3. Fur trader John Jacob Astor would be worth around $100 Billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
4. The Bank of New York was the first listed company on the New York Stock Exchange, in 1792.
5. Schoolboy Antonio Gentile of Suffolk, Virginia, received $5 for his winning drawing in a Planters Peanut 1916 contest. Mr. Peanut was born.
6. Frozen food entrepreneur Clarence Birdseye also invented a recoilless harpoon for whaling and a fast process for converting sugar cane waste into paper pulp.
7. The S.O.S. brand of steel-wool soap pads, stands for "Save Our Saucepans."
8. The Burpee seed catalogue originally sold real chickens when first introduced by 17-year old Washington Atlee Burpee in 1876.
9. A Singer sewing machine was the first consumer product purchased on an installment plan. In 1856, Margaret Hellmuth of New York paid $50 down, with the remaining $100 paid in six monthly installments.
10. IBM was founded by an ex employee of National Cash Register. The name International Business Machines was his attempt at one-upmanship.
When me and old Abe used to sit by the fire he would tell me the darndest tales about this great land of ours.
