Refresh for new random facts
1. One of the twelve original companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896 was Distilling & Cattle Feeding Whiskey Trust...believe it or not.
2. With 535, Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, is second to only Thomas Edison for U.S. patents awarded for inventions...He trails him by a measly 558.
3. Starbucks was named after Starbuck, a character (the Quaker first mate on the ship) in Herman Melville's novel, Moby-Dick.
4. Pierre Omidyar had formed a web consulting firm called Echo Bay Technology Group in 1995. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first. Ebay was born.
5. Thomas Edison has been granted the most U.S. patents for inventions, 1093.
6. Alexander Graham Bell was one of the founders of National Geographic magazine.
7. The only original Dow Jones Industrial listed company still in existence is General Electric.
8. Cadillac was named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan.
9. IBM was founded by an ex employee of National Cash Register. The name International Business Machines was his attempt at one-upmanship.
10. Car magnate Henry Ford would be worth around $200 Billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
When me and old Abe used to sit by the fire he would tell me the darndest tales about this great land of ours.
