Refresh for new random facts
1. The Burpee seed catalogue originally sold real chickens when first introduced by 17-year old Washington Atlee Burpee in 1876.
2. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon from the earlier name of Cadabra.com because he saw the potential for a large volume of booksales online, much like the Amazon is the most voluminous river.
3. A Tupperware party starts somewhere in the world every 23 seconds.
4. The waterproof disposable diaper was first invented in 1951 by Marion Donovan, using only a sewing machine and a shower curtain.
5. 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.
6. Believe it or not, the shopping cart wasn't invented until 1937, by Oklahoma grocery store owner Sylvan Goldman, who had only an 8th grade education. The design was based on a wooden folding chair.
7. Frozen food entrepreneur Clarence Birdseye also invented a recoilless harpoon for whaling and a fast process for converting sugar cane waste into paper pulp.
8. Steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie would be worth upwards of $200 billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
9. Due to a family feud, the Waldorf-Astoria hotel was once two separate hotels built next to each other owned by John Jacob Astor IV and his cousin William Waldorf Astor.
10. Sara Lee is named for the daughter of Chicago bakery owner Charles Lubvin. He first named a cheesecake after his daughter, then in 1951 his company.
When me and old Abe used to sit by the fire he would tell me the darndest tales about this great land of ours.
