Refresh for new random facts
1. The oldest business known to be currently operating in the United States is the cymbal company Zildjian, founded in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1623.
2. Steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie would be worth upwards of $200 billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
3. Schoolboy Antonio Gentile of Suffolk, Virginia, received $5 for his winning drawing in a Planters Peanut 1916 contest. Mr. Peanut was born.
4. Visa was originally called BankAmericard, a card offered by Bank of America in 1958 in California.
5. The soft drink industry spends more than $100 million a year in stopping thefts involving their vending machines.
6. The word Yahoo comes from Jonathan Swift's 1726 book Gulliver's Travels. The Yahoos were vile, repulsive, and materialistic creatures, an allegory for British society that Swift witnessed at the time.
7. Brothers Isaiah and John Wesley Hyatt developed plastic in 1869 while competing for a $10,000 prize offered by a company looking for a substitute for ivory in billiard balls.
8. The waterproof disposable diaper was first invented in 1951 by Marion Donovan, using only a sewing machine and a shower curtain.
9. Coca-Cola's name is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring.
10. Starbucks was originally going to be called "Pequod," after the fishing vessel in Herman Melville's novel, Moby-Dick. The founders settled on Starbuck, the first mate on the ship, instead.
When me and old Abe used to sit by the fire he would tell me the darndest tales about this great land of ours.
