Refresh for new random facts
1. Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller would be worth upwards of $300 Billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
2. The first words heard over the newly invented telephone were, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you!" when Alexander Graham Bell spilled acid on his trousers.
3. Railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt would be worth around $150 Billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
4. 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.
5. Car magnate Henry Ford would be worth around $200 Billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
6. Before its name was changed in 1924, IBM was known as C-T-R, or Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company.
7. 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.
8. Samuel F.B. Morse, renowned inventor of the telegraph and Morse Code, twice ran for mayor of New York City...and lost both times.
9. When Coca-Cola appeared in 1886 it was marketed as an "Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage."
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.
