Refresh for new random facts
1. The original 12 stocks on the Dow Jones were cotton oil, sugar, tobacco, gas, cattle, electric, gas, lead, coal, leather, utility, and rubber companies.
2. It took about 95 minutes to construct a Model T Ford in 1914.
3. The soft drink industry spends more than $100 million a year in stopping thefts involving their vending machines.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. American Express started off as a shipping company in 1850, shipping financial products across the United States; their first credit card wasn't issued until 1958.
7. Starbucks was named after Starbuck, a character (the Quaker first mate on the ship) in Herman Melville's novel, Moby-Dick.
8. The common phrase "Often a bridesmaid but never a bride" originates from a Listerine advertisement written by Milton Feasley in the 1920's.
9. Railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt would be worth around $150 Billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
10. Secure, high-yielding stocks came to be known as "blue chips," because in poker blue chips are more valuable than red or white.
When me and old Abe used to sit by the fire he would tell me the darndest tales about this great land of ours.
