Refresh for new random facts
1. Kleenex tissues were marketed as a cold cream remover when first introduced in 1924.
2. Fur trader John Jacob Astor would be worth around $100 Billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
3. The first vending machines were installed on New York City elevated subway platforms in 1888 and dispensed Tutti-Fruiti gum.
4. To celebrate its one-hundredth anniversary in 1860, tobacco company Lorillard put random $100 bills in packages of its Century brand of tobacco.
5. Starbucks was named after Starbuck, a character (the Quaker first mate on the ship) in Herman Melville's novel, Moby-Dick.
6. The first major deodorant company in the U.S. was called Odorono; its first ad led hundreds of women to cancel their subscriptions to Ladies Home Journal in 1919.
7. Philip Morris, the first owner of the Marlboro brand, died of lung cancer.
8. The refrigerator won first prize at the Paris International Exposition in 1937. It was designed for Sears, Roebuck and Company by visionary engineer Raymond Loewy.
9. 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.
10. 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.
When me and old Abe used to sit by the fire he would tell me the darndest tales about this great land of ours.
