Refresh for new random facts
1. The S.O.S. brand of steel-wool soap pads, stands for "Save Our Saucepans."
2. A Singer sewing machine was the first consumer product purchased on an installment plan. In 1856, Margaret Hellmuth of New York paid $50 down, with the remaining $100 paid in six monthly installments.
3. 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.
4. Secure, high-yielding stocks came to be known as "blue chips," because in poker blue chips are more valuable than red or white.
5. Alexander Graham Bell was one of the founders of National Geographic magazine.
6. Bill Bowerman, co-founder of Nike, first got the inspiration for creating Nike shoes after staring at a waffle iron.
7. 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.
8. Railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt would be worth around $150 Billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
9. 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.
10. 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.
When me and old Abe used to sit by the fire he would tell me the darndest tales about this great land of ours.
