Category Archives: Tid-Bits & Funnies

Zipper History

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On August 29, 1893, Whitcomb L. Judson, a mechanical engineer in Chicago, received a patent for the first “clasp-locker”—a series of clunky eyes and hooks that fastened together with a slider. Judson replaced the long, buttonhooked shoelaces on his boots and the boots of his business partner, Lewis Walker, with clasp-lockers.

Unable to interest any manufacturers in his new-fangled gadget, Judson and Walker displayed the invention at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair—where it was virtually ignored by the twenty-one million attendees.
Eventually, the United States Postal Service placed an order for twenty mailbags fastened with Judson’s clasp-lockers, but the clasp-lockers jammed too often to make the bags useful. Judson died in 1909—before perfecting his invention or finding a practical use for it.

In 1913, Swedish-American engineer Gideon Sundback perfected Judson’s invention by replacing the cumbersome hook-and-eye design with a more reliable and less bulky meshed-tooth slider fastener. During World War I, the
United States Army ordered Sundback’s invention for use on uniforms and equipment. Manufacturers began using the metal slide fasteners on boots, change purses, and money belts—and eventually on clothing. Since few people knew how to use the slide fasteners, clothing manufacturers included small instruction booklets on how to operate and maintain the contraption. In 1922, the B. F. Goodrich Company gave the trademark Zipper to its new rubber galoshes with new “hookless fasteners.” Goodrich reportedly coined the word “zipper,” onomatopoeia for the sound the device made when he zipped up his boots. The catchy name made the zipper a household word and a common fastener on clothing. In 1935, fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli introduced a line of clothing bursting with decorative colored zippers of various sizes, turning the zipper into a popular fashion statement.

Geography Lesson Time (Kind-A-But-Not-Really)

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•  In 1517, when Spanish explorer Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba arrived in what is now known as Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, he asked the Mayan Indians what they called their land. The Mayans replied “Yucatan,” which means “What do you want?”

• In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, having crossed the Pacific Ocean without encountering a storm, called it Mar Pacifico, meaning “peaceful sea.” In reality, the Pacific Ocean is home to some of the most destructive storms, tidal waves, and typhoons on earth.

• In 1770, English explorer Captain James Cook landed in Australia and asked the aborigines what they called the large marsupials indigenous to the continent. He was told “kangaroo,” which, unbeknownst to Cook, is an aboriginal word for “I don’t know.”

• In 1796, a city in Ohio was named after its founder, Moses Cleaveland, a surveyor for the Connecticut Land Company. In 1831, a newspaper misspelled the city’s name as Cleveland. The city’s name has been incorrectly spelled Cleveland ever since.

•  The name Nome was wrongly copied from a British map of Alaska drawn around 1850. The original map maker had written “? Name” to mark the town.

•  In the 1880s, two surveyors worked together to map the western border of South Dakota along the same meridian. One surveyor walked south, the second surveyor walked north. The surveyor walking south accidentally started out a mile west of the surveyor walking north, so the western border of South Dakota jumps one mile east-west where it hits the southern border of Montana.

Silly Mistakes

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A HAREBRAINED THEORY
English writer Samuel Johnson claimed, ‘The cause of baldness in men is dryness of the brain, and its shrinking from the skull.”

OOPSY-DAISY
In 1898, Dr. Heinrich Dreser, head of the drug research laboratory at the Bayer Company in Germany, announced that he had developed diacetylmorphine—a nonaddictive derivative of morphine with four to eight times the painkilling power. The Bayer Company marketed diacetylmorphine under the brand-name Heroin (derived from the “heroic” state of mind the drug purportedly induced), and the new drug was used in cough syrups and pain remedies, and prescribed by doctors for headaches and menstrual cramps. In 1910, after twelve years on the market, doctors realized that heroin is far more addictive than morphine. In 1924, the United States banned the manufacture of heroin, but by then there were plenty of addicts to create a demand for heroin on the black market.

THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH
The Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, claimed:
•  The world is composed of four elements: earth (dry), air (cold), fire (hot), and water (moist).
•  You can determine the sex of an unborn child based on which one of the mother’s breasts became larger.
•  People suffering from jaundice are not susceptible to flatulence.
•  People with speech impediments are more likely to get protracted diarrhea.
•  Gout only strikes people who have had sexual intercourse.
•  South winds cause deafness.
•  North winds cause constipation.
•  Bald people who get varicose veins regain their hair.

IDENTITY CRISIS
In 1941, when told that the Japanese had destroyed Pearl Harbor, actress Joan Crawford replied, “Oh dear, who was she?”
MODERN QUACKERY
In his 1811 book The Organon of the Rational Art of Healing, German doctor Samuel Hahnemann insisted: “A disease can only be destroyed and cured by a remedy which has a tendency to produce a similar disease, for the effects of drugs are in themselves no other than artificial diseases.” Hahnemann named this process homeopathy, and this alleged science, lacking scientific proof of its effectiveness, is practiced to this very day.

IT AINT NECESSARILY SO
Ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles claimed that everything in the universe is composed of four elements (earth, air, fire, and water), which he insisted were bonded together by love and driven apart by strife.

SOMETHING FISHY
In 1 903, British surgeon Sir Jonathan Hutchinson incorrectly insisted that eating bad fish caused leprosy. Hutchinson had clearly failed to keep up with medical advances. In 1865, Louis Pasteur had proven that germs spread from person to person caused infectious diseases, and in 1874, Norwegian bacteriologist Gerhard Hansen identified a bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae, as the cause of leprosy.

Famous Last Words

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“The bullet hasn’t been made that can kill me!” —Gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond, just before being shot to death

“Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional  thing to happen to him.” —John Barrymore, last words

“Friends applaud, the comedy is over.” —Ludwig van Beethoven, on his deathbed

“I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.” —Humphrey Bogart, on his deathbed

“That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted.” —Lou Costello, last words

“That was a great game of golf, fellers.” —Bing Crosby, last words

“Turn up the lights, I don’t want to go home in the dark.” —O. Henry, on his deathbed,
quoting a popular song

“I wish I’d drunk more champagne.” —John Maynard Keynes, on his deathbed

“Go on, get out. Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.” —Karl Marx, on his deathbed

“I hope I haven’t bored you.” —Elvis Presley, concluding what would be his last press conference

“Nonsense, they couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” —John Sedgwick, refusing to hide behind a parapet during the Battle of the Wilderness

“I have just had eighteen whiskeys in a row. I do believe that is a record.” —Dylan  Thomas, last words

“Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.” —Francisco “Pancho” Villa, last words

“This is no time to make new enemies.” —Voltaire, when asked on his deathbed to renounce Satan

“I’d rather be fishing.” —Jimmy Glass, electrocuted in Louisiana in 1987

“How about this for a headline for tomorrow’s paper? French fries.” —James French, electrocuted in Oklahoma in 1966

Heres A Few Tips

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If you are whipping fresh cream, make sure you chill bowls, beaters and cream before starting. Get them good and cold. It will give the best results.
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Slow cookers make great servers for hot cider and also hot chocolate. Keep them on warm for as long as you like, and there’s no need to reheat — it’s always the right temperature.
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Never, never, never serve roasted poultry right away. Always let it stand for 15 to 25 minutes after roasting to allow the juices to redistribute. You will have juicier meat, and the bird will be easier to carve.
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For wood floors, make sure you dust-mop regularly. Dirt can scratch up your floors. Use a mop with a head that can be popped into the washer, and do so regularly.
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Plastic grocery bags always come in handy. Store them in empty tissue boxes for the car or bathroom, or use an empty 12-pack soda box to store even more under your kitchen sink or in the garage.
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To keep small screws in place, like the ones in sunglasses or eyeglasses, dab the screw with clear nail polish. It gets into the cracks and keeps it in place, but you can unscrew it if you need to.
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Rub a little petroleum jelly over the shower-curtain rod to help metal curtain rings glide better.
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Before you wash a load of towels, dampen one and use it to wipe down the sides and top of your washer and dryer. Then just toss the towel in with the load.