Interesting Facts

Apple Computers

It was the favourite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn’t suggest a better name by 5 O’clock.

CISCO

It is not an acronym as popularly believed. It is short for San Francisco.

It staggers the mind.

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

Coca Cola was originally green.

Every day more money is printed for monopoly than the US Treasury.

Men can read smaller print than women, women can hear better than men. Women can also smell better than men.

Barbie’s measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33

Cost of raising a medium sized dog to the age of 11: $6,400.

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.

With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

This photo of what looks like a bunch of long-haired hippies has been circulating through email accompanied by the caption “Microsoft, 1978: Would you have invested?”

Is the photo real? Is this really what the management of Microsoft looked like in 1978? Yes, on both counts.

The photo was taken December 7, 1978 in Albuquerque, New Mexico before the company moved its offices to Washington. The people in the photo are (from left to right, starting at the top) Steve Wood, Bob Wallace, Jim Lane, Bob O’ Rear, Bob Greenberg, Marc McDonald, Gordon Letwin, Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood, and Paul Allen.

Since 1927, TIME Magazine has chosen a man, woman, or idea that "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year." Though TIME's list is not an academic or objective study of the past, the list gives a contemporary viewpoint of what was important during each year. There are many interesting facts about the list:

* Charles Lindbergh (1927) was the first, and the youngest, person to receive the distinction. He was 25 years old.

* Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson, the woman whom English King Edward VIII abdicated in order to marry, was the first woman to receive the honor - 1936.

Elvis Had a Twin
Most people consider Elvis exceptional, unique, and one-of-a-kind. Yet, Elvis had a twin brother (Jesse Garon) who died at birth. What would the world have been like with both Elvis and his twin? Would Jesse have been anything like his brother? We are left only to wonder.

Gerald Ford's Real Name
Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States, was known for most of his life as Gerald "Jerry" Ford. However, Ford was not born with this name. Gerald Ford was born in 1913 as Leslie King Jr., named after his father. Unfortunately, his biological father was abusive and so his mother divorced Leslie King Sr. shortly after Ford's birth. Two years later, Ford's mother met and married Gerald Ford Sr. and Ford's family began to call him Gerald Ford Jr. rather than Leslie King Jr. Although from about age two Ford was known as Gerald Ford Jr., the name change was not made official until December 3, 1935, when Ford was 22 years old.

1. Viagra

Men being treated for erectile dysfunction should salute the working stiffs of Merthyr Tydfil, the Welsh hamlet where, in 1992 trials, the gravity-defying side effects of a new angina drug first popped up. Previously, the blue-collar town was known for producing a different kind of iron.

2. LSD

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann took the world’s first acid hit in 1943, when he touched a smidge of lysergic acid diethylamide, a chemical he had researched for inducing childbirth. He later tried a bigger dose and made another discovery: the bad trip.

The Official Olympic Flag
Created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1914, the Olympic flag contains five interconnected rings on a white background. The five rings symbolize the five significant continents and are interconnected to symbolize the friendship to be gained from these international competitions. The rings, from left to right, are blue, yellow, black, green, and red. The colors were chosen because at least one of them appeared on the flag of every country in the world. The Olympic flag was first flown during the 1920 Olympic Games.

1. A zebra is white with black stripes.

2. All the planets in our solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

3. Hummingbirds are the only animal that can also fly backwards.

4. Insects do not make noises with their voices. The noise of bees, mosquitoes and other buzzing insects is caused by rapidly moving their wings.

5. The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs covering a meter a second.

6. The word “listen” contains the same letters as the word “silent”.

7. The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning it’s head are the rabbit and the parrot.