Did you know - - - - - --As a youngster, Alex Trebek, of Jeopardy, won seven spelling-bee and four science-fair championships. --The first 3 minutes of a call cost $75 when commercial telephone service was introduced between New York and London in 1927. --The name of the first major deodorant company in the U.S. was Odorono. Its magazine ad mentioning underarm odor in 1919 led hundreds of offended women to cancel their subscriptions to the Ladies Home Journal. --The average American salary passed $100 a week in 1963 --In February 1887, Oregon was the first state in the nation to recognize Labor Day as a legal holiday, followed later the same year by Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. (Oregon seems to be on the cutting edge of a lot of decisions--like euthanasia.) --Today in 1759, George Frideric Handel (as he himself Anglicized his name) died, at age 74, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in London. On the wall above the grave is a statue of him that shows him holding a copy of the aria I know that my Redeemer liveth from his celebrated work Messiah. --Today in 1828, Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language. It introduced more than 12,000 Americanisms like skunk and squash as well as simplified British spellings, substituting color for colour, humor for humour, etc. --Today the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 11:35 p.m. and sank about 2 hours and 40 minutes later with the loss of over 1,500 lives. Strangely enough, the Titanic had not been christened, as is customary for ships. --Today in 1969 at the Academy Awards, a tie between Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) and Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) resulted in the two sharing the Academy Award for Best Actress, the first and only time there has been a tie in this Oscar category. Hepburn had won Best Actress the previous year (Guess Whos Coming to Dinner) and was not expected to attend the ceremony. She didnt. One lady called the IRS and asked if birth-control pills were deductible. Only if they dont work, she was told. English is a funny language. A fat chance and a slim chance are the same thing.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 17:06:50 +0000