TJ Cline

The game that would become Scrabble was created by an unemployed architect, Alfred Mosher Butts in the early 1930s. He called it Lexiko, then Criss Cross Words and then sold the rights to James Brunot. In 1948 it was renamed Scrabble and was manufactured in a converted school house in Connecticut. Bruno sold the game to Selchow and Righter, who were bought out by Coleco in 1987, and in 1989 Milton Bradley bought it. More than 100 million Scrabble games have been sold worldwide.

TJ Cline

Rubber bands were first made by Perry and Co. of London in 1845

TJ Cline

In 1832 the Scottish surgeon Neil Arnott devised water beds as a way of improving patients' comfort.

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In 1769 the British designer Edward Beran enclosed wooden slats in a frame to adjust the amount of light let into a room. These became known as venetian blinds from their early use over Italianate windows.

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George Seldon received a patent in 1895 - for the automobile. Four years later, George sold the rights for $200,000.

TJ Cline

You could milk about six cows per hour by hand, but with modern machinery, you can milk up to 100 cows per hour.

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Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972), the mother of 12 children, had good reason to improve the efficiency and convenience of household items. A pioneer in ergonomics, Gilbreth patented many devices, including an electric food mixer, and the trash can with step-on lid-opener that can be found in most households today

TJ Cline

Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, New Jersey, called his counterpart in Alameda, California.

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Kleenex tissues were originally used as filters in gas masks.

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The toilet was invented by an Englishman named Thomas Crapper.

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The Motown female group The Supremes, which dominated the pop charts in the 1960's, was originally called The Primettes.

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According to Margaret Jones, author of a Patsy Cline biography, there are a dozen places in Virginia that could claim to be the hometown of the nomadic Cline. Her family moved 19 times before she was 15.

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When the Yardbirds broke up in 1968, Jimmy Page was left to honor the band's commitments, performing as The New Yardbirds. The group eventually evolved into Led Zeppelin.

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At age 47, the Rolling Stones' bassist, Bill Wyman, began a relationship with 13-year old Mandy Smith, with her mother's blessing. Six years later, they were married, but the marriage only lasted a year. Not long after, Bill's 30-year-old son Stephen married Mandy's mother, age 46. That made Stephen a stepfather to his former stepmother. If Bill and Mandy had remained married, Stephen would have been his father's father-in-law and his own grandpa.

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The brass family of instruments include the trumpet, trombone, tuba, cornet, flügelhorn, French horn, saxhorn, and sousaphone. While they are usually made of brass today, in the past they were made of wood, horn, and glass.

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Most toilets flush in E flat.

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The rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd took their name from a high school teacher named Leonard Skinner who had suspended several students for having long hair.

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According to Beatles producer George Martin, Neal Hefti's catchy composition of the 1960's "Batman" Emmy-winning theme song inspired George Harrison to write the hit song "Taxman."

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At the tender age of 7, the multi-award-winning composer and pianist Marvin Hamlisch ("The Way We Were," "The Sting") was one of the youngest students ever admitted to the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York City.

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In the band KISS, Gene Simmons was "The Demon", Paul Stanley was "Star Child", Ace Frehley was "Space Man", and Peter Criss was "The Cat.

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The song "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" was written by George Graff, who was German, and was never in Ireland in his life.

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The famous Russian composer Aleksandr Borodin was also a respected chemistry professor in St. Petersburg.

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In 1992, Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, better known to country music fans as singer/comedienne Minnie Pearl, was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President George Bush. In 1994, Minnie became the first woman to be inducted into the Comedy Hall of Fame. She was too frail and sick to attend the ceremony, and so good friend and comedian George Lindsey ("Goober") accepted the award for her. She died in 1996 at age 83.

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Bill Haley and the Comets, one of rock and roll's pioneer groups actually began their career's as Bill Haley's Saddle Pals - a country music act.

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The voice of Tony the Tiger is Thurl Ravenscroft, who also sang the "Rotten Mr. Grinch" song in the movie, "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas". He was also narrator for Disney's "A Spooky Night in Disney's Haunted Mansion" album. He performed for many Disney attractions including: voice of Fritz the parrot in "The Enchanted Tiki Room, " lead singer in "Grim Grinning Ghosts" in the Haunted Mansion, narrator on Monorail. He was the voice for the Disneyland LP based on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride. The flip side of this LP contained a number of sea chanties he sang.

TJ Cline

In 1939 Irving Berlin composed a Christmas song but thought so little of it that he never showed it to anybody. He just tossed it into a trunk and didn't see fit to retrieve it until he needed it for a Bing Crosby-Fred Astaire movie, HOLIDAY INN 10 years later.

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Bing Crosby was a staunch Catholic and at first refused to sing the song because he felt it tended to commercialize Christmas. He finally agreed, took eighteen minutes to make the recording, and then the "throw-away" song become an all-time hit.

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Crosby's version has sold over 40 million copies. All together, this song has appeared in 750 versions, selling 6 million copies of sheet music and 90,000,000 recordings ,just in the United States and Canada.
You might not recognize the song from the movie HOLIDAY INN...or from the composer's name of Irving Berlin. But you're bound to know it because it's on everyone's list of Christmas favorites: WHITE CHRISTMAS.

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Dark Side of The Moon (a Pink Floyd album) stayed on the top 200 Billboard charts for 741 weeks! That is 14 years.

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Brian Setzer, of the Brian Setzer Orchestra, started out in a garage band called Merengue.