July 20, 2016

The New York Post is the 13th-oldest and seventh-most-widely circulated newspaper in the United States. Established in 1801 by federalist and Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, it became a respected broadsheet in the 19th century, under the name New York Evening Post. The meeting at which Hamilton first recruited investors for the new paper took place in then-country weekend villa that is now Gracie Mansion. The modern version of the paper is published in tabloid format. In 1976, Rupert Murdoch bought the Post for US$30.5 million. Since 1993, the Post has been owned by News Corporation and its successor, News Corp, which had owned it previously from 1976 to 1988.

July 19, 2016

What sounds like a tweet from Kanye West was actually a controversial remark made by the Beatles' John Lennon in 1966. Lennon said that Christianity was in decline and that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus Christ. The comment drew no controversy when originally published in the United Kingdom, but angry reactions flared up when it was republished in the United States five months later. Some radio stations stopped playing Beatles songs, their records were publicly burned, press conferences were cancelled, and threats were made. Known as the "bigger than Jesus" controversy, the scandal ultimately influenced the band's decision to never tour again.

July 18, 2016

Before former President Ronald Reagan married former first lady Nancy Reagan, he was married to actress Jane Wyman. Wyman and Reagan were married in 1940 and divorced in 1948. She was an actress, singer and dancer best known for her Academy Award winning performance in Johnny Belinda and from her time on the soap opera Falcon Crest. Together they had two biological children, Maureen and Christine (who was born in 1947 but only lived one day), and adopted a third, Michael. After arguments about Reagan's political ambitions, Wyman filed for divorce in 1948, citing a distraction due to her husband's Screen Actors Guild union duties. He is the only US president to have been divorced.

July 17, 2016

Dopey is the only dwarf who does not have a beard. He is clumsy and mute, with Happy explaining that he has simply "never tried" to speak. Dopey’s garments are at least 5 sizes too big for him, but that only adds to his charm. The Seven Dwarfs appear in the classic fairy tale Snow White. Snow White was the first major animated feature made in the United States, the most successful motion picture released in 1938, and, adjusted for inflation, is the tenth highest-grossing film of all time.

July 16, 2016

George was a glossy monthly magazine centered on the theme of politics-as-lifestyle co-founded by John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Michael J. Berman with publisher Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. in New York City in September 1995. Its tagline was "Not Just Politics as Usual." For the debut issue, creative director Matt Berman conceived a cover which received a great deal of attention for its image of Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington. After Kennedy was killed in an air crash with his wife and sister-in-law on July 16, 1999, the magazine was bought out by Hachette Filipacchi Magazines and continued for over a year. With falling advertising sales, the magazine ceased publication in early 2001.

July 15, 2016

Walt Disney was an entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer. As a film producer he received 22 Academy Awards from 59 nominations and has won more individual Oscars than anyone else in history. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and one Emmy Award, among other honors. Disney was also an innovative animator and created the cartoon character Mickey Mouse. He is famous as a pioneer of cartoon films and as the founder of theme parks Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

July 14, 2016

Founded in 1876, the United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) is the military academy of the United States Coast Guard. Located in New London, Connecticut, it is the smallest of the five federal service academies. The academy provides education to future Coast Guard officers in one of eight major fields of study. The academy is regularly cited as being one of the most difficult American institutions of higher education in which to gain entrance. Each year more than 2000 students apply and appointments are offered until the number accepting appointments to the incoming class numbers approximately 240. Unlike the other service academies, admission to the academy does not require a congressional nomination.

July 13, 2016

In 1976, Mars, the candy company that makes M&M's, eliminated the red version of the candies from their mix. This decision came as a result of public controversy surrounding a synthetic dye called FD&C Red No. 2, which was a suspected carcinogen, and were replaced with orange-colored candies. This was done despite the fact that M&M's did not contain the dye; the action was purely to satisfy worried consumers. However, to avoid consumer confusion, the red candies were pulled from the color mix. Red candies were reintroduced ten years later, but they also kept the orange colored M&M's. Paul Hethmon, then a student at University of Tennessee, started the campaign to bring back red M&M's as a joke that would eventually become a worldwide phenomenon. More than 400 million individual M&M's are produced every day in the United States.

July 12, 2016

The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution. Starting in 1790, the United States government has taken a census every 10 years. A census is an official count of a population. The Constitution requires a census to determine how many seats in the U.S. House of Representatives each state should have. The government also collects census data to get a clearer picture of the nation’s population. Today, census forms are mailed to every household. The head of each household is required to fill out the form and return it. In the past, workers went door-to-door to complete each census form. The current national census was held in 2010; the next census is scheduled for 2020 and will be largely conducted using the Internet. In the United States' recent censuses, Census Day has been April 1.

July 11, 2016

Today marks the 212th anniversary of the deadly duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. The Burr–Hamilton duel was a duel between two prominent American politicians – Aaron Burr, the sitting Vice President of the United States, and Alexander Hamilton, the former Secretary of the Treasury – at Weehawken, New Jersey on July 11, 1804. The duel was the culmination of a long and bitter rivalry between the two men. Tensions reached a boiling point with Hamilton's journalistic defamation of Burr's character during the 1804 New York gubernatorial race in which Burr was a candidate. Burr shot and mortally wounded Hamilton, who was carried to the home of William Bayard on the Manhattan shore, where he died the next day. Burr, who survived the duel, was indicted for murder in both New York and New Jersey, though these charges were later dismissed.

July 10, 2016

Steve Wozniak is an American computer scientist best known as one of the founders of Apple and the inventor of the Apple II computer. Wozniak competed on Season 8 of Dancing with the Stars in 2009 where he danced with Karina Smirnoff. Wozniak has been very vocal about how the Dancing with the Stars judges score routines and about the fan voting system; at one point, he had said the judges were out of sync with the public taste and that the voting was rigged. He later retracted and apologized for his statements. Despite suffering a pulled hamstring and a fracture in his foot, Wozniak continued to compete, but was eliminated from the competition after four weeks on Dancing with the Stars.

July 9, 2016

"Georgia on My Mind" is a song by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell, now often associated with the version by Ray Charles, a native of Georgia, who recorded it for his 1960 album The Genius Hits the Road. On March 7, 1979, "Georgia On My Mind" became Georgia's official state song. To celebrate the moment, Charles was invited to perform it for state legislators at the state capital building in Atlanta. The title of the song was used as the state of Georgia's license plate slogan exclusively from January 1997 through November 2003. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine named Ray Charles' "Georgia on My Mind" the 44th greatest song of all time.

July 8, 2016

"Be All You Can Be" was the recruiting slogan of the United States Army for over twenty years. Earl Carter (pen-name, E.N.J. Carter) working for the N.W. Ayer Advertising Agency as a Senior Copywriter created the “Be All You Can Be” theme line in 1980. In January 2003, the U.S. Army awarded Carter its Outstanding Civilian Service Award. Carter’s original concept sheet, with words “Be All You Can Be”, is now part of a permanent collection at the US Army Heritage Center Foundation. The United States Army is the largest branch of the United States Armed Forces and performs land-based military operations.

July 7, 2016

The Obama family has two Portuguese Water Dogs, Bo and Sunny. President Barack Obama and his family were given Bo as a gift from Senator Kennedy after months of speculation about the breed and identity of their future pet. The final choice was made in part because Malia Obama's allergies dictated a need for a hypoallergenic breed. Bo officially arrived and moved in at the White House on Tuesday, April 14, 2009. Bo has occasionally been called "First Dog". In August 2013, Bo was joined by Sunny, a female dog of the same breed. Sunny was introduced via First Lady Michelle Obama's Twitter account on August 19, 2013.

July 6, 2016

During the War of 1812 between the United States and England, British troops entered Washington, D.C. and burned the White House (known as the Presidential Mansion at the time) in retaliation for the American attack on the city of York in Ontario, Canada. It marks the only time in U.S. history that Washington, D.C., has been occupied by a foreign force. When the British arrived at the White House, they found that President James Madison and his first lady Dolley had already fled to safety in Maryland. They found refuge for the night in Brookeville, a small town in Montgomery County, Maryland, which is known today as the "United States Capital for a Day." British soldiers reportedly sat down to eat a meal in the White House before ransacking the presidential mansion and setting it ablaze. Less than a day after the attack began, a sudden, very heavy thunderstorm—possibly a hurricane—put out the fires.

July 5, 2016

The Quarrymen was a British skiffle/rock and roll group, formed by John Lennon in Liverpool in 1956, which eventually evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Originally consisting of Lennon and several school friends, the Quarrymen took their name from a line in the school song of Quarry Bank High School, which they attended. Paul McCartney joined the band in October 1957. George Harrison joined the band in early 1958 at McCartney's recommendation, though Lennon initially resisted because he felt Harrison (still 14 when he was first introduced to Lennon) to be too young. The group moved away from skiffle and towards rock and roll, causing several of the original members to leave. This left only a trio of Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison, who performed under several other names, including Johnny and the Moondogs and Japage 3 before returning to the Quarrymen name in 1959. In 1960, the group changed its name to the Beatles.

July 4, 2016

In the summer of 1776, when the Declaration was signed, the population of the nation is estimated to have been about 2.5 million. (Today the estimated population of the U.S. is 322.7 million.) One of the most widely held misconceptions about the Declaration of Independence is that it was signed on July 4, 1776. In fact, independence was formally declared on July 2, 1776, a date that John Adams believed would be “the most memorable epocha in the history of America.” On July 4, 1776, Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence. However most delegates did not sign the document until August 2, 1776, according to the National Archives.

July 3, 2016

John Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States, was born in Plymouth Notch, Windsor County, Vermont, on July 4, 1872. He is the only U.S. President to be born on Independence Day. Coolidge was elected as the 29th Vice President in 1920 and succeeded to the Presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Calvin Coolidge was the only U.S. president to be sworn in by his own father. In 1923, while visiting his childhood home in Vermont, Coolidge learned of President Warren Harding's death. As it was the middle of the night, Coolidge's father--a notary public--administered the oath by lamp light.

July 2, 2016

The story of pizza in America starts in New York City, on Spring Street in lower Manhattan, in 1905 when Gennaro Lombardi, a baker and pizzaiolo from Naples is granted the first license in the United States to sell pizza. Opened in 1905 Lombardi's has been acknowledged by the Pizza Hall of Fame as the first pizzeria in the United States. Gennaro Lombardi started the business in 1897 as a grocery store at 53½ Spring Street, and began selling tomato pies wrapped in paper and tied with a string at lunchtime to workers from the area's factories. In 1905 Lombardi received a business license to operate a pizzeria restaurant. In 2005, Lombardi's offered entire pizzas for 5 cents, their 1905 price, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first pizza sold at its original location.

July 1, 2016

Alexander Fleming is credited with the discovery of penicillin; perhaps the greatest achievement in medicine in the 20th Century. In 1928, while studying influenza, Fleming noticed that mold had developed accidentally on a set of culture dishes being used to grow the staphylococci germ. The mold had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. Fleming grew the mold in a pure culture and found that it produced a substance that killed a number of pathogenic bacteria. After calling it "mold juice" for several months, he later named the substance penicillin in March of 1929, paving the way for the use of antibiotics in modern healthcare. The laboratory in which Fleming discovered and tested penicillin is preserved as the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum in St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington.

June 30, 2016

On February 11, 2006, then U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney shot Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, while participating in a quail hunt. Cheney was hunting quail at the Armstrong Ranch in Texas with Whittington when he accidentally fired his gun at the lawyer, hitting Whittington in the face, chest, and neck with hundreds of pellets. Whittington was taken to the hospital for treatment, and three days after his arrival suffered a minor heart attack from a pellet lodged in his heart. Cheney is one of only two Vice Presidents to shoot someone while serving as Vice President, with the other being Aaron Burr. In Burr's case, he fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton during their 1804 duel. Cheney said in his memoir that “the day of the hunting accident was one of the saddest of my life.”

June 29, 2016

Old Navy was named after a bar in Paris! Old Navy is owned by Gap Inc. which operates five primary divisions: The Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Intermix, and Athleta. Millard Drexler, the former CEO of Gap Inc., decided to create Old Navy after reading an article in a retail trade publication. From the article, Drexler learned that the company that operated Target and Mervyn’s retail stores, planned to open a new brand meant to be what they called, “a cheaper version of The Gap”. Drexler decided to create his own discount identity to target this young new market. Drexler decided on the name “Old Navy”, the name of a bar he ran across while walking through the streets of Paris, France.

June 28, 2016

The chocolate chip cookie was invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield in 1938, who owned the Toll House Inn, in Whitman, Massachusetts. Wakefield wrote a best selling cookbook which was the first to include the recipe for a chocolate chip cookie, which she called the "Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie". As the popularity of the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie increased, the sales of Nestlé's semi-sweet chocolate bars also spiked. Andrew Nestlé and Ruth Wakefield made a business arrangement: Wakefield gave Nestlé the right to use her cookie recipe and the Toll House name for one dollar and a lifetime supply of Nestlé chocolate. Nestlé began marketing chocolate chips to be used especially for cookies and printing the recipe for the Toll House Cookie on its package.

June 27, 2016

After graduating from Eureka College in 1932 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and sociology, Ronald Reagan decided to enter radio broadcasting. He began working for station WHO radio in Des Moines as an announcer for Chicago Cubs baseball games. His specialty was creating play-by-play accounts of games using as his source only basic descriptions that the station received by wire as the games were in progress. Sportscaster “Dutch Reagan” became very popular throughout the state for his broadcasts of Chicago Cubs baseball games. Because the station could not afford to send him to Wrigley Field in Chicago, Reagan was forced to improvise a running account of the games based on sketchy details delivered over a teletype machine. While traveling with the Cubs in California, Reagan took a screen test in 1937 that led to a seven-year contract with Warner Brothers studios.

June 26, 2016

Charlie Chaplin died on Christmas Day in 1977, at the age of 88. Two months later, his body was stolen from a Swiss cemetery. Chaplin’s widow, Oona, received a ransom demand of some $600,000, sparking a police investigation and a hunt for the culprits. Oona had refused to pay the ransom, saying that her husband would have thought the demand “ridiculous.” The callers later made threats against her two youngest children. After a five-week investigation, police arrested two auto mechanics who eventually led them to Chaplin’s body, which they had buried in a cornfield about one mile from the Chaplin family’s home. The men were convicted of grave robbing and attempted extortion. As for Chaplin, his family reburied his body in a concrete grave to prevent future theft attempts.

June 25, 2016

Homer Simpson is one of the major characters on the animated television series The Simpsons. He loves to eat, but his food trademark is without a doubt donuts, with his catchphrase “mmm…donuts” said at least once in every episode. His love of donuts has been the focus of many plot-lines over the years. His pink-iced donuts have been the focus on countless pieces of Simpsons merchandise and even serves as the menu graphic on the official website for The Simpsons. The promise of free donuts are pretty much the only thing motivating him to go to work each day. In the 10th season’s episode “They Saved Lisa’s Brain”, his donut mania goes to the next level with guest star Stephen Hawking telling Homer: "Your theory of a donut-shaped universe is intriguing… I may have to steal it."

June 24, 2016

Ted Turner is a media mogul and founder of the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television. Turner attended Brown University and served in the Coast Guard before joining his father at Turner Advertising. He was forced to take control in 1963 when his father committed suicide, building an empire that came to be Turner Broadcasting. He founded the first 24-hour cable news network, CNN, which debuted on June 1, 1980. Time Warner purchased Turner Broadcasting for $7.5 billion in 1996. Ted Turner was married to actress Jane Fonda from 1991-2001.

June 23, 2016

Although the most common perception of a corvette is that of a popular sports car, in the maritime parlance, corvettes have been a significant component of naval forces across the world for decades. In 1953, General Motors’ Motorama unveiled the prototype of a new Chevrolet sports car, which is was named after the Naval Warship called the “Corvette.” Myron Scott is credited for naming the car after the type of small, maneuverable warship. During the age of sail, corvettes were originally warships typically smaller than a frigate, but larger than a sloop, usually with guns on a single deck.

June 30, 2016

Which movie did Michael Jordan star in? A. Space Jam B. BASEketball C. White Men Can't Jump D. Major League II A. Space Jam Space Jam netted Jordan his acting cred in 1996.

July 29, 2016

What is the U.S. postal code for Arkansas? A. AL B. AK C. AR D. AS C. AR AR is the postal code that'll get your mail to The Natural State.

July 28, 2016

Gap Inc. operates all of the following stores except: A. Old Navy B. Banana Republic C. Athleta D. Bath and Body Works D. Bath and Body Works Gap Inc. is the proud owner of Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta. Bath & Body Works is owned by L Brands Inc., which also owns Victoria's Secret.

July 27, 2016

A recent survey by CareerBliss.com found that the happiest city to work in is... A. Cleveland B. Los Angeles C. Miami D. New York City C. Miami Welcome to Miami (bienvenido a Miami). It ranked the happiest city in the United States to work in. Coming in last was Cleveland.

July 26, 2016

The movie Boogie Nights was loosely based on the life of which adult film star? A. Traci Lords B. Jenna Jameson C. Ron Jeremy D. John Holmes D. John Holmes Holmes, sweet Holmes. The movie Boogie Nights, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, was loosely based on the life of XXX star John Holmes.

July 25, 2016

Which popular solo act got his start with the blockbuster band Genesis? A. Sting B. Peter Gabriel C. Billy Joel D. Rick Springfield B. Peter Gabriel So what? Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975.

July 24, 2016

On the popular sitcom Facts of Life, which character was always on roller skates for the first year of the show? A. Tootie B. Blaire C. Miss Garrett D. Jo A. Tootie Who was always on a roll? The character of Tootie, played by Kim Fields, was always on roller skates for the first season of the Facts of Life.

July 23, 2016

Which thriller writer introduced the world to Pennywise the Clown? A. Stephen King B. Dean Koontz C. Patricia Cornwell D. Gillian Flynn A. Stephen King Watch out for It...the novel by Stephen King that gave everyone who read it a bad case of coulrophobia - fear of clowns.