August 14, 2016

The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that was broadcast from September 30, 1960, to April 1, 1966. Mr. Slate was Fred's hot tempered boss at the Bedrock Quarry and Gravel Company. He is voice by John Stephenson. A running gag is his ever-changing first name, which has been presented as Sylvester, Nate, Oscar and George. On the episode "The Long, Long, Long Weekend", which originally aired on January 21, 1966, he is shown as being the founder of Slate Rock and Gravel Company. The company is still in business two million years later and is being run by his descendant George Slate the Eighty-Thousandth

August 13, 2016

Polo must be played right-handed. The use of the left hand or the mallet was banned in the 1930s. The rule was relaxed after World War II when there was a lack of players, but the rules were re-introduced in 1974. The banning of left-handed play is for safety reasons in order to avoid the likelihood of a head-on collision between players. As a left-handed player and a right-handed player head for the ball, they would not pass each other as they do in right-hand only games. Happy International Left-Hander's Day!

August 12, 2016

Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror thriller directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The murder of Janet Leigh's character in the shower scene is the film's pivotal scene and one of the best-known in all of cinema. The blood in the scene is reputed to have been Bosco chocolate syrup, which shows up better on black-and-white film, and has more realistic density than stage blood. The sound of the knife entering flesh was created by plunging a knife into a casaba melon. Janet Leigh was so affected by this scene when she saw it, that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to; she would lock all the doors and windows and would leave the bathroom and shower door open.

August 11, 2016

Six out of the 44 U.S. presidents served as officers in the Navy. The first American president who served in the navy was John F. Kennedy (who commanded the famous PT-109). Others U.S. presidents that served in the Navy include Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush. Both Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt were the assistant secretary of the navy prior to their presidencies. Many members of Congress served in the navy, notably U.S. Senators Bob Kerrey, John McCain, and John Kerry. Other notable former members of the U.S. Navy include astronauts, entertainers, authors and professional athletes.

August 10, 2016

President Franklin D. Roosevelt first coined the term “United Nations” to describe the Allied countries during the Second World War. “On New Year's Day 1942, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, Maxim Litvinov, of the USSR, and T. V. Soong, of China, signed a short document which later came to be known as the United Nations Declaration and the next day the representatives of twenty-two other nations added their signatures.” The term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration.

August 9, 2016

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. In 1833, Presbyterian ministers John Jay Sipherd and Philo P. Stewart founded the institution as a college preparatory institute to promote Christian values. With its founding it is the oldest coeducational university in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational university in the world. Oberlin was the first school to accept not only women as well as men, in 1837, but black students as well as white, in 1835.

August 8, 2016

Nike in ancient Greek religion, was a goddess who personified victory, also known as the Winged Goddess of Victory. Since Giuseppe Cassioli's design for the 1928 Summer Olympics, the obverse face of every Olympic medal bears Nike's figure holding a palm frond in her right hand and a winner's laurel crown in her left. In the top right section of the medal a space was left for the name of the Olympic host and the Games numeral. The sports equipment company Nike, Inc. is named after the Greek goddess Nike.

August 7, 2016

''I do not like broccoli,'' the President said, responding to queries about a broccoli ban he had imposed aboard Air Force One and the White House. ''I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli!'' The broccoli growers of California responded by sending a truckload of broccoli to the White House in protest. First Lady Barbara Bush, holding a bouquet of the veggie as she addressed reporters, accepted the truckload of broccoli on the White House lawn and sent it to a homeless shelter.

August 6, 2016

Bob Barker hosted the popular television game show The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007. Barker has a black belt in karate and trained under Chuck Norris and his brother Aaron. In a 2007 interview, Barker said, “I’ve done karate for thirty years. I studied with Chuck Norris. That’s another reason I think I’ve lasted this long.” After suffering a health scare back in 1999, Barker quipped that his training with Norris may have played a role. "Maybe I should blame it on Chuck Norris. He probably kicked me in the neck. God knows he kicked me everywhere else.” In his autobiography "Priceless Memories," Barker says his sparring with Norris once resulted in four cracked ribs.

August 5, 2016

The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on one side and the United States of America and its allies on the other. Britain acknowledged the United States to be sovereign and independent. The treaty set the boundaries between the British Empire and the new country, on lines "exceedingly generous" to the United States. Details included fishing rights and restoration of property and prisoners of war. The treaty is named for the city in which it was negotiated and signed.

August 4, 2016

Burj Khalifa is a megatall skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is the tallest structure in the world. The Burj Khalifa stands at a stunning 2,722 feet, rendering it nearly 700 feet taller than the second tallest structure in the world. The building was opened in 2010 as part of a new development called Downtown Dubai. The building was named in honor of the ruler of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Burj Khalifa also features both the world’s highest nightclub and the world’s highest restaurant.

August 3, 2016

Jaguar's business was founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922, originally making motorcycle sidecars before developing bodies for passenger cars. The name was eventually changed to SS Cars Ltd. Its first use of the name Jaguar was on a 1936 model called the S.S. Jaguar - the S.S. was for Swallow Sidecar. After the Second World War, SS Cars Ltd. changed its name to Jaguar to avoid confusion with the Nazi "SS". The company's name was officially changed from S.S. Cars Limited to Jaguar Cars on March 23, 1945.

August 2, 2016

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen served as the 256th and final episode of the television series M*A*S*H. Closing out the series' 11th season, it first aired on CBS on February 28, 1983. A whopping 105.9 million people watched on average over the two-and-a-half hours, with that number peaking at 121.6 million in the final six minutes. The episode surpassed the single-episode ratings record that had been set by the Dallas episode that resolved the "Who Shot J.R.?" cliffhanger. From 1983 until 2010, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen remained the most watched television broadcast in American history, passed only in total viewership (but not in ratings or share) in February 2010 by Super Bowl XLIV. It still stands as the most-watched single episode of an American television series.

August 1, 2016

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States of America. The lyrics come from "Defence of Fort McHenry", a poem written in 1814 by the 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy ships in Chesapeake Bay during the Battle of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812. More than a century after its first publication, the song was adopted as the American national anthem, first by an Executive Order from President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and then by a Congressional resolution in 1931, signed by President Herbert Hoover.

July 31, 2016

A month before his death on April 25, 1616, English poet and playwright William Shakespeare constructed his last will and testament. His will stated that upon his death, his wife Anne would receive his “second-best bed.” This is the only mention of Anne in Shakespeare's will and testament. Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance. There is no reference made to his "best" bed. Shakespeare bequeathed the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna under stipulations that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body."

July 30, 2016

For some people, the number 13 may represent bad luck, but Taylor Swift considers it to be her lucky number. She recently opened up about her love for the number 13 and has credited it with many of the successes in her life. "The significance of the number 13 on my hand ... I paint this on my hand before every show because 13 is my lucky number; for a lot of reasons," she explained. Not only is it the day she was born on in December 1989, but over the years it has become so much more. "I was born on the 13th. I turned 13 on Friday the 13th. My first album went gold in 13 weeks. My first #1 song had a 13-second intro," she said. "Every time I've won an award I've been seated in either the 13th seat, the 13th row, the 13th section or row M, which is the 13th letter." Her Twitter account is named @taylorswift13.

July 29,2016

The Golden Globe Award is an American accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign. The annual formal ceremony and dinner at which the awards are presented are a major part of the film industry's awards season. In 1943, a group of writers banded together to form the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and created the Golden Globe Award. The 1st Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best achievements in 1943 filmmaking, was held in January 1944, at the 20th Century-Fox studios.

July 28, 2016

Laika was a Soviet space dog who became the first animal to orbit the Earth. Laika, a stray dog from the streets of Moscow, was selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957. The experiment aimed to prove that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit, paving the way for human spaceflight. She died within hours of takeoff from panic and overheating, according to the BBC. The true cause and time of her death were not made public until 2002. Sputnik 2 continued to orbit the Earth for five months, then burned up when it reentered the atmosphere in April 1958. In 2008, Russian officials unveiled a monument to Laika built near the military research facility in Moscow that prepared Laika's flight to space.

July 27, 2016

The very first scanning of the now ubiquitous Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode was on a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum in June 1974. The bar code was scanned at 8:01 a.m. on June 26, 1974 at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The pack of gum wasn't specially designated to be the first scanned product. It just happened to be the first item lifted from the cart by shopper Clyde Dawson. The cash register rang up 67 cents. The pack of gum and the receipt are now on display at the National Museum of American History.

July 26, 2016

The polar bear first debuted in a Coca Cola print advertisement in France in 1922 and then appeared periodically for the next 70 years. The modern polar bear did not make its debut until the 1993 “Always Coca Cola” campaign in a television ad called “Northern Lights”, which featured polar bears gathering to drink Coke and watch the aurora borealis. Since then, the polar bear has appeared in numerous television and print advertisements becoming one of the most popular symbols of Coca-Cola advertising. The Coca-Cola polar bear commercials, are often featured during the winter months and the Super Bowl. The beverage company has pledged over $2 million dollars to protect the Arctic environment that polar bears call home.

July 25, 2016

Detroit was founded on July 24, 1701 by the French explorer and adventurer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and a party of settlers. Cadillac was the leader of a band of soldiers and French Canadians adventurers who came ashore and claimed the land for the King of France. The city he helped found, Detroit, became the world center of automobile production in the 20th century. William H. Murphy and Henry M. Leland, founders of the Cadillac auto company, paid homage to him by using his name for their company and his armorial bearings as its logo in 1902. Various places bear his name in North America, in particular Cadillac Mountain, Maine, and the town of Cadillac, Michigan.

July 24, 2016

The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for non-British students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. The award is widely considered to be one of the world's most prestigious scholarships. The Rhodes Scholarships are administered and awarded by the Rhodes Trust, which was established in 1902 under the terms and conditions of the will of Cecil John Rhodes, and funded by his legacy. There have been nearly 8,000 Rhodes Scholars since the inception of the Trust. Each year 32 young students from the United States are selected as Rhodes Scholars.

July 23, 2016

Prince Andrew, the third child and second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, first met Sarah Ferguson when they were children. They did not become romantically involved until they met again at a party at Floors Castle in 1985. Diana, Princess of Wales, Andrew's sister-in-law, played a hand in matchmaking the couple. Four months after announcing their engagement, Andrew and Sarah married on July 23, 1986, at Westminster Abbey in London. By marriage, Sarah became Her Royal Highness The Duchess of York, Countess of Inverness and Baroness of Killyleagh, also attaining the rank of Princess of the United Kingdom. Andrew and Sarah announced their separation in 1992, and divorced on May 30, 1996. After the couple's divorce, Sarah lost the style Her Royal Highness, becoming "Sarah, Duchess of York", and was no longer a British Princess.

July 22, 2016

Sonny Bono achieved commercial success, along with his then-wife Cher, as part of the singing duo Sonny and Cher. He was mayor of Palm Springs, California, and congressman for California's 44th district from 1995 until his death in 1998. Sonny Bono died on January 5, 1998, of injuries sustained when he hit a tree while skiing on the Nevada side of Heavenly Ski Resort near South Lake Tahoe, California. Bono, who had been coming to the resort for 20 years, was on vacation with his wife and their two children at the time. Not long after his passing, his widow agreed to run for his congressional seat. She won election to Congress and served their district until 2003. The epitaph on Bono's headstone reads: "AND THE BEAT GOES ON".

July 21, 2016

Captain Eugene Cernan holds the distinction of being the last man to leave his footprints on the moon. Cernan is one of only three people to go to the Moon twice and the last man to leave a footprint on the lunar surface. Cernan's distinction as the last person to walk on the Moon means that Purdue University currently holds the distinction of being the alma mater of both the first person to walk on the Moon (Neil Armstrong), and the most recent. The final words Cernan spoke on the Moon in December 1972 represented everything the Apollo missions stood for. “We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return,” he said, “with peace and hope for all mankind.” Eugene Cernan is now 82 years old.