Fact
Extractor: News You’ll Never Need to Know
In
this issue of Fact Extractor:
- Hucksters,
Humbugs, Hoodwinks & Hogwash: Harebrained Hoaxes
& Hullabaloo
- Fact
or Fable?
- The
Quick Quirk Quiz Question
- Shameless
Self-Promotion & Flagrant Advertising
- Two
Cents About Salt
- Miscellaneous
Stuff
Hucksters,
Humbugs, Hoodwinks & Hogwash: Harebrained Hoaxes &
Hullabaloo
A
practical joker by the name of Theodore Hook bet his
friendin 1809 that
he could make any address in the city the most famous house
in town. The bet was on, and a particularly nondescript home
was chosen on Berners Street in London. After finding that
the home was occupied by an elderly widow named Mrs.
Tottingham, Hook set about his mischief which entailed
sending out over a thousand letters with Mrs. Tottingham's
forged signature and address at the bottom of each. On a
certain day the following week, Hook hid himself across the
street and watched the fun. First a dozen different chimney
sweeps appeared at her door, each one insisting that she had
written to them and requested them to come clean her chimney
on this date. While she was trying to convince them that she
had not ordered a single chimney sweep, much less a dozen of
them, several different coal merchants appeared, each
bearing a ton of coal "just as she had ordered".
Then truckloads of furniture began arriving, along with beer
merchants, an organ salesman, candy makers, wig makers,
hairdressers, butchers, machinists, jewelers, grocers,
furriers, seamstresses, repairmen, doctors, opticians, and
dentists. Also arriving were the Duke of York, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chief Justice, the
Governor of the Bank of England, and the Lord Mayor of
London. Each one was responding to Mrs. Tottingham's express
orders. Berners Street was congested beyond help and even
the police were unable to restore order. Hook won his bet.
Send
YOUR schemes & screams to: HHHHHHH@TriviaQueen.com
Fact
or Fable?
Cows
dream. FACT OR FABLE? Answer below.
Quick Quirk Quiz Question:
In
1924, two young men started a publishing company. Problem
was, they had nothing to publish. Then one of the men went
to dinner at his aunt’s house. His aunt was looking for a
Christmas present for her daughter. She mentioned that the
girl was addicted to the crossword puzzles published in the New
York World. She asked her nephew if he knew of any place
where she could buy a book of crosswords as a gift. He
called around the next day, and discovered that no one
published books of crossword puzzles. He suggested to his
business partner that they become the first publishing
company to do so. Their consultants felt the idea would
fail—it would be too monotonous, they said. They were
advised to publish the book under a pseudonym so that if it
failed, their real name would not be associated with the
failure. So they published 3,600 copies of the book under
the name of Plaza Publishing Co. Advance sales were
extremely slow. But on the day the book came out, the two
publishers ran an ad next to the daily crossword in the
paper. Book stores were swamped with requests—40,000
copies sold in the first few weeks. One distributor ordered
55,000 copies, then called back and ordered a quarter
million more. Discarding their fake name of Plaza
Publishing, the two men named the company after themselves.
It’s now one of the biggest names in publishing. What
were their names?
To
find out, go to http://www.triviaqueen.com/enewsletters.htm
and scroll all the way to the bottom of the page for the
answer. While you’re scrolling, be sure to take a look at
the trivia you could be reading while you’re there! Read
our current issues of the Two Bit News for free, or check
out our back issues for only 25 cents each! We’ve got
trivial trifles, treasures, and treats for every appetite so
cough up your quarters and learn a lot of news you never
needed to know!
Answer to Last Week’s Quick Quirk Quiz Question:
The
mayor’s name was LYNCH.
Nothing You Need to Know about SALT
Morton,
the First Name in Salt
In
America, the name most commonly associated with salt is
Morton, the giant in the industry. In 1886, Mr. Joy Morton
invested $10,000 in the Richmond Company, which sold salt.
Later, Joy's brother and son joined him in business. The
company was renamed Morton Salt Company in 1910. It was the
only salt company in the nation at the time and it is still
the #1 salt producer in North America. In the 1930s the
Morton Co. expanded into other chemical products, and in
1982 merged with the Thiokol Corp. to form Morton-Thiokol.
The company now employs over 10,000 people in over 100
facilities around the world. Sales for the year 1998 topped
$2.5 billion. Morton sells around 400 different kinds of
salt-based products.
Morton
was responsible for two innovations in salt. Iodine is
essential for the thyroid gland to work properly. Without
iodine, the thyroid swells, sometimes enormously, and forms
a goiter. People suffering from iodine deficiency suffer
from tremors, fatigue, nausea, and anemia. Iodine is usually
present in the soil and the water. But in places where it's
not, goiters became common. In 1924, almost 66 percent of
school children in the Lake Superior school districts had
goiters. Meantime, goiters were almost unheard of along the
Mississippi River, where the water has up to 18,000 times as
much natural iodine as Lake Superior. After being approached
by health officials, Morton became the first company to add
iodine to its salt in minuscule amounts. Health authorities
correctly surmised that salt was the single most universally
consumed food item, and it’s easy to add iodine to salt.
One-fifth of a pound of iodine is enough to treat an entire
ton of salt. As a result, between 1924 and 1928, the goiters
of Michigan - and everywhere else - virtually disappeared.
Today, over half of all table salt sold is iodized. Sea salt
has no iodine added because it contains iodine naturally.
The
other innovation Morton invented was to add an anti-caking
element to salt. In the 1800s, ground-up salt tended to form
clumps in humid weather. Many salt shakers were made that
tried to combat this using various means. Some had agitators
inside to break up lumps; some had special pockets for
moisture-absorbing solutions. Morton began adding magnesium
carbonate to salt which prevented it from clumping up even
in the rainiest environments. This inspired their slogan
(swiped from the Bible) "When it rains, it pours"
and the famous logo of the little girl with the big
umbrella. In a poll, 90 percent of housewives recognized the
slogan. After the clumping problem was solved, the salt
shaker became standard issue.
Flagrant Advertising
Which
are saltier: babies, or adults? Does salt really lead to
high blood pressure? Is a low-salt diet good for children?
What’s the biggest single use for salt in the U.S.? Why
can’t you drink salt water if you’re stranded at sea?
How come salt kills slugs? If you want to know the answers
to any of these questions, tune into the Two Bit News at
this link:
Fact or Fable:
FACT.
Cows do indeed dream.
DID
WE MAKE YOU LAUGH? DID WE MAKE YOU LEARN? Then please
forward this to someone else who could use a little trivial
drivel in their life!
Remember our motto, stated in the immortal words of
Max Beerbohm, “Good sense about trivialities is better
than nonsense about things that matter.”
Janet Spencer, Trivia
Queen of the Universe
Royal Ruler of Useless Information
Master of Arcane Knowledge and Extraneous Lore
Keeper of Forgotten Facts and Startling Statistics
Freelance Hysterics - Creative Profanities - Quantum
Perplexities
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