This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

The first flight attendants were men whose main job function was to handle baggage.  When United Airlines decided to put women on their planes in 1930, all of the stewardesses they hired were nurses, based on the theory that nurses would be most capable of handling passengers’ needs on bumpy flights.

Fred Astaire’s famous dances with Ginger Rogers were some of the most romantic moments in movie history, but Astaire actually developed the numbers with choreographer Hermes Pan, who filled in for Rogers during choreography, then later taught her the steps.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).

This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

The only Major League Baseball teams with names that don’t end with the letter “s” are the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox.

The creator of Eudora, the first e-mail software program, was Steve Dorner, a staff member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  The University not only gave the software away, but Dorner, who was salaried, received no stock options and no royalties on His 1988 creation.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).

This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

Although it ranks as the world’s fifth-busiest airport, more people start their trips at Los Angeles International than any other airport in the world.

In a publicity stunt to recognize the one million copies sold of Glenn Miller’s “Chattanooga Choo Choo” in 1942, RCA Records spray-painted a record gold and presented it to Miller during a radio show.  A decade later, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) borrowed the idea and started issuing Gold Records whenever sales hit five hundred thousand.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).

This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

In the early 1800s, it was customary for local U.S. banks to issue their own money.  Given the large French-speaking population in Louisiana, the ten-dollar bills that came from that area frequently had DIX (which is French for “ten”) printed on them.  People began to refer to those bills as “dixies” and to Louisiana as “Dixie Land.”  In time, Dixie became a nickname applied to all of the Deep South.

Ringo Starr was a certified cosmetologist when he replaced Pete Best as The Beatle’s drummer.  He joined the group hoping to make enough money to open his own hair salon.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).

This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

It takes approximately six to eight hundred grapes to produce one bottle of wine.

Joe Sheridan was closing up his restaurant at Ireland’s Foynes Airport in 1945 when bad weather forced a transatlantic flight to turn around and come back.  Realizing that the plane’s passengers would be tired and irritable, Sheridan stayed late and greeted them with coffee that had been mixed with a little sugar, spiked with a shot of Irish whiskey, and topped with freshly whipped cream.  When asked if what they were drinking was Brazilian coffee, Sheridan replied, “No.  It’s Irish coffee.”  The name stuck.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).

This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

One of the first models for the artificial heart was invented in the early 1950s at the Yale University School of Medicine, using the parts and motor from a standard Erector Set.

David Rice Atchison was President of the United States for one day, March 4, 1849.  James Polk’s term ended that morning, but President-elect Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in on a Sunday.  In the interim, the job automatically went to Atchison, the Senate president pro tem.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).

This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

The uniforms worn by The Beatles on the cover of the album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” were rental costumes.  The medals that adorn Paul’s and George’s jackets, however, were not only theirs, they were real.  Each of the Fab Four had been awarded MBE medals (Members of the Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965.

Prior to making it big as novelists, Harper Lee (TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD) wrote plane tickets as a reservations agent for Eastern Airlines, Kurt Vonnegut (SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE) wrote press releases for General Electric, and Amy Tan (THE JOY LUCK CLUB) wrote horoscopes.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).

This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

According to numerous pediatric dermatologists, duct tape is an effective, non-painful method for removing warts.

While searching for a way to store hydrogen and other gases needed for his chemistry experiments, London professor Michael Faraday invented the balloon in 1824.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).

This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

Kleenex was originally manufactured as filters for gas masks during World War I.  In the aftermath, Kimberly-Clark promoted them as both coffee filters and cold cream removers until research showed that most people had taken to using them like handkerchiefs to blow their noses.

It is the aromatic leaves of the violet–not the petals–that are used to make perfume.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).

This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  We can all appreciate some of the lesser known facts from around the world.

In 1945, Harold Mattson and Elliot Handler combined forces–and their names–to form Mattel Toys.  Fourteen years later, Handler’s wife Ruth also became an integral part of the operation when she created a fashion doll (and the doll’s boyfriend), which she named after their two kids, Barbie and Ken.

Leo Fender, designer of the highly cherished Fender Guitar, didn’t know how to play the guitar.

These facts have been discovered in I NEVER KNEW THAT by David Hoffman (2009).