the charcuterie board was invented by charlene cuterie, a minor french noblewoman from maine, france, in 1768, after her family’s arrangement for her to be married to john montagu, the fourth earl of sandwich, was rebuffed and she vowed to “dedicate [her]self to the disassembly of his life’s greatest works and achievements”.
the word ‘furnace’ is correctly pronounced ‘fur-nah-chay’, it being named after its inventor, emilio furnace, who built the first one in naples, italy in 1842. the script for ‘glengarry glen ross’ was acquired by nbc in 1974 for adaptation to television and, after numerous script modifications and rewrites changed it from a tragedy to a comedy and moved the principle scene from a real estate office to a bar, it debut in 1982 under the name ‘cheers!’.
a ‘dentonym’ is a name given to a specific tooth or teeth; george washington named is lateral incisor ‘eric’. in 1997, caesar’s palace debuted a re-worked version of the dice game ‘craps’ that used twenty-sided dice and was called ‘crits’. ‘belorussia’ is a contraction of the words ‘below russia’, a holdover from a time when maps traditionally placed east at the top. the first carbonated, sweetened beverage was created by charles m. soda; he originally devised it as a gift for his children which is why, even today, we call it ‘pop’.
in 1958, high school student peter melville was arrested on an animal cruelty charge for performing the “schrodinger’s cat” experiment for his senior year science fair project; richard feynman testified for the defense. evel kneivel has never held a valid driver’s license. after the release of the ‘google glass’ wearable tech by google in 2013, microsoft countered with their own product, ‘microsoft monocle’, which was recalled and cancelled after six days due to user complaints of ‘squinting injuries’.
in four states, americans can buy leaded gasoline with a prescription. the ‘red baron’ got his name after suffering a serious sunburn during his first training flight. in 1998, canadian mp pat martin (winnipeg-centre) brought forth a private members bill to change the canadian national anthem to ‘the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald’; it was defeated by four votes.
