Monthly Trivia Archives: September 2011

Week of September 18 – Lego facts

Lego (trademarked in capitals as LEGO) were originally designed in the 1940s in Denmark and have achieved an international appeal.

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (April 7, 1891 – March 11, 1958f, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932.^[ In 1934, his company came to be called “Lego”, from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means “play-well”.

The Lego Group’s motto is det bedste er ikke for godt which means roughly ‘only the best is good enough’ (more literally ‘the best is never too good’).  This motto was created by Ole Kirk to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly.

Fun with numbers:  THere are  915 million ways to combine just six LEGO bricks.

More than 400 million children and adults will play with LEGO bricks each year.

The world’s children spent 5 billion a year playing with LEGO bricks.

LEGO products are on sale in more than 130 countries.

More than seven LEGO sets are sold each second.

On average, every person on earth owns 70 LEGO bricks.

Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those made in the current time, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers.

Week of September 4 – Ball Park Food

PEANUTS: Peanuts grow best in light, sandy loam soil. They require five months of warm weather, and an annual rainfall of 500 to 1,000 mm (20 to 39 in) or the equivalent in irrigation water.

The pods ripen 120 to 150 days after the seeds are planted. If the crop is harvested too early, the pods will be unripe. If they are harvested late, the pods will snap off at the stalk, and will remain in the soil.

POPCORN:  Popcorn was first discovered thousands of years ago by Native Americans in North America. It is one of the oldest forms of corn: evidence of popcorn from 3600 B.C. was found in New Mexico.

CRACKER JACKS:  The little boy on the cover of the original cracker jacks bag was named Sailor Jack and his dog was named Bingo.  Frederick William Rueckheim and his brother Louis mass-produced Cracker Jack and sold it at the first Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. At the time, it was a mixture of popcorn, molasses, and peanuts and was called “Candied Popcorn and Peanuts”.

COTTON CANDY:  Machine-spun cotton candy was invented in 1897 by the dentist William Morrison and confectioner John C. Wharton and first introduced to a wide audience at the 1904 World’s Fair “Fairy Floss”  at the then-high price of 25¢, half the cost of admission to the fair. Fairy floss was renamed to “cotton candy” in the 1920s.

COCA COLA:   often referred to simply as Coke (a registered trademark of The Coca-Cola Company in the United States since March 27, 1944). Originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century by John Pemberton, Coca-Cola was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led Coke to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century.

HOT DOGS:  The  world’s longest hot dog created was 60 m (196.85 ft), which rested within a 60.3 m bun. The hot dog was prepared by Shizuoka Meat Producers for the All-Japan Bread Association, which baked the bun and coordinated the event, including official measurement for the world record. The hot dog and bun were the center of a media event in celebration of the Association’s 50th anniversary on August 4, 2006, at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, Tokyo, Japan.