Some Random Facts

* * * * * * * *

The Milky Way name comes from the bright whitish band of light that is visible in the sky at night away from city lights. This was named by the Greeks as: "Galaxies Kuklos" or The Milky Circle. The Romans changed the name to "Via Lactea" or The Milky Road. Today it is "The Milky Way." It was not until the middle of the 18th century that people first came up with the idea that The Milky Way was actually a galaxy of stars. 

The Milky Way bar was created in 1923 by Frank C Mars and originally manufactured in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The name and taste were taken from a famed malted milk drink of the day and not the stellar Milky Way, as many contend.

* * * * * * * *

The word “jaywalk” comes from the word “jay”, meaning inexperienced but also having come to be slang for a rural a rural resident, assumed by many urbanites to be stupid, slightly unintelligent, or perhaps simply naïve. 

When cars started using the roads, the car companies mounted publicity campaigns to alert pedestrians to the dangers of vehicles on the road, using ridicule to keep pedestrians off them:

1937 poster

* * * * * * * *

Editor Bennett Cerf challenged Dr. Seuss to write a book using no more than 50 different words. The result? Green Eggs and Ham.

First published in 1960, it became the fourth-best selling English-language children's hardcover book of all time.

In 1999, the National Education Association (NEA) conducted an online survey of children and teachers, seeking the 100 most popular children's books. On the children's list, Green Eggs and Ham was ranked third, just above another Dr. Seuss book, The Cat in the Hat. Teachers ranked it fourth. It ranked fourth again among teachers in a 2007 NEA poll. It was one of the "Top 100 Picture Books" of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal.

The fifty words used are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

Story:

A character known as "Sam-I-Am" pesters an unnamed character, who also serves as the story's narrator, to sample a dish of green eggs and ham, to which the unnamed character refuses, responding throughout the story, "I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am." He continues to repeat this while Sam follows him, persuading him to sample them in various locations from a house to a box and a car to a tree and a train, in the dark or the rain, and on a boat, all at which the unnamed character still refuses responding, "I would not like them here (Current location) or there (Previous location). I would not like them anywhere!" and with a variety of animals from a mouse in the house to a fox in the box and a goat who tags along on the car and the train). Finally, the unnamed character gives into Sam's pestering and samples the green eggs and ham, which he certainly does like after all in the end and happily responds "I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you. Thank you, Sam-I-Am."

* * * * * * * * *