Did Catherine O’Leary’s cow really start the Great Chicago Fire in 1871?

Dear Santa,

At this pivotal moment in the history of human beings on Earth, I have only one request to ask of you for Christmas this year.

Make this stupid year go away, already!

From January to now has been nothing but one thing after another, bad news following bad news, and seemingly no end in sight.

Normally, I ask you for some baubles, some trinkets, some little somethings – and nice stuff for my family and friends.

This year, none of that matters. Just make 2020 go away.

We don’t even want to remember it any more.

Cookies and milk will be left out as usual.

Love, Jack.

Now, on to the trivia!

Did you know …

… on average, 13 Americans are killed each year by vending machines? In almost all of the cases, the machines fall on top of people who are trying to steal items out of them. (The moral of the story, I guess, is that $1.50 for a bag of potato chips is cheaper than your life, especially since you won’t get to enjoy the chips after the machine falls on you.)

… classical artist, Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), is believed to have suffered from dyslexia? He often wrote backward, which gives modern scientists the clue. (Of course, it could also be a secret code, but I’m just speculating.)

… over 400,000 homes in the United States still do not have indoor plumbing? (That is a very troubling statistic on many levels.)

… the script for one of the biggest movies of the 1980s was rejected by Disney? In 1985, “Back to the Future” came to the big screen and gave us the exciting time travel story of Marty McFly and Doc Emmett Brown. But before the movie was made, the writers—Robert Zemeckis (born 1952) and Bob Gale (born 1951)—shopped the script to all the big movie production companies in Hollywood. One of their stops was Disney, and the script was turned down flat. Why? Because of a scene set in 1955, when Marty kisses the teenage version of his mother. Disney executives felt that part of the script screamed “incest,” and they passed on the project. Fortunately, executives at Universal liked the whole idea of the movie and understood the plot point of Marty kissing his (teenage) mother, and the rest is history. (Or the future. Or something.)

… the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 did begin in the O’Leary barn, but the O’Learys’ cow had nothing to do with it? Long blamed for the fire that killed 250 people and destroyed a quarter of the city, the cow belonging to Patrick (1819-1894) and Catherine O’Leary (1827-1895) had nothing to do with the fire. While the blaze did begin in the O’Leary’s barn at 137 DeKoven Street, it was more an accident of heat, tinder dryness due to a lack of rainfall and a spark from an unknown source. The blaze began in the late evening of October 8, 1871, when Mr. and Mrs. O’Leary were asleep and nobody would be milking a cow anyway. The story of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern while being milked was started by a reporter, who admitted later that he made the whole thing up. Additional trivia note: While the O’Learys’ barn was destroyed in the fire, their house was untouched. The site is now the location of the Chicago Fire Academy, and that is the only block of DeKoven Street that still exists in the city.

… seasons on Mars are twice as long as they are on Earth? Mars has an axial tilt of 25.2 degrees off the vertical, not much more than Earth’s tilt of 23½ degrees. So the seasons are similar. And Mars rotates once around its axis in 24.6 hours, close to Earth’s rotation of 23.9 hours. The reason Mars’ seasons are twice as long, though, is because its year is almost twice as long as Earth’s. Earth completes one revolution of the Sun in 365 days; Mars takes 687 Earth days (669.6 Martian days, or “sols”) to go around the Sun once. (So by that reckoning, on Mars I’d only be 31. Yep … I’m moving to Mars.)

… a candy company had a very creative way of “selling” smaller-sized bars? When the Mars Candy Company reduced the size of their popular candy bars (Snickers, Milky Way, Three Musketeers, Twix, etc.) by 11%, the company didn’t say the bars were smaller – they said they had reduced the calories in the candy bars. (Sneaky, but creative. You gotta admire it.)

… the first emblem of the automaker, Dodge, was a six-pointed Star of David? That’s because the founders of the company, Horace (1868-1920) and his brother John Dodge (1864-1920), were Jewish. Additional trivia note: Both Dodge brothers died during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1920. John died first, on January 14, 1920; Horace passed away December 10 of that year.

… a noted author was not allowed to change the Wikipedia entry for one of his books? Author Philip Roth (1933-2018) once tried to edit the online encyclopedia article about his novel, “The Human Stain” because the article gave the wrong attribution for the inspiration of one of the characters in the book. After submitting his edit, Roth was told by a Wikipedia administrator that he was not a credible source – he was the man who wrote the book – and he needed a secondary source.

… the largest gold nugget ever discovered was found in Australia? The “Welcome Stranger” nugget was discovered in 1869 in Victoria, Australia. It weighed 172 pounds. At today’s exchange, it would be worth $4,861,000. Book me on the next non-stop to Australia!)

Now … you know!

HHJ News