Who is the Baby Ruth candy bar actually named after?

Ah, the approach of Thanksgiving makes me remember. The holiday itself just makes me fat.

But memories … they still don’t have any calories, so I enjoy them a lot.

Like the one where my ex-wife once said that when we were together, every day was like Thanksgiving.

“That’s what I got for marrying a turkey,” she said.

Anyway, you came here for trivia, not bad jokes.  (At least I hope you did.)  So as not to disappoint, here’s the trivia.  Enjoy!

Did you know …

… the average farm in the United States has 467 acres?  In Japan, the average farm has 3 acres.  (They certainly do make it work for them, though.)

… the world’s largest bowling alley is in Japan?  Inazawa Grand Bowl in Inazawa City has 116 lanes.  The alley covers 182,000 square feet, and visitors to the building can see all 116 lanes from the entry escalator.  (And if you bowl three strikes in a row, you’ve done what’s called a turkey.  See, I can work a reference for Thanksgiving in there too!)

… the creator of the Rubik’s Cube™ had difficulty solving it?  Ernõ Rubik (born 1944) invented the popular brain puzzler in 1974.  Rubik admits that he needed an entire month to solve the cube once he’d invented it.  Today, the record for the fastest solve by a human is 3.13 seconds.  A robot, however, solved the cube in 0.38 seconds.  (I never could figure that thing out, myself.)

… high heels were originally worn by men?  In the 10th Century in Europe, men adopted the heel in order to make it easier to ride their horses.  Having a high heel made keeping the foot in the stirrups easier.  Persian cavalry members wore inch-high heels, and the trend spread to Europe.  It became associated with the upper class because the heels showed that the wearer owned and maintained horses.  (So there.)

… all was not well in Star Wars land between two iconic and beloved characters?  According to some reports, Kenny Baker (1934-2016), the actor who was inside the robot costume of R2D2, absolutely hated his co-star, Anthony Daniels (born 1946), who wore the gold outfit of C-3PO.  Baker called Daniels “the rudest man I ever met.”  (Another area where the Force could be applied, I guess.)

… the red and blue in the American flag have specific color names?  If you want to be 100% Betsy-Ross-Approved correct, you have to use Old Glory Red and Old Glory Blue in your flag.  The Color Association of the United States dictates what the colors on the palette are called, but it doesn’t always work its way down to the market – flag-makers have gotten away with using Pantone Dark Red and Pantone Navy Blue instead of the “approved” colors.  (Scandalous, I tell you.)

… Baby Ruth™ candy bars are not named after a baseball player?  The popular candy made by the Curtiss Candy Company was introduced in 1921, and many people – then and now – think it was named after the popular baseball star, Babe Ruth (1895-1948).  But company officials say the bar was named after Ruth Cleveland (1891-1904), the daughter of former President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908).  Ruth was born in between her father’s two non-consecutive terms as president and was a very popular child.  When she died of diphtheria at the age of 12, people were shocked, and she was still fondly remembered 17 years later when the Curtiss Candy Co. produced a new chocolate-covered bar.  The theory of it being named for Babe Ruth is less believable when one considers that the Curtiss company was headquartered in Chicago, and would not likely have named a confection after a New York ballplayer.  (Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.)

… the largest functioning guitar in the world is located at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh?  Modeled after a 1967 Gibson Flying V, the guitar is 43 feet 6 inches long, 16 feet wide, and weighs more than 2,000 pounds.  The strings are made of airline cables.  (And they’re a real pain to try and play, too.)

… the first aluminum drink can was introduced in 1959?  It held beer – Coors™ beer, to be precise. The cans had to be opened with a can opener that made triangular-shaped holes in the top.  Coors also introduced aluminum can recycling at that time, paying one cent per returned can.  Prior to 1959, drinks such as beer and soda were sold in tin-plated steel cans with an interior liner of plastic or wax.  Such cans were developed in the mid-1930s.  (Now ask me when the pop-top can was invented.  Go ahead.  Ask me.)

… the word “news” has nothing to do with things that are new?  It was supposedly coined from the first letters of “north, east, west, south,” the four directions of the compass – meaning that information was compiled from all directions.  (That’s the story, anyway.)

… the Heaven’s Gate website is still up and running?  For those who may not remember, Heaven’s Gate was a UFO cult headed by Marshall Applewhite (1931-1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927-1985).  The forty or so members of the cult firmly believed that when the Comet Hale-Bopp passed near Earth in 1997, it would be followed by an extraterrestrial spacecraft, and they intended to be aboard it, one way or another.  Applewhite convinced 38 of his followers to join him in a ritualistic suicide.  Two members of the group, however, were instructed to remain behind to maintain the Heaven’s Gate website, answer e-mail, and sell books and tapes to spread the message.  The website is still accessible at heavensgate.com but it hasn’t been updated in quite some time.  (Hard to get updates from a comet.)

Now … you know!