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CHRISTMAS TRIVIA 1. Q: In the song “Frosty the Snowm Snowman,” wm w man,” what made Frosty come to life?

2. Q: What Christmas deco decoration co ora r ttiion w was as o as originally riginally made from strands of silver?

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3. Q: Who played George Bail Bailey ley in the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life?”

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4. Q: Per a recent holiday fad, wh w what att ““spy” spyy” hides around the house, reporting back to Santa on who has been naug naughty uugghty and nice?

5. Q: What Christmas beverage beverag age iss also known as “milk punch?” ag 6. Q: One of Santa’s re rreindeer einde deeer sha dee shares hare ha res a name w with ith a famous symbol of Valentine’s Day. Which cch h rei reindeer ind ndee eer is that??

7. Q: What Christmas Christmas-themed s-ttheme m d bballet me allet ppremiered reemieredd in i Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1892?

8. Q: In 1981, Bob and Doug Do D oug McKenzie MccK Kenzie released their own version of a classic Christmas song song. g. W Which hicch song is that that? at? at t?

11. Q: In Charles Dick ck kens’ “A AC Ch hristmas Ca aro roll,” wh hatt w as M Mr. Scrooge’s Dickens’ Christmas Carol,” what was first name?

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14. Q: “Miracle on 34th Street” center centers rs oonn what real real-life all-l -lif iiffe department store?

15. Q: In the song “Gr “Grandma ran a dma Go Got ot Ru R Run un Over by a Reindeer,” what “incriminating” eviden evidence een nce was ffound oouund on Grandma’s back back? k?

16. Q: How many maany reindeer m reiind ndeer are featured in thee ppoem oem “Tw “Twas Tw was as th tthe he Nig Night igght h Bef Before e ore Christmas?”

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17. Q Q:: What What traditional Christmas as ddecoration ecorrat ation is actually a parasiti parasitic ic pl plant? lant?

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18.. Q: Q: IIn n “The Muppet C Christmas hristm mas Carol,” who played Scroog Scrooge? oge? H og Hint: int: It wasn’t wa w asnn’t a muppet.

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10. Q: What much-revi much-reviled iled Christm il Christmas mas edibl edible blle is known for its long shelf life?

13. Q: IIn n the th he earl early ly 1 18 1800s, 800s, tthe hee first gingerbread housess weree reportedly inspired d by what h famouss fa ffairy iry tale?

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20. Q: Q: According According to legend, what holid holiday day ay goodies ess w were ere shaped to resemble a shepherd’s staff, as a way to remi miind childre reen of the shepherds who visited remind children baby Jesus?

21. Q: What figure fro from room Engl English gglliissh folklore came to be asso associated oci ciaattedd with Sa S Santa ant na Claus?

22. Q: Namee tthe he ani animatronic n matronic cassette-play ni cassette-playing ayyin ing be bear ear ttoy oy that every kid want wanted tedd for Christm Christmas mas in ma n tthe he mid 80s.

23. Q:: In In the h 1964 classic “Rud he “Rudolph uddolphh tthe he Red-Nosed Reindeer,” what w was aass the namee of R Rudolph’s udolph’s faithful ul eelf ul lf ccompanion? ompanion? om 24 24.

4. Q: Q: In the TV sspecial pecial all ““How How the Grinch Stole Christmas Christmas,” ass,” , w what hat three words wo w ordds best describe dessccrribe th the he Grinch?

25 25.

5. Q: What Wha haat well-known Christmas carol becamee th the h first song ever broad dcast from space in 1965? broadcast 26. Q: In what modern-day country was Saintt N icholas born?

Nicholas Peanuts 27. Q: What Christmas carol does the Pe ean a uts gang sing at the end of “A Charlie Brown Christmas?”

28. Q: What state sells the most Christmas Christma maas tr ttrees? ees?

(Answers on Pg 2)

This Tidbits® is published by Falcon Prince Inc., a Minnesota Corporation, under licensing agreement with Tidbits® Media Inc., Montgomery, AL www.tidbitsmedia.com Tidbits® or the North Metro: Email: dean@realbits.com ● www.tidbitstwincities.com ● Phone: 763-218-0033

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▲ On Dec. 16, 1773, in Boston Harbor, a group of

Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany to prevent its citizens from fleeing its communist regime, nearly 4,000 West Berliners are given one-day passes to cross into East Berlin to visit relatives. ▲ On Dec. 17, 1979, Hollywood stuntman Stan Barrett blasts across a dry lakebed at California’s Edwards Air Force Base in a rocket- and missile-powered car, becoming the first person to travel faster than the speed of sound on land. He reached an estimated top speed of 739 mph.

Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The raid was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, which granted the East India Company a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. ▲ On Dec. 28, 1793, British-born American revolutionary Thomas Paine, author of “Common ▲ On Dec. 19, 1843, Charles Dickens’ classic story Sense,” is arrested in France for treason, having been “A Christmas Carol” is published. Dickens was sent to tried in absentia and convicted. Paine was imprisoned work in a factory at age 12 when his father was thrown in a former palace, where he had a large room with into debtors’ prison. windows and catered meals. ▲ On Dec. 22, 1864, Union Gen. William Sherman presents the city of Savannah, Georgia, to President Abraham Lincoln. Sherman captured the key Confederate port after his famous March to the Sea from Atlanta. ▲ On Dec. 18, 1878, John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires, is executed in Pennsylvania.

The Irish secret society, which had allegedly been responsible for incidences of vigilante justice in the coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania, defended their actions as attempts to protect exploited Irish-American workers. ▲ On Dec. 21, 1945, Gen. George Patton, commander of the U.S. 3rd Army during World War II, dies from injuries suffered not in battle, but from a freak car accident less than two weeks earlier. He was 60. ▲ On Dec. 20, 1963, more than two years after the

CHRISTMAS TRIVIA ANSWERS 1. A: An old silk hat 2. A: Tinsel 3. A: Jimmy Stewart 4. A: The Elf on the Shelf 5. A: Eggnog 6. A: Cupid 7. A: The Nutcracker 8. A: The Twelve Days of Christmas 9. A: The Polar Express 10. A: Fruitcake 11. A: Ebenezer 12. A: White Christmas 13. A: Hansel and Gretel 14. A: Macy’s

▲ On Dec. 24, 1851, a fire sweeps through the Library of Congress and destroys two-thirds of Thomas Jefferson’s personal literary collection. Jefferson had sold his personal library of 6,487 books to Congress after the British burned the Congressional library in 1814. ▲ On Dec. 27, 1900, prohibitionist Carry Nation smashes up a bar in Wichita, Kansas, causing extensive damage and landing in jail. Nation became famous for carrying a hatchet and wrecking saloons, and sold souvenir hatchets to help fund her anti-alcohol activities. ▲ On Dec. 29, 1915, the French National Assembly passes a law formally ceding the land that holds the British war cemeteries to Great Britain, ensuring that its saddest and most sacred monuments would be forever protected.

15. A: Claus marks 16. A: Eight (no Rudolph!)

17. A: Michael Caine 18. A: Mistletoe 19. A: Coca-Cola 20. A: Candy canes 21. A: Father Christmas 22. A: Teddy Ruxpin 23. A: Hermey 24. A: Stink, stank, stunk 25. A: Jingle Bells 26. A: Turkey 27. A: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing 28. A:Oregon

cut more than 2.8 million Christmas trees that year, according to the USDA -- almost all Fraser fir. But the biggest Christmas treeproducing state in the nation is Oregon, which produced nearly 5 million Christmas trees in 2009.

(Oct 13, 2014)

Michigan produced 1.1 million. North Carolina

SYMBIOTIC MICROBES (Continued)

• In South America, ants live in the hollow thorns of acacia trees, where they repel other insects that would damage the tree. They eat the leaves of the acacia, and the acacia tree imparts to the ants a specific microbe that prevents the ants from being able to digest anything other than acacia leaves. If the ants go elsewhere to feed, they starve. Therefore they are basically enslaved to the acacia tree.

• The hoopoe is a colorful bird found in Africa and parts of Asia. When it lays an egg, it covers the shell with a bacterialaden fluid secreted from a gland under its tail. The bacteria release antibiotics which stop other more dangerous microbes from infiltrating the eggshell and hurting the chicks inside.

• Leafcutter ants carry microbes around on their bodies and use them to sterilize fungus gardens that they cultivate in underground gardens.

• The Colorado potato beetle uses bacteria in its saliva to suppress the defense mechanisms of the plants that it feeds from.

• The zebra-striped cardinalfish harbors a colony of luminous bacteria which it uses to attract potential prey.

Page 2

▲ On Dec. 26, 1946, infamous gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel opens his Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. The grand opening was a flop, however, and the casino lost $300,000 in the first week. The hotel was named after Siegel’s girlfriend, whose nickname was “The Flamingo” because of her red hair and long legs. (c) 2019 Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved

• The ant lion paralyses prey using toxins produced by the bacteria in its saliva.

• Most corals are covered in a layer of microbes. Every square inch of their surface is covered with over 100 million microbes, more than ten times as many as on a similar size patch of human skin or forest soil.

• One study started with a control group of mice that lived in sterile environments and had no gut bacteria at all. When these mice were infused by bacteria from skinny mice, they gained a little weight. But when they were infused with bacteria from fat mice, they gained a lot of weight. After this, the newspaper headlines proclaimed that a person’s weight is determined by the type of microflora in the intestines, which isn’t quite true. When the same researchers infused the “fat” biotics into mice that were eating healthy high-fiber foods, the mice would not gain weight; but when they were infused with the same biotics when eating an unhealthy diet, they gained a lot of weight.

• The beewolf is a wasp that preys on bees. It captures a bee, paralyzes it with a sting, and buries it alive in an underground burrow along with a wasp egg. When the egg hatches, it eats the bee, and then forms a cocoon and hibernates over winter, emerging as an adult beewolf in the spring. The mother wasp, prior to sealing up the burrow with the egg inside, will daub the entire area with a secretion excreted from the tips of

her antennae. This white liquid is packed with a microbe called Streptomyces, the same microbe that provides about two-thirds of human antibiotics. In this way, the mother wasp is preventing her progeny from being over-run by fungi and other pathogens as it incubates for nine months. When the adult beewolf climbs out of the chamber, it’s coated with the microbe, which it then passes on to the next generation.

• There are two species of wasp that look identical, but are unable to mate.

When they do breed, the hybrid offspring die quickly and never reach maturity.

Researchers theorized that the gut biome might be responsible, and fed wasps of both species antibiotics. After this, the two species were able to mate successfully and the offspring survived to adulthood, proving that the deaths of the offspring were being caused by warring factions of different microbes.

• Creosote bushes live in the desert and have a very pungent odor and a very toxic resin. When most rodents eat creosote, they get sick, and if they eat enough of it, the toxins shut down the liver and kidneys, killing the animal. But the desert woodrat can eat all the creosote leaves it wants without any ill effect.

That’s because microbes in the animal’s digestive system detoxify the resin before it can do any harm. If those microbes are transplanted into other rat species who don’t have them, those rats also develop the ability to digest creosote.

• The species of flatworm called Paracatenula lives in warm ocean sediments and is about a half-inch long.

About 90% of that half-inch long body is made up of symbiotic microbes and their living quarters. It’s essentially a flatworm brain and a collection of microbes. Microbes provide the flatworm with its energy; microbes store the fats; and microbes provide the worm’s white coloration. If you cut the flatworm in two, each of the two ends can regenerate the missing parts and become fully functional worms. The rear half will even regrow a new head and brain. But if one end of the worm doesn’t come away with a big enough complement of microbes, it will not survive. It’s easier for the tail end of the worm to re-grow a new head and brain than it is for a brain to re-grow the tail if it comes away from the split without enough bacteria.

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Please Don’t Litter

Turkey and Ham Again?

REMARKABLE PEOPLE:

CLARK STANLEY By: Janet Spencer

• The Chinese water snake is a mildly venomous aquatic snake native to Asia commonly found in shallow freshwater ponds and rice paddies.

The snake is often eaten, and its skin is processed into leather. The fat of the Chinese water snake has been used as a folk remedy for centuries, prescribed by Chinese healers as a topical ointment to relieve pain. The popularity of this snakeoil liniment spread worldwide as Chinese laborers immigrated to other countries.

• Born in Texas in 1854, Clark Stanley spent 11 years of his life as a cowboy before deciding there had to be an easier way of making a living. According to his account, he then spent two years studying under a Hopi medicine man in Arizona. Here he learned the secrets of making healing salves from the fat of rattlesnakes endemic to the area.

• He teamed up with a druggist from Boston and began to market his balms at western medicine shows. In 1893 he gained much attention when he exhibited his wares at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. This resulted in enough money so that he was able to set up production facilities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which both suffer a remarkable lack of rattlesnakes.

• However, Stanley always travelled with a crate full of rattlesnakes which he raised on his farm in Texas. On the road, he would attract large crowds in the small towns where he appeared.

He would demonstrate how to kill a rattlesnake by beheading it. He would then skin the snake, plunging its body into a vat of boiling water. The snake’s fat would float to the top, where Stanley would skim it and pour it into a bottle in front of onlookers. For only 50 cents a bottle you too could own this miraculous healing substance which was guaranteed to cure all ills.

• Clark Stanley began calling

THE POISON SQUAD BY: JANET SPENCER • In the late 1800s and early 1900s, food began to be more and more massproduced and shipped long distances, rather than being grown locally and sold fresh. Prior to the passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act of 1906, there was no regulation whatsoever governing food processing and production.

• If it was labelled chicken and contained only turkey, there was nothing to prevent that. If morphine was added to children’s cough syrup; if formaldehyde was used as a preservative; if flour was cut with chalk dust; if charcoal was added to coffee grounds; or if milk was diluted with river water – there was no law against that. One irate consumer returned a ten-pound bag of sugar to his local grocer with a note saying, “Not enough sand for building, and not enough sugar for cooking!” One study found that of 10 kinds of maple syrup tested, nine did not contain even a trace of maple syrup.

• Dr. Harvey Wiley, chief chemist at the Department of Agriculture, became concerned about the state of the situation, and was especially worried about the substances being used as preservatives.

• In 1902 Dr. Wiley received a grant of $5,000 ($143,000 today) to set up a series of trials to test the safety of food additives. He then recruited a team of 12 men to eat various things and report back.

Women were not allowed to participate in what was ultimately dubbed “The Poison Squad Trials.”

himself “The Rattlesnake King” and even wrote his autobiography in 1897, titling it “The Life and Adventures of the American Cow-Boy: Life in the Far West by Clark Stanley, Better Known as the Rattle-Snake King.” He sold his book along with his snake oil where ever he went.

• But trouble began brewing for Stanley with the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. Prior to that, there were no regulations prohibiting false advertising of medicinal products, so some quacks made money selling worthless or dangerous substances to unwitting people. “Medicine shows” were also popular: they were usually gatherings of hoaxers and hucksters who showcased a variety of patented medicines and then left town before citizens could discover they had been duped.

• Clark Stanley ranked among the best of them. He advertised that his tincture would relieve joint pain due to arthritis, bursitis, rheumatism, or lumbago. It would cure everything from headaches to hemorrhoids.

• Stanley managed to stay one step ahead of the authorities until 1916, when officials at the Bureau of Chemistry (the precursor to the Food & Drug Administration) tested his product. They found it was actually composed of mineral oil, tallow, capsaicin extracted from chili peppers, turpentine, and camphor. There was no snake fat in the medicine, and the ointment had no discernable value.

• Clark Stanley was fined $20 (equal to about $450 today) for the deception and ordered to cease and desist from marketing his product. Stanley may have faded into obscurity afterwards, but his notoriety lives on, as he was the original “snake oil salesman.”

• Ironically enough, however, today many pain relief patches are based on capsaicin, and many chest rubs use camphor to relieve cold symptoms.

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media to be sure that the word got out. accurate labels and outlawed a number Food industry lobbyists claimed Wiley of poisonous substances. It banned was out to destroy American business. mislabeled or adulterated substances.

But when women got wind of the news, It established penalties and set up women’s clubs from coast to coast the precursor to the Food and Drug organized to apply pressure to politicians, Administration. It was the first in a series to great effect. of consumer protection laws. The Poison • Participants were paid a small • In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Squad had done their work. stipend, given free living quarters for Act, also called the Wiley Act, required the six-month duration of the trials, and had all their meals prepared for them.

Wiley was flooded with volunteers, but chose the 12 healthiest men he could find. All were required to sign waivers in case they suffered complications.

• No one was allowed to eat anything outside the experiment. Their health was rigorously monitored. Their “output” was examined. And so they were fed various preservatives, starting with low doses and gradually ramping up over time until adverse effects began to manifest.

Every six months, the twelve men would Drivi Also: ma be dismissed and 12 new men would ng R ny a come on board, in order to minimize the Cart nge & Po Disc dangers for any single group. Volunteers ount wer dressed in formal attire for their meals s to boost morale and to provide better publicity photos. The media ate it up.

The food industry was not so pleased.

• Borax was commonly used to preserve 40+ courses offer meat. It caused headaches and depression.

BONUS FREE GOLF Formaldehyde was used to preserve dairy E! FEATUR with the new products but caused severe illness at any RIDE-A-ROUND dose. The experiments continued for five feature! years. Data was collected and reports were written.

Available in a Convenient • The food industry was outraged at Digital Card format any suggestion that using poisonous substances to preserve or enhance food was unacceptable, and they lobbied hard to ensure that Wiley’s report was buried.

Wiley himself leaked his reports to the

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The Veteran’s Post

by Freddy Groves

The VBA Is Giving Out Social Security Numbers

a third party before sending the file out to the requester. But, they whined, it took time to do that and caused backlogs in getting the files out. Info from the files was copied onto CD and mailed to the requester, putting everything out where it could be stolen or go missing or be viewed later by anyone.

The VBA attorney decided it was just fine to release all that private third-party information if the VBA did it “on purpose� as part of releasing the requester’s own information. Between May 2016 and May 2019, 379,000 files went out this way.

Here’s an example from the OIG report: In 18 sample files it inspected, there were 1,027 third-party names and Social Security numbers.

Doing the math, how many extra names were likely in those 379,000 files? I come up with 21 million.

Two factoids: 1) Last year there were 14 million cases of identity fraud. 2) The big coup for thieves is getting a Social Security number. It unlocks all doors.

To read the OIG report, go to www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-1905960-244.pdf.

The Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General was asked to investigate whether the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) had disclosed third-party information -- such as Social Security numbers, names, dates and places of birth -- when it responded to Privacy Act requests. The answer, unfortunately, was a big yes.

Veterans who request copies of their own claim files can have them under the Privacy Act. But that means that all information in the file also is given to them. Sometimes that means a third party, such as the doctor who treated them, or other service members ... including the name and Social Security number of those people.

Before 2016, the VBA was required to redact -- draw a thick black line through -- any info that concerned (c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.

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- So, what's going to happen to our feet—or, more specifically, our toes—in 2020? In a lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1911, a surgeon by the name of Richard Clement Lucas made a curious prediction: that the "useless outer toes" will become used less and less, so that "man might become a one-toed race.

2020 (MMXX) WILL BE A LEAP YEAR STARTING ON WEDNESDAY OF THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR, THE 2020TH YEAR OF THE COMMON ERA (CE) AND ANNO DOMINI (AD) DESIGNATIONS, THE 20TH YEAR OF THE 3RD MILLENNIUM, THE 20TH YEAR OF THE 21ST CENTURY, AND THE 1ST YEAR OF THE 2020S DECADE.

Want a Good laugh?

Here are predictions about the year 2020 that at some point in time, people really expected to happen.

Unfortunately, they haven't… at least not yet!

to dry everything. What about not-so-resilient material, you ask? Just "throw soiled 'linen' into the incarcerator!"

In the same Popular Mechanics article, Kaempffert predicted that all food would be delivered to our homes in the form of frozen bricks by the 21st century.

"Cooking as an art is only a memory in the minds of old people," he wrote. "A few die-hards still broil a chicken or roast a leg of lamb, but the experts have developed ways of deep-freezing partially baked cuts of meat." And, thanks to advances in culinary technology, Kaempffert predicted it would even be possible to take ordinary objects like old table linens and "rayon underwear" and bring them to "chemical factories to be converted into candy." No thanks!

- In 1994, the RAND Corporation, a global think tank that's contributed to the space program and the development of the internet, said they expected us to have animal employees by the year 2020.

The panel mentioned that by 2020 it may be possible to breed intelligent species of animals, such as apes, that will be capable of performing manual labor.

Those houses that don't have a robot in the broom closet could have a live-in ape to do the cleaning and gardening chores. Also, the use of well-trained apes as family -Forget jetpacks and flying cars. Popular Mechanics was chauffeurs might decrease the number of automobile pretty sure back in 1951 that every family in 21st century would have at least one helicopter in their garage. accidents." (how'd we ever get into space?)

- Waldemar Kaempffert, who worked for the paper from the 1920s through the 1950s, had lots of opinions about how different the world would be by the 21st century. He predicted that by the 21st century, all you'll have to do to get your house clean is "simply turn the hose on everything."

That's because Kaempffert imagined furniture would be made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic." After the water has run down a drain in the middle of the floor (later concealed by a rug of synthetic fiber)," all you'd have to do is "turn on a blast of hot air"

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-John Elfreth Watkins Jr., the curator of mechanical technology at the Smithsonian Institution, for his educated guesses about the 21st century.

The man of science had no love for what he considered extraneous letters, and boldly predicted that by the 2000s, "there will be no C, X, or Q in our everyday alphabet. They will be abandoned. Instead, Watkins wrote, we'd be spelling mostly by sound and would only communicate with "condensed words expressing condensed ideas." So, in 2020, we may say to our friends, "Me happy good, hi!"

Hmm... that does not seem too far off from some of the text I've been sending and receiving.

Have a great year "it could be even more funny in 20"

Page 5

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TIDBITS STUDIES UP ON SOME COLORFUL PEOPLE By: Kathy Wolfe These colorful people, brought to you by Tidbits, all claim a color as part of their name.

• Fans of Major League Baseball may remember the left-handed pitcher Vida Blue, who pitched for the Oakland A’s, San Francisco Giants, and Kansas City Royals over the course of his 17-year career from 1969 to 1986. Blue was the Cy Young Award winner, a league MVP, three-time World Series champ, and a sixtime All-Star. Blue is on the list of only five pitchers in major league history who was a starter in the All-Star game for both

the American League and the National League.

• In November of 1986, basketball great A.C. Green began a streak of consecutive games played, ending the streak in April of 2001 after an astonishing 1,192 straight games, a record still firmly in place. Green earned the nickname “Iron Man” during his career of playing for the Lakers, Suns, Mavericks, and the Heat. He wrapped up his NBA career in 2001 after 1,278 total games, having missed only three games in 16 seasons.

Since retirement, this humanitarian has devoted himself to working with youth, developing leadership camps, and providing mentoring services.

• Alice Roosevelt Longworth was the eldest child of President Theodore Roosevelt, who, at age 17, when her father entered the White House, immediately became a fashion icon. At

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her social debut in 1902, her gown was of a pale azure blue (azure defined as “the color of the sky on a clear day”).

She wore the color frequently, creating a fashion trend. Even her wedding dress was blue when she married Nicholas Longworth III, a congressman who later became Speaker of the House. Her gowns were the inspiration for a 1919 song “Alice Blue Gown,” composed for a Broadway musical. Alice Blue is an official color, and is used by the U.S. Navy in its insignia and trim on Navy vessels named for Theodore Roosevelt.

• Golda Meir, Israel’s fourth Prime Minister, was primarily raised in the United States after emigrating to Milwaukee, Wisconsin from her native Ukraine. Even as a high school student, Golda was active in Zionist groups that advocated the establishment of Palestine as the Jewish homeland. After graduating as a teacher, at age 23, she immigrated to Palestine with her new husband, where the couple lived in a communal kibbutz.

Her early political career included serving as a delegate to the World Zionist Organization, working toward Palestine becoming an independent nation. When Israel declared its independence in 1948, Golda was one of the signers of the declaration. In 1969, at age 71, she became prime minister, serving until 1974.

• The singer/songwriter known professionally as Pink has sold more than 90 million records worldwide, one of the world’s best-selling artists. Known for her raspy voice, this daughter of a nurse and an insurance salesman was born Alecia Beth Moore and began performing in Philadelphia clubs at age 14, taking on the stage name Pink. Her nickname was taken from the name of the character “Mr. Pink” in the 1992 move “Reservoir Dogs.” She suffered from asthma through her early years. By the time she was 16, she and two other teenagers had a record contract, which had to be signed by their parents because they were all minors.

It was Pink’s childhood dream to sing the U.S. national anthem at the Super Bowl, having seen Whitney Houston perform at Super Bowl XXV in 1991.

Her goal became reality on February 4, 2018, however, not without its hurdles.

Being sick with the flu didn’t keep her from performing at Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium. Pink’s bold hairstyles have included fluorescent spikes, pink dreadlocks, and basic black. Her many accomplishments include three Grammy Awards, seven MTV Video Music Awards, and a Daytime Emmy Award, and her earnings last year topped $52 million. Not only is Pink’s name colorful,

so is her daughter’s, whose middle name is Sage.

• The bright red-purple color of fuchsia takes its name from the flower of the same name, which in turn takes its name from a 16th-century German botanist named Leonhart Fuchs. Fuchs was the author of a noteworthy book about plants and their use as herbal medicines.

The book, published in Latin in 1542, contained 500 detailed illustrations of various plants, taken from sketches and printed from carved woodcuts. The first fuchsia flower wasn’t discovered until 1696 by a French botanist on a Caribbean island. Charles Plumier named the flower in Fuch’s honor.

• Violet Jessop dodged death on three famous occasions. In 1911, Violet was aboard the world’s largest ocean liner, the RMS Olympic, the first of the White Star Line’s luxury fleet. After five voyages, the ship collided with a British naval ship, when the HMS Hawke suddenly swerved into the Olympic’s side, presumably sucked in by the liner’s huge propellers. The Olympic survived and repairs were completed on the liner by procuring parts from the construction of White Star Line’s second luxury ship, the RMS Titanic, which delayed the sister ship’s maiden (and only) voyage until 1912. On April 10 of that year, 24-yearold Violet Jessop boarded the Titanic, having secured a position as a stewardess on the vessel. Four days later, she was spared from the disastrous sinking of the ship when it struck an iceberg. Ironically, Captain E.J. Smith had commanded both of her voyages, perishing aboard the Titanic. During World War I, Violet was aboard the Britannic, the third sister of the White Star fleet. It had been converted into a hospital ship, and Violet was serving as a stewardess for the British Red Cross. In 1916, the ship struck a German mine and sank in the Aegean Sea 55 minutes later, killing 30 of its 1,066 passengers. Violet Jessop’s life was spared once again, having survived three disasters of the White Star Lines.

• Beloved “Golden Girl” actress Betty White was the first woman to produce a sitcom, “Life with Elizabeth,” which premiered in 1953. She was also the first woman to receive an Emmy for hosting a game show. She met her husband on the game show “Password,” enjoying 18 years of marriage before Allen Ludden died of stomach cancer in 1981. Betty has never remarried, and is quoted as saying “Once you’ve had the best, who needs the rest?” She is also famous for being the oldest person to host “Saturday Night Live,” something she did in 2010 at age 88.

DISCLAIMER: Falcon Prince Inc. provides text, bar codes, and website addresses in Tidbits® for

retrieving information, and has deemed them safe and reliable. By scanning these codes and entering these sites however, you do so at your own choice. Falcon Prince Inc. it's subsidiaries and assigns are not responsible for the reliability of the content contained herein or at these sites, nor for any adverse effects to any electronic device, its data and programs used to go to these sites.

REMARKABLE PEOPLE:

LEONARDO DA VINCI By: Kathy Wolfe On December 12, 1980, a notebook of writings by Leonardo da Vinci was sold at auction for $5,126,000. Tidbits toasts that anniversary by presenting the facts about this esteemed artist, sculptor, architect, and inventor. • Born near a small Italian village in 1452, da Vinci had very little formal education. At 14, he began an apprenticeship with a well-known artist in Florence, where he honed skills in metalworking, leather, carpentry, sculpting, and painting. • In his 30s, da Vinci began an intense study of human anatomy, even dissecting human and animal bodies to aid in his research. His detailed drawings of fetuses, the heart, vascular systems, reproductive organs, skeletons, and muscular systems are some of the earliest on record. In 1490, he sketched “Vitruvian Man,â€? a male figure in two superimposed positions, arms and legs apart, inside a circle and a square. • Da Vinci was commissioned to paint “The Last Supperâ€? in 1495 on the wall of the dining hall of a Milan monastery. The painting, which depicts Jesus and his 12 disciples in the Upper Room, has undergone at least 8 restorations, one lasting 21 years, due to its deterioration. It was painted on a thin wall, and the paint did not adhere to the wall properly. Within three years, the paint was flaking and deteriorating. • In 1503, da Vinci started on a privately-commissioned painting which would become known as the “Mona Lisa.â€?

Although the identity of the woman in the masterpiece has never been absolutely confirmed, it’s believed that she was Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy Italian silk merchant. However, if so, Giocondo family never received the painting, as da Vinci kept it in his possession the remainder of his life. • Considered the world’s most famous painting, the “Mona Lisaâ€? holds the record for the highest known insurance value, equivalent to about $650 million in today’s dollars. The painting measures just 30 x 21 inches (76 x 53 cm). • Although da Vinci may be best known for his paintings, there are less than two dozen of his paintings known to exist. He wasn’t a prolific painter because he had so many other interests. Serving as a military engineer in the early 1500s, da Vinci surveyed construction projects, sketched city plans, and drew maps. He was ahead of his time when he sketched a “flying machineâ€? based on a bat’s anatomy.

He drew military tanks and weapons, submarines and bicycles. • Da Vinci sketched his illustrations on loose sheets of paper and in notebooks that he tucked inside his belt. It was one of these notebooks that found its way to the 1980 auction. This particular notebook of 72 pages contained more than 300 notes and detailed drawings. It was discovered in 1690, 171 years after da Vinci’s death.

In 1717, the first Earl of Leicester, Thomas Coke, purchased the manuscript and displayed it at his family’s English estate.

In 1980, the current Earl was forced to sell it to pay inheritance taxes on his estate. • In 1994, the notebook was sold once again, this time for $30.8 million, the most expensive book ever sold. The record high price was paid by none other than Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Once a year, Gates loans the manuscript to various museums for public display. • Another auction yielded a recordsetting amount when a da Vinci painting entitled “Salvator Mundiâ€? (Latin for “Savior of the Worldâ€?) sold for $450.3 million in 2017.

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SENIOR NEWS LINE

By Matilda Charles

Gift Ideas for Seniors Most of us donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need a single thing. We certainly donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want more cute knickknacks to add to whatever clutter we already have on the shelves. Yet this is the time of year when others think they need to give us presents. Sometimes theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll ask in advance what weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to have, and we can breathe a sigh of relief when they do.

So, what do we say when they ask? Here are

some thoughts: * Pay for our cable for a couple months. Or pay for our Netflix or newspaper for a whole year.

Add a year to a subscription to our favorite magazine or maybe a new one for us to try out. Consider a subscription to a fruit of the month club, or one for coffee or tea. * Spend the afternoon with us sorting a box of photos and scan them for us. Or make us a special photo album of family and grandchildren. Create a 2020 calendar or load a digital photo frame with family photos. Give us a copy of â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Book of Me,â&#x20AC;?

2nd edition (Peter Pauper Press), an autobiographical journal we can fill out.

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* Some things arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fancy but can be very useful: a bathtub grab bar, a pill organizer, gift certificates to the places we go (such as movies and dinners out). Install some SnapPower Guidelights, which are wall outlets that double as nightlights -very handy -- as well as a few of those closet lights. * Load up our freezer with homemade singlemeal dinners. Pay for a trip that the senior center will take, and if extra people are allowed, go with us.

The best gifts for seniors are those things that give us pleasure but are hard for us to afford, and those things that make our lives easier. (c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.

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Page 7

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Merissa Hemgren, Agent

● In ancient Japan, towns would have public contests to see who could break wind the loudest and the longest.

Prizes were awarded. (c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.

● In 1743, a hand-operated elevator was installed in the palace of Versailles. Louis XV used it to visit Madame de Chateauroux, his mistress.

● Japanese scientists have discovered that the human body emits a very slight, yet perceptible, glow. After using a special camera to study a sample of men in their 20s, they found that intensity of the glow varies, with the lowest point at around 10 a.m. and the brightest at 4 a.m.

● Bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers all were invented by women.

● Worldwide, herbivores kill more people than carnivores.

● It was Polish chess grandmaster Savielly Tartakower who made the following sage observation: “Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.”

● Those who study such things say that if your dog has fleas, they don’t actually live on your pet; they spend 90% of their time elsewhere.

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● Before World War II, suspenders were more popular than belts, but the trend reversed after the war.

● You might be surprised to learn that in 1766, students at Harvard University protested against their living conditions; evidently, the butter they were served in the refectory left something to be desired. In what became known as the Great Butter Rebellion, students shouted, “Our butter stinketh!”

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● Did you ever wonder why the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks - better known as the Elks Lodge - chose that particular animal as its symbol? Other animals were considered and rejected for a variety of reasons: Foxes were thought to be too cunning, beavers too destructive and bears and too coarse and brutal.

● In the Shetland Islands you can find a breed of small, hardy cows that eat fish.

● No less a notable than William Shakespeare described Limburger cheese as “the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.”

by: Samantha Weaver

● As the holiday shopping season gets well under way, here’s an interesting tidbit to keep in mind: According to the annual Coinstar Holiday Survey, 31% of Americans don’t remember what gifts they received last year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, more women remember those details than men do.

● Kangaroos can reach speeds of up to 44 mph, but they can’t take a single step backward.

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Come along with Tidbits as we learn about symbiotic partnerships with microbes!

UNUSUAL PARTNERSHIPS • A submersible named Alvin descended to the bottom of the ocean off the Galapagos Islands in 1977. It landed on the ocean floor, 7,900 ft (2,400 m) beneath the surface, where tectonic plates pull away from each other and thermal vents spew super-heated water.

• Three geologists inside Alvin were there to study the geology, but were shocked to see the area teeming with life, despite the water being heated to 750 F (400 C) and being subjected to the pressure of the deep water.

• One of the specimens they collected was a giant tube worm as long as a human. When it was examined at the surface, biologists at the Smithsonian were surprised to find that it had no mouth, no digestive system, and no way of eating or excreting food. What it did have, however, was an organ that was covered with sulfur crystals gleaned from the chemicalladen water of the hot vents. The crystals were covered with a dense layer of microbes, to the tune of one million per gram of sulfur.

• Microbes were oxidizing sulfur and liberating energy that was feeding the tube worm in a case of creatures using chemosynthesis instead of photosynthesis.

• One type of bacteria called Wolbachia is present in caterpillars who feed on apple leaves. When secreted by the caterpillar, it prevents the apple leaf from turning yellow in the fall, giving the caterpillar more food to eat as autumn progresses. The same microbe, when present in bees, ants, and wasps, prevents the development of males.

• A type of squid that lives in the waters off the coast of Hawaii uses bioluminescent bacteria to light up the underside of its body, mimicking moonlight hitting the surface of the sea, and causing the creature to be camouflaged to the point of invisibility when seen from below.

BY JANET

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