September 29 is National Coffee Day, so pour yourself a cup of Joe and learn about our favorite beverage! • When coffee was first discovered, it was called “Qahhwat al-bun,” from the Arabic for “the wine of the bean.” The name was shortened to “Qhawa,” then changed by the Turks to “Kahve,” and finally by the Dutch to “Koffie.” • Only one beverage outranks coffee in popularity … water! One-third of the tap water used for drinking in North America goes toward brewing coffee. • When you’re grinding your own coffee beans, you aren’t really grinding beans at all, […]
TIDBITS® Gulps Down Some Favorite Beverages
by Kathy Wolfe Drink up! This week, Tidbits pours out these facts on some of our favorite beverages. • There are six different types of “true tea,” harvested from the camellia sinensis plant. The teas are categorized by their type of fermentation. Black tea is a fully oxidized tea, first exposing them to oxygen, then heating and drying the leaves. This results in a tea that is a dark brown color. Green tea doesn’t undergo an oxidation process at all, rather, it is steamed or pan-fired in a large wok, then dried, keeping a bright green color. The leaves […]
Kia Silverbrook – PEOPLE WORTH REMEMBERING –
– PEOPLE WORTH REMEMBERING – You probably don’t recognize the name Kia Silverbrook, but chances are, you use at least one of his inventions every single day. Let’s check into the innovations created by this genius. • When we think of inventors, Thomas Edison comes to mind immediately, with his 1,093 U.S. patents, and a world-wide total of 2,332. Today’s most prolific inventor is Kia Silverbrook, an Australian scientist and businessman. Silverbrook’s name is listed on more than 10,000 U.S. patents. • Following his graduation from the University of Sydney, where he studied electrical engineering and computer […]
Chestnut Trees
• Until recently, chestnut trees dominated eastern hardwood forests, with an estimated three to four billion trees across more than 30 million acres. Known as “redwoods of the East,” chestnuts grew fast and tall, reaching 100 feet (30 m) in height, with diameters exceeding 12 feet (3.7 m). They lived for an average two to three centuries. • Their bold-grained, blondish wood was strong, easily worked, and extremely rot-resistant, used in everything from barn timbers to pianos, split-rail fences to fine furniture (in which it was often veneered with more fashionable woods like mahogany). Timbermen loved it for re-sprouting readily […]
TIDBITS® Admires Bears
by Janet Spencer The word “bear” is an Old English word, derived from “bher” meaning “brown.” Names of cities, such as Berlin, Berg, and Bern, spring from words for bear. So do names such as Bernard, Bertha, Herbert, Bjorn, Ursula, Urs, and Robert. Come along with Tidbits as we learn about bears! THE BEAR FACTS • There are eight species of bear in the family Ursidae: brown bears (which includes the grizzly), North American black bears, Asian black bears (called moon bears), polar bears, sloth bears, spectacled bears (also known as Andean bears), giant pandas, and sun bears. • […]
Marie Tharp – PEOPLE WORTH REMEMBERING –
– PEOPLE WORTH REMEMBERING – • Marie Tharp grew up with mapmaking. Her father was a soil scientist for the Department of Agriculture, surveying land and making maps. The family followed his job across the country, and Marie attended nearly two dozen schools before she graduated from high school in the late 1930s. This experience taught her how to analyze geologic features of the land. • She was a student at the University of Ohio when Pearl Harbor drew the U.S. into World War II. The war emptied colleges of male students, and left many job openings vacant. Tharp, finding […]
Lacrosse
In a world that idolizes football, baseball, basketball, and soccer, not that many people know much about lacrosse. Yet it’s the fastest-growing team sport in the United States! Read these facts, and you’ll know more than you did before! • Why is this sport called lacrosse? It takes its name from the French word for “stick” – “la crosse.” The first French settlers in Canada observed the North American natives playing a game they called “baggataway” or “tewaraathon.” The game had been played for centuries by the Iroquois in upper New York and lower Ontario, which makes it the […]
Remembers Our Favorite Cartoon Cats
by Kathy Wolfe This week, Tidbits invites you to tune in to memories of some of our favorite cartoon cats. • The first cartoon cat made his debut in 1919 during the silent film era. Originally called Master Tom, Felix the Cat is one of the most recognized cartoon cats, a mischievous black cat with great big white eyes, and a giant grin. Felix had a regular comic strip by 1923, followed quickly by merchandise such as figurines, stuffed toys, and postcards. His creator, Pat Sullivan, was raking in an estimated $100,000 a year just from licensed merchandise. There was […]
Todd Beamer – PEOPLE WORTH REMEMBERING –
– PEOPLE WORTH REMEMBERING – As the nation commemorates the anniversary of September 11, Tidbits honors the memory of one of the heroes of 9/11, Todd Beamer. • In 2001, Todd Beamer was a 32-year-old account manager for the Oracle Corporation. He lived in Canbury, New Jersey with his wife, two boys, and soon-to-be-born baby girl. He had graduated from Illinois’ Christian liberal arts Wheaton College ten years earlier, going on to receive an MBA from DePaul University in 1993. • As a top sales performer for Oracle, Beamer had been awarded a five-day trip to Italy with his wife. […]
Elevator Facts and Figures
• Each elevator carries an average of 20,000 passengers per year. The average number of people per elevator ride is five. The average length of a typical elevator rise is 40 feet (12m), or four or five floors. In New York, the average elevator trip takes 118 seconds. • When an elevator is overloaded, it will not move. The doors remain open, and a buzzer might go off until enough people get off. • It’s been estimated that Americans travel more miles yearly by elevators and escalators than all rail and air miles combined. • One of the world’s […]