$60 INVESTMENT GOES A LONG WAY

John Jacob Bausch set up an optical goods shop in 1853. But he was short on capital, so he borrowed $60 from a friend, Henry Lomb, promising to make Lomb a partner if the business grew. It did. Bausch & Lomb is the world’s largest provider of eye care products.

America’s first Thanksgiving, memorialized as a coming together of the Pilgrims and their native American friends, was something different from what most of us were taught in school. For one, there was no such thing as Thanksgiving Day. This festival lasted three days and included drinking, gambling, athletic games and target practice. And turkey wasn’t the main dish. Instead, the settlers feasted on venison. Edward Winslow wrote that “We entertained and feasted, and [the Indians] went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation.”

The English word splash is dham in Hindi, plyukh in Russian, plump in Danish and chof in Spanish. The closest Greek equivalent is plitz-platz.

Caraway seeds were an important part of some of the most ancient love potions. That’s because it was believed that the seeds had the magical power to keep items or people from straying. In many cases, valued possessions also would have been sprinkled with the seeds to keep them from being stolen.