PORK PROVES POPULAR

More than 40 percent of all meat raised in the world is pork.

When Hernando Cortes began his conquest of Mexico, he rode a chestnut horse. But he soon replaced the mount with a black stallion named El Morzillo, meaning the Black One. When El Morzillo developed a limp, Cortes left him in the custody of a Mayan chief. The chief and his people renamed the horse Tziminchac, after the Mayan god of thunder and lightning, and housed the steed in their temple. When El Morzillo died, the Mayans carved a stone statue of him.

The first domestic refrigerator went on sale in Chicago in 1913. It was called the Domelre, which stands for domestic electric refrigerator.

Although CFCs have been banned in the United States, there are two exceptions to the rule: their use in asthma inhalers and in the making of methyl chloroform, which is used to clean O-ring seals in NASA’s space shuttles.

In 17th-century Constantinople (now Istanbul), tradition required that the groom provide his bride with coffee and promise always to do so. A failure to supply his wife with the enervating drink was legal grounds for divorce.

North Dakota is also known as the Peace Garden State.