CROCKETT CRAZE BOOSTS DEMAND FOR COONSKINS

The Davy Crockett craze of the 1950s boosted the demand for genuine coonskin caps to such an extreme that the price for raccoon skins skyrocketed from 25 cents a pound to nearly $8.

Americans take so many products for granted. Take alphabet soup, for instance. What does it look like in other countries? Does the product use the Cyrillic alphabet in Greece and Russia? What about France? Is there an accent over the e? Public relations staff at Campbell’s Soup report that no such issue exists because Campbell’s Alphabet Soup is only sold in North America.

Beavers are excellent loggers, but they can’t match a human’s ability to fell a tree in any particular direction. Instead, beavers gnaw a V-shaped notch completely around the tree. Eventually, the tree falls. Sometimes, it falls on the beaver.

Australian Aborigines use honey for a variety of ailments, including burns, lung complaints, sore eyes, vomiting and diarrhea.

Historians claim that the celebrity scientist Isaac Newton probably suffered from mercury poisoning in the later years of his life. Newton’s many letters reveal that he was suffering from severe insomnia, a loss of appetite, delusions of persecution, extreme sensitivity to remarks he viewed as implied criticisms and a loss of memory.