Trivia Oddball Facts Did You Know?

 When Franklin Roosevelt started a foundation to fight polio, Comedian Eddie Cantor came up with the “March of Dimes", asking people to mail a dime to the White House. They were soon overwhelmed with 2,680,000 dimes mailed to them, literally truckloads, mostly from children. These dimes went directly to research that resulted in the Polio vaccine. This is why Roosevelt is on the U.S. dime. 

 Ben Franklin left $2000 to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia in his will to help young tradesmen, but they could not draw the balance for 200 years. In 1990, it was worth $6.5 million. The money has been used to fund scholarships, women’s health, and help firefighters and disabled children. 

 Before she became a famous actress in classic sitcoms like Maude and the Golden Girls, Bea Arthur served as a truck driver in the United States Marine Corps Women’s Reserve during WWII. She respectively earned a Honorable Discharge, and was regarded as “One Hell of a Marine.” 

 A knocker-upper was someone whose purpose was to wake people up during a time when alarm clocks were expensive and not very reliable. They earned about six pence a week using a pea shooter to shoot dried peas at the windows of sleeping workers in East London, 1930s. She would not leave window until she was sure that the workers had woken up. 

 A powerful photo was taken in April, 1945, by Major Clarence Benjamin that shows a train of Jewish prisoners that had been intercepted by Allied Forces. This is the moment they learned that the train would not be heading to a Concentration Camp and they would be liberated. 

 Jonas Salk (1914-1995) decided not to patent his Polio Vaccine so that it would be affordable for millions of people who couldn’t afford it. As a result, he lost out on an estimated 7 billion dollars. 

 In 1922, at the University of Toronto, scientists went to a hospital ward with children who were comatose and dying from diabetic keto-acidosis. The scientists went from bed to bed and injected the children with the new purified extract – insulin. As they began to inject the last comatose child, the first child injected began to awaken. One by one, all of the children awoke from their diabetic comas. A room of death and gloom, became a place of joy and hope. Thank You Dr. Banting and Dr. Best. 

 United States soldiers paid tribute to the 8 million Horses, Donkeys, and Mules during WWI, in 1918 by standing in formation that was the shape of a Horse’s Head. 

 During the Holocaust boxes of wedding bands were collected at Nazi Concentration Camps from victims prior to their execution. Each ring represented a destroyed family. Never Forget. 

 Despite being dead for over a year, famous author Agatha Christie saved a baby’s life in 1977. Her novel The Pale Horse described thallium poisoning so well that a nurse who had been reading it was able to diagnose a sick 1-year-old who had doctors stumped. The baby was immediately tested, found to have traces of thallium, the doctors changed her treatment and her life was saved by an old murder mystery novel. 

 Photographer Daniel S. Sorine took pictures of two mimes in 1974, and 35 years later discovered it was Robin Williams before he was famous. 

 In 1959, a coffee maker was an optional extra in Volkswagen cars.