Weekend Open Thread

… an automobile was made from soybeans? In 1941, Henry Ford (1863-1947) constructed a car with body panels produced from soybeans. The panels were a kind of plastic based on the very versatile plant, which were created at Ford’s soybean laboratory at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. (The only practical advantage of such a car is, if you get stranded somewhere, maybe you can eat it.)

… alcohol does not make you forget? Rather, when you’re inebriated, your brain is unable to form any new short- or long-term memories. The amount of memory impairment is determined by how much alcohol you consume. The blackouts only cover the period of time in which you’ve been drinking, however. (How convenient!)

… a funhouse dummy turned out to be a real corpse? In 1975, a film crew shooting an episode of the television series The Six Million Dollar Man was filming in a Long Beach, California amusement park, and they had to move a “hanging man” prop in a funhouse. When they grabbed the hanging body, its arm came off … revealing a real human bone sticking out. Investigation into the dummy turned up the fact that it was actually the body of one Elmer McCurdy (1880-1911), a bank robber who had been killed in a shootout with police. McCurdy’s body went unclaimed and, in an effort to recoup the funeral home’s expenses, the undertaker decided to exhibit the body to paying customers. In 1916 a man who said he was McCurdy’s long-lost brother showed up to claim the body, but instead of burying it, he took the by-now-mummified corpse and put it on display in a traveling show. 

… cashews have their own national day? November 23 is Cashew Day in the United States. (That’s just … nuts.)

… caterpillars have 12 eyes? Six on each side of its head, if you were wondering. (All the better to see you with, my dear.)

… Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada? Sam Panopolus (1934-2017), a Greek cook and businessman, was living in Canada in 1962 when he decided to create a new taste sensation at his restaurant in Ontario. Panopolus added canned pineapple to a pizza, calling it “Hawaiian.” The innovation became a hit with the customers of his Satellite Restaurant, though over the years pizza purists have shown a remarkable disdain for the idea. (I can’t imagine why. Some really disgusting things end up on pizza, so pineapple shouldn’t be a problem.)

… surgeons in ancient Rome were trained to block the screams of their patients? Since anesthesia would not be invented for another couple thousand years, going to a doctor in Rome was a painful procedure. But the patient could scream all he or she wanted; the physician was trained to ignore it. (Now they ignore the scream when you get the bill.)

… potatoes were once used as currency? On the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, potatoes served for a time as the island’s unofficial currency. Also, during the Klondike gold rush in 1897-1898, potatoes were very valuable, almost worth their weight in gold. (So money doesn’t grow on trees … it grows in the ground. Got it.)

Now … you know!