What Makes Flamingos Pink?

by Bill McLain

  We’ve also lost sports heroes, including baseball players Thurman Munson and Roberto Clemente, and boxing champions Rocky Marciano and Marcel Cerdan.

  Governor George Mickelson of South Dakota, Senator John Tower, U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, and U.N. Secretary Dag Hammerskjöld all died in airplane accidents.

  Airlines carry people from all walks of life and a disaster can affect them all.

  More questions? Try these Web sites.

  HISTORIC DISASTERS

  http://members.xoom.com/generanch/disaster/disaster.html

  If you’re interested in disasters of all types, this site is for you. It covers natural disasters such as earthquakes, blizzards, droughts, epidemics, hurricanes, and famine as well as famous air disasters, bridge collapses, and railroad disasters.

  WRECKS

  http://members.aol.com/roxIn/ships/wrecks.html

  This site describes nine famous maritime disasters including the Andrea Doria and the Titanic. It includes links to other sites having information about the specific shipwreck.

  VESSEL CASUALTIES AND PIRATES DATABASE

  http://www.cargolaw.com/presentations_casualties.html

  Although this is a commercial site, it has a great deal of information about maritime disasters and piracy. Scroll down the page to see links such as “U.S. Shipwreck Index 1828-1911” and “Modern Day Pirates.”

  VOLCANO WORLD

  http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/

  There is probably more information about volcanoes on this site than any other. It is updated constantly and lets you know about all current eruptions. You can even add your name to a mailing list to receive e-mail notices of all new volcanic activity.

  Click on “Volcano adventures!” for a list of various expeditions to volcanoes. Click on any expedition to read the full story and see the wonderful photographs.

  Because this site has so much information, you should take some time to explore all of its features. It’s well worth the effort.

  THE TOP 10 KILLER TORNADOES

  http://tornadoproject.com/toptens/topten3.htm

  This site has a table of the top 10 killer tornadoes in U.S. history. If you scroll down, each tornado is described in detail.

  The very bottom of the page has links to many tornado Web sites, including tornado myths, tornado oddities, frequently asked questions (FAQ) about tornadoes, and tornado safety.

  EARTHQUAKES

  http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/

  An excellent earthquake site. It includes information about current earthquakes, large earthquakes of the previous year, and links to other sites with earthquake information.

  5

  Far Out

  What was the world’s largest typewriter? (Do giants know how to type?)

  For years, the world’s largest typewriter attracted huge crowds at the Garden Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

  The gigantic typewriter was built by the Underwood Company to promote its line of typewriters. It was so large that the company often had a young lady sitting on each one of its keys.

  Although it was an extremely popular attraction as well as a wonderful advertisement for the Underwood Company, the huge machine was destroyed because of a war.

  Metal was in short supply during World War II, so die company scrapped its giant typewriter to help the war effort. We probably would have won the war even if they had not melted down the typewriter.

  The Underwood Company had a long history of manufacturing typewriters. In 1899, the company produced the first typewriter that allowed keys to hit the paper and then fall back into place so the typist could see the words as they were typed. All previous machines used a “down” strike method in which the keys hit the back of the paper. This was called “blind typing” because the typist could not see the words.

  At one time, speed typing contests were all the rage and were treated as a sport. An Underwood employee, Charles E. Smith, trained the Underwood typists like athletes, often working them eight hours a day, five days a week. In spite of stringent rules covering line length and the consistent darkness of all letters, some of his students could type 140 words a minute on the cumbersome manual typewriters. Smith was so successful that he actually killed the popular typing contests. Underwood’s typists had an unbroken string of victories. Because they always won every contest, the public lost interest in the competition. In this case, success caused the failure of a great publicity stunt.

  FACTOIDS

  Around 1836, one enterprising inventor built a typewriter as large and ungainly as a pinball machine.

  The typewriter ampersand symbol (&) was invented by Marcus Tullius Tiro around 60 B.C. as part of a system of shorthand that allowed him to write down the orations of Cicero. The symbol was a combination of the letters e and t from the Latin word et meaning “and.”

  The fastest typing speed on a manual typewriter, 176 words per minute, was achieved by Carole Bechen in 1959. In 1949, Stella Garnand typed 216 words a minute on an IBM electric typewriter.

  The familiar typewriter @ symbol is simply called the “at” symbol in the United States. However other countries have given it more descriptive names such as monkey’s tail, elephant’s ear, and cinnamon bun.

  One of the first manufacturers of typewriters was Remington and Sons, which previously manufactured guns and sewing machines. The first typewriter they produced had a foot pedal, similar to that on a sewing machine, to advance the paper.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Although the first typewriter was patented in 1714 in England, the inventor never bothered to actually build a machine and the details of his design have been lost forever. It was almost 100 years later when Pellegrino Turri invented and built typewriters in 1808. None of his machines has survived, but some documents created by them still exist.

  Prior to 1860 none of the typewriters had keyboards. They had a selector dial for choosing a letter and a lever that was pulled to make the impression on the paper. An American, Christopher Latham Sholes, invented a typewriter with a keyboard.

  Typists using the newly invented keyboard used either two or four fingers, looked at the keyboard, and used the “hunt-and-peck” system to find the letter they wanted to type. Some people prefer to call this “the biblical system,” or “seek and ye shall find.” Mrs. M. V. Longley had a better idea and developed an “all-finger” method. This idea was revolutionary at its time and led to the invention of the “touch-typing” system by Frank McGurrin. In 1888 McGurrin competed with Louis Taub, the champion four-finger typist. McGurrin easily won, and his new touch-typing system soon spread throughout the country and the world.

  Typewriters have come a long way since then. The IBM Selectric used a movable-type ball instead of levered keys, and modern computers handle everything electronically.

  Yet with all of the advances, we are still using the same keyboard design that was invented in the 1860s. In spite of many attempts to change the keyboard layout, it is still the same.

  Typewriters may soon become obsolete. But no matter what type of machine or computer we use in the future, there’s a good chance that the top keyboard line will still be QWERTYUIOP!

  Who was the model for the Gerber baby? (No beanie on this baby.)

  For over 70 years an angelic baby face has been the picture adorning jars of Gerber’s baby food. For many of those years people have guessed that the Gerber baby grew up to be anyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Bob Dole. In fact, there was even a lawsuit that challenged the true identity of the baby.

  The most common guess is that the symbol is a picture of Humphrey Bogart when he was a baby. Bogart’s mother was a commercial illustrator and drew a picture of Humphrey Bogart as a baby which was used in advertisements for a baby food company. However, that happened a long time before the Gerber baby. In fact, Humphrey Bogart was 29 when Gerber introduced their baby picture.

  In 1928 Gerber was preparing an ad campaign to introduce its new baby food and decided to use a baby’s face. Leading artis
ts of the time submitted their works, most of which were elaborate oil paintings. One artist, Dorothy Hope Smith, submitted a charcoal sketch of a baby and asked if it was about the right age. She offered to finish the drawing if the company liked it.

  The simple drawing so impressed the executives that they decided to use it just as it was. It became so popular that three years later the company used it as its trademark. It’s still being used today.

  For many years the identity of the model was kept secret. Finally, the model herself granted newspaper interviews. Dorothy Hope Smith’s drawing was a sketch of mystery novelist and retired English teacher Ann Turner Cook, who was only five months old at the time the drawing was made. She was two years old when the drawing was selected as the Gerber baby.

  The original charcoal sketch still exists. It is safely locked in the company’s vault.

  FACTOIDS

  Many polls have been taken to select the most important babies of the 20th century. The Gerber baby was on virtually every one. Here are some others.

  Charles Lindbergh, Jr. Son of the famous aviator, he was kidnapped and later murdered. His death made the public aware of child safety concerns.

  Baby Fae. She was born with an incurable heart disease. Doctors replaced her heart with the heart of a baboon. Although she later died, her surgery helped advance the treatment of infant heart disease.

  Little Ricky Ricardo. The I Love Lucy show was the first program to portray the trials and tribulations of pregnancy, birth, and raising a small child.

  Billionth Chinese baby. The Chinese government used this birth to institute stringent birth control laws to stem population growth.

  James Hathaway. His father watched his birth in the hospital, something unheard of at the time. Eventually fathers were allowed in the delivery room, a common practice today.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Perhaps the most famous babies of the 20th century were the Dionne quintuplets. Although multiple births are common today, when the Dionne children were born in 1934, they were the only living quintuplets in the entire world. The five girls were named Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile, and Marie.

  Worldwide interest was so great that the Canadian Parliament took them from their parents and made them wards of the king. Although the reason was ostensibly to safeguard the children’s health and protect them from exploitation, the government did just the opposite. The quintuplets were moved into a special facility called “Quintland,” which was designed as a theme park to attract tourists. The children were displayed as a curiosity to adoring crowds of people three times a day. Always in the public eye, they never had a normal childhood. The scars of abuse and exploitation stayed with them throughout their lives.

  Although the five girls accounted for the largest amount of tourist dollars in Canada, estimated at around $500 million, neither they nor their parents ever saw a penny. They were not returned to their parents until they were nine years old.

  In recent years there have been births of sextuplets, septuplets, and even octuplets. Fortunately, the parents kept all of their children.

  Medicine has come a long way since 1934, and so has the understanding of what’s proper for a child’s welfare. Society has learned that children should not be displayed as curiosities, nor should they be abused and exploited.

  Who was Prester John? (Was Marco Polo Looking for him?)

  In 1145, Western Europe was preparing for the Second Crusade. The Turks had become a serious threat to Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land, and the Crusaders were seeking help. Then it happened. A rumor swept through Europe about a priest-king named Prester John. (Prester is a corrupt form of presbyter, which means “priest.”) It was said that he had defeated the Medes and Persians and had continued his advance to link up with the Crusaders. Unfortunately, he had to turn back when he reached the Tigris River because he had no boats.

  This mysterious king was supposedly descended from the Magi, the wise men who visited the Christ child. Even more appealing to the Crusaders was the story that his army consisted of almost 1.5 million soldiers and over 125,000 horses.

  A letter, reported to be from Prester John himself, was delivered to the Byzantine emperor and circulated to Pope Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman emperor. The writer called himself the King of Kings and described the wonders of his kingdom, which included white and red lions, white bears, centaurs, giants, the ruins of the Tower of Babel, mysterious pebbles that could cure the blind or make a person invisible, and even the fountain of youth.

  Although the Byzantine emperor decided the letter was pure fantasy, many Western Europeans believed it was factual. Pope Alexander III himself sent a personal emissary to the East bearing a letter for Prester John. The emissary was never heard from again. Still, the legend persisted for over 500 years.

  It’s easy to see why people wanted to find Prester John. According to his letter and other rumors, his kingdom featured Amazons, one-eyed giants, gold, silver, and precious stones. He was served by 72 kings, all of whom were bishops or abbots. There was no vice, crime, or poverty anywhere in the kingdom.

  For 500 years Europeans sought to find the kingdom of Prester John. In the process, they explored the Far East, Central Asia, and Africa, establishing contacts in countries they didn’t know existed and expanding their knowledge of the world and its peoples.

  Nevertheless, no one ever found the kingdom of Prester John.

  FACTOIDS

  The legend of Prester John first appeared around 1145 during the Second Crusade, but his kingdom was still included on maps of the world as late as the 1600s.

  As time wore on, new editions of Prester John’s letter became more fanciful. One of them described a salamander that could live in fire. In actuality, it was asbestos.

  The first recorded mention of a fountain of youth was in the letter from Prester John. It was mentioned again 93 times in various documents written about Prester John.

  Today, libraries in Europe have over 100 manuscripts telling the story of Prester John. They are written in many different languages, including Hebrew. The original letter was written in Latin.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  When people think of the fountain of youth, they usually don’t think of Prester John, but of Ponce de Leon, a Spanish explorer who searched for it.

  Ponce de Leon accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to the Americas and settled on Hispaniola, an island in the Caribbean. There he was governor and military commander for nine years. He also discovered another island close by. It was named Boriquén by the natives, but today we know it as Puerto Rico. Although he had wealth, power, and glory, he wanted more. After the king gave him more men and ships, Ponce de Leon set out on his quest for the fountain of youth. In his search he discovered a land that he named “Pascua de Florida” or “the feast of flowers” after a Spanish Easter holiday. This is now the state of Florida. He died without ever finding the fountain of youth.

  Historians all agree that the fountain of youth is nothing more than a myth. But have people truly given up searching for it? Not at all.

  Tibetan monks are said to have a series of exercises to prevent aging. There are claims that a British naval officer who did the exercises took 30 to 40 years off his body, as is described in Peter Kelder’s book Ancient Secret of the Fountain of Youth.

  In India, ancient Ayurvedic techniques supposedly helped a mahatma live to be 185 years old, and some people today claim that these techniques can extend anyone’s life.

  Today many countries have numerous cosmetic products to prevent or disguise the effects of aging.

  In 1998 scientists succeeded in producing cells that live twice as long as normal cells and, because they slow down the aging clock, might someday be used to allow people to live much longer and healthier lives.

  It seems that even today people are still searching for the fountain of youth.

  Who was the first Ronald McDonald? (Don’t be a bozo when you answer this.)

  T
he first Ronald McDonald appeared on television in 1963 and was portrayed by Willard Scott. There’s a good chance you’ve seen Willard Scott without his Ronald McDonald makeup. He began reporting the weather on the Today show in 1980. Every day he wishes happy birthday to people over 100 years old. Since 1987 he has anchored the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. He has also lit the national Christmas tree in Washington, D.C., for over 30 years, and has been the White House Santa Claus.

  The popular Scott has appeared in Carnegie Hall, where he narrated “The Night Before Christmas.” He has also appeared at the Palace Theatre and the Grand Ole Opry.

  In the four years before being hired to portray Ronald McDonald, Willard Scott was Bozo the Clown in Washington, D.C.’s Bow’s Circus television program.

  Although Willard Scott was the first Ronald McDonald, the one you are most likely to remember is King Moody, who played Ronald McDonald on television for 18 years. When some 107 Ronalds met at the first worldwide Ronald McDonald gathering, they wanted to know how to answer the question children often asked, “Are you the real Ronald McDonald?”

  In a stirring talk, King Moody explained that he was only an actor who played the part. Without the children, Ronald was simply a piece of film; he supplied Ronald’s face but they, the children, supplied Ronald’s heart.

  King Moody became a king among his peers that day.