by
Jeremy Topping
- Ted Haggard, founder and former pastor of the New Life Church, resigned from the National Association of Evangelicals in November 2006 on the heels of a homosexual affair and long-time drug abuse. In February 2007, Haggard announced counseling had restored his heterosexuality and that he and his wife were pursuing degrees in psychology.
- The word “password” is the most popular password. Runners-up include “god,” “monkey” and “sex.”
- Long before 1956, when Secret introduced its deodorant cream (applied with the fingers like lotion), there was Mum. Invented in Philadelphia in 1888, Mum was the first commercial odor preventative. The company developed a “ball-point” design that resulted in the world’s first applicator deodorant: Ban Roll-On.
- Base Vietcong operations during the Tet Offensive of 1968 ran out of the Cu Chi Tunnels. The 75-mile series of interconnecting secret passageways were too small for most Western soldiers to travel through, but their restricted size made the tunnels a disease breeding ground for the resident Vietnamese.
- Most adults lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds—so Compound Security Systems developed the Mosquito, a 17-kilohertz (very high-pitched) buzzer designed to annoy loitering teenagers. The for-your-ears-only tone was reinvented in 2006 as a cell-phone ring for teens trying to hide their phones from their teachers.
- When the Nippon Baseball League’s Hideo Nomo defected to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995, a posting process was established by which Japanese teams could be compensated for the loss of their star players. In November 2006, the Boston Red Sox won a closed bid and paid the Seibu Lions an unprecedented $51.1 million for exclusive negotiating rights with pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. This, added to Matsuzaka’s six-year $52 million salary, means the Sox have invested over $103 million in a single player.
- The city of Oak Ridge, Tenn., remained an official government secret until after World War II. An integral part of the Manhattan Project, even the governor of Tennessee wasn’t fully aware of Oak Ridge’s existence until after 1945. The city wasn’t officially named until 1949.
- Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas was a Kentucky Colonel, while KFC’s Harland Sanders was never actually in the military. Thomas, who owned several KFC franchises prior to getting involved with Wendy’s, introduced the paper bucket to the chicken industry and invented the rotating bucket sign that was once outside every KFC.
- The U.S. Secret Service was created in 1865 to curb currency counterfeiting and investigate fraud. It wasn’t until 1902, after William McKinley’s assassination, that Secret Service agents started protecting the president.
- At the height of Beatle-mania, Paul McCartney frequently used a pseudonym when checking into hotels. Guitarist Douglas Colvin liked the secret surname so much, he adopted it as his own, as did his bandmates. The band debuted in New York in 1974 as the Ramones.
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