Fast Facts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 14, 2005

  • Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. Peter Carl Goldmark invented the LP record in 1948. The CD was invented by Joop Sinjou and Toshi Tada Doi in 1979. It took the CD 15 years to replace the LP.

  • A cup of drip-brewed coffee has about 115 milligrams of caffeine, an espresso (and percolated coffee) about 80 mg, while instant coffee has about 65 mg of caffeine. Decaffeinated coffee is not totally caffeine free, containing about 3 mg of caffeine. A can of Coca-Cola has about 23 mg of caffeine, Pepsi-Cola 25 mg, Mountain Dew 37 mg and TAB 31 mg. Tea has about 40 mg of caffeine, while an ounce of chocolate contains about 20 mg.

  • The word "cappuccino" comes from the 16th century Capuchin order of friars, whose hoods were called cappuccinos. A cappuccino is a coffee topped with steamed milk.

  • The British royal family changed their surname (last name) from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in 1917.

  • Prior to being named The Beatles the band had several names. In the late 1950s, John Lennon and Paul McCartney formed a group to play skiffle music in Liverpool pubs. They began as the Quarrymen, then became: Johnny and the Moondogs, the Moonshiners, and Long John and the Silver Beatles. They became The Beatles in 1960. The band broke up in 1970.

  • The Emmy is a winged woman holding an atom. The wings represent the muse of art, and the atom represents the electron of science. The statuettes are made of gold, silver, nickel and copper. They are hand-cast, buffed and hand-polished. Each one takes five hours to make.

  • "Gone With The Wind" has been the best-attended film since its release in 1939. Without a doubt the most famous line in the movie is when Rhett Butler tells Scarlet O'Hara, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." According to "Curse Control," a book by James O'Connor, director David Selznick was fined heavily for that curse word: $5,000.

  • In the first 20 movies, James Bond has 18 martinis, five of which he orders himself, but two of those he never receives. The rest are prepared and brought to him. Most surprisingly, in his seven appearances as Bond, Sean Connery utters the phrase "shaken, not stirred" only once, in "Goldfinger." In the 20 movies, Bond is told 33 times that he will die, and he makes love 79 times. Of the 58 Bond girls, 29 were brunettes, 25 blondes and four redheads.