CONTENTS Inventions 4 Wars and Battles 6 Fighting for Rights 8 Numbers 10 Ancient History 12 Presidential History 14 Food 16 Famous Last Words 18 Disasters and Accidents 20 Rulers and Leaders 22 Entertainment 24 Exploration 26 True or False 28 Who Knew 30 Source Notes 31 Further Information 32
INVENTION Did you know inventing the skateboard was a group effort In the 1950s surfers in California were looking for a way to enjoy their sport when there were no waves They slapped wheels from roller skates onto wooden boards and started surfing the sidewalks and presto the skateboard was born 4 Can you guess what Nestlé paid the inventor of the chocolate chip cookie for the rights to her recipe The inventor of the waterbed couldn't get a patent on it because it had already been featured in science fiction novels A 100 B 100,000 C 1 million D A lifetime supply of Nestlé chocolate If you guessed D you got it Inventor Ruth Wakefield got paid in chocolate for her mouthwatering creation This unusual payment left Wakefield with enough chocolate to bake her famous cookies every day if she'd wished Q IBM released the first one in 1994 and named it Simon What was it SIMON A The first phone to feature apps a very early version of the modern smartphone
5 Q When were anesthetics numbing medications first used during surgery A In 1842 when Georgia doctor Crawford Long used sulfuric ether gas to keep a patient comfortable in what otherwise would have been a painful operation However a man named William Morton is actually considered the father of anesthesia He experimented on himself to learn how anesthetics worked Why didn't Morton become more famous Perhaps his experiments left him too sleepy to share his results Q In 1876 a pharmacist named Charles Elmer Hires began selling a beverage he made from sarsaparilla a plant root that can be used as a flavoring vanilla beans and other ingredients Can you guess what he called it A Root beer
