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Saturday, May 26
Fritz Haber became the "father of chemical warfare" after he developed chlorine gas for the German army during World War I. It was considered a major step forward in military brutality. He also worked on an insecticide called Zyklon B. And …Read more.
Friday, May 25
Many video games have cheat codes. The most famous is the Konami Code, which developer Kazuhisa Hashimoto created because he thought Gradius was impossible to play otherwise. There are variations, but it typically goes like this: up, up, down, down, …Read more.
Thursday, May 24
During WWI, British munitions minister David Lloyd George met Chaim Weizmann in Manchester. Weizmann was working on synthetic rubber, and a byproduct of that process was acetone. The British military needed acetone because its supply from Europe was …Read more.
Wednesday, May 23
You'd think young men have been giving their fiancÇes diamond rings for centuries. Perhaps, but it only became an Ironclad social rule after De Beers hired the ad agency NW Ayer & Son in 1939. They developed the slogan
"A Diamond is …Read more.
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Tuesday, May 26Planning the Capital: Australia set a precedent when it created a new city, Canberra, to be its capital. A lot of countries have followed suit, with mixed results. Brasilia, deep in the jungle, was a Brazilian disaster. Nigeria's move from Lagos to Abuja cost a fortune, while it seems that Burma's abandonment of Rangoon may have been done at the suggestion of a fortuneteller. Ivory Coast moved its capital to the hometown of its dictator, who also built the world's largest Catholic church there. Major Tom: David Bowie's first big hit, "Space Oddity," inspired two hit sequel songs. One was his own tune "Ashes to Ashes." The other was Peter Schilling's "Major Tom." The original song is about an astronaut stranded in space who cannot return home.
Both Jose Ferrer and Gerard Depardieu, along with their noses, got Oscar nominations for playing what title character? A) Cyrano de Bergerac B) Robin Hood C) Napoleon D) Zorro Previous answer: Queen Elizabeth became an honorary New Yorker in 1976. TRIVIA FANS: Send the trivia questions you've always wanted answered, or original TriviaBits ideas of your own, with your full name and hometown, to Paul Paquet at paul@triviahalloffame.com or visit him online at www.triviahalloffame.com.
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