How did the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb” become so famous?


“Mary Had a Little Lamb” was written in 1830 by Sarah Hale, the editor
of Godey’s Ladies Magazine. She was inspired after watching young
Mary Tyler’s pet lamb follow the girl to school, which, of course, was
against the rules. The poem became immortal more than fifty years
later when Thomas Edison used it as the first words ever spoken and
then recorded on his new invention, the phonograph.


Who was Little Jack Horner in the nursery rhyme?


At a time when Henry VIII was confiscating church property, one monk
appeased the king with the gift of a special Christmas pie. Inside the
crust were deeds to twelve manor houses secretly offered in exchange for
his monastery. The steward who carried the pie to London was Jack
Horner, who along the way extracted a plum deed for himself. It was for
Mells Manor, where Horner’s descendants still live to this day.


Where did the bearded figure Uncle Sam come from?


Sam Wilson was a meat packer who supplied preserved beef to the U.S.
Army in the nineteenth century. The barrels of meat were stamped
“U.S.” to indicate they were property of the United States, but the soldiers
joked that the initials were actually those of the supplier, “Uncle
Sam” Wilson. The bearded figure of “Uncle Sam” was drawn and
introduced by Thomas Nast, the same cartoonist who created the
Republicans’ elephant and the Democrats’ donkey.


How did the Mercedes automobile get its name?


In 1900, the Daimler Corporation was commissioned to design and
build a special racing car to add to the fleet of a wealthy Austrian
named Emil Jellinek. Mr. Jellinek gave the special car the nickname
“Mercedes,” which was his daughter’s name. Jellinek was so impressed
with the car that he bought into Daimler, and when the company
merged with Benz in 1926, company officials decided to keep the name
and market a commercial car as the Mercedes Benz.


How did the soft drink Dr. Pepper get its name?


In Virginia in the 1880s, Wade Morrison, a pharmacist’s assistant, wanted
to marry his boss’s daughter. But her father considered Morrison too
old for her and asked him to move on. After Morrison had settled down
and opened his own drugstore in Waco, Texas, one of his employees
came up with a new soft drink idea, which Morrison developed and
named after the man who gave him his start in the drug business: his old
girlfriend’s father, Dr. Kenneth Pepper.


From The Book Titled "Now You Know" by Doug Lennox