Newsy Notables

1. After President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced surprisingly that he would not seek re-election, he later admitted that his decision had a lot to do with a television editorial from Walter Cronkite.  Cronkite, upon his return from a trip to Vietnam, mentioned that he no longer felt that the U.S. should be involved in the war.  Johnson had then commented, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the American people."

2. The original "spotter" of half-man/half-ape Bigfoot passed away in 2002.  His family then admitted that the Bigfoot scare was a complete hoax, and that the man's brother had costumed himself as the creature, and made fake footprints.

3. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin boasts than he was the first man to wet his pants on the moon.
4. In the early 1970's, the Volkswagen Beetle surpassed Ford's Model T as the most produced car in history.  Ironically, Porsche had discussed his idea for the Beetle with Henry Ford, who challenged Porsche to "go ahead as planned" if he felt he could make a car at a more reasonable cost than the Model T.
5. After eating a southern cornbread dish, a gentleman once asked the cook how the food got its name.  She mentioned that farmers used to throw them at their dogs to get them to quiet down.  The gentlemen then decided to name his new leather shoes after the food "Hushpuppies" since the shoes would "cool off your barking dogs."
6. The Dustbuster was originally invented by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
7. The McDonald brothers began the first fast food operation, but sold their "name" to Ray Kroc in the early 1960's.  The brothers later opened up another restaurant and called it "Macs".  It upset Kroc so much that he opened a "McDonalds" across the street, and ran the brothers out of business.
8. Since the son of Margaret Rudkin suffered from asthma and couldn't eat processed food, Rudkin began making stone ground wheat bread instead.  The boys doctor thought so much of Margaret's idea, that she began making the bread for the doctor's other patients, and eventually incorporated Pepperidge Farms (named after the family farm).
9. The Girl Scouts used to raise money by selling baked goods and chicken.  One of the scouts thought it would be cute to sell small shortcake cookies with the Girl Scout logo baked in.  Girl Scout cookie sales took off and now sell at an average of one dozen cookies for each man, woman, and child in the U.S.
10. Many lunar astronauts have said that the moon's surface smells very much like burnt firecrackers.

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