Chapter 12 PEOPLE Within seven levels of acquaintance almost any two people in America are associated. Chances are you have a friend who has a friend who has a friend.... that knows the President, Cher, Johnny Carson, Connie Chung, and Michael J. Fox. The scientist, Louis Pasteur, used to sneak a microscope into friends houses under his coat and then examine the food they were about to serve to make sure it was safe from germs. It appears that Adolf Hitler may not have died from suicide as people used to believe. He could still be alive in hiding. A scientist has tried to match dental records from the corpse in the bunker that was supposed to have been Hitler and found that the dental features don't match photos taken of Hitler when his mouth was open. Ex-First Lady Nancy Reagan was in a high school play (in 1939) in which she had only one line: "They ought to elect the First Lady and then let her husband be President." The ex-husband of the columnist Ann Landers started Budget Rent-A-Car with $5,000 and turned it into a big company which he later sold for $10 million. Charles Darwin, the evolutionary theorist, cured his snuff habit by keeping the snuffbox in the basement and the key for the snuffbox in the attic. After Felix Bloch was accused of spying and suspended from the U.S. State Department, he was bothered by news reporters and FBI agents who followed him constantly. But he could do something they would find difficult. He can walk 25 miles at a time. And he did so, much to the dissapointment of those tailing him. The FBI was considering that Albert Einstein was possibly a communist spy and was possibly involved in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. They accumulated a 1500 page file on the professor. One time Albert Einstein was jotting down some notes about his thoughts while attending a banquet. Everyone rose in a standing ovation and were applauding, so Dr. Einstein rose and clapped his hands too. He didn't realize the ovation was for him. In 1952, Albert Einstein was nominated for presidency of Isreal. Ellen Bloudreaux is blind, has an IQ of around 40, and cannot talk, yet she has totally memmorized hundreds of songs and can sing them while playing the piano. She has not had any musical training. When the Prince of Wales visited Niagara Falls he tried to talk people into letting him ride across the falls on a high wire in a wheel barrow. Evidently the local authorities refused. When the scientist Nikola Tesla started messing around with the newly discovered X-rays, he considered them beneficial for the human brain, and spent sessions of as long as 40 minutes x-raying his head. Royal Prince Mom Teparit of Thailand has created the iron buffalo for his people, an eight-horsepower rototiller like tractor that can pull farm instruments through rice paddies seven times faster than water buffalo. He has also created a way to seed clouds in the orient. This not only improves crop yield by diminishing droughts but also can used to defuse typhoons before they hit land. He also invented irrigation systems and many more tools and techniques of agriculture. He is now working with an idea to use electricity to separate hydrogen from sea water. The hydrogen can be burned to create electricity, a portion of which will be used to separate more hydrogen. The profit will be extra electricity. In the course of his work he has lost complete hearing in one ear and partial loss in the other, he has lost two fingers and his spleen and gall bladder due to exposure to hazardous chemicals and machinery. Thomas Edison was kicked out of school because his teachers thought he was learning disabled. They said he was a "dreamer." The Smithsonian Institution was founded by James Smithson, an Englishman who never visited America. The explorer Lafayette's full name was Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette." Leonardo da Vinci could draw a sketch with one hand, and write with the other hand simultaneously.One of the things Leonardo da Vinci was most famous for during the time he lived was his weight-lifting ability. He was well- known for his accomplishments as a strongman. The French had a man like our Ben Franklin, but this man's life was more complicated. Pierre Beaumarchais was a well-known playwright who invented an important gadget that all mechanical clocks required called the escapement, the part that ticks. He was a secret agent for the King and taught his daughter to play the harp, he wrote operas including the Marriage of Figaro, and was Voltaire's editor. Like Ben Franklin he used considerable ambassadorial skill to put together financial backing for the American Colonies in their fight for independence. Unlike Franklin, he spent many years in jail, charged with treason and fraud. He acted as his own attorney. When Blaise Pascal was a boy he figured out Euclidian geometry by himself. Nowadays, many kids have trouble with this subject even with the help of a teacher and text books. Show Business John Wilkes Booth was one of the most famous actors of his time, before he shot Abraham Lincoln. After that he was ever more famous, but people didn't like him anymore. He used to get over 100 fan letters every week. If anyone in this century were to attempt to produce a show like the freak show of P.T. Barnum, the world would be outraged. He included in the show at various times: a bearded lady, a man who was totally blue due to an industrial accident, a woman who was completely covered with tattoos, a man with a two-inch thick skull that people could smash things over harmlessly, a rubber man, a woman with a paralyzed face, a midget, a man who looked like a dog, a "skeleton dude," a woman who looked like a monkey, and a person who was so distorted by congenital defects that no one could identify exactly what he was. W.C. Fields used to open savings accounts everywhere he went. He put over $1 million in 700 different banks. He couldn't remember where many of his accounts were. Bob Ford, the outlaw who killed Jesse James, later starred in a play called "How I Killed Jesse James". Hollywood was founded in 1888 by Horace Wilcox. It was to be a model city of people who did not drink alcohol. There were only 500 residents until the movie industry came to town. Tom Mix, the movie star had special tires made for his Rolls-Royce which had the initials TM imprinted into the tread. Whenever he drove on dirt roads, he left long trails of his initials. Abbott and Costello had an insurance policy to cover them financially in the event of an argument between themselves. The movie, Quo Vadis had over 30,000 people on its payroll. Johnny Carson charged Sears Roebuck $1,000,000 for a single show in October, 1984. Remember the cartoon, Flintstones? Pebbles' voice was done by Sally Struthers who played Gloria in All in the Family. Some Celebrities' Real Names Alan Alda - Alphonso D'Abruzzo Woody Allen - Allen Steward Konigsberg Alice Cooper - Vincent Furnier Redd Foxx - John Sanford (remember the show, Sanford & Son?) Judy Garland - Vicki Lester Donna Summers - LaDonna Gaines Elton John - Reginald Dwight Martin Sheen - Ramon Estevez Siegfield and Roy have had 3274 consecutive sellouts since they opened in Las Vegas in 1981. At 200 seats a night, that's 6,548,000 people. That's one out of every 38 people in America. The name of the Star Wars Robot, R2D2 came from technical moviemaking terminology: "Reel 2, Dialogue 2. When Henry Winkler started on Happy Days, he was paid $750 per episode. By 1982 he was making $80,000 for each show. If you paid average eighteen-year-old Americans minimum wage for all the hours of television they have watched, they would each get $50,000. Only three out of every ten Americans remembers what life was like before television. There are at least one tv set for every two Americans. There is at least one telephone for every two and there are at least one and a half radios per person in the United States. An American three-year-old child spends an average of 30 hours per week watching tv. Some kids spend less time, some more. This means some kids spend more time watching tv than their parents spend working every week. In the country of Cyprus there is one movie theater per every eight people. Music When Beethoven was ready to write music, he would start by pouring ice cold water over his head to excite his brain. At the age of two, Mozart could hear sounds and tell what pitch they were. There is a story that he heard a pig oink and yelled "G-sharp!" Someone duplicated the pitch on a piano, and discovered that it was G-sharp. Here's an easy one, see if you can remember: What are the names of the four musicians who composed the Beatles? I'll tell you later. The Beatles have sold over 1 billion copies. If you stacked up all these records and tapes, the pile would be almost 2000 miles tall. The Beatles are still popular, they sold over 10 million copies in 1988. Michael Jackson owns most of the Beatles copyrights. Answer: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr.