They Just Wanted to Teach the World to Sing

On April 23, 1985, a day  many in the advertising industry believe will live in marketing infamy, after 99 years, Coca-Cola introduced re-formulated “new Coke,” into the US marketplace.  At that point in its history, Coca-Cola had been steadily losing market share to diet drinks and ‘un-cola’ beverages and hoped the new formulation would rekindle interest in its flagship beverage product.  The return of the original formula Coca-Cola on July 11, 1985, ended 79 days of severe, sometimes hostile, consumer backlash to the change in formula and ABC News interrupted General Hospital to break the story that Coca-Cola Classic was back!

Duffel, Belgium – Of Course

The duffel bag’s name is derived from the town of Duffel in Belgium where the cloth, from which the original bags were made, comes from.

Rocking Around

Brenda Lee was only 13 when she recorded “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” She is shown in this photo with Elvis Presley at her first Grand Old Opry performance at age 13.

Too Young To Rock

How old was Brenda Lee when she recorded “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”?

You Can Bet On It

666 is sometimes referred to as the “Number of the Beast,” which arose from the cryptic reference in the Book of Revelation (13:17–18) (the Textus Receptus manuscripts of the New Testament) that this number is “man’s number” or “the number of a man.”  Today, the number is often used and widely recognized as a symbol for the devil (the Antichrist).  That said, in China, the number is often considered lucky.

For those betting folks in the audience, 666 is the sum of all the numbers (0 through 36) on a roulette wheel and for you linguists reading this, the fear of 666 or the digits 6-6-6 is known as hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

Tincture of Dry Ice?

Carbon dioxide (dry ice) sublimes directly from a solid into a gas, as does crystalline Iodine.  In fact, if the temperature never rises above the freezing point, water in the form of ice, will also sublime and eventually an ice cube, left alone in a freezer will ‘disappear’.  The opposite of sublimation is ‘deposition’ which refers to the transformation of a gas directly into a solid without becoming a liquid.  It’s pretty rare in nature, but when ice crystals form on your window, even when it isn’t raining or snowing, that’s deposition (or when a lawyer takes your testimony – that’s truly cold!!).