Trivia 5:
The Way Things Used To Be



The first phone book was published in New Haven, CT, in 1878 and contained only 50 names and addresses.

For a three-year period in the late 1800s, a German Shepherd dog named Dorsey was the only mail-carrier between Calico and Bismark in California's Mojave Desert. He never once missed his regular schedule on the three-mile trip.

For 25 years, the post office of Appleton, England, was an ancient oak tree with a hollow trunk - 40 feet in circumference.

General Zachary Taylor almost lost the nomination for president of the United States when the letter asking him to accept the honor was returned unopened by Taylor because it had been sent "postage collect".

In the 1960s, mail was carried over the Dead Heart desert of Australia in an engineless automobile pulled by camels.

Musicians of ancient Greece wore shoes that played music when they walked.

In 16th-centure Germany, before the invention of the wristwatch, fashionable young men strapped hourglasses to their knees to help them tell time.



Home