AWESOME FACTS ABOUT EVERYTHING CXXIX

1. While Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are household names, Ronald Wayne, the third co-founder of Apple, remains largely unknown. Passionate about engineering design and product development, Wayne played a pivotal role in the formation of Apple in 1976. Born in 1934 in Cleveland, Ohio, he was also "the adult in the room" balancing the youthful enthusiasm of Jobs and Wozniak, and dealing with the business end of things. He owned 10% of Apple stock, but - concerned about financial risks and preferring engineering to administrative tasks, he left the company just 12 days after its formation and sold his stake for $800.  

2. Prostrate Pigweed and Love Lies Bleeding are two of more than 50 species of the amaranthus plant - collectively known as amaranths

3. The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci attracts 30,000 visitors each day to the Louvre Museum in Paris.

4. Hyperthymesia is extremely superior autobiographical memory. While photographic or eidetic memory is the ability to accurately recall an image after seeing it for only a short time, people with hyperthymesia can remember nearly every event in their life in great detail. They can remember the day of the week a date fell on and details of what happened on that day - from every day of their lives since mid-childhood.

5. A "study" (as reported on the Internet) found that 20% of those surveyed disliked the word MOIST, and if they could drop one word from the language, MOIST would be it. According to this "study", the reasons given have to do with MOIST being associated with unpleasant bodily functions.

6. National Donut Day originally started as a way to honor Salvation Army Volunteers who served donuts to soldiers in WW I. 

7. Blood donors in Sweden receive a thank-you card when their blood is used.

8. Charles Richter, inventor of the Richter Scale for earthquake measurement, was an avid nudist.

9. In shopping mall design the Gruen Transfer is the moment consumers enter a mall or store and, surrounded by an intentionally confusing layout, intentional clutter and glitz, lose track of their original shopping intentions, making them more susceptible to making impulse buys. It is named after Austrian-American architect, Victor Gruen, a pioneer in mall design. Gruen disapproved of such manipulative techniques and was angry that his name was associated with them. 

10. The "lucky cigarette" is a single upside-down cigarette inside of a fresh pack that's saved for last. The tradition began in World War II. U.S. soldiers would flip Lucky Strike cigarettes upside down and smoke the end with the logo first to prevent enemy troops from identifying them by their cigarette butts. If you made it to the last cigarette in your pack, it meant you lived another day. Thus, the last cigarette was considered lucky.