uncommon knowledge
• Although the term was not in use at the time, the founding member of the Mile High Club is considered to be Lawrence Sperry. One day in 1916, the handsome aviator and inventor was giving flight lessons to a Mrs. Waldo Polk when the pair decided to take advantage of one of Sperry's many inventions, the autopilot. Apparently, something went awry and the plane descended 500 feet into the sea in a crash that somehow did them no serious harm.
• Some passersby paddled over to the wreck and found to their surprise that the passengers were not clothed. Sperry related that the crash had "divested" them of their clothing (a precursor to the 21st century wardrobe malfunction).
• Their plane had never gotten above 500 feet, but Sperry receives credit today as the founding member of the Mile High Club, which took on its name later as planes began to reach cruising altitudes of 5,280 feet.
• Today, several private companies offer the opportunity to charter a flight entirely for the purpose of joining the club. One advises: "You and your partner are seated in the back of the airplane (Cessna 172 or Cessna 182) and spend the time as you please. FAA regulations require you to buckle-up only during taxi, takeoff and landing. In between take off and landing you can unbuckle. For modesty purposes we can install a veil between the front seats and the back seats, if so requested. The pilot is usually too busy flying to pay attention to you anyway. Further, the pilot wears a headset that babbles Air Traffic Control streams most of the time, so he's almost isolated from ...fun loving passengers."
• Dating began in the United States around the 1920's, and was probably brought about partly by a combination of factors, such as the emancipation of women, increased use of cars, the popularity of movie theaters and the rise of cities. It gradually replaced the older customs of courtship, where parents played a much larger role. Around the turn of the century, a girl's parents would often sit in an adjacent room to where the young couple was in order to listen to the their conversation.
• Iranian teenagers are not permitted to date by law. Once they are old enough to get married, their families introduce prospective spouses to each other.
• Tom Selleck was a bachelor on TV's The Dating Game in 1967, before he became famous or appeared in any films.
• The Mayans invented the drinking of cocoa, mixing roasted cocoa beans, water and spices for a drink called "chocolatl." The Spanish were introduced to the drink by the Aztecs, brought it back to Europe and began heating it up in the 1600s.
•The Spanish were very protective of their new beverage, and it did not spread into the rest of Europe for another hundred years, when a Spanish princess married a French king, and gave it to him as a gift, after which the French court began drinking it, and it spread across Europe.
•In the 1700's in England, "chocolate houses," where writers, politicians and socialites sipped hot chocolate, were as popular as coffee houses.
• Thomas Jefferson was an avid hot cocoa fan. In 1785 he wrote to John Adams, "The superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain.".
• Hot chocolate remained wildly popular until the Industrial Revolution, which brought about a more business-like atmosphere that many thought called for the stimulants of tea and coffee.