Useless Facts and Trivia: Volume 6

Here is the next installment of Useless Facts and trivia( from an article called "Absolutely Useless Trivia",) along with some of MY THOUGHTS: (my thoughts are in bold italics):
Enjoy!!

1. The original Winnie the Pooh was a real live bear found outside of Winnipeg, Canada, hence the name Winnie.(How do they know it was actually HIM? I mean, look how many Elvis impersonators there are!)

2. Francis Bacon died in his attempt to find a better way to serve food. He caught a case of pneumonia while attempting to stuff a chicken with snow. Ironically, the chicken survived the ordeal. (Ok, this one is hard to believe. I live where there is plenty of snow, and no one ever died from playing with it!)

3. Dachshunds were originally bred in 1600 to hunt dachs, which is German for badgers. (Historically speaking, 1600 was a slow year.)(I'm glad they weren't hunting bunnies or we'd have Bunnyshunds).

4. Houdini's real name was Ehrich Weiss. (Somehow, this doesn't have the same mystery to it, does it?)

5. The first zoo in America was in Philadelphia. (City of brotherly animals).

6. Laser is actually an acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emissions of Radiation."
(Glad it wasn't Light Magnification added ozone or it would be LMAO).

7.The world's first passenger train made its debut in England in 1825.(Wonder what the cattle thought when it whizzed by their pastures?)

8. If you hate our "QWERTY" keyboard layout, blame Christopher Sholes. He changed it from the original in 1873 to lessen the chances of the keys jamming.(Sorry, still getting typos from my fingers pressing on the keys! Can we do a "do over"?)

9. Napoleon III suffered from ailurophobia, which is a fear of cats.(That must have come in handy at the Battle of Waterloo! The British were hiding behind the lines MEOWING really loud!).

10. Escalator is one of many words that were originally trademarks but have become ordinary words found in dictionaries. Some other words which were originally trademarks and have now passed into common use are aspirin, autoharp, band-aids, breathalyzer, cellophane, Coke (in some areas, at least), corn flakes, cube steak, ditto, dry ice, dumpster, formica, Frisbee, granola, gunk, jeep, kerosene, Kleenex, mace, nylon, ping-pong (also an onomatopoeia), popsicle, Q-tip, rollerblade, rolodex, Scotch tape, sheetrock, spandex, styrofoam, tabloid, thermos, trampoline, yo-yo, xerox, and zipper.(I bet there are even more now that we have technology..like IPOD being a common name, etc.)