Here - Don Wyld

April 2009 Your Newspaper Page 13The History of PopcornHow many places of entertainment can you think of wherepopcorn is sold and eaten? ...At the Movies? - yes, but didyou know that it didn’t happen during the upstart years oftheaters for some owners thought that the street popcornvendor was a distraction to movie goers... At baseballgames? - of course, who can forget the infamous verse of“buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack” from the 1908song Take Me Out to the Ball Game... Needless to say,one could and still can purchase popcorn at many placesincluding circuses, fairs and more!In its early days, popcorn was sold in cities and towns allacross America by street vendors. Many of these vendorswere young men and boys who could make a pretty goodliving selling popcorn both popped (by the bag or shapedinto balls or bricks) and unpopped. At a nickel a bag or 1¢per popcorn ball, the profit in selling popcorn by an 1890sstreet vendor was said to be 70¢ on the dollar.People of all ages ate popcorn and implemented its usein holiday decorations as well. For the home cooking adventuristthere were recipes for making popcorn balls,candied popcorn, popcorn garnish for soup, “Pop-Corn”cakes, popcorn pudding, popcorn fritters, popcorn cereal,Cracker Jacks, chocolate covered popcorn and even popcornbrittle. Whew!Popcorn Trivia• Sears, Roebuck & Co. sold home corn poppers for 8¢each and 25lbs. of popping corn still on the cob at 5¢.• Popcorn balls were among the most popular confectionsin the late 1800s & early 1900s.• During the holiday season popcorn made for wonderfuldecorations from Christmas tree garlands to fireplacemantel ornaments in Victorian homes. It also made forinexpensive gifts.• Some of the popcorn flavorings used during the mid1800s - 1920: orange & lemon juice, rose, peppermint,honey, vanilla, molasses and sugar.• One could host a “Popcorn Frolic” with the helpful hintsfrom a 1912 party book. The party room would be decoratedin a happy pink and white popcorn theme. Popcornwas not only eaten, but was used for party favors and inthe games played - “corn-drop”, “popcorn races”, “popcornhunt” and so on.• An old 19th century method of cooking popcorn: Pourkernels of corn into a kettle full of lard. When the cornpopped after heating it was skimmed off the top as it surfaced!• The first cookbook to mention popcorn was in 1846.• One of the largest popcorn balls ever made was 12 feetin diameter in 1996. It used 2000 pounds of popcorn toconstruct!Early Popping Machines • C. Cretors & Co.Please take notice of the 1907 “Combination Peanut & Popcorn” machineillustration above. C. Cretors & Company is one of the oldest manufacturersof popcorn popping machinery dating back to the mid 1880s. Thiscompany & its workers were corn popping innovators at the turn of the20th century with new ideas of selling and making popcorn machinery.Steam powered vending carts to horse drawn wagons mounted with peanutroasters and corn poppers were their main line. In 1907 electric poweredcorn poppers made their catalogue debut. For $240 one could purchase afree standing steam powered combination peanut & corn popper model onwheels in 1913. After surpassing their 100 year anniversary, you can stillsee the Cretors name at your favorite entertainment places.The biggest explosion everrecorded in the history ofAstronomy has just beendetected in deep space(2009) and specific in theconstellation of Carina.Why do we see these explosionsand can they harmus on Earth?Explosions are not newphenomena and though humansalmost always associateexplosions with disasterand destruction this mightnot always be the case inspace. In fact, the biggestexplosion ever, termed TheBig Bang happened around15 000 million years ago.ExplosionsIf it was not for that explosionyou would not bereading here.Smaller explosionshave been shapingthe Universe into the formit is today.Volcanic eruptions happenon a monthly basis acrossthe globe as the hot meltedinside releases itself, whilespurting gas into the atmosphere.Further out we seethe pattern repeating itselfon the other planets such asVenus but especially on theJupiter moon Io. Io reformsitself every few years aslava spurts out in volcaniceruptions across the entiresurface of the moon.The next explosion phenomenacomes from theSun. This nuclear furnace,the provider of light andenergy for us on Earth isa violent star. Its violentinside releases the hydrogenburning into forminghelium. Once the energyreaches the surface it is releasedin the form of lightand heat. Intense magneticfields can also be seen andis called sunspots. Prominencesor loops of gas columnsas a result of materialbeing lifted away from theSun at speeds of up to 1000kilometers per second arealso studied in detail. LastlySolar Flares that arisewithin sunspot groups areexplosions that can influenceauroral displays, communicationon Earth butmost of all the temperaturein them can reach millionsof degrees.Then as we head into deepspace we find Supernovasor the death of stars wherethe massive explosionbrings about the end of astars life. These explosionsare so violent that they canbe seen from deep space astheir brilliance can reach apoint where they are visiblein broad daylight. Iwrote a series of articles onthe most famous of themsuch as that of 1054 and asrecent as in 1987 known asSupernova 87.There are more deep spaceexplosions but now wehave detected a massiveexplosion in space whichseem as to be the biggestgamma-ray burst ever detected.The spectacularblast occurred in Septemberin the Carina constellation.To explain the awesomeenergy released is noteasy. The huge gamma-rayburst occurred around 12.2billion light years away.Taking into account thehuge distance from earth ofthe burst, scientists workedout that the blast was strongerthan 9,000 supernovaeand that the gas jetsemitting the initial gammarays moved at nearly thespeed of light which is 300000 kilometers per second.The tremendous power andspeed make it the mostextreme recorded to date.Gamma-ray bursts arethe most luminous explosions,which astronomersbelieve occur when massivestars run out of nuclearfuel and collapse.While these explosions areviolent they do not hold anydanger in for life on Earth.Even the amount of radiationfrom the explosions onthe Sun is all filtered by theatmosphere. That way wewill be safe until we destroythe layers inside theatmosphere, needed for ourprotection.This Month In HistorY....... APRIL ......April 2, 1805 -Birthday - Fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen(1805-1875) was born in Odense, Denmark. He created168 fairy tales for children including the classics The Princessand the Pea, The Snow Queen and The Nightingale.April 4, 1968 - Civil Rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Kingwas shot and killed by a sniper in Memphis, Tennessee. He isbest remembered for his I Have a Dream speech delivered atthe 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington. That march andKing’s other efforts helped the passage of the Civil Rights Actof 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1986, Congressestablished the third Monday in January as a national holidayin his honor.April 11, 1970 - Apollo 13 was launched from Cape Kennedyat 2:13 p.m. Fifty six hours into the flight an oxygen tank explodedin the service module. Astronaut John L. Swigert saw awarning light that accompanied the bang and said, “Houston,we’ve had a problem here.” (.wav 125K) Swigert, James A.Lovell and Fred W. Haise then transferred into the lunar module,using it as a “lifeboat” and began a perilous return trip toEarth, splashing down safely on April 17.April 15, 1912 - In the icy waters off Newfoundland, the luxuryliner Titanic with 2,224 persons on board sank at 2:27 a.m. afterstriking an iceberg just before midnight. Over 1,500 personsdrowned while 700 were rescued by the liner Carpathia whicharrived about two hours after Titanic went down.April 19, 1995 - At 9:02 a.m., a massive car-bomb explosiondestroyed the entire side of a nine story federal building inOklahoma City, killing 168 persons, including 19 children insidea day care center. A decorated Gulf War veteran was laterconvicted for the attack.April 23, 1564 Birthday - William Shakespeare (1564-1616)was born at Stratford-on-Avon in England. Renowned as themost influential writer in the English language, he created 36plays and 154 sonnets, including Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet andThe Merchant of Venice.