STRANGE BUT TRUE

• During the first Gulf War in 1991, every U.S. soldier was sent a frozen Snickers bar as a Thanksgiving treat.

• Mario Puzo, author of “The Godfather” books who also helped adapt them to film, had no formal training and had never written a screenplay before. After winning two Oscars for the first two movies, he bought a book to help himself learn how to be a screenwriter.

• Delaware and Colorado allow a marriage to be annulled if it was performed as a dare.

• At the center of every snowflake is a pollen or dust particle on which an extremely cold water droplet has frozen to form an ice crystal.

• “Passion purpura” is the medical term for a hickey.

• Saccharin, the first artificial sweetener, was discovered by accident when chemist Dr. Constantine Fahlberg forgot to wash his hands after work and tasted something “unspeakably sweet” during dinner. He interrupted the meal to sample every beaker in his lab, which fortunately contained nothing poisonous.

• The distress signal SOS does not actually stand for anything.

• “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” is a grammatically correct sentence using buffalo as a proper noun, verb and noun. To put it more simply: “Buffalo bison that other Buffalo bison bully also bully Buffalo bison.”

• Donald Trump was the first president in 168 years not to have a pet in the White House.

• It took Frank Lloyd Wright 15 years, 700 sketches and six sets of working drawings to create the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

••• Thought for the Day: “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” — Rachel Carson