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5 Things You Didn't Know About Margaret Thatcher_4 On May 4, 1979, Margaret Thatcher was sworn in as the first female prime minister of Great Britain. Known to many as the Iron Lady, she was the longest-serving prime minister in the 20th century. Here are five things you didn't know about Margaret Thatcher… She Was Instrumental in Developing Soft-Serve Ice Cream Every time you get soft-serve ice cream, you can thank the Iron Lady herself. Before moving into politics, Thatcher was a food scientist who had studied chemistry. At one point, she and other scientists worked on a project to add air to ice cream, which would produce a product with fewer ingredients to save companies money. The result was a softer ice cream with the consistency of whipped topping. The product became known in the UK as Mr. Whippy. She WasThe Longest-Serving British Prime Minister of The 20th Century Thatcher was first elected as prime minister in 1979, reelected in 1983 and again in 1987. Following divisions in the party regarding the European Community and a poll tax, she resigned as both prime minister and Conservative leader in 1990. When she left office, she had served 11 years and 209 days, which was the longest a Prime Minister has served during the 20th century. The longest service by a British Prime Minister during its history was that of Sir Robert Walpole, who was in the office for 20 years, 314 days. Sir Laurence Olivier Was Partially Responsible For Her Rise to Power Months before the 1979 general election, Thatcher adviser Gordon Reece was worried that voters would find Thatcher’s natural speaking voice too shrill. By chance, he encountered Sir Laurence Olivier on a train, and the master thespian recommended his voice coach from London’s National Theater. Together, they worked to modify the timbre of her voice and lower it. As a result, the Prime Minister’s voice became 46 hertz lower in pitch, which is about halfway between female and male vocal ranges. Thatcher's new authoritative tone would serve her well in her political career. Margaret Thatcher Day is Celebrated Annually in The Falkland Islands In April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a sparsely populated British colony in the south Atlantic claimed by both countries. The result was a two-month battle that saw the UK retain control over the area. As a tribute to Thatcher, every January 10, the Falkland Islands celebrates Margaret Thatcher Day to commemorate the anniversary of her triumphant 1983 visit to the colony. She Was Once Known as “Thatcher, The Milk Snatcher" Before a Soviet newspaper dubbed her the “Iron Lady” following a strident anti-Communist speech she delivered in 1976, Thatcher was known by a less complimentary nickname. While serving as secretary of education in 1970, she ended a free milk program for schoolchildren between the ages of 7 and 11 in order to meet the Conservative government’s pledge to cut spending. Political opponents and the media labeled her “Thatcher, the Milk Snatcher,” and the Sun newspaper even called her “The Most Unpopular Woman in Britain.”

5 Things You Didn't Know About 'Gone with the Wind' On May 3, 1937, novelist Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel "Gone with the Wind." More than 30 million copies of Mitchell’s Civil War masterpiece have been sold worldwide, and it has been translated into 27 languages. Here are five interesting facts about Gone with the Wind… It's the Second-Most Popular Book of All-Time After the Bible. According to Adweek, Gone with the Wind is more popular among Americans than both the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series along with other classics like To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, and The Great Gatsby. To-date, the book has sold more than 30 million copies and interestingly enough, crosses party lines: it is the most popular book among both Republicans and Democrats. It Took 16 Writers to Turn The Book Into a Movie Writer Ben Hecht, producer Victor Selznick, and director Victor Fleming shut themselves in a room for a week to finish the script — Selznick, thinking food inhibited the creative process, limited food supplies, and on the fifth day, while eating a banana, collapsed and was revived by a doctor. On the sixth day, a blood vessel in Fleming's eye burst. Sixteen different writers—including F. Scott Fitzgerald—took part in the cutting, editing and polishing of the script. In the end, it all paid off: the film went on to win 11 Academy Awards and gross $390 million globally at the box office. The Word “Damn” Almost Didn’t Appear in the Movie One of the most famous lines in the movie was Rhett’s line “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” as he made his final exit. It took a lot of convincing for Selznick to talk the censors into allowing it by convincing them that a change to “I don’t care” would ruin the movie. One of the arguments he used was that the word meant “a vulgarism” and had no sexual connotation. There Was a Shortage of Actors for One Big Scene Roughly half of the bodies in the train yard scene were dummies. Director David Selznick wanted 2,500 extras to portray the wounded and dead Confederates pictured near the war’s end. However, there were only 1,500 extras in total who belonged to the Screen Actors Guild. Selznick made up the difference by using 1,000 dummies to portray the additional dead and wounded soldiers. The trick worked. As the camera pans out on a stumbling Scarlett, more and more bodies fill the screen — with an aerial view of soldier's arms flailing and the sounds of moaning giving way to music. Margaret Mitchell Was Fatally Struck By a Car 10 Years After The Film's Release On August 11, 1949, Mitchell was crossing the street with her husband on the way to see a film when a speeding vehicle struck her. Margaret died five days later of her injuries at the age of 48. In recent years, the daughter of the off-duty cab driver who hit Mitchell has written her own version of what happened that night, claiming her father was not drunk or driving recklessly, but the victim of a murderous cover-up. Whether it was a murderous cover-up or an accident, the sad truth remains: we lost one of America's great authors before she could write her second novel.

5 Delicious Facts You Didn't Know About Cheerios On May 2, 1941, General Mills began shipping Cheerioats, their new dry cereal, to different test markets. The breakfast cereal was later renamed Cheerios. Here are 5 delicious facts you probably didn’t know about Cheerios… They Were Originally Called CheeriOats A physicist named Lester Borchardt worked in Minnesota for General Mills in 1941 and helped invent the soon-to-be popular breakfast cereal. His team’s contribution was in developing a gun-shaped machine that caused oats to puff into an “o” shape. The original name of the cereal was Cheerioats, but a trademark infringement claim by Quaker caused General Mills to change the name to Cheerios in 1945. Mascots for Cheerios First Appeared in The 1940s Cheeri O’Leary was the name of the little girl who first appeared in the 1940s as the mascot in ads for Cheerios. During the 1950s and 1980s, television commercials featured the Cheerios Kid and a sidekick named Sue, where the Kid ate Cheerios and then went on to solve problems — similar to Popeye eating his spinach. Those two characters were revived in 2012 to explain to viewers how Cheerios could help lower cholesterol. Rocky and Bullwinkle Appeared on the Box in the 1960s Cartoon programs were used by General Mills to promote their cereals about 1959. It must have been successful because the company began making commercials using Rocky and Bullwinkle in the 1960s. On the cereal boxes appeared Hoppity Hooper, who was featured in activities for children to do on the backs of the boxes. A Fifth Grade Student Named "BuzzBee" General Mills only produced plain Cheerios for about 30 years, but began selling Cinnamon Nut Cheerios in 1976 and Honey Nut Cheerios three years later. The Honey Nut Cheerios were a big hit and a bumble bee became recognized as its mascot. For nearly 20 years, that famous bee went mostly unnoticed because he didn't have a name. In 2000, Kristine Tong, a fifth grade student from Coolidge, Texas, won a national contest to name the bee, dubbing him "BuzzBee". Honey Nut Cheerios has outsold the original flavor since 2009, and has been the #1 selling breakfast cereal in America every year since 2009. In 2016, BuzzBee was removed from the Honey Nut Cheerios boxes in protest of the decline of bees in the United States. There’s a “Cheerios Effect” A Harvard University mathematician and graduate student attending Cambridge University used the name Cheerio Effect to demonstrate three physics concepts: surface tension, the meniscus effect and buoyancy. If one Cheerio is placed in a bowl with milk, its weight makes the cereal dip a little, which forms a dent in the milk, while an additional Cheerio will do the same thing. However, if the two pieces of cereal come close to each other, they will touch as though they are attracted to each other.