1.  eBay originally launched in 1995 as a site called AuctionWeb.  “eBay” was short for Echo Bay Technology Group.

eBay was the parent company of four sites:  AuctionWeb . . . a travel site . . . a personal shipper site . . . and a site about the Ebola virus.  The others didn’t get any traction, and the media kept referring to AuctionWeb as eBay . . . so the company made the name change official in 1997.

2.  The submarine was invented during the Civil War by an engineer for the Confederacy named Horace Hunley.  And he died in 1863 when he was testing one and it SANK.

3.  The “defrost” setting on your microwave doesn’t use a different wattage or type of energy.  It just alternates between 100% power and 0% power.

4.  Long Island, New York is legally considered a peninsula, not an island.

5.  The color mauve was discovered by accident.  A chemist saw a purplish-magenta color when he was trying to make a medicine to treat malaria in 1856, and realized it would be a great dye.