1. Black pepper is not an actual “pepper.” They’re the cooked, unripe dried fruit of the “piper nigrum” vine. Green pepper is the uncooked version, and white pepper is the ripe fruit seeds. And Sichuan peppercorns are the dried berries of the prickly ash tree, which is a member of the citrus family.
But these kinds of “pepper” are the OGs. It was later, in the 16th century, when people began using pepper to also mean the New World, Capsicum chili pepper. Those include the common hot, sweet, and bell peppers.
2. The town of Ixonia in southeast Wisconsin got its name when the people there couldn’t agree on a name so they picked a bunch of letters randomly.
4. Isaac Newton was the first person to recognize that the rainbow was divided into seven distinct colors.
