Strange But True
1 . For 20 years, a cat served as mayor of an Alaskan town.
It sounds funny but it actually did happen . Talkeetna is a town in America’s biggest state of Alaska .The town had a population of less than 1000 . A cat named Stubbs was mayor of this town from 12 th April 1997 to 21st July 2017 .
As the story goes Lauri Stec was the manager of a general store in the town . In 1997 she found a box in her parking area . The box contained kittens . The owner said she could take any of the kittens she liked. Stec found a kitten named Stubbs without a tail . This little kitten attracted her most and she chose Stubbs.
There was a write- in campaign in the town to elect a mayor . Many people in the town were opposed to human candidates . In this campaign Stec’s store was the venue of the election office . Stubbs was elected as mayor of Talkteen town . In 2014 senate election for Alaska people were opposed to both Democratic and Republican candidates . As a protest people were asked to write Stubbs on the ballot paper .He was very popular . Every afternoon he used to visit a nearby restaurant and drank water laced with catnip out of a wine glass .
His position was honorary . Although lacked legislative and rhetorical powers Stubbs always fared well in polls . In 2013 he was attacked by a neighbor dog and was hospitalised . He recovered and resumed his mayoral responsibilities . Although he loved the attention as a kitten and younger cat , Stubbs’ life in the public eyes eventually began to wear on him .
Stubbs featured in some interviews and TV shows also . But his owner said Stubbs was never comfortable with cameras or people around him .
In 2015 he was growing older but he served as Mayor of the city till his death in July 2017 . After Stubbs' death, the owner of Stubbs and many other people suggested another family cat Denali to be elected as mayor .
2 . Cotton Candy Was Invented by A Dentist
Your doctor must have told you to keep off sugar if you want to save your teeth . Then today’s wonder of the day might surprise you . Children’s favorite sweet sugary treat “ Cotton candy “ was invented by a dentist .
In 1897 , Dentist William Morrison, a dentist from Nashville , Tennessee U.S.A made the first cotton candy machine with the help of John Wharton , who used to make confectionaries . The machine reduced much of the manual labor that was used in earlier Spun Sugar machines . But the sugary Cotton candy is not as bad for teeth as we might think . Though it has sugar but actually it is mostly made of air . As such this candy contains less sweet than any other traditional sweet .
They made a machine which melted sugar in a central chamber . Then they used air to force molten sugar through a wire screen to a surrounding metal bowl to produce the gauzy , spider webby favorite Cotton candy , as we know it today . They called their first cotton candy ‘ Fairy Floss ‘ . The machine was first displayed at the world fair at St. Louis in America in 1904 . They sold the new confection in boxes for just 25 cents each . Morrison and Wharton sold 65,655 boxes . Their product and the machine was well received .
