Strange But True: Lay-Z-Boy

By Lucie Winborne

• During World War II, the Lay-Z-Boy company had to stop producing recliners because of the war effort. Instead, they used their production facility to mass produce (we hope much more comfortable) seats for tanks and other military vehicles.

• Champagne was originally a holy wine.

• The only people guaranteed to get Super Bowl rings, regardless of a game's outcome, are the referees, though their rings aren't nearly as large or valuable as that of the players.

• In the 1880s, a railroad signalman named James Edwin Wide taught a South African baboon to perform his job by recognizing the whistles that indicated a train was about to change tracks. Dubbed "Signalman Jack," the animal performed his duties so well that not only was he formally hired at a salary of 20 cents per day and half a bottle of beer per week, he carried on for nine years until his death from tuberculosis in 1890.

• Trees were not around for 90% of Earth's history.

• Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury's overbite resulted from four extra teeth in his upper jaw. He refused to have them removed, however, for fear the surgery would affect his voice and vocal range.

• In the 2015 film "Jurassic World," Chris Pratt's character carries a stainless Marlin 1895 -the only firearm on Marlin's website that's rated for a T-Rex.

• Two churches in Vrontados, Greece, have a particularly unconventional way of marking the Easter holiday: They fire rockets at each other! While they used to use cannons, those were outlawed. The tradition has been carried out for at least four centuries.

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Thought for the Day: "The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too." --Vincent Van Gogh

(c) 2023 King Features Synd., Inc.