Henry Ford and George Washington Carver (!) once collaborated to build a plastic car made from soy.

Ok, only the body panels were soy plastic, but still. The everyday mechanical-chemical innovation of that part of history has been almost entirely replaced in our national mythos by software innovation. Kids don't seem to tinker as much as they used to.

Story from The First.

A UK writer catalogued chicken restaurants in the UK named after US states: "And after excluding Kentucky (for obvious reasons), I found 13 Tennessees, 6 Kansas, 4 Californias, 2 Floridas, and 1 each of a few others."

Story from The Gist.