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Ø   High heels were a French fad in the mid 1600s, but only men wore them.

Ø   Decorated Christmas trees were a firmly established German custom by the 1600s - a custom which German immigrants brought with them to the U.S.

Ø   American inventor Walter Hunt patented a design that served as the basis for today's safety pin. Believe it or not, the safety pin is considered one of the world's most important inventions!

Ø   The French introduced wallpaper in the early 1500s as a substitute for tapestries.  (Tapestries are embroidered full-length wall coverings.)

Ø   In 1939, advertising copywriter Robert May created Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  May tried the names Rollo and Reginald, but his four-year-old daughter liked Rudolph.

Ø   Between 1860 and 1890, more than 10 million Scandinavian, Polish Jewish, Hungarian, Czechoslovakian, and Italian immigrants came to the U.S.

Ø   Only the United States and Canada celebrate Thanksgiving.  The first Thanksgiving participants ate venison (deer meat), duck, goose, seafood, eels, white bread and corn bread, and a variety of greens. 
They had wild plums and dried berries for dessert.

Ø   At the first Thanksgiving, Native Americans brought "puffed corn" (popcorn) which the colonists put in their soup!  Nutritionists today actually consider popcorn a good snack (probably not with extra butter, though).

Ø   Many word experts trace the word 'gadget' to Monsieur Gaget, a partner in the firm which built the Statue of Liberty.  Gaget sold miniature statues as souvenirs, and people began calling them gadgets. 
When the word moved to the U.S., it was mispronounced and began to mean a small object.

Ø   On November 20, 1923 the African-American inventor Garrett Morgan received a patent for his traffic light.

Ø   In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Finnish-American children living in rural areas in the northern Midwestern states usually skied to school.

Ø   In the late 1700s, African-American mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker helped design Washington, D.C.