Teens of Bay Area

Did you know that…

1. Shockingly, humans share about 60% of our DNA with bananas. This overlap is a testament to years of evolution, tracing back to a single-celled microorganism (which lived over 3 billion years ago) known as the Last Universal Common Ancestor. 
2. Ketchup wasn’t always just a condiment — it was once considered a medical cure for all. In the 1830s, doctors prescribed ketchup as medicine, claiming that it could treat indigestion, diarrhea, and jaundice. Although the medication prescribed then isn’t the ketchup we know of today, it is a recreation of a Chinese fish sauce made from fermented fish and salt. 
3. Don’t let the name fool you: even though the name German chocolate cake has the word German in it, the cake did not originate from Germany. Instead, it originated from Dallas, Texas, and is named after Samuel German, an American baker who developed a special type of baking chocolate used in the original recipe. 
4. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia means the fear of long words. This phrase was first used as “sesquipedalia verba,” a foot and a half long, by Roman poet Horace in the first century BCE to criticize writers obsessed with using unnecessarily long words in their work. However, it wasn’t until the 2000s that American poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil popularized the modern term. 
5. The Anglo-Zanzibar War, considered the shortest war in history, lasted only 38 minutes. This war was fought on August 27, 1896, between the British Empire and the Sultanate of Zanzibar, due to British demands to remove the newly appointed sultan who had taken power without their approval. When he refused to step down, British forces bombarded the palace — and within 38 minutes, the war was over.