Cadillac

Cadillac was founded on August 22, 1902 by Henry Leland, a master mechanic and entrepreneur, who named the company after Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the founder of the city of Detroit. His coat of arms inspired the company’s crest-style logo, which has evolved repeatedly over the decades but still echoes the original heraldic design.

Cadillac's first automobiles, the Runabout and Tonneau were two-seat horseless carriages powered by a 10 hp (7 kW) single-cylinder engine. They were practically identical to the 1903 Ford Model A.

Cadillac Model A, 1902. By Iwao from Tokyo, Japan Wikipedia Commons

Cadillac was the first volume manufacturer of a fully enclosed car in 1906. Before this milestone, most automobiles were open-body vehicles resembling horseless carriages, leaving passengers exposed to the elements. Cadillac's move to produce a fully enclosed car in volume marked a significant shift in automotive design.

Cadillac was the first American car to win the Dewar Trophy from the Royal Automobile Club of England, having successfully demonstrated the interchangeability of its component parts during a reliability test in 1908. This spawned the firm's slogan "Standard of the World."

In 1911 Cadillac introduced the electric starter and dynamo lighting.

The brand introduced a mass-produced V8 engine in 1914, delivering about 70 horsepower—roughly seven times the output of the company’s earliest 1902 cars. The move helped cement Cadillac’s reputation as an engineering trendsetter in the early automobile industry.

Before the late 1920s, driving a manual car often required double-clutching to change gears smoothly. Cadillac introduced Synchro-Mesh transmission technology in 1929, synchronizing gear speeds so drivers could shift much more easily—a system that soon spread across the industry.

The futuristic 1953 concept car Cadillac Orleans featured luxury gadgets decades ahead of their time. Among them were a household electrical outlet, a vanity kit—and a compartment in the seatback containing a men’s electric razor.

The sleek 1953 concept roadster Cadillac Le Mans featured a fiberglass body, a wrap-around windshield and a 250-horsepower V8—an output that production Cadillacs wouldn’t match for two more years.

In the late 1980s, bodies for the Cadillac Allanté were built by the Italian design house Pininfarina in Turin and then flown to Detroit in specially equipped Boeing 747 cargo jets for final assembly. The trans-Atlantic shuttle was nicknamed the “Allanté Air Bridge,” with each aircraft carrying 56 unfinished car bodies across the Atlantic.

Many automotive historians point to the 1982 launch of the Cadillac Cimarron as the decision that did the most damage to Cadillac’s prestige. The car was essentially a lightly upgraded version of the inexpensive Chevrolet Cavalier, and luxury buyers quickly recognized the badge-engineering, which severely diluted Cadillac’s reputation as a maker of distinctive premium automobiles.

By the 1990s, Cadillac had become associated mainly with older buyers. Younger drivers who wanted luxury often gravitated to sportier brands such as BMW or high-tech newcomers like Lexus.

Today’s Cadillac lineup includes SUVs such as the Cadillac Escalade and newer electric models like the Cadillac Lyriq and Cadillac Vistiq, reflecting the company’s push toward electric luxury vehicles.

The longest car ever made was a 100ft-long Cadillac with 26 wheels, a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi, a helipad and a hinged section in the middle to enable it to turn corners.

Elvis Presley famously owned a 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special painted pink. The car became so closely associated with him that it helped turn the phrase “pink Cadillac” into shorthand for American rock-and-roll excess. The original vehicle is now displayed at Graceland in Memphis.

Chuck Berry owned a warehouse full of old Cadillacs, one from every three or four model-years, all the way back to the mid-fifties. He claimed to be trying to get rid of them, but as nobody would give him a fair price, he just stored them away.

The Doors drummer John Densmore was sued by his remaining bandmates because he wouldn’t let them sell the commercial rights to their songs to Cadillac. Densmore claimed their late singer Jim Morrison would have opposed it. During a six year court battle, he was called anti-American, communist and Al Qaeda supporter.

The US president's Cadillac One (aka The Beast) is equipped with 8 inch thick bulletproof doors, an oxygen system, a night-vision camera, tear-gas bombs, a shotgun, and pints of the president’s blood type.

Cadbury

After serving an apprenticeship in Leeds, 23-year-old English Quaker John Cadbury opened a hot drinks shop in Bull Street, Birmingham. He offered tea (for which he employed a Chinese man to make) and coffee.

John Cadbury was listed in the 1828-29 Directory of Warwickshire as a tea dealer.

Cadbury soon added cocoa to his product list, powdering it himself with a mortar and pestle.The Cadburys (like other famous chocolate families, such as Fry and Rowntree) were Quakers, and the sale of cocoa and chocolate as drinks was seen as part of the fight against alcohol.

Cadbury later moved into the production of a variety of cocoa and drinking chocolates, made in a factory in Bridge Street and sold mainly to the wealthy because of the high cost of production. He became a partner with his brother Benjamin and the company they formed was called 'The Cadbury Brothers of Birmingham.

John Cadbury began a campaign against animal cruelty, forming the Animals Friend Society, a forerunner of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In 1861 John Cadbury retired and ceded control of operations to his two oldest sons, Richard and George. By 1878 the business had grown to employ 200 workers.

Cadbury's created the first heart-shaped chocolate box. Richard Cadbury, the son of John Cadbury, came up with the idea for St. Valentine’s Day, in 1861.

Such was the success of their cocoa and drinking chocolate drinks that the Cadbury brothers stopped selling tea and coffee thus freeing them to concentrate on their more popular beverages.

It was a rule of Cadbury's that women had to leave work when they got married, and wedding gifts of a bible and a carnation were given to women who left to get wed. This was on the insistence of George Cadbury who didn't want to take mothers away from their children, and who believed there were plenty of lazy husbands who would be content to send their wives out to work instead of working themselves.

Cadbury's developed the garden village of Bournville; now a major suburb of Birmingham. It had 313 houses by 1900, all built by George Cadbury for his workers on 120 acres of land he’d bought in 1893, and all featuring big gardens and modern interiors.

The family developed the Cadbury's factory in Bourneville, and the district around the factory has been 'dry' for over 100 years, with no alcohol being sold in pubs, bars or shops.

In 1905 Cadbury's introduced to the world their Dairy Milk chocolate bar.

Cadbury donated 3,500lb of chocolate to Robert Scott for his ill-fated 1912 expedition to the South Pole.

Cadbury's released the first filled eggs in 1923, but the Creme Eggs we all know today were introduced to stores only in 1963.

Cadbury's was the second largest candy and chocolate company in the world, employing 70,000 people in 50 countries until it was acquired in a hostile takeover by US giant Kraft in 2010. It is now a subsidiary of the "Mondelez International family."

Cadbury once owned a specific shade of purple – defined as Pantone 2685C - and no other company could use the specific color that appeared on Dairy Milk packaging. It wasn’t until Nestle took them to court, lost a four year court battle and then won an appeal, that other companies could use the color freely.

Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was a taster for the Cadbury chocolate company when he was a boy.

A bar of Cadburys Dairy Milk chocolate is sold every two seconds, which is enough each year, to cover every Premier League and Football League pitch five times over.

Every year in the UK, Cadbury sells more than three Creme Eggs for every person who lives there.

Source Food For Thought: Extraordinary Little Chronicles of the World by Ed Pearce 

Cactus

1749 out of 1750 species of cacti are native to only The Americas, ranging from Patagonia in the south to parts of western Canada in the north. The only exception is the Rhipsalis baccifera, which also grows in Africa and Sri Lanka. Not a single cactus grows in the Sahara.

Pixabay

The fruit is fleshy and often edible, as in the case of the prickly pear, which was used for a variety of purposes by the Aztecs.

The Indian fig cactus has long been an important source of food. Both the fruit and pads are eaten, the former often under the Spanish name tuna, the latter under the name nopal. The nopal industry in Mexico was said to be worth US$480 million as of March 2026

Cactus water is the clear liquid that is found inside of cacti. It is a good source of electrolytes and minerals, but it is also very acidic. The acidity of cactus water is caused by the presence of organic acids, such as malic acid and oxalic acid. Contrary to their portrayal in movies and TV shows, drinking cactus water is unsafe. The liquid produced by cacti is highly acidic and will cause vomiting, further dehydration, and in some cases temporary paralysis.

The former UK Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was given community service as a 16-year-old student in Munich after setting fire to rare cacti owned by Germany’s foremost collector in what he called a ‘drunken prank’.

The saguaro is the largest cactus native to the United States. It grows 10 to 52 feet tall on average, and the tallest saguaro ever recorded — an armless specimen in Cave Creek, Arizona — measured an astonishing 78 feet before it was toppled by a windstorm in 1986. Currently, the largest known living saguaro stands in Maricopa County, Arizona, measuring 45 feet 3 inches and estimated to be around 200 years old. 

West Saguaro National Park around Sombrero Mountain near Tucson, Arizona  By WCrkela 

In 1982 a man named David Grundman tried to shoot down a 125-year old Saguaro cactus. Grundman blasted most the way through and poked at one of the plants arms, but the 500lb arm then fell crushing him to death.

The saguaro cactus blossom is the official state flower of Arizona. The white flower blooms on the tips of the saguaro cactus during May and June.

Cable Car

A cable car is a vehicle that travels along a track or through the air while being pulled by a continuously moving cable. The idea sounds simple, but the story behind it is full of curious turns, heroic animals, and a few engineering firsts.

The best-known early cable-car system was built in San Francisco in 1873 by Andrew Smith Hallidie. Legend says Hallidie was inspired after seeing a loaded horse-drawn San Francisco streetcar slide backwards on a slippery, wet hill. The heavily weighted car dragged five of the horses to their deaths and the catastrophe prompted Andrew Hallidie and his partners to do something to prevent this from happening again.  Determined to spare the animals the ordeal, he devised a system where a moving underground cable hauled the cars uphill. The first successful line ran on Clay Street on August 2, 1873.

Hallidie initially didn't call them cable cars. Originally, one took a trip on ‘the endless wire rope way.’

The Clay Street Hill Railroad in its early years

Cable cars quickly became a sensation. By the late 19th century, cities from Chicago to Melbourne had adopted the technology. In fact, Chicago once had the largest cable-car network in the world, with more than 80 miles of track. It was eventually replaced by electric streetcars, which were cheaper to run.

In San Francisco, the cars are still operated in a remarkably old-fashioned way. The driver, called a “gripman,” manually grabs the underground cable with a lever known as the grip. When the grip clamps onto the cable, the car moves; when it releases, the car coasts or stops. The technique takes considerable skill, as the cable is constantly moving at about 9.5 miles per hour.

Not all cable cars run on streets. Some soar above the ground. The aerial cableway used for sightseeing or transport is often called a gondola. One of the most famous is the Roosevelt Island Tramway, which glides above the East River between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island.

Cable cars have also been used for surprisingly practical tasks. In mountainous regions they have carried everything from mail to livestock. During the early 20th century, some European cableways were even used to transport milk from remote alpine farms to valley dairies.

One curious feature of the San Francisco system is its “turntables.” Because the cars have no reverse gear, they must be physically spun around at the end of the line. Several of these wooden turntables are still pushed by hand by crews and willing passengers.

The Glacier Park Cableway on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yulong Snow Mountain) in Lijiang, Yunnan province, China, is widely regarded as the world's highest-altitude passenger cable car open to the public. It carries visitors from a base station at 3,356 metres up to a summit station at 4,506 metres above sea level, a vertical rise of 1,150 metres over a 2,980-metre-long cable run.

Despite their antique appearance, cable cars remain a serious engineering achievement. The underground cables in San Francisco run continuously through large wheels in a central powerhouse, forming loops that stretch for miles beneath the city streets. If one cable breaks, an entire line can grind to a halt.

The San Francisco cable cars were the first moving US National Historic Landmark, designated in 1964.  In 2014, New Orleans' St. Charles streetcar line was granted the same status by the Department of the Interior, becoming the second mobile National Historic Landmark.

Cable

A cable is an assembly of one or more wires or optical fibers protected by a protective sheath, designed to transmit electrical power or data signals.

While we often use the terms "wire" and "cable" interchangeably, there is a technical distinction: a wire is a single conductive strand (usually copper or aluminium), whereas a cable consists of multiple insulated wires bundled together.

USB cable

Sometimes Roman tightrope walkers stretched cables between the tops of two neighboring hills and performed comic dances and pantomimes while crossing.

American businessman and financier Cyrus West Field and his colleagues completed the first transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858. It crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Valentia Island in Ireland to Heart's Content, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

 U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurated the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. The galvanometer was the instrument used to detect the weak electrical signals that came through the transatlantic cable. It was a very sensitive instrument, and it was able to pick up the signals even though they had traveled over 2,000 miles underwater.

The message that Queen Victoria sent was: "To The President of the United States, Washington. The Queen desires to congratulate the President upon the successful completion of this great international work, in which The Queen has taken the deepest interest. The Queen is convinced that the President will join her in fervently hoping that the electric cable, which now connects great Britain with the United States, will prove an additional link between the nations, whose friendship is founded upon their common interest and reciprocal esteem. The Queen has much pleasure in thus communicating with the President, and renewing to him her wishes for the prosperity of the United States."

The message was 98 words long and took 16.5 hours to transmit. It was a historic moment, and they hoped it marked the beginning of a new era of communication between the United States and Europe.

It was a major disappointment when the first transatlantic cable failed after just a few weeks. There were a number of reasons for the cable's failure. The insulation was not strong enough, and it was damaged by the currents in the ocean. The cable was also too heavy, and it put too much strain on the ships that were laying it.

The failure of the first transatlantic cable was a setback, but it did not deter the engineers and entrepreneurs who were determined to make it a success. They learned from their mistakes, and they made improvements to the design and construction of the cable. In 1866, a new cable was laid that was much more successful. It worked for many years, and it helped to revolutionize communication between the two continents.

In an experiment requiring nothing more complicated than two buckets, a tap and some water, the Irish scientist John Tyndall in 1870 observed that a flow of water could channel sunlight. Fibre optics – tubes of glass or plastic capable of transmitting signals much more efficiently than traditional metal wire – operate under the same principles and were perfected by Charles Kao and George Hockham in 1966.

The first cable across the Pacific Ocean was spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila in 1903.

The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable went into service on September 25, 1956 with an exchange of greetings between London, Ottawa and New York. The $42 million cable consisted of two lines laid 18 and a half miles apart on the ocean floor.

Ferrets were used to lay the TV cable for use during the broadcast of the festivities of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer's wedding in the Royal parks.

A 3,000 mile long fiber-optic cable called Project Express was installed between London & New York in 2012. At a cost of $300 Million, the line was designed to shave 5.2 milliseconds from data traveling between the two cities.

Completed in November 2025, the 2Africa subsea cable system is the longest open-access undersea cable ever built, stretching approximately 45,000 km — enough to wrap around the entire Earth with around 5,000 km to spare (Earth's circumference is roughly 40,075 km). The fiber-optic cable loops around the African continent, extending north through the Mediterranean to Europe and east via the Red Sea to Asia, including India, Pakistan, and the Arabian Gulf. It connects 46 cable landing stations across 33 countries on three continents and was designed to bring improved internet capacity and reliability to over 3 billion people — around 36% of the global population.

In German, the word for when cables under the desk tangle and create a mess is "Kabelsalat"—"cable salad."

The O2 Arena in Greenwich is supported by 43 miles of high-strength cable which holds up 100,000 square meters of fabric.

Source The Independent 3/11/07

Cabinet (Politics)

The name cabinet derives from the 17th century, when monarchs wished to rule through a smaller body than the privy council. The chosen group of ministers met with the king in a more intimate room (a cabinet) and so became known as the cabinet council. Gradually this select body grew in power, especially after the Hanoverian kings gave up attending its meetings, a change which in the long term increased cabinet independence.

Francis Bacon was the first to refer to a body of secret advisers as a Cabinet council in 1605. The word cabinet was used to signify a small cabin or small room where they met in private.

George Washington convened the first U.S. Cabinet meeting in 1793 - at his home.

Calvin Coolidge was the first Vice President to attend Cabinet meetings on a regular basis, at the invitation of President Warren G. Harding. Prior to Coolidge, all Vice Presidents had been excluded from Cabinet meetings.

Royal Cabinets in England date back to the 17th century. Parliamentary cabinets arrived in 1916 with David Lloyd George’s War Cabinet, which was formed during the First World War.

On June 8, 1929, Mrs Margaret Bondfield became Britain’s first woman cabinet minister when she was appointed Minister of Labour in Ramsay Macdonald’s Labour government. Bondfield was a prominent figure in the women's suffrage movement and the British labor movement. Her appointment as Minister of Labour was a significant milestone for gender equality and women's political representation in the United Kingdom. 

Bondfield's tenure as Minister of Labour lasted until 1931, and she played a crucial role in implementing social welfare reforms and advocating for workers' rights during her time in office. 

Margaret Bondfield

Frances Perkins became in 1933 the first woman appointed to hold a U.S. Cabinet post as Secretary of Labor.

Robert Weaver became the first African American in US Presidential Cabinet when Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Madeleine Albright was sworn in as the first female United States Secretary of State on January 23, 1997, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government at that time.

Madeleine Albright at World Economic Forum. By World Economic Forum .

The US President's Cabinet is composed of: the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Interior, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Health/Human Services, the Secretary of Housing/Urban Development, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Secretary of Education.

Sources Daily Express, History World 

Cabinet (Furniture)

A cabinet is a piece of furniture fitted with doors, drawers or compartments for storing objects. The word comes from the French cabinet, meaning a small room, itself derived from cabane (hut). In the 16th and 17th centuries, a “cabinet” could refer not only to a cupboard but also to a private chamber where valuables or important papers were kept — hence the modern political term for a body of advisers meeting in private.

Wooden cabinet Pexels

Early cabinets were often lavish status symbols. During the Renaissance, wealthy Europeans displayed “cabinets of curiosities” — collections of rare shells, fossils, artworks and scientific instruments — in elaborately crafted cupboards designed as much to impress as to store. These showpieces, popular in courts such as that of Rudolf II, helped lay the foundations of the modern museum.

The Russian Czar Peter The Great was a keen craftsman and cabinet maker.

The 18th century saw cabinet-making become a highly skilled and fashionable craft. In Britain, designers such as Thomas Chippendale published pattern books that influenced furniture styles across Europe and America. Mahogany, imported from the Caribbean, became a favoured wood because of its strength and rich colour.

In the 20th century, the cabinet evolved with changing tastes. The Arts and Crafts movement favoured simplicity and visible joinery, while later modernist designers stripped cabinets down to clean lines and functional forms. Today the word encompasses everything from kitchen units to bathroom vanities and display cabinets for china.

When Pablo Picasso commissioned a local cabinet maker to build a wardrobe for him he drew a sketch with the design and dimensions and gave it to the craftsman. "How much will it cost?" he asked "nothing at all just sign the sketch." replied the cabinet maker.

Harrison Ford worked as a carpenter in Los Angeles before achieving fame as an actor, mainly doing home remodelling work. Had a reputation as one of the best cabinetmakers in the city, and his services were much in demand on Los Angeles' trendy Westside long before he became a movie star.

Medicine cabinets are one of the worst places to store medicine because of the high temperatures and humidities of bathrooms.