One of the most popular shows of all time, and easily the most popular animated show is The Simpsons. From its first appearance on The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987, The Simpsons has entertained millions. But, here are 7 Things You Don’t Know About: The Simpsons.

1. The Simpsons debuted as an animated short production on the Fox television series The Tracey Ullman show. After its success as its own series, Tracey Ullman sued Fox saying that a large part of The Simpsons success was due to her show and she deserved some of the profits. The suit was dismissed by the courts.

2. Famous singer Tony Bennett was the first guest star to appear on The Simpsons as himself.

3. In the December issue of Time Magazine, The Simpsons was named the 20th century’s best television program.

4. The initial drawings of The Simpsons characters were issued by creator Matt Groening as sketches that he assumed would be “cleaned up” in production. Animators assumed this was the desired style and this is the reason for the characters’ even more crude appearance in the initial short episodes.

5. Homer Simpson’s famous “D’oh” has since been added to most dictionaries.

6. The first celebrity to both guest star and write an episode of The Simpsons was English comedian and actor Ricky Gervais.

7. Famous late night talk show host Conan O’Brien was a writer for The Simpsons during its early years.

The Simpsons have built up a huge following over their more than 20 years on television, and nothing appears to be slowing them down anytime soon.

General Motors

The General Motors company is one of the largest companies in the world, with so many people interacting with it on a daily basis, almost everything is known about it. But, here are 7 Things You Don’t Know About: General Motors.

1. General Motors was the leader in global industry sales for 77 years through 2007.

2. General Motors cars are manufactured in 35 different countries.

3. General Motors is the best selling automobile manufacturer in China.

4. There are only four companies worldwide that are larger than General Motors: Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP.

5. General Motors was one of the subjects of filmmaker Michael Moore’s first film titled “Roger & Me”.

6. The General Motors EV1 was GM’s first all electric vehicle. It was only available via a three year lease and there was no option to extend the lease or buy the car outright. In addition to that, the car was only available in Arizona and California.

7. The General Motors lead engineer and primary developer of the car that kicked off the “muscle car” movement, the Pontiac GTO was John Z. DeLorean who would later leave GM and form his own car company, DeLorean.

Between the incredible size of the company and the large amount of car models and brands that they own, General Motors isn’t going away anytime soon when it comes to being one of the top auto makers in the world.

John Elway is the legendary quarterback of the Denver Broncos that led them to two Super Bowl victories just before retiring and then later entering the Professional Football Hall of Fame. He is one of the most popular players in Denver Broncos history, but here are 7 Things You Don’t Know About: John Elway.

1. John Elway’s last game of college football is famous for a reason completely unrelated to him. His last game was the now famous Cal-Stanford game in which the Cal Bears returned the final kickoff of the game, with the help of five laterals, for the winning touchdown.

2. John and Janet Elway have four children and their names also start with the letter “J”. Their names are Jessica, Jordan and Juliana, and Jack.

3. In his one season of minor league baseball in 1982, John Elway batted .318 and led the team in RBI.

4. At the age of 38, John Elway became the oldest player to score a touchdown in a Super Bowl.

5. There are two number sevens that have been inducted into the Denver Broncos Ring of Fame, John Elway and also the quarterback that preceded him, Craig Morton.

6. During his son’s senior year of high school, John Elway served as his and his team’s quarterback coach.

7. John Elway was the number one overall pick in the 1983 NFL Draft by the Baltimore Colts who later famously traded him to the Broncos after he threatened not to play for them. The players he was traded for were Quarterback Mark Herrmann, Offensive Lineman Chris Hinton, and a first round draft pick that ended up being Offensive Lineman Ron Solt.

John Elway will go down in history as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. He will be remembered fondly, and not just in Denver, as football fans in many cities took a liking to him based on his hard nosed play and successful results.

Chrysler has made a name for itself over the years as a classy and reliable car maker. From riding high to almost going bankrupt and then back again, Chrysler’s history is very interesting to say the least, but here are 7 Things You Don’t Know About: Chrysler.

1. The original name of the Chrysler Corporation was the Maxwell Motor Company before it was reorganized in 1925.

2. In 1960 Chrysler became the first of the big three automakers (GM, Ford, Chrysler) to use unibody construction, which is now standard, on a large majority of the cars they produced.

3. The Ford Mustang is by far the most famous car classified as a “pony car”, but because it was released almost two weeks earlier, the Chrysler manufactured Plymouth Barracuda was the first car ever classified as a “pony car”.

4. The famous Chrysler star logo (officially called the Pentastar) began appearing on Chrysler vehicles in 1963.

5. Chrysler was one of the companies that pulled it advertisements from the Ellen sitcom starring Ellen DeGeneres due to its overtly gay status, this led to boycotts from gay organizations.

6. One of the people involved with the design of the original Ford Mustang was future Chrysler president and CEO Lee Iacocca.

7. In the 1930s Chrysler created the automobile industry’s first wind tunnel to help develop more aerodnamic vehicles.

Chrysler’s varied history has lead them through many tough times and back again, but the name Chrysler will always be a part of the car making industry.

Ted Kennedy has been a longtime United States Senator from the state of Massachusetts for a great many years. He has been a champion of those in need, whether those without health care or those being treated unequal to others. With his recent diagnosis of having a brain tumor, lets take a look at 7 Things You Didn’t Know About: Ted Kennedy.

1. Senator Kennedy has written a children’s book titled “My Senator and Me: A Dog’s Eye View Of Washington, D.C.”.

2. Ted Kennedy ran for President in 1980 against a sitting President from his own party.

3. Ted Kennedy was initially expelled from Harvard for cheating, he then enlisted in the United State Army and would eventually re-enter Harvard, graduating in 1956.

4. Ted Kennedy was the sole survivor of a small plane crash in 1964 that left him with three crushed vertebrae.

5. In 2004, Senator Kennedy was stopped numerous times while trying to fly from Boston to Washington D.C. for questioning because his name was similar to that of a name that was on the Homeland Security list of names that needed additional screening.

6. In the 1955 Harvard vs. Yale football game which was won by Yale with a score of 21-7, Ted Kennedy caught the only Harvard touchdown pass.

7. Many TV and big screen movies have been made about the Kennedy family, Ted Kennedy has been portrayed on screen by Kevin Hare, Dylan Price, Craig T. Nelson, Jared Cook, Fraser McGregor, Patrick Labyorteaux, Matt Letscher, Jacob Richmond, Matthew Dundas, and Kevin Conroy among others.

No matter what the result of his illness, Ted Kennedy will go down as one of the most effective politicians of his era.

Monday Night Football is an institution in America. Some of the biggest professional football games and moments have happened on this, the NFL’s biggest regular season stage. But, here are 7 Things You Don’t Know About: Monday Night Football.

1. The first Monday Night Football game happened in 1970 and had the Cleveland Browns defeating the New York Jets.

2. There has only been one tie game in Monday Night Football history, it happened in 1984 and was between the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Giants.

3. The fewest points ever scored in a Monday Night Football game in history happened in 2007 when the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Miami Dolphins by a score of 3-0.

4. The team holding the record for the most shutouts in Monday Night Football history is the Seattle Seahawks who have shutout their opponents five times.

5. The news that John Lennon had been murdered was broken to the nation by Monday Night Football announcer Howard Cosell during a football game in 1980.

6. The first female broadcaster to join the Monday Night Football broadcast team was Lesley Visser who became a sideline reporter in 1998.

7. The first sponsor that Monday Night Football had was Marlboro Cigarettes.

Monday Night Football has recently moved to the ESPN network after a very long run on ABC. Many people questioned the decision to put professional football on television during primetime on a weekday, but the decision really paid off and will continue to do so.

The animated television series The Family Guy is a popular show that looks at one dysfunctional family lead by the father Peter. The show has done immensely well in DVD sales and many of its episodes and sayings have become common knowledge in the general public, but here are 7 Things You Don’t Know About: The Family Guy.

1. The Family Guy was the first show to be resurrected based on its high DVD sales after it had been canceled. This actually happened twice, it was first canceled in 2000 and then again in 2002.

2. Lacey Chabert, famous for her role as Claudia in the drama Party of Five, was the original voice of Meg (first 15 episodes), but was never credited due to contractual problems.

3. During The Writers Guild of America strike of 2007-2008, Fox continued producing The Family Guy episodes without creator Seth MacFarlane’s approval of scripts or production.

4. Famous comedian Carol Burnett once sued 20th Century Fox and the producers of The Family Guy over copyright infringement for their use of her Charwoman cleaning character. The judge ruled it to be a parody which was protected under the First Amendment.

5. The character of Death has been voiced by two different actors. In Death’s first appearance he was voiced by comedian Norm McDonald, subsequent appearances have had comedian Adam Corrola doing the voice work.

6. There was a controversy involving the opening title sequence and theme song. Stewie has a line where he sings “Laugh and cry”, but many people thought he was singing “Effin’ Cry”. For a time the song was censored in the UK so that only the word “cry” was heard. During season 3 the song was rerecorded to more clearly sound like the intended words. The original recording has returned to the show since then though.

7. Seth MacFarlane not only created The Family Guy series, he also voiced many of the main characters: Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin, Brian Griffin, and Glenn Quagmire.

The Family Guy continues to entertain and offend many viewers on a weekly basis… one can only think that this is the exact intent of its creators.

One of the oldest and most storied automobile manufacturers is the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford was one of the pioneers in the auto making industry, but here are 7 Things You Don’t Know About: Ford.

1. Henry Ford was 40 years old when he started the Ford Motor Co.

2. For 90 years, Ford built cars in the United Kingdom, this ended in 2002.

3. The Ford GT40 won the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race four times during the 1960s.

4. Ford is famous for starting with the Model T car, they made their first truck in 1908.

5. Henry Ford began making tractors under the name Fordson Tractors in Leningrad, Russia in 1924.

6. Among the initial investors in the founding of the Ford Motor Company were brothers John and Horace Dodge who would later found automaker Dodge.

7. Robert McNamara attained two high positions within a month of eachother. In November of 1960 he was named President of the Ford Motor Company and a little over one month later he joined President John F. Kennedy’s cabinet as the Secretary of Defense.

Though their recent history has been up and down, Ford will surely continue to be one of the major players in the auto industry for years to come.

Guam has been a United State territory since the USA took control of it during the 1898 Spanish-American War. Guam was also the site of serious activity during World War II, but here are 7 Things You Don’t Know About: Guam.

1. Guam is the largest island in Micronesia.

2. Introduced accidentally to Guam following World War II, the Brown Tree Snake has become something of a problem. They nearly eliminated the population of a number of birds on the island and as there was no snake population in Guam before their arrival, they have no natural predators.

3. Because of Japan taking over the island during World War II, Guam is the only piece of American soil with a population in the thousands to be occupied by foreign troops except for the British in the War of 1812.

4. Though the people of Guam are American citizens, they cannot vote for President.

5. Approximately 29% of the island of Guam is controlled by American military bases.

6. Because of its location on the other side of the International Dateline, Guam’s official motto is: “Where America’s Day Begins”.

7. If you were from Guam, you would be a Guamanian

With its rich history and high concentration of military bases, though it is not a state, Guam will continue to play an important role in the United States of America.

The United States Senate makes up one half of the legislative branch of the federal government. The Senate is made up of 100 Senators with each state in the union getting two senators apiece. But, here are 7 Things You Don’t Know About: The US Senate.

1. Up until 1913, US Senators were selected by their individual state’s legislatures.

2. The US Senate convenes in the north wing of the capitol building.

3. While each state has two Senators, elections are staggered so that no state’s two Senators will be up for election in the same year.

4. In the United States Senate’s history, 15 Senators have been expelled from membership. All but one of those suspensions was due to those Senators’ states seceding from the Union at the beginning of the Civil War. No US Senator has been expelled since then.

5. Two of the qualifications for a person to be allowed to be a Senator are that they must be at least 30 years old and must have been a US citizen for the previous nine years.

6. Three Senators have been elected to office and served before reaching the mandatory age of 30; Henry Clay (1806), Armistead Mason (1816), and John Eaton (1818). This was allowed to happen because the Senate polices itself and not enough scrutiny was given during those early days of operation.

7. The longest filibuster ever was done by Senator Strom Thurmond in 1957 when he spoke for over 24 hours in an attempt to stop Civil Rights legislation.

The US Senate is half of one of the three branches of government. Many of the more prominent people in public life have been senators and holding these positions comes with a great deal of responsibility. Making sure they live up to these expectations is part of the publics job.