#ThrowbackThursday – 24 August
Ever wanted to know how the potato chip came to be? Or how many people tuned in to watch the 2008 Beijing Olympics? Or maybe you wondered if Zsa Zsa Gabor ever settled down after being unlucky in love?
Check out these three events that went down in history on 24 August to find out!
1853 – A Speck (or Crum) of Potato Chips
The creation of the humble potato chip – which was said to have taken place on this day nearly 200 years ago – has been widely debated, disputed and debunked over the years, although the story is nonetheless entertaining:
George Speck of Saratoga County in upstate New York was a 29-year-old chef who worked at Cary Moon’s Lake House, a high-end restaurant that catered to the wealthy Manhattan elite. Among the frequent patrons was one Cornelius Vanderbilt, a business magnate who, after forgetting Speck’s name, developed a habit of calling the latter “Crum” instead.
On 24 August 1853, Vanderbilt happened to be dining at the Lake House. Dissatisfied with the thickness of his French fries, he sent his dish back to the kitchen and demanded that they be sliced more thinly. This angered Speck, who took out his frustrations on some hapless potatoes by cutting them to extremely paper-thin slices, oversalting them and frying them to crispy perfection. He sent these out to Vanderbilt, hoping that it would serve the latter right for complaining about his culinary skills.
In a twist of fate, Speck did serve him right: sampling the slices, Vanderbilt found that he actually enjoyed it!
Thus, the legend of the “potato chip” grew, with many people apparently flocking to the Lake House to taste “Crum’s” creation. Speck went on to establish several other eateries which featured potato chips on their menus.
Although potato chips as we know them are merely a convenience snack nowadays, its very origins are still a hot topic. Many historians and biographers don’t believe that Speck had anything to do with their creation, claiming that recipes for the chips existed long before its birth on 24 August 1853. Some also dispute that Vanderbilt, although a regular patron at the Lake House, was the disgruntled customer (if there was one) who griped about his fries and got chips in return.
Others go as far as to claim that it was actually Speck’s sister, Catherine Wicks, a fellow cook who invented these chips. Various stories about Wicks’ role in its creation include her slicing up potatoes in retaliation for a customer complaint, or accidentally dropping a potato slice in a pot of boiling fat.
Regardless of its shaky yet delightfully delicious background, potato chips have become a much-loved, much-savoured snack all around the world!
1976 – Husbands: (Un)Collect Them All!
“Men have always liked me and I have always liked men.”
These are the words of Zsa Zsa Gabor, a Hungarian-American actress/socialite who certainly loved men … but not enough to stay married to them.
Between 1935 and 1967 (a span of 32 years), Gabor had been married and then divorced five times. In January 1975, she married Mr Right #6: Jack Ryan, a toy designer and inventor who worked at Mattel, the company behind the creation of Barbie and Hot Wheels. Ryan himself was a one-time divorcee.
But, like a toddler who grows tired of her toys, Gabor discarded Ryan over a year later: the 59-year-old officially divorced 50-year-old Ryan on 24 August 1976. She went on to marry three more times, with the ninth marriage to Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt being her last. They remained married until her death in 2016 when she was 99.
As for Ryan, he, too, embarked on three more marriages, with the fifth one lasting until his death in 1991.
2008 – One World, Lots of Views
The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China was less of a sporting event and more of a grand spectacle of note, in particular its opening and closing ceremonies.
It was the first time that a Chinese city would host the prestigious Olympics (and a third time for an East Asian city to host it, after Tokyo, Japan in 1964 and Seoul, Korea in 1988). Naturally, the government went all out in promoting the event under the hopeful banner, “One World, One Dream”.
This included investing money in Beijing’s local infrastructure, housing, historical sites, transport system and telecommunications technology, and – of course – its sporting facilities and venues, where over 10 000 athletes from around the world would converge and compete for Olympic glory.
By the time the Olympics ended on 24 August, Nielsen Media Research reported that nearly five billion viewers around the world tuned in to watch the Olympics – the largest global TV audience up to that point!
“Between August 8 and August 24, 4.7 billion viewers – or 70% of the world’s population – tuned in to watch the Games,” Nielsen reported one month later. “In comparison, 3.9 billion watched the 2004 Athens Games, while 3.6 billion followed the 2000 Sydney Games on TV.
“Host nation China led the viewing with 94% of Chinese viewers tuning in to the Olympics TV coverage. South Korea, though a much less populous nation, also recorded 94% audience reach. Mexico followed closely with 93% of all viewers in that country following the Olympics on TV.”
Wow! Quite a viewership of Olympic proportions, wouldn’t you say?
