Back in 1955, Founder Charlie Loudermilk and a partner borrowed $500 to purchase 300 chairs that they rented out for 10 cents a day. They chose the name "Aaron" for their business because it appears at the beginning of the phone book!

Alice (56) and Helen (85) Walton share the title of richest woman in America. As daughter and wife of Sam Walton, respectively, they have an estimated net worth of $18 billion each.

Another tidbit about Wal-Mart -- Their sales in one day was larger than the GDP of 36 countries!

At one point, 9% of Americans were on the Atkins diet.

Home Depot had $73.1 billion in 2004 revenue and employs over 325,000 people. Over 22 million people visit a Home Depot in any given week.

More than 1 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure this year -- so that's at least 125,000 renters evicted...

Indian-Americans are even more dominant in budget properties, owning about 60% of these hotels/motels.

There are only four MBAs in the top 50.

Low-fare carrier AirTran charges companies as much as $50,000 a month to advertise on napkins.

More than 1.5 million personal bankruptcies were filed this year (Illness and medical bills accounted for half of these). A sidenote -- more families with children will file for bankruptcy than divorce.

That's about 100 pieces of mail to every person in America!

If the USPS was a private company, it would be the tenth largest in America, with 234,033 mail carriers delivering mail each day.

Over the past four years, stocks that the Street has been telling you to sell have risen 19% per year on average. Meanwhile, the "buys" and "holds" have risen just 7%.

The average fee for merchants accepting AMEX is $2.50 per $100 charged, while it is only $2.00 per $100 charged for Visa or MasterCard.

There are 7.73 million small and medium-sized business, of which the majority (76%) have fewer than 10 employees!

However, only 3% of female-owned businesses generate revenue of over 1 million dollars.

Some 114 million carats of diamonds are produced every year and, with new mines coming onstream and others being expanded, that should rise to about 120 million in 2005. And 80% of the diamonds dug out of the ground end up being used in industry.

The reason they seem scarce is that up until recently, De Beers controlled 80% of the world's supply. Catch-phrases such as “Diamonds are Forever” and adverts insisting men spend two months’ salary on a ring for their fiancée created the myth that diamonds are a scarce, valuable resource.

With this deal, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple and CEO of Pixar, will also become the largest shareholder of Disney (at 6.6% of shares outstanding)!

The sound on NBC when they hit the peacock feathers (dum-dum-dum) is the sound of the musical notes G-E-C. General Electric Corporation (GEC) owns NBC.

Defined-benefit pensions are a guaranteed source of income, an assurance that no matter how long you live you will continue to collect a check. Social Security provides inflation-adjusted payments for life.

Similarly, over the past ten years, small businesses have created between 60 and 80 percent of new jobs in the country.

The 280,000 financial sector workers collect more than half of all the wages paid in Manhattan, although they hold less than 1 in 6 of Manhattan jobs.

The same source provided a breakout of food service (eat-in vs. drive thru, etc.) in a fact from last May.

According to a 2004 survey on cause marketing done by Boston brand-strategy firm Cone, 91% of 1,033 consumers say they have a more positive image of a company or product when it supports a cause and 90% will actually consider switching if it's aligned with a cause.

Assuming a 40-hour workweek, this is the equivalent of almost $340,000 an hour.

According to an old fact, 1 out of 128 Americans is a millionaire.

Income groups with the highest percentage of audits were taxpayers who reported income less than $25,000 (1.5% were audited) and between $100,000 and $200,000 (1.4% were audited).

The company invented cellular technology and marketing the first commercial handheld cell phone in 1983, the DynaTac (aka "the Zack Morris phone").

Take a look at PepsiCo's full list of brands.

Consumers also plan to spend an average of $87 each on gifts for themselves.

Tesco claims 12.3% of the total retail market in the UK. It has been on a rampage since 1995, when it overtook Sainsbury to become the UK's largest supermarket. Tesco was founded in 1924.

Worldwide, QVC received 192 million phone calls last year.

It's now a $4 billion/year industry (11 billion transactions/year) -- just from those pesky $1.50 charges at ATMs, etc.

A sidenote: a new Walgreens store opens every 19 hours -- and there are 4,798 so far.

The store chain employs 1.6 million associates in over 5,100 stores. Each week, more than 138 million customers visit a Wal-Mart around the world.

Just visit annualcreditreport.com or call 1-877-322-8228.

• the largest toy distributor in the world
• the largest owner of playgrounds in the world
• the #1 owner of property in the world

I'm lovin' it.

Then, within CBS Enterprises, Viacom owns King World Media which distributes Oprah, Dr.Phil, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy, among others...

On top of that, Viacom Outdoor is the largest outdoor advertising company in North America, with all those billboards along streets and highways. Not to mention Paramount Pictures, which has 2,500 titles including Titanic, Forrest Gump, Napoleon Dynamite, etc.

Of that, the male grooming side makes up only $16 billion. Maybe this means that women spend almost 8 times as much on their looks as men.

This is all according to Procter & Gamble's CEO A.G. Lafley, who also mentions that P&G has 16 "billion-dollar" brands, that each bring in more than $1 billion in revenue, including Tide, Olay, Crest, Charmin, Pampers, etc.

Evidently, humans want to keep track of more than 1,000,000,000,000 items, (the number allowed by the 12 digits of the UPC code today), so the European Article Numbering association (EAN) has come up with a 14 digit solution that allows for the unique identification of 100 trillion different items, (plus a check digit to make sure it read the number right)

Reminds me of the April fact that we're also running out of IP addresses for computers.

That's luxury leather, champagne, cognac, watches, fragrances, and clothing all in one company.

Wal-Mart posts $412 of per-square-foot sales.

Too bad Cingular(#1 in US) stayed up later that night (2:00am) and bid $41B for AT&T Wireless, winning it. They are now completing the physical merger.

So then Sprint (#3 in US) thought of buying Nextel (#5 in US) for $30B. Too bad Vodafone & Verizon (#2 in US) are thinking of snatching Sprint up for $40B.

No wait, just this morning at 7:00am, Sprint and Nextel announced their $35B merger, forming the #3 player in the market.

Wild.

In-video-game advertising was a $21 million industry in 2004.

In 1972, the National Academy for Television Arts and Sciences gave Sony an Emmy for the development of Trinitron Television technology.

This was the 1st emmy given for a product. Sony went on to win 2 more Emmys.

Long company names are out of style.

Tokyo Shibaura Electric Company -> Toshiba
Nippon Electric Company -> NEC
Kyoto Ceramics -> Kyocera
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company -> 3M

MCI stands for Microwave Communications Inc.

The average US 4-lane highway costs $30 million/mile.

The US has approximately 4 million miles of roads.

The Olsen twins are expected to become billionaires before they are 21.

Oprah is a billionaire.

In 2003, there were 476 billionaires, according to Forbes.

Harris Teeter sells Gillette Mach 3 razor blades for $18 for a pack of 8 replacement blades.

Shick has a rubberized disposable razors with mach3-like blades and a nice rubberized handle. These sell for $8 for a pack of 10.

The newly appointed CEO of Dell, Kevin Rollins, was a Bain consultant for 12 years before joining Dell in 1993.

Dell has $41 Billion in yearly revenues - 30% of the US PC market - and operates with only three days of inventory.

GM is one of only 3 companies to top the Fortune 500 in past 50 years.