Another Day To Live In Infamy

On this day in 1886 Dr. John Styth Pemberton invented a carbonated beverage that would later be named Coca-Cola.  On this infamous day, Dr. Pemberton carried a jug of his 'stuff' down the street to Jacobs' Pharmacy and asked the folks there to sample it.  They pronounced it 'excellent'.  The pharmacy started selling it for five cents a glass as a soda fountain drink.  Customers declared the drink to be both "Delicious and Refreshing."
The good doctor's creativity went beyond liquid concoctions into advertising.  He decided that two Cs would look good together and started calling the drink Coca-Cola.

The first newspaper ad for Coca-Cola soon appeared in The Atlanta Journal, inviting thirsty citizens to try "the new and popular soda fountain drink." During the first year, sales averaged a nine drinks per day.  (Just an fyi-in 2010 worldwide 1.7 billion servings of Coca-Cola were sold each day.)
The good doctor never made much money from his creation because he gradually sold off all of his rights until he had none.
And so it is that today we might choose to hoist one in honor of Dr John Styth Pemberton, the little known pharmacist who gave us a dietary staple.
Before we hoist too many, though, we might consider that Dr. Pemberton was born in 1831 and died a mere 57 years later in 1888.  While he survived the Civil War serving in the Confederate Army he might not have done so well enjoying his own drink.