» On September 11, 1609, Henry Hudson found Manhattan Island (present day home of New York City).  Exactly 394 years to the day, in 2001, Manhattan's World Trade Center was demolished in a devastating terrorist attack.

» September 11 also saw the introduction of the Ford Pinto.  It hit the market in 1970 at a cost of less than $2,000, designed to compete with the large number of compact imports.  It wasn't the Pinto’s low cost that grabbed headlines, but its fatal design flaw: because of the placement of the gas tank, the tank was likely to rupture and explode when the car was involved in a rear end collision of over 20 mph.  In addition, it was eventually revealed that Ford knew about the design flaw before the Pinto was released.  The internal cost-benefit analysis calculated that it would be less costly to deal with potential lawsuits than to go ahead with the correction.  The infamous report assigned a value of $200,000 for each death predicted to result from the flaw.  Ford’s irresponsibility caused a public uproar, and in 1978, a California jury awarded a record-breaking $128 million to a claimant in the Ford Pinto case.

» The Constitution of the United States was signed on September 17, 1787.  In honor of this, the date has been declared Citizenship Day.

» The original American Pledge of Allegiance was published in the September 8, 1892, issue of The Youth's Companion in Boston.  For years, the authorship was in dispute between James B. Upham and Francis Bellamy of the magazine's staff.  In 1939, after studying the controversy, the United States Flag Association decided that authorship be credited to Bellamy.  As an interesting side note, the phrase “under God” was not part of the original pledge, and was only added on June 14, 1954, during the oppressive days of McCarthy and the Cold War.

» Princess Grace of Monaco, also known as Grace Kelly, died on September 14, 1982, of injuries sustained in a car crash.  The accident was particularly tragic as the car plunged down a 45-foot embankment after the Princess suffered a stroke and lost control of the vehicle.

» Anthony Perkins, best known for his remarkable role as Norman Bates in the Hitchcock film Psycho, died on September 12, 1992, of AIDS.

» On September 8, 1900, Galveston, Texas, was the site of the worst hurricane to ever hit in the United States.

Caffeine interrupts our daily sleeping patterns by altering the chemical reactions in our brain.

An addictive drug that 90% of Americans consume every day, caffeine prevents us from getting our ZZZZs by increasing nerve activity in our bodies-keeping us alert and hyperactive.

After drinking a hot cup of caffeinated coffee, the caffeine causes three different chemical reactions that boost our energy levels:

• It energizes us by pumping the hormone adrenaline into our systems.

• It increases dopamine levels within our bodies. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that stimulates our "pleasure areas" in our brain making us feel good.

• It blocks the connection of adenosine to nerve cells. Adenosine is the chemical that attaches to receptors in the brain and causes drowsiness by slowing down nerve cells activity.

The addictive and mood altering effects caused by caffeine consumption has had an increasing impact on the soft drink industry. Over the past 25 years, the amount of soda consumed by Americans has doubled. For instance, Americans spent $54 billion on 15 billion gallons of soda in 1998.

Fifteen billion gallons of soda is the equivalent to every American chugging down 585 12-once cans per year!

Today, 70% of all sodas in the United States contain caffeine. Teenagers especially have become dependent on caffeinated sodas or what many refer to as "liquid candy." Teenage boys and girls drink about twice as much "liquid candy" as milk, whereas twenty years ago they drank twice as much milk as soda.

While many soda companies argue that caffeine is necessary to a soft drink's flavor, many researchers have shown that most people are hooked to a soda's caffeine content-NOT its taste. Most people can't tell the difference between caffeinated and uncaffeinated soft drinks. Soda guzzlers prefer the soft drink brands that contain caffeine because the caffeine stimulates alertness and boosts of energy.