The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all
their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
The Bulldog became a national symbol of Britain, representing toughness and determination. During WWII, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was often compared to a "British Bulldog."
The Abyssinian population in Britain dropped dramatically during WWII, and breeders had to work hard afterward to rebuild the breed.
The British Shorthair population dropped sharply during WWII, and breeders afterward crossed them with Persians and other breeds to rebuild their numbers.
The brown tree snake was accidentally brought to Guam around WWII and wiped out most of the island's native forest birds, one of the worst invasive species disasters ever recorded.
During WWII, the Lincoln Cathedral copy of the Magna Carta, which happened to be in the US for the 1939 World's Fair, was stored for safekeeping at Fort Knox alongside the US gold reserves.
By the D-Day invasion in June 1944, US companies had produced about 2.3 million doses of penicillin to treat wounded Allied soldiers.
Pizza exploded in popularity in the US after WWII, partly because American soldiers who had served in Italy came home craving it.
After WWII, British Army officer Major Ivan Hirst restarted Beetle production at the damaged Wolfsburg factory, which helped save Volkswagen.
The Jeep Wrangler descends from the Willys MB used by the military in World War II.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt used radio broadcasts called fireside chats to speak directly to Americans during the Great Depression and WWII.
Marlene Dietrich played the musical saw, including while entertaining troops during WWII.
During WWII, the British spread the idea that carrots improved night vision to hide their use of radar.
During WWII, Britain collected wild rose hips to make vitamin C syrup for children when citrus fruit was scarce.
A rose bush at Germany's Hildesheim Cathedral is believed to be about 1,000 years old and survived the bombing of the cathedral in WWII.
During the Dutch "Hunger Winter" of 1944 to 1945, people ate tulip bulbs to survive.
Ottawa's Canadian Tulip Festival began after the Netherlands gave Canada tulips to thank it for sheltering the Dutch royal family during WWII.
Spades was developed in the US in the 1930s and became especially popular with soldiers during WWII.
A cribbage board from the WWII submarine USS Wahoo is passed down to the oldest active submarine in the US Navy.
During WWII, Alan Turing helped break Germany's Enigma code at Bletchley Park.
Charles Drew pioneered blood banking and plasma storage during WWII.