8th May: Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola was first introduced on this date in 1886, so here are 10 things you may not know about Coca-Cola:

1. It was originally a medicine, created by a pharmacist, John Pemberton. Pemberton had become addicted to morphine and was looking for a substitute headache cure. He marketed it as "Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage."
2. The original recipe contained a small amount of cocaine, but since 1903, caffeine has replaced the cocaine. Whether or not the coca leaf, that gave the drink its name, is still added with the active cocaine removed, is a closely guarded secret.
3. The entire recipe is a closely guarded secret. At first, Pemberton did not even write it down, and shared it with only his closest associates. It was finally written down to prove that there was a product in order to get a bank loan. The recipe was then placed in a safe in the bank, and has only been moved a few times, to different safes. Since 2011 it has resided in a vault in the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta.
4. Although nobody knows for sure what the recipe is, it is mostly sugar - a 600ml bottle contains the equivalent of about 15 teaspoons of sugar. Other ingredients are thought to include caffeine, vanilla, cinnamon, citrus fruits and nutmeg.
5. It is officially available in every country in the world except for Cuba and North Korea (and even in those countries it can be obtained as a "grey import").
6. Coca-Cola was the first commercial sponsor of the Olympic Games - Amsterdam, in 1928.
7. The drink was declared to be Kosher by rabbi Tobias Geffen in 1935 (after a slight modification of ingredients), but for some branches of the Jewish faith, the standard recipe, where the sugar comes from corn starch, is forbidden during Passover. So the company produced a special "Kosher for Passover" version for areas in the US with a significant Jewish population.
8. There was some discussion in the Middle East about whether Muslims should be allowed to drink Coca-Cola. The conclusion was that Islamic law permits consumption of anything that is not specifically prohibited by the Qu'ran, and since the Qu'ran doesn't mention Coca-Cola, it is therefore allowed.
9. Scientists Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill, and Deborah Anderson, won an Ignobel Prize in 2008 for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide - although another group of scientists, C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang also won one for proving that it isn't.
10. In 1985, the company changed the formula slightly and marketed so-called "New Coke". However, New Coke was not well received and so they went back to a formula which was closer to the old one, which was briefly called "Coca-Cola Classic".