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Bluetooth

BluetoothYou've all heard of Bluetooth and likely use it on your mobile device or laptop. Do you know why it's called "bluetooth"? I didn't until I came across this paragraph in The Almost Nearly Perfect People by Michael Booth:

AlmostPerfect2"I am chatting to Mike, a guide here at Trelleborg, one of Denmark's largest Viking sites, in western Zealand. We are watching a reenactment of the kind of battle fought by the man who built this impressive circular fortress in AD 980, the legendary Viking king Harald Bluetooth (namesake of the wireless technology, which was invented in Scandinavia)." p. 46

This interesting side comment led me to Harald Bluetooth's Wikipedia page and the Bluetooth website where I learned even more. According to the Cultural Depictions & References section on the Wikipedia page, the Bluetooth logo is a combination of the Nordic runes for Harald Bluetooth's initials. 

I love how the past influenced the present in the story of Bluetooth. I'll always think of King Harald when I sync my Fitbit to my phone using Bluetooth.

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