Dr. Seuss wrote “Green Eggs and Ham” on a bet that he couldn’t write a book with 50 or fewer words?

The bet was made in 1960 with Bennett Cerf, the co-founder of Random House, and was for $50 (about $382 today). Despite Dr. Seuss, a.k.a. Theodore Geisel, winning the bet by producing one of his most popular works “Green Eggs and Ham” using exactly 50 unique words, Cerf never paid him.  “Green Eggs and Ham” went on to be Geisel’s best selling work, so he made money on it anyways.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what those words are, here is the list:

a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, and you.

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It was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout. The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries.

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://www.history.com/topics/1929-stock-market-crash” target=”blank” ]Stock Market Crash of 1929[/button][button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://www.history.com/topics/great-depression” target=”blank” ]The Great Depression[/button]