i have read this in "Now You Know" by Doug Lennox

did you know...

...that New York was called "The Big Apple" coz
a reporter happens to love that song when he began
to refer to the song in his beats for the newspaper
he was writing for?yup! The Big Apple is just a song.

...that the White House was not white in the first place?
it was a grey Virginia freestone in color...it was just
painted to white to cover the fire damage when the British
burned it in retaliation for the Americans torching Canada
way back in 1814.

...that Wall Street got its name really from the large
protective wall erected in that same exact spot for
protection against local natives and possible attack
by Oliver Cromwell's army