Did you know...

• Tripolini or "little bows" were named to honor the Italian conquest of Tripoli in Libya. 
• There are more than 600 pasta shapes produced worldwide.
• In Italian, fettucine means ribbons; stelline means little stars; and capelli d'angelo means angel's hair.
• One cup cooked spaghetti provides about 200 calories, 40 grams of carbohydrates, less than one gram of total fat, no cholesterol and only one gram of sodium when cooked without salt.
• The Chinese were the first to eat pasta (5,000 B.C.). Contrary to popular belief, Marco Polo did not discover pasta. In fact, there's evidence suggesting the Etruscans made pasta as early as 400 B.C.
• Thomas Jefferson introduced macaroni in the United States. He fell in love with a certain dish and  "macaroni," along with a pasta-making machine, to be sent to the States.
• Christopher Columbus was born in October, National Pasta Month.
• The most popular pasta shapes in the U.S. are spaghetti, thin spaghetti, elbows, rotelle, penne and lasagna
• Most pasta is made using wheat products mixed with water. Other types of pasta are made using ingredients such as rice, barley, corn, and beans.
• Egg noodles contain egg; almost all other dry pasta shapes do not. 
• To cook one billion pounds of pasta, you would need 2,021,452,000 gallons of water - enough to fill nearly 75,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.