Cindy Burgel, age 11, of Randolph, Neb., for her question:

WHO INVENTED SODA POP?

Soda pop, also called a soft drink, is as American as hot dogs and apple pie. It came from England, however, when a man named Joseph Priestley in 1772 first made soda water. He was trying to imitate the natural bubbling water of some mineral springs.

In 1806 an American chemistry professor at Yale College named Benjamin Stillman made and bottled the first artificial soda water in the United States.

The drink is called pop because of the noise the caps used to make when they were removed from the bottles. Silent caps came into use during the mid 1890s.

In 1900 about 12 bottles of soda pop were consumed by every person in the United States, and by the 1970s that figure rose to about 250 bottles per year.