August 1: The Jeep was born on this date in 1941

No one can say with certainty where the name "Jeep" first came to mean the all-wheel-drive truck the U.S. Army needed urgently for World War II. Theories include Oklahoma oilman slang, a dimension-jumping character from a "Popeye" cartoon and the shortening of the letters G and P from the "general purpose" vehicle requested by the Army. There's even one photo from testing in 1941 that calls it a "peep," which would have been mighty confusing around Easter. Wherever it came from, the Jeep knew where it was headed by Aug. 1, 1941: off to war.