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| Today is: Sunday January 28, 2001. |
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Trivia: General |
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A golden razor removed from King Tut's Tomb was still sharp enough to be
used.
Abdul Kassam Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persia in the tenth century, carried his library with
him wherever he went. The 117,000 volumes were carried by 400 camels trained to walk in
alphabetical order.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, from 1910-1911, the word toast was
borrowed from the Old French toste, which has the Latin root of torrere, tostum, meaning
to scorch or burn.
Acting was once considered evil, and actors in the first English play to be performed in
America were arrested.
All of the officers in the Confederate army were given copies of Les Miserables, by Victor
Hugo, to carry with them at all times. Robert E. Lee, among others, believed that the book
symbolized their cause. Both revolts were defeated.
All office seekers in the Roman empire were obliged to wear a certain white toga for a
period of one year before the election.
At the turn of the last millennium, Dublin Ireland had the largest slave market in the
world, run by the Vikings.
Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant plenty of excrement.
Before the 1800's there were no separately designed shoes for right and left feet.
Czar Paul I banished soldiers to Siberia for marching out of step.
Dog Days: Days of great heat. The Romans called the hottest weeks of summer canculares
dies. Their theory was that the Dog Star (Sirius) rising with the sun, added to its heat
and the dog-days (about July 3 to August 11) bore the combined heat of both.
During 18th century France, visitors to the royal palace in Versailles were allowed to
stand in a roped-off section of the main dining room and watch the king and queen eat.
During the Cambrian period, about 500 million years ago, a day was only 20.6 hours long.
During the Depression, banks first used Scotch tape to mend torn currency.
During the eighteenth century, books that were considered offensive were sometimes
punished by being whipped.
Everyone believed in the Middle Ages--as Aristotle had--that the heart was the seat of
intelligence.
Evidence of shoemaking exists as early as 10,000 B.C.
Francis Scott Key was a young lawyer who wrote the poem 'The Star Spangled Banner' after
being inspired by watching the Americans fight off the British attack of Baltimore during
the War of 1812. The poem became the words to the national anthem.
High-wire acts have been enjoyed since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Antique
medals have been excavated from Greek islands depicting men ascending inclined cords and
walking across ropes stretched between cliffs. The Greeks called these high-wire
performers neurobates or oribates. In the Roman city of Herculaneum there is a fresco
representing an aerialist high on a rope, dancing and playing a flute. Sometimes Roman
tightrope walkers stretched cables between the tops of two neighboring hills and performed
comic dances and pantomimes while crossing.
If a family had 2 servants or less in the U.S. in 1900, census takers recorded it as lower
middle-class.
If we had the same mortality rate as in the 1900s, more than half the people in the world
today would not be alive.
If you were born in Los Alamos, New Mexico during the Manhattan project (where they made
the atomic bomb), your birth place is listed as a post office box in Albequerque.
In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning
rod attached to their hats.
In ancient Egypt, killing a cat was a crime punishable by death.
In certain parts of India and ancient China, mouse meat was considered a delicacy.
Facts
In midieval England, beer often was served with breakfast.
In the 1700's, you could purchase insurance against going to hell, in London, England.
In the 19th century, the British Navy attempted to dispel the superstition that Friday was
an unlucky day to embark on a ship. The keel of a new ship was laid on a Friday, she was
named H.M.S Friday, commanded by a Captain Friday, and finlly went to sea on a Friday.
Neither the ship nor her crew were ever heard of again.
In the Great Fire of London in 1666, half of London was burnt down but only six people
were injured.
In the marriage ceremony of the ancient Inca Indians of Peru, the couple was considered
officially wed when they took off their sandals and handed them to each other.
In Turkey, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, anyone caught drinking coffee was
put to death.
In Victorian times, there was an intense fear of being buried alive, so when someone died,
a small hole was dug from the casket to the surface, then a string was tied around the
dead persons finger which was then attached to a small but loud bell that was hung on the
surface of the grave, so then if someone was buried alive, they could ring the bell and
whomever was on duty would go and dig them up. Someone was on the clock 24 hours a day-
hence the grave yard shift.
Income tax was first introduced in England in 1799 by British Prime Minister, William
Pitt.
It cost more to buy a car today in the United States than it cost Christopher Columbus to
equip and undertake three voyages to the New World.
It has been calculated that in the last 3,500 years, there have only been 230 years of
peace throughout the civilized world.
January is National Soup month.
Native Americans never actually ate turkey; killing such a timid bird was thought to
indicate laziness. |
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