Fascinating Facts ~Page 15~

Automobiles: The first automobile race ever seen in the United States was held in Chicago in 1895. The track ran from Chicago to Evanston. The winner was J. Frank Duryea, whose average speed was 7 1/2 miles per hour.

Gambling: Sir Miles Partridge once played at dice with Henry VII for the bells of St. Paul's church, won, and collected the bells.

Injuries and Accidents: According to the U.S. National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, 125,312 people were injured in 1977 while in or around a bed. These injuries resulted from such mishaps as tripping over the bed, hurting oneself on the headboard, or simply falling out of bed.

Manners and Customs: In the mountainous districts of northeastern Burma, a peculiar form of hospitality known as "perah" was practiced until the mid-twentieth century. Whenever an enemy was killed in battle, the blood was drained from his body, poured into a special bamboo reed, and set out in the open air to dry. When the victorious warrior wanted to treat friends and visitors to a great delicacy, he cracked open these reeds and allowed them to dine on the congealed blood.

The Classical World: At the time of Titus in fourth-century Rome, the Circus Maximus held 380,000 spectators.

Language: "Facetious" and "abstemious" are the only two words in the English language that contain the vowels a, e, i, o, and u in their proper order.

Inventions: In July, 1950, a patent was issued for an automatic spaghetti-spinning fork.

Animals: A squirrel has no color vision; it sees only in black and white. Every part of its field of vision, however, is in perfect focus, not just straight ahead, as with man.

Fashion: Kilts are not native to Scotland. They originated in France.

Aviation: An airplane uses more fuel flying at 25,000 feet than at 30,000 feet. The higher it flies, the thinner the atmosphere and the less atmospheric resistance it must buck.

Art & Artist: The horns protruding from the head of the famous statue of Moses by Michelangelo were a mistake! It is true that the Bible describes Moses as having horns coming from his head. This, however, was an error on the part of the translators. In Hebrew the words for "horn" and "ray of light" are spelled identically. The translators misinterpreted "ray" for "horn" and thus Moses is often portrayed in western art as looking like a devil.

Records: In June, 1963, in Britain, the British tennis player Michael Sangster served a ball that was clocked at 154 miles per hour. This is the fastest tennis serve ever recorded.

Death: When a man died in ancient Egypt, the females in his family would smear their heads and faces with mud and wander through the city beating themselves and tearing off their clothes.

The Universe: When we look at the farthest visible star we are looking 4 billion years into the past---the light from the star, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, has taken that many years to reach us.

Flowers, Plants & Trees: Seedless oranges were not grown in the U.S.A. until 1871. The first ones came from Brazil and were planted in California.

China: In ancient China, towns were often arranged in specific patterns so that if seen from the air the whole community resembled an animal or a symbolic design. The city of Tsuenchen-fu was built in the shape of a carp. Wung-chun was laid out in the shape of a fish net. Other towns were arranged to resemble snakes, stars, sunbursts, and dragons.

Worms & Sea Creatures: The starfish is the only animal capable of turning its stomach inside-out. As it approaches its prey (usually a member of the mollusk family), the starfish reverses its viscera, protrudes them through its mouth, and projects them under the shell of its victim. Then it slowly devours the fleshy underparts of the helpless mollusk by a process of absorption.

Royalty: When Louis XIV and Marie-Thérese were awakened in the morning, if the Queen sat up after the curtains had been parted and clapped her hands, the servants knew that the King had performed his royal duty the night before---intercourse with the Queen.

War & Weapons: In Japan there is a deadly martial art, called "tessenjutsu," based solely on the use of a fan.

Psychology: Females learn to talk earlier, use sentences earlier, and learn to read more quickly than males. Males have a greater incidence of reading disabilities, stutter more, read with less speed and accuracy, and by the time they reach maturity have a smaller vocabulary than females.

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