Fascinating Facts ~Page 5~

Religion: Contrary to popular belief, there are almost no Buddhists in India, nor have there been for about a thousand years. Though Buddhism was founded in India around 470 B.C. and developed there at an early date, it was uprooted from India between the seventh and twelfth centuries A.D. and today exists almost exclusively outside that country, primarily in Sri Lanka, Japan, and Indochina.

Language: The word "sabotage" is derived from a French word for "shoe." In France, a "sabot" is a kind of heavy boot or shoe worn by workmen. During the Industrial Revolution, when machine-driven mills were first introduced in France, workers displaced from their jobs by these automata would throw their shoes into the gear mechanisms, wrecking the engines and thus sabotaging the business.

Death: After the great ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky died, doctors cut open and examined his feet. They wanted to find out whether his foot bones were different from those of ordinary men, thinking that his bone structure might account for his ability to perform the extraordinary leaps for which he had been famous. The autopsy, however, revealed nothing unusual.

Physics: When glass breaks the cracks move faster than 3,000 miles per hour. To photograph the event a camera must shoot at a millionth of a second.

The Universe: Members of the Dogon tribe in Mali, Africa, for many centuries worshiped a star known today by astronomers as Sirius B. The Dogon people knew its precise elliptical orbit, knew how long it took to revolve around its parent star, Sirius, and were aware that it was made up of materials not found on earth---all this centuries before modern astronomers had even discovered that Sirius B existed.

Fashion: To preserve their elaborate coiffures, geishas in ancient Japan slept with their heads on bags filled with buckwheat chaff.

Presidents: Zachary Taylor, twelfth president of the United States, did not vote until he was sixty-two. He did not even vote in his own election. Taylor, a professional soldier, lived in so many places during his life that he was unable to establish a legal residence until he retired.

Crime: In ancient China the punishment for small criminal infractions such as shoplifting or breaking a curfew was to brand the offender's forehead with a hot iron. Petty thieves and people who molested travelers had their noses sliced off. For the crime of damaging city bridges or gates, the ears, hands, feet, and kneecaps were cut off. Abduction, armed robbery, treason, and adultery were punished by castration. Death by strangulation was the price one paid for murder and for an even more unspeakable crime---drunkenness.

Animals: From 1890 to 1900, 20 tons of ivory were shipped every year from Siberia to London. All of this ivory was taken from the remains of woolly mammoths, which have been extinct since the Ice Age.

The Body: A person cannot taste food unless it is mixed with saliva. For example, if a strong-tasting substance like salt is placed on a dry tongue, the taste buds will register nothing. As soon as a drop of saliva is added and the salt is dissolved, however, a definite taste sensation results. This is true for all foods.

Art and Artists: Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), one of the great French sculptors, was allowed to freeze to death by the French government even though it knew of his plight and could have saved him. Rodin, forgotten in the last years of his life, was refused financial aid several times by the French state, even while the statues he had donated to the country were kept warmly housed in museums. In the winter of 1917 Rodin's application for a room in one of these museums was rejected, and a month later he died in a garret from frostbite.

Architecture and Construction: A bridge built in Lima, Peru, in 1610 was made of mortar that was mixed not with water but with the whites of 10,000 eggs. The bridge, appropriately called the Bridge of Eggs, is still standing.

Natural Phenomena: One can see the stars during the day from the bottom of a well.

Firsts: The Grand Canyon was not seen by a white man until after the Civil War. It was first entered on May 29, 1869, by the geologist John Wesley Powell.

War & Weapons: Alexander the Great ordered his entire army to shave their faces and heads. He believed that beards and long hair were too easy for an enemy to grab preparatory to cutting off the head.

Transportation & Travel: One method of crossing great expanses of waterless desert used by traders and merchants in the Middle East is as follows: setting out on horseback with their wares, the merchants bring a large number of well-watered camels, which they use as pack animals. At various intervals along the way they stop the caravan and slaughter several of the camels. Then they remove the camel's stomach and give the large amounts of water stored within it to the horses. This water thus sustains their own mounts all the way across the desert and at the same time makes it unnecessary to bring extra stores of water.

Natural Phenomena: There are parts of Europe, especially in southern France, where it has rained red rain. Known as "blood rains," such showers were for years thought to herald the apocalyse. Some scientists believe that they are caused by a reddish dust that is blown all the way from the Sahara Desert. Others believe that the red color comes from microorganisms in the water.

Executions: The Moravian Brothers, an evangelical Christian sect that originated in fifteenth-century Bohemia, believed in nonviolence and had a great abhorrence of bloodshed. Members of this community, however, were at times unavoidably called on to execute offenders. Their merciful way of doing so was to tickle their victims to death.

Fashion: In 1400 B.C. it was the fashion among rich Egyptian women to place a large cone of scented grease on top of their heads and keep it there all day. As the day wore on, the grease melted and dripped down over their bodies, covering their skin with an oily, glistening sheen and bathing their clothes in fragrance.

People: The Mongol conqueror Timur the Lame (1336-1405), whom Chirstopher Marlowe called Tamburlaine, played polo with the skulls of those he had killed in battle. Timur left records of his victories by erecting 30-foot-high pyramids made of the severed heads of his victims.

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