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LEADING CONTENDERS aughts, double aughts, naughts, naughties, 0s, uh-ohs, oh zone, ooze, double nuttins, goose eggs, eggs. 2-Ks, millies, M&Ms (Roman 2000), digits, MM1 MM2 MM3 etc, preteens.
Z-FILES zeros, zoos, zilches zippos, zips as in zip-1 zip-2 zip-3 etc, zippity-do-dahs.
SPORTING SUGGESTIONS front nine (golf), loves (tennis), first and 10 (football)
SILICON VALLEY SPIN start-ups, starties, techade.

Genghis Khan's Danube-to-Pacific empire was the largest ever. Rising in 1200 in Mongolia and Siberia the Golden Horde swept Europe and China. Grandson Kublai Khan ruled from Cambaluc (Beijing) Mongols were fighters, not bureaucrats. Their insatiable appetite for forage for their horses kept them from settling down and governing.

1676 Danish astronomer Ole Romer noticed eclipses of Jupiter's moon Io were 8 minutes early or late, caused by changing distance between Earth and Jupiter. He calculated light's speed at 125,000 miles a second. 1726 British astronomer James Bradley measured stars' tiny displacement caused by Earth's orbit, estimating the speed of light as 180,000 miles a second. Speed is 186,282

Parkway comes from grass, trees and other greenery bordering the road. The first parkway, built in New York City, was designed to cause minimum disturbance to surrounding landscape. U S interstate highways require that 1 mile in every 5 is straight, for use as airstrips in a time of war or emergency.

Japan's Seibotu Raiders trounced Europe's team in Finland's Kemijarvi international snowball championship finals and urged Winter Olympics officials to recognize their sport. Teams start with 7 players and 270 snowballs on a field just larger than a tennis court, with protective barriers. A direct hit eliminates a player. The first team to seize the other team's goal flag wins.

Sportswriter sent to Hawaii to cover school football game. At breakfast with the coach the reporter looked out the restaurant window and saw shrapnel and debris rain down. Restaurant patrons dove for cover. Next semester the reporter, asked why he had no story Dec 7, 1941, said the game was cancelled.

Holding seashells to your ear you don't hear the ocean or even blood circulating through your ears. A coffee cup or water glass produces similar sounds. Whatever you hold to your ear amplifies sounds around you. Which ones get magnified, or resonate, depends on the size and shape of what you have against your ear. Hear the ocean at the beach.

A man desired to become a great writer. Defining great, he said, "I want to write stuff the whole world will read and react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that makes them scream, cry and howl in pain and anger!" He now writes Microsoft's error messages.

My job was ordering supplies for the space-shuttle program. An engineer wanted a new dictionary. I expected "My old copy is lost" or "The cover fell off." Instead he said, "My edition defines spaceship as an imaginary aircraft." He got his new dictionary.

Sportswriter sent to Hawaii to cover school football game. At breakfast with the coach the reporter looked out the restaurant window and saw shrapnel and debris rain down. Restaurant patrons dove for cover. Next semester the reporter, asked why he had no story Dec 7, 1941, said the game was cancelled.

In popular myths 1200s architects used gargoyles to protect buildings and ward off evil. Gargoyles were created to drain rain water off cathedrals in France and western Europe. The Catholic Church later used them to convey church doctrine to illiterate masses. Their popularity created today's gargoyle mystique.

Babe Ruth, 15, playing 3rd base, criticized the pitcher. Brother Matthias, the coach, said why don't you get in there and pitch. Ruth declined. Brother Matthias insisted. Ruth walked to the mound, picked up the glove, and knew he was born to pitch.

One Christmas Walt Disney, later felled by lung cancer from smoking, gave his wife a puppy in a hatbox. Walt recreated her reaction when she opened the box and saw her present was a dog instead of a hat, in Lady and the Tramp.

Even the screenwriters didn't know until Casablanca's last scene whether Ilsa would end up with Rick or Laszlo. Ingrid Bergman asked director Michael Curtiz which man Ilsa was in love with. Curtiz cryptically told her to "play it in between."

Before 1804's 12th Amendment the candidate second in a presidential race automatically became vice-president. Thomas Jefferson became John Adams' vice-president.

Fortune cookie invented 1916 by Los Angeles noodle manufacturer David Jung. Ancient Chinese rebels wrote covert messages on small papers and hid them in buns. Instead of war secrets, papers in Jung's cookies had Confucian proverbs printed on them.

The Eiffel Tower, built for 1889's Exposition, stands 984 feet tall, or 1,056 feet with TV tower.

12,388-foot volcano Mt Fuji, Japan's tallest peak and its national symbol, last erupted in 1707 blanketing ash over Tokyo, 60 miles NE. Since then Fuji's been silent, attracting tens of thousands of summer climbers.

April 4, 1581 Frances Drake completed his circumnavigation of the world.

The 2,256 mile 21 stage Tour de France must run through mountains for at least 5 stages. In 1946 the first tour after World War II the 4-week race was shortened to 5 days.

The Moon orbits 239,900 miles above Earth. If it got too close (the Roche limit) Earth's gravity would tear it apart.

MTV's first music video played was the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star."

The light on top of Las Vegas' Luxor is the world's brightest light, made of 45 xenon lights. You can read a newspaper by its light 10 miles out in space.

Crossing an alpine path blocked by boulders, Hannibal's engineers lit fires to heat the rocks and poured vinegar on them. The boulders broke, clearing the path for his elephants.

1890s Beer wagons delivered kegs to taverns. Water wagons sprinkled streets so traffic didn't stir up dust. Prohibitionists connected water with sobriety, as in climbing on the water wagon.

The golf term "fore" was shortened from the old military term "ware before," shouted to the front line to kneel so the second line could fire.

General Santa Anna exiled in Staten Island NY chewed chicle, the sap of a Mexican tree. Inventor Thomas Adams he befriended added flavor to modern chewing gum.

In 11 months a whale grows 23 feet and gains 15 tons. Then it's born!

The only thing destroying a diamond is intense heat.

Maine is the only U S state whose name has only one syllable.

Your brain is stimulated more asleep than watching TV.

1961 Santa Cruz CA birds wild from eating anchovies who ate a poisonous Monterey Bay alga bloom inspired Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film The Birds.

Samuel L Clemens, Mark Twain, got the name Tom Sawyer from a San Francisco fireman friend.

1903: the first Harley Davidson motorcycle used a tomato can as its carburetor.

May 1, 1931 Empire State Building officially opened. Pres Herbert Hoover pressed a button in Washington DC to turn the building's lights on.

May 17, 1792, New York Stock Exchange founded by brokers meeting under a tree on what is now Wall St.

The large, highly aggressive and most venomous Brazilian huntsman spider hides in clothes and shoes and furiously bites several times if disturbed.

Apollo astronauts' footprints on the moon won't erode since it has no wind or water. The footprints should last at least 10 million years.

U S Volkswagen sales were slow until Doyle Dane Bernbach in 1959 called it the Beetle, called its small size an advantage and made it the leading import car sold in the U S for many years.

Cars used in the movie Halloween, set in Haddonfield IL, mostly had California license plates.

Lemon trees were introduced to North America in the early 1500s. The U S is now one of the world's largest lemon producers.

Dr. Miles' Compound Extract of Tomato, ketchup, was sold in the U S as a medicine in the early 1800s.

Nov 26, 1789 President Washington decrees THANKSGIVING Day to observe adoption of the Constitution.

War in Sanskrit translates to "desire for more cows."

Denver International Airport is 53 square miles, twice as big as Manhattan and larger than Boston, Miami, San Francisco.

Edmond Hoyle wrote about backgammon, chess and whist (ancestor of bridge) but died in 1769, a century before poker was invented.

The Boston Bridge is the world's only bridge with separate car, train and pedestrian bridges, and with boats under it and planes over it.

Student Carolyn Davidson created Nike's swoosh in 1971, for only $35.

Joe Louis successfully defended his heavyweight crown 25 times 1937 - 1949.

BIG PENGOES 1946 Hungary issued a bank note for 100 quintillion pengoes, or P 100,000,000,000,000,000,000.