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1
17 June 2008
... that the
Chase Promenade (pictured) hosted a month long Museum of Modern Ice exhibit of
abstract art on a 95 by 12 feet (29.0 by 3.7 m) wall of ice called Paintings Below Zero ?
... that
Kirori Singh Bhainsla leads a protest movement that recently attempted to bring
Delhi to a standstill?
... that actor
George Takei 's
autobiography
To the Stars was featured on display for a month at the
Bill Clinton Presidential Library ?
... that the
Union Pacific Railroad made the
Herndon House its headquarters 12 years after celebrating the launch of construction on the
First Transcontinental Railroad there?
... that after three years of absence, the
juniors' team of the
Mapúa Institute of Technology , which is the
winningest basketball team in the
Philippine NCAA , will return in the
2008-09 season ?
... that
Fortified Area Silesia were Polish fortifications constructed along the interbellum border of
Poland and
Germany in the area of
Upper Silesia ?
... that Christian musician
Francesca Battistelli said she knew she would spend her life performing after seeing the musical
The Secret Garden on
Broadway at the age of six?
... that
Jeita Grotto (
statue pictured ) in
Lebanon has the world's longest
stalactite , at 8.2 m (27 ft)?
... that the town of
Morris, Connecticut is named in honor of coeducation pioneer
Major James Morris , who served in the
Continental Army with
George Washington ?
... that there are seven known
subspecies of
Keeltail needlefish , each being found in a specific region?
... that
The Fourth Tower of Inverness is a
radio drama that combines
Americana and
old-time radio with
past life regression ,
Sufi wisdom ,
Tibetan Buddhism and
shamanism ?
... that with
Cambodian-Vietnamese relations improving after the
Cambodian-Vietnamese War , both nations set a target to increase
bilateral trade to
USD 2.3 billion by 2010?
... that the United States owns all of
Zachary Taylor National Cemetery , except where
Zachary Taylor and his family are actually buried?
... that of the
eleven Japanese films accepted as nominees for the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since its inception, none have won it?
... that
Church of Scientology International official
Leisa Goodman went on a six-month mission to investigate the treatment of
Scientologists in
Germany ?
... that
Pakistani actress
Veena Malik (
pictured ) has emerged as one of the leading women on
Pakistani television with her abilities in
improvisational
mimicry ?
... that the
tourist industry in Seychelles was born with the completion of the
Seychelles International Airport in 1971?
... that the first exhibition at the
Boeing Galleries was a series of photographs taken from
helicopters and
hot air balloons ?
... that
Pope Benedict XVI received
George W. Bush this month in a
medieval tower where
Pope John Paul II resided temporarily while his
papal apartments were being remodeled?
... that for helping
endow a professorship of
botany at the
University of Oxford ,
James Sherard was granted a
doctorate in medicine by the university in 1731?
... that there were 18
lieutenant generals in the
Confederate States Army ?
... that the
Prague pneumatic post system is the last remaining of
its kind in the world?
... that the
presidential campaign of Chuck Baldwin began only two weeks before the
2008 Constitution Party Convention yet still edged the
campaign of political veteran
Alan Keyes in the delegate count?
16 June 2008
... that exhibits at the
New York City
Police Museum (
pictured ) include the
machine gun used by
Al Capone 's gang in the 1928 murder of
Frankie Yale ?
... that
Israel and
China were cultivating
military cooperation well before the
establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992?
... that
Christopher Smart 's
The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was mocked for its dedication to a three-year-old child?
... that
Yukon
storyteller
Angela Sidney was awarded the
Order of Canada for contributions to
ethnography ?
... that
Y1 , a strain of
tobacco containing twice as much
nicotine , was developed by
Brown & Williamson so they could make low-tar cigarettes without reducing the nicotine content?
... that most of the water in the 267 acre (1.08 km²)
Lake Delton emptied out in two hours after heavy rains caused it to overflow its banks?
... that after agreeing to a
prisoner exchange following the 1799
Siege of Mantua , the
Austrians reneged by arresting soldiers of the
Polish Second Legion as "
deserters "?
... that
Scientology founder
L. Ron Hubbard composed the music for
Space Jazz – a
concept album companion to his
science fiction
novel
Battlefield Earth ?
... that before
Jean Miélot (
pictured ) created an
illuminated manuscript for Duke
Philip the Good of
Burgundy , he produced a "dummy" version, complete with pictures, decorations and text?
... that while some
Esperanto profanity consists of informal
neologisms , much of it is generated from the
fundamental
vocabulary ?
... that
Eugene C. Barker ' s 1925 work The Life of
Stephen F. Austin has been described as the best single piece of scholarship on a
Texas topic?
... that the
Symmachi–Nicomachi diptych , intended to celebrate
traditional Roman paganism , was incorporated into a
Christian
reliquary for almost 500 years?
... that
Indian Agent
James Givins worked with
Mississauga leader
Peter Jones to establish the Credit Mission, which became an example for the
Reserve System in Canada?
... that
Tarrytown 's
Foster Memorial AME Zion Church is the oldest continuously-used
black church in
Westchester County, New York ?
... that Irish architect
Thomas Duff designed St. Patrick's School in
Belfast , believed to be the city's last surviving
gothic building?
... that in his 1971 book
Post-Scarcity Anarchism ,
Murray Bookchin anticipated the importance of
cybernetic technology to the development of human potential over a decade before the origin of
cyberpunk ?
... that the
historic district in
Warwick, New York (
downtown pictured ) reflects the village's development from a stop on a
colonial road to an early 20th-century summer
resort town ?
... that
Jørgen Aall , one of the
founding fathers of the
Norwegian Constitution in 1814, went out of business as a
ship-owner only four years later?
... that two members of the country music group
One Flew South met while starring in a production of the
Broadway musical
The Civil War ?
... that the
Prairie Habitat Joint Venture in
Canada has received nearly
$ 200 million of funding from the
United States federal government ?
... that
British
model
Daisy Lowe began her
modelling career at the age of two?
... that writer
Neil Gaiman invented the fiction that
Shakespeare wrote
A Midsummer Night's Dream to ensure that humans never forgot
Faerie ?
... that the
Golf Club Managers' Association represents over 65% of all
golf courses in the
United Kingdom ?
... that in 1939
René Pleven stated "Politics do not interest me", only to join the
Free French exile government in 1941 and thus launch a long political career?
15 June 2008
... that the
Mountain Gorillas (
juvenile pictured ) of
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park are the prime
tourist attraction in
Uganda ?
... that
anthropologist
John Buettner-Janusch sent a batch of poisoned candy to Judge
Charles L. Brieant Jr. after he was convicted of running an
illegal drug lab?
... that most historians believe stories about
Dutch
shipwreck survivors of the
Concordia , settling at a desert
oasis in
Australia in 1708, were a
hoax ?
... that the
fluted black elfin saddle is actually a
mushroom that appears in woodlands and lawns in North America and Europe?
... that
GRU
colonel
Vladimir Kvachkov won second place in by-elections to the
State Duma , while imprisoned due to his suspected attempted murder of Russian politician
Anatoly Chubais ?
... that
Taylorsville Lake State Park is the most heavily stocked
lake in
Kentucky ?
... that when
Tang Dynasty general
Li Guangbi repeatedly disobeyed imperial directives, subordinate generals began to disobey Li Guangbi?
... that
Black Panther Party co-founder
Huey Newton said the
Brampton Jail in
Brampton ,
Ontario was "worse than any jail in
Cuba "?
... that
Harry Peckham
(pictured) , along with
Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville , wrote the first draft of
cricket 's
leg before wicket rule?
... that the
Timexpo Museum in
Waterbury, Connecticut includes a forty-foot high
replica of an
Easter Island statue?
... that
MP
Sir Anthony Kershaw returned
leaked documents about the sinking of the
General Belgrano , resulting in the prosecution of
Clive Ponting ?
... that as part of
Cuba-Venezuela relations , 50,000
Venezuelans went to
Cuba for free eye treatment?
... that
Erik Fankhouser is the first
West Virginia native to become a professional
bodybuilder ?
... that
Karakore was the
epicenter of the most destructive
earthquake of
20th-century
Ethiopia , which destroyed one town and left 5,000 people homeless?
... that
Minnie Lou Bradley , a
Texas Panhandle
rancher , was the first woman ever to head the
American
Angus Association?
... that the
SS Carsbreck survived being
torpedoed by
Heinrich Liebe 's
U-38 in 1940, but was sunk by
Reinhard Suhren 's
U-564 in 1941?
... that
Canadian
supermodel
Yasmeen Ghauri was the daughter of an
Islamic cleric who opposed his daughter's career?
... that the Red Bridge (
pictured ) , one of the former
Aar bridges in Berne , was nicknamed the "Angel of Death" because of frequent fatal accidents?
... that the
Vermont Square ,
Lincoln Heights , and
Cahuenga Branches are the only surviving
Carnegie libraries in
Los Angeles ?
... that
Bob Beck led the effort to capture and
breed the remaining wild
Guam Rails ,
Micronesian Kingfishers and other
endangered
Guamanian native birds in
captivity ?
... that
Christopher Smart 's
Hymns for the Amusement of Children were finished by the author while in debtors prison and that he died before he ever received notice that the work was a success?
... that
Widtsoe, Utah was made a
ghost town in 1936 by the federal
Resettlement Administration , a
New Deal program that bought out indebted landowners?
... that the
Czech castle of
Hauenštejn is private property of a descendant of the so-called "Father of the Nation"
František Palacký ?
... that the
Church of Daniel's Band , based in
Michigan , chose its name from the title of a sermon delivered by
Charles Spurgeon in
London ?
... that
Skabo Jernbanevognfabrikk in 1926 produced a firewood powered snow melter?
... that the
Java (pictured) , first mentioned in print in 1835, is the second oldest
breed of
chicken in the
United States ?
... that the
Persian
walled city of
Ray was a
military
objective so frequently that, starting in the late
12th century , its inhabitants gradually moved out to an undefended village nearby called
Tehran ?
... that
Joseph Hugh Allen was a member of the so-called reform "Dirty 30" of the
Texas House of Representatives who pushed for
ethics legislation in light of the
Sharpstown
banking scandal?
... that one of the
humanoid robots created by
Japanese
roboticist
Tomotaka Takahashi was listed in
Time ’s Coolest Inventions in 2004?
... that the winners of the
Twenty20 Champions League , a tournament between
Twenty20
cricket champions from
Australia ,
England ,
India and
South Africa , will collect a prize estimated at £2.5 million?
... that
Marcus J. Ranum suggested that the U.S. government register
whitehouse.com long before it was registered by an
adult entertainment site?
14 June 2008
... that
John McCain was a member of the
VA-46 Clansmen when he was wounded during the
1967 USS Forrestal fire off the coast of
Vietnam ?
... that
St Mary and St Abraam Coptic Orthodox Church, Hove , one of nine
Coptic churches in the
British Isles , has an
iconostasis which is believed to be the tallest in the world?
... that since its establishment in 1986, the
North American Waterfowl Management Plan has spent
$ 4.5 billion to protect
wetlands used by
migratory birds in
North America ?
... that
Arthur Hartley developed the
Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation which is credited with safely landing 2,500 aircraft during
World War Two ?
... that
McDonald's Cycle Center in
Chicago, Illinois provides lockers, showers, a snack bar, bike repair, and bike rental to bicycle
commuters ?
... that after being
shipwrecked on
Malé Atoll in 1973,
Tony Hussein Hinde pioneered
surfing in the
Maldives , which was previously unknown in the country?
... that there are at least
296 historic places listed on the
U.S. National Register in
Chicago , including a
German U-boat (
pictured ) ?
... that the
North Vietnamese Foreign Minister
Xuan Thuy was first arrested at age sixteen and sent to a
penal colony at eighteen, as a member of the underground communist anti-colonial movement?
... that
Walter Brennan starred in the 1964–1965
ABC
sitcom
The Tycoon as an eccentric chairman of the board of the fictitious Thunder Corporation?
... that the
Espada Cemetery was the first formally sanctioned burial ground in
Havana, Cuba ?
... that
Hall of fame coach
Al Arbour
coached the
New York Islanders of the
National Hockey League three different times?
... that
Christopher Smart 's
Hymns and Spiritual Songs were composed in a mental asylum where the author was held for "religious mania"?
... that
Madagascar 's unique wildlife, such as the
Red-bellied Lemur , is one of the country's main
tourist attractions ?
... that the
Latham Confederate Monument of
Hopkinsville, Kentucky was supposed to honor both Confederate and Union soldiers?
... that
Andreas Frederik Krieger (
pictured ) was one of the most vocal critics of the
morganatic marriage between
Frederick VII of Denmark and Louise Rasmussen?
... that the
7th District Police Station , on
Maxwell Street in
Chicago, Illinois , was used as the picture of the
precinct house in the opening credits of
Hill Street Blues ?
... that
Romanian businessman
Gheorghe Ştefănescu was
executed for selling large quantities of
adulterated
wine ?
... that in addition to its bus services,
Louisville 's
Transit Authority of River City operates
diesel -powered, rubber-tired
trolleys to service downtown hotel and shopping districts?
... that
French
architect
Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe designed the structure that initially housed the
Hermitage Museum and the palace where
Grigory Rasputin was murdered?
... that
Iran and
Cuba have been seeking to
strengthen their relationship in recent years?
... that the
L & N Railroad depot in
Hopkinsville, Kentucky 's
commercial district was a popular stop on the
Louisville and Nashville Railroad due to the fact that one could legally purchase
alcohol there?
... that the diet of the
Crescent Honeyeater (
pictured ) changes from
nectar and
invertebrates to wholly
insects during the
breeding season ?
... that
Eleanor King was a
principal dancer and
choreographer in the early days of American
modern dance ?
... that the
Yūshūkan , a
Japanese military and war
museum owned and operated by
Yasukuni Shrine , has been at the center of an international
controversy ?
... that
Ryan Fleck produced his
short film Gowanus, Brooklyn as a sample feature to attract potential financiers to its extended
feature film
screenplay ,
Half Nelson ?
... that the
Hungarian Communist Party , despite losing badly in the
1945 election and doing just slightly better in
1947 , held absolute power
by 1949 ?
... that the statue of
Daniel Webster that sits on top of the
Daniel Webster Memorial in
Washington, D.C. was a gift by the founder of the
Washington Post ?
... that instead of discarding
runes in favour of the
Latin alphabet , the
Scandinavians developed the extended
medieval runes ?
... that
Johan Santana led
Major League Baseball in 2006 with an
earned run average of 2.77?
... that
Christopher Smart (
pictured ) spent five years in a mental asylum and wrote his most important works,
Jubilate Agno and
A Song to David , during this time?
... that the
Roman-Parthian War of 58–63 over
Armenia ended with a compromise that saw the
Arsacid dynasty established on the Armenian throne?
... that
Arthur Byron Coble 's 1929 classic Algebraic geometry and theta functions was still being published by the
American Mathematical Society as late as 1982?
... that half of all
Quebec 's program spending for the
Eastern Habitat Joint Venture is devoted to the nationally significant
wetlands in the
biosphere reserve and region of
Lac Saint-Pierre ?
... that
Edward Cawston made his
first-class cricket debut for
Sussex whilst he was still at school?
... that the North
Exelon Pavilions are the first structures in
Chicago, Illinois to use
building integrated photovoltaic cells?
... that as a poet,
Antoni Edward Odyniec was a mediocre imitator of his friend, the
Polish poet
Adam Mickiewicz , but left colorful memoirs describing Mickiewicz's
private life ?
... that the
Church of St. Catherine (
pictured ) in
St. Petersburg was taken over by the
Soviets , closed, ransacked and twice burned out, before being returned to the Catholic Church in 1992?
... that
Sir Archibald Bodkin banned
James Joyce 's
Ulysses for containing "a great deal of unmitigated filth and obscenity" even though he had read only a few pages?
... that
Platte Mound M , maintained by students from the
University of Wisconsin-Platteville , is believed to be the largest letter "M" in the world?
... that
ship-owner and
Norwegian Parliament member
Hans Eleonardus Møller has been described as the "father of
Norwegian
marine insurance "?
... that the
Conscript Fathers were senators drafted for the ancient
Roman Senate much like
conscription is a military draft?
... that in a
toll dispute between residents of
Bandar Mahkota Cheras and the
Cheras-Kajang Highway concessionaire, a barrier blocking a
shunpike was repeatedly torn down and rebuilt?
... that
Philip Cochran was the inspiration for the character "Flip Corkin" in the
comic strip
Terry and the Pirates by
Milton Caniff ?
... that the core of the
Medieval Bulgarian Army (
pictured ) was the
heavy cavalry , which consisted of 12,000–30,000 heavily armed riders?
... that
Odell McBrayer , an unsuccessful
Republican candidate for
Governor of
Texas in 1974, proposed the televising of
executions to deter violent crime?
... that
Indo-Maldivian relations grew stronger after
India responded to
Maldives ' request for help and
thwarted a militant plot to overthrow the government in 1988?
... that
Edward, Prince of Wales stayed at
Perry Belmont's House in
Washington D.C. at the behest of President
Woodrow Wilson ?
... that
Indonesian
journalist ,
S. K. Trimurti , who often used a
pseudonym in her
reporting to avoid arrest by
Dutch colonial authorities , later became the country's first
minister of labor ?
... that critical reception to
Hogarth's
Sigismunda mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo was so harsh the artist was forced to remove the painting from exhibition?
... that the first
coinage used in
Brunei were
Chinese coins (
example pictured ) , which were referred to as the
pitis ?
... that the initials of
John Hathorn and his wife carved into
brick on
their house in
Warwick, New York show the influence of
Germanic
building traditions ?
... that
Marathi film
Shwaas was
India 's official entry to the
2004 Oscars but faced financial problems to showcase and promote the film?
... that
William Bragge donated his 1,500 volume
Miguel de Cervantes collection to the
Birmingham library in 1873, but many of the books were destroyed during a fire?
... that
the record for the most named
tropical storms to form in a month in East
Pacific history since reliable records began dates back to 1968?
... that
E.S. Richardson , a
Louisiana
educator for whom the
E.S. Richardson Elementary School is named, ended his career as an administrator of the wartime
Office of Price Administration ?
... that the
Bahá'í
population in the United Arab Emirates is estimated to be the second-largest in the
Middle East ?
... that there are more than twenty
runestones on the Isle of Man ?
... that
Hopkinsville, Kentucky 's
tribute to Confederate veterans was a public drinking
fountain ?
... that the
Delaware
breed of
chicken (
chick pictured ) was once the favorite
broiler on
U.S. East Coast farms, but is now critically endangered?
... that
Indian Space Research Organisation chairman G. Madavan Nair declared at the
Raman Science Centre ,
Nagpur that
India would have astronauts in space by 2015?
... that
Desdamona won the
Minnesota Music Award for Best
Spoken Word Artist every year from 2000 to 2006, except 2001 and 2002, when nobody won?
... that
Mishmar David was the first
kibbutz to be
privatised ?
... that
No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons , a 2001 report by
Human Rights Watch , blamed feigned ignorance by prison officials for the allegedly widespread
prison rape in the United States?
... that
Mieszko Bolesławowic could have become a
king of Poland , if he had not been poisoned?
... that the
Hillsboro Central light rail station had the only library located at a
mass transit station in the western U.S. when it opened?
... that
British
folk rock singer
Sandy Denny liked the string arrangements on her final album
Rendezvous so much that she called them her "fur coat"?
... that the
Moika Palace , a museum about the murder of
Grigori Rasputin (
pictured ) by Prince
Felix Yusupov , was also the
scene of the
homicide ?
... that of the 30
covered bridges that once stood in
Sullivan County, Pennsylvania , only
Forksville ,
Hillsgrove , and
Sonestown remain, all of which were built in 1850?
... that
Indian actress
Kamalinee Mukherjee 's
poem was selected for an international poetry contest in
Washington, D.C. just before she began her acting career in the
Telugu film industry ?
... that
Hurricane Huko had effects in all three North Pacific
tropical cyclone basins ?
... that
Roy Agnew has been described as the most outstanding
Australian
composer of the early 20th century?
... that the American Fork Railroad stopped 4 miles (6.4 km) short of the
Forest City, Utah
smelter it was built to serve?
... that after the
Mendiola massacre on
January 22 ,
1987 , the
Filipino Government banned all
public demonstrations on
Mendiola Street in
Manila ?
... that
Morris W. Turner , as a city council member and then the
mayor of
Lubbock , was among those charged with rebuilding the downtown after the
West Texas city faced devastating
tornadoes in May 1970?
... that the
Lloyd Wright -designed
John Sowden House (
pictured ) is known as the "Jaws House" because its facade resembles the open mouth of a
shark ?
... that
Cuba-Pakistan relations were strengthened due to
Cuba 's assistance after the
2005 Kashmir earthquake ?
... that
William Rankin is the only person to survive a
parachuting descent through a
thunderstorm
cloud ?
... that in
Norse mythology , the
Æsir-Vanir War between two tribes of gods resulted in the unification of the tribes?
... that
Steven Spielberg originally cast
Tony Award nominee
Julyana Soelistyo as Pumpkin in the film
Memoirs of a Geisha ?
... that although both
Hebrew and
Arabic texts are written from right to left, the
question mark is mirrored in Arabic (؟) but not in
Hebrew punctuation ?
... that
U.S. Presidents
Lyndon B. Johnson and
Harry S. Truman once lived in the
Kennedy-Warren Apartment Building ?
... that
Bruno Sacco , the
Italian -born head of styling at
Daimler-Benz between 1975 and 1999, considers his design of the
1991 Mercedes-Benz S-Class
luxury car to be four inches (10 cm) too tall?
... that the 5th-century
Sassanian Emperor of Iran
Yazdegerd I (
pictured on coin ) was given the
epithets of Ramashtras ("the most quiet") as well as Al Khasha ("the harsh")?
... that
Frank Lloyd Wright 's textile block work,
Storer House , was restored in the 1980s by
Joel Silver , producer of the films
Die Hard and
The Matrix ?
... that the
1992 Nicaragua earthquake was the first "tsunami earthquake" to be captured on modern broadband seismic networks?
... that
Matthew Bruccoli , a scholar on
F. Scott Fitzgerald , owned a collection of Fitzgerald
memorabilia valued at US$2 million?
... that
Roujin Z is a 1991
Japanese
anime film about a computerized hospital bed with its own built-in
atomic power reactor ?
... that the
Louisville and Nashville Railroad built a separate spur just for
Western Kentucky University 's
Heating Plant ?
... that
Swiss
illustrator
Albert Lindegger was responsible for
murals at the headquarters of the
cantonal police and the
crematorium in
Berne ?
... that in 1928, the
Mayo Beach Light tower was removed from its site on
Cape Cod and re-erected in
California as the
Point Montara Light ?
... that the original
hot dog on a stick to be served at
Cozy Dog Drive-in (
pictured ) was called a Crusty Cur?
... that as a result of the
2008 Karnataka state assembly elections the
Bharatiya Janata Party formed its first
state government in
southern India ?
... that
14th-century explorer
Ibn Battuta visited the
Mali Empire during the reign of
Mansa Suleyman ?
... that
Atlanta Braves pitcher
Pete Smith threw three of his four career
shutouts in
1988 , the season after his rookie year?
... that prior to
colonial times ,
written literature was virtually absent from
Burkina Faso , with the country's first novel not published until 1962?
... that although
allies during the
Vietnam War ,
bilateral relations between
China and
Vietnam deteriorated due to disputes over the
Gulf of Tonkin and
Cambodia , resulting in the
Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979?
... that
Carlisle Floyd decided to adapt
Olive Ann Burns ' novel
Cold Sassy Tree into
an opera after his sister gave him a copy?
... that the
Analatos Painter ,
Mesogeia Painter and
Polyphemos Painter (
work pictured ) were early
Greek vase painters of the Proto-Attic period, active between 700 and 650 BC?
... that the
horses in the
Minneapolis Police Department
mounted patrol commute to
Minneapolis from a nearby ranch?
... that the
Horse Grenadier Guards were a unit of the British
Household Cavalry until 1788, originally serving as
mounted infantry to reinforce the
Horse Guards Regiment ?
... that
Manabendra Narayan Larma was a major political leader of the
Chakma people and
other tribes of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts and founder of the
Shanti Bahini militia?
... that writer
Robert W. Peterson , whose seminal 1970 book Only the Ball was White called attention to the overlooked history of
Negro league baseball , was also a prolific writer of magazine articles for the
Boy Scouts of America ?
... that the original owner of the
Embassy of Uzbekistan in Washington, D.C. building died during the sinking of the
RMS Titanic ?
... that 13 separate churches served the
German population of Louisville in the 19th century?
... that the
British Army changed its plans for
operations in Greece during
World War II on medical advice from
Australian
Brigadier
Sir Neil Fairley (
pictured ) ?
... that the Cathedral Church of the Prince of Peace, the
episcopal see of the bishop of the
Christ Catholic Church founded by
Karl Pruter , is said to be the smallest
cathedral in the world?
... that the
2006 visit by
King
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to
India was officially described as "heralding a new era in
Indo-Saudi Arabian relations "?
... that the
jazz
album
To the Stars by
Chick Corea was inspired by
Scientology founder
L. Ron Hubbard 's
SF
novel of the same name ?
... that the third, fourth, and fifth highest
mountain peaks in
Africa are located in
Rwenzori Mountains National Park in
Uganda ?
... that the lifting of the
Siege of Hull in 1643 was marked by an annual public holiday in
Hull ,
England , until the
Restoration ?
... that employee uniforms at the
Topaz Hotel in
Washington, D.C. have been described as "punk
Buddhist "?
... that
the worst terrorist attack against
tourists in Egypt was in November 1997, when gunmen killed 57 tourists and 4 Egyptians (
location pictured ) ?
... that the
Thomas T. Gaff House is the residence of the
Colombian
ambassador to the
United States ?
... that
Dulcie Holland 's Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano , described as "one of the greatest treasures of
Australian music ", waited 47 years for its first public performance?
... that
Ringeriksbanen railway would reduce rail travel from
Oslo to
Bergen ,
Norway by 60 km (37 mi)?
... that
Scientology founder
L. Ron Hubbard 's
SF
novel
To the Stars was nominated for a
2001 "Retro"
Hugo Award ?
... that
Saudi Arabia promised to supply 50,000
barrels of free
oil per day to
help Pakistan if
economic sanctions were imposed after its
1998 nuclear tests ?
... that
Albert Tozier rang the bell at a church in
Hillsboro, Oregon , on New Year's Eve for 64 straight years?
... that the
Norwegian
torpedo boat
HNoMS Kjell (
pictured ) was known as "Terror of the smugglers" when she intercepted
rum runners during Norway's
prohibition ?
... that in 1784,
Abel Buell published the first
map of the new United States created by an American?
... that
India 's
USD 650–750 million
aid for
Afghanistan has bolstered
bilateral relations and made it the largest regional provider of aid since
overthrow of the Taliban ?
... that
Irish
journalist
Doireann Ní Bhriain was given one of the final
Jacob's Awards in 1993 to commemorate her career with
RTÉ Radio 1 ?
... that a
bipartisan commission was
established by law in 2003 with the mandate to study
prison rape in the
United States ?
... that
French singer
Patricia Kaas '
1990 album
Scène de vie was certified
Diamond in
France , Double-platinum in
Switzerland and Platinum in
Canada ?
... that the only time a
Confederate flag was displayed in
Nevada during the American Civil War was over a
saloon ?
... that the
Harris Theater (
pictured ) is the first new performing arts venue built in downtown
Chicago, Illinois since 1929?
... that
Down Among the Z Men (1952) is the only film starring all four original members of
The Goons :
Peter Sellers ,
Spike Milligan ,
Harry Secombe and
Michael Bentine ?
... that
Mel Krause lost his job as head coach of the
University of Oregon 's
baseball team when the university cut its century-old baseball program in 1981?
... that
Otto Soemarwoto ’s work as director of the Institute of Ecology has been cited as a primary influence on the resettlement strategy during
Indonesia 's Saguling Dam project?
... that
amateur
footballer
Lee Todd is in the
Guinness Book of World Records for the quickest
sending off in a match, playing for just two seconds?
... that
Helen J. Frye was the first woman to serve on
Oregon 's
sole federal district court ?
... that the
Eberswalde Hoard (
pictured ) , a collection of 81 gold objects weighing 2.59 kilograms (5.7 lb), is an important find from the
European
Bronze Age ?
... that the
Dunbar Hotel was the heart of
LA 's
jazz scene with visits by
Duke Ellington ,
Billie Holiday , and
Louis Armstrong ?
... that when
Hibernian F.C. applied to join the Scottish Football Association , the
SFA told them that the SFA were catering for
Scotsmen , not
Irishmen ?
... that in
1977 ,
L. Ron Hubbard wrote a
SF film
screenplay called
Revolt in the Stars which is very similar to his
Xenu story from the
Scientology
space opera
theology ?
... that a German Empire was first proclaimed on
28 March
1849 with the so-called
Paulskirchenverfassung , or Constitution of the German Empire ?
... that
Lawrence Wroth wrote the definitive book on the
American colonial period
printing trade while working as a
librarian at
Brown University ?
... that Culver Randel manufactured
pianos at
his mill (
pictured ) in
Florida ,
New York ?
... that
Hermann Neubacher was the leader of the
Austrian branch of the
German Nazi Party ?
... that
a 2007 accident on the
Rampe de Laffrey killed 26
Polish
pilgrims , but was not
the worst ever seen along the road?
... that in
optics and
acoustics , the
transfer-matrix method is used to analyze the propagation of
electromagnetic or
acoustic waves through a
layered medium?
... that
Indian actor
Sikandar Kher was still in high school when he assisted director
Sanjay Leela Bhansali in making the
2002 film
Devdas ?
... that compared to
standard pistols , the pistols used in the
ISSF
10 m Air Pistol event are allowed to be larger and have lower
trigger pull weight?
... that
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote his debut novel
This Side of Paradise in a successful attempt to convince
Zelda Sayre to marry him?
... that
Uri-On (
pictured ) , created by
Michael Netzer in 1987, was the first
Israeli
superhero to be published in color?
... that the
British Army during the Napoleonic Wars increased in size from 40,000 regular troops to over 250,000?
... that
Western Kentucky University 's
Van Meter Hall is said to be haunted by the ghost of a worker who died due to seeing an airplane for the first time?
... that
Mary's Point in
New Brunswick ,
Canada has the world's highest density of
Corophium volutator , a
crustacean which is a food source of millions of
Semipalmated Sandpipers ?
... that
Pakistan's ties with Turkey have been influenced by
president
Pervez Musharraf 's admiration for
Turkey 's model of
modernism and secularism ?
... that the builder of
Centinela Adobe traded his 2,200-acre (880 ha) ranch encompassing the modern city of
Inglewood for a keg of whisky and a small home in
Los Angeles ?
... that
McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink (
pictured ) is both an
ice skating rink and the largest
alfresco dining venue in
Chicago ?
... that the German
Reichsflotte Navy was founded on
14 June
1848 , before the
German Empire was proclaimed on
28 March
1849 , and that it fought only in the
Battle of Heligoland on 4 June against
Denmark ?
... that a bobsled from the
1932 Olympic Games , which had been missing for more than sixty years, was donated to the
Lake Placid Winter Olympic Museum in 2002?
... that the
Guglers ,
mercenary
knights invading
Switzerland in 1375, were so named because of their
headwear ?
... that the
Archdiocese of the Old Catholic Church of America has taken the official position that all
Christians must support
nuclear disarmament , even if it is unilateral?
... that
Lorin Maazel was 75 years old when his first opera,
1984 , had its world premiere in 2005?
... that the
Pale-yellow Robin (
pictured ) uses the prickly Lawyer Vine as a
nesting site and for nesting material?
... that the steel beams of
Opaekaa Road Bridge , in
Kapa'a ,
Hawaii were forged in 1890 in
Motherwell ,
Scotland ?
... that
Mihail Moruzov ,
Romania 's first modern espionage chief, was shot as part of the
Jilava Massacre , while his successor
Eugen Cristescu died in prison?
... that
Indiana 's
Morgan-Monroe State Forest features
gold
panning ?
... that renowned
Holocaust scholar
Robert Jan van Pelt says that the first
Holocaust deniers were the
Nazis themselves?
... that
Pakistan established
bilateral relations with
Nepal in 1962-63 and agreed to provide free trade access and transport facilities to Nepal at the
Chittagong Port ?
... that the
novel
Final Blackout by
Scientology founder
L. Ron Hubbard is seen as an early classic of the
Golden Age of Science Fiction ?
... that
Walter Livsey
kept wicket so well in his debut
cricket match in 1913 that the opposing team only scored three
runs from his mistakes?
... that after being sentenced, beaten and left for dead for refusing to recite
Muslim scriptures,
Vaishnava convert
Haridasa Thakur 's (
pictured ) instant recovery convinced many he was a
pir ?
... that
Bristol, Quebec , had
Canada 's first
horse-drawn railroad and Quebec's first
iron ore
pelletizing plant?
... that
Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi and a majority of
Israel 's population support
future enlargement of the European Union to incorporate Israel?
... that the
2001
film adaptation of
Shakespeare 's
Richard II was filmed at an abandoned
Civil War -era fort on an island in
Boston Harbor ?
... that a
dendrochronological study suggests the
Corlea Trackway , a
kilometre -long
corduroy road in
County Longford ,
Ireland , was built around 148 BC?
... that
Melomani , the first self-styled
Polish jazz
ensemble , was created in 1951 when
jazz music was officially forbidden in
Poland ?
... in 1885,
Jimmy Forrest was the first
professional
footballer to appear for the
England national football team ?
... that
Engine Co. No. 27 served a dual function as a movie location and an operating
firehouse serving the
Hollywood
studios ?
... that
Italian Wall Lizards (
pictured ) on a
Croatian island developed significant behavioral and morphological changes over the course of 36 years, which has been described as "rapid
evolution "?
... that
Swiss voters rejected a proposal to hold popular votes on applications for
citizenship in the
June 2008 Swiss referendum ?
... that
French singer
Patricia Kaas '
1997 album
Dans ma chair was certified
Platinum by the
SNEP ?
... that
Frank T. Norman , a
Louisiana
Democrat , was among the first members of his party to lose a
general election to a
Republican opponent, as the
two-party system began to sprout in the
American South ?
... that the
2008
Indian film
Woodstock Villa marked the debut of veteran
Bollywood actor
Anupam Kher 's son,
Sikandar Kher ?
... that
oil and
natural gas extraction and exploration will cease by 2017 in
Hay-Zama Lakes , an inland
wetland in
Alberta ,
Canada , and the province's only site for the re-introduction of
Wood Bison ?
... that
Karin Pouw 's statements about the book
Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography prompted the niece of
Scientology leader
David Miscavige to publicly criticize the
Church of Scientology online?
... that
Clinton Jencks (
pictured ) , the
petitioner in the case
Jencks v. United States , starred in the
1954 film
Salt of the Earth , which was loosely based on his story?
... that
Lurie Garden is the focal nature component of what is perhaps the world's largest
green roof ?
... that
Oskar Sosnowski , professor of
architecture at
Warsaw Tech , was wounded by Germans while trying to save archives containing details of Polish historic buildings?
... that in the
1996
football match between England and Scotland ,
Uri Geller claimed that he caused
Scotland's
Gary McAllister to miss a
penalty by the
power of his mind ?
... that
charcuterie , derived from the
French words for flesh (chair ) and cooked (cuit ), is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products primarily sourced from
pork ?
... that
Charles Leavitt researched the
diamond industry thoroughly for the film
Blood Diamond 's
screenplay , since he could potentially be sued by mining corporations?
... that the first known
specimen of the
Soringa whiting was caught by accident in 1982 during a
taxonomic survey of
ladyfish in the
Indian Ocean ?
... that
The Greencards (
pictured ) are a
Texas
bluegrass band known for their
Americana sound, but are composed of two
Australians and an
Englishman ?
... that
Chadian president
François Tombalbaye was the first international leader to officially recognize the
Bokassa government after the
1965–1966 Central African Republic coup d’état ?
... that
bodybuilding champion
Victor DelCampo was inspired to pump iron by the
Incredible Hulk comic books?
... that a
mediaeval
ditch running along the centre of
Gerechtigkeitsgasse , an ancient street in
Berne ,
Switzerland can now be seen again following renovation work in 2005?
... that the
constant k filter was invented by
George Campbell but named by
Otto Zobel , the inventor of the
m-derived filter – both used in
composite image filters ?
... that the
1997 Women's Cricket World Cup saw a record eleven teams playing 32 matches in 25 different stadia?
... that the 1950s
Canadian science-fiction television series
Space Command featured
William Shatner and
James Doohan who later appeared on
Star Trek ?
... that the flowers of the
beach gardenia (
pictured ) are used to scent
coconut oil in the
Cook Islands , while the heated leaves are used for
headaches in
northern Australia ?
... that the
Tang Dynasty imperial prince
Li Tan was forced to commit suicide due to false accusations that he planned to kill his brother
Li Chu , the later Emperor Daizong?
... that the
Chantecler , the only breed of
chicken native to
Canada , was developed by a
Trappist monk?
...that the
2001
documentary film
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy retold the story of the
Scottsboro Boys , one of the most controversial courtroom pursuits of
racism in
U.S. history?
... that in spite of their poor formal education,
William Tinsley and his brother Edward founded the
Victorian publishing firm Tinsley Brothers, which brought out
Thomas Hardy 's first
novels ?
... that when
Yves Saint Laurent launched a
perfume in 1977 named
Opium , it led to accusations that he was condoning drug use?
... that
Vratislav Brabenec (
pictured ) , a member of the
Plastic People of the Universe , studied
theology and was in a
Czechoslovak prison for eight months because of his music?
... that the
Dead Plane
EP is one of five limited edition singles and EPs released on five different labels by
No Age on the same day,
March 26 ,
2007 ?
... that the
University of Bristol 's
gowns are
said to have been designed by its first Vice Chancellor in the colour of the rocks of the
Avon Gorge after rain?
... that
Australian
composer
Raymond Hanson , a teacher of
music composition at the
Sydney Conservatorium , was himself largely
self-taught ?
... that the
1944
German film
Große Freiheit Nr. 7 was banned in
Nazi Germany and only permitted by the
Allies in late 1945?
... that
Darryl Brinkley , the first
Northern League
baseball player to
bat .400 , lost his chance to play in the
majors due to the
September 11, 2001 attacks ?
... that large
sandstone boulders rest atop trees in
Yellowwood State Forest (
example pictured ) and no one knows how they got there?
... that the
1990
Spanish film
¡Ay Carmela! takes its title from the favorite song of the Republican soldiers and of the
International Brigade during the
Spanish Civil War ?
... that the recent
Tropical Storm Arthur was the first Atlantic
tropical storm that formed during the month of May since 1981?
... that
Jane S. Richardson developed the ubiquitous
ribbon diagram method of representing
proteins ?
... that
Time Banking is an alternative
economic system which uses units of time as
currency ?
... that improving
Indo-Taiwanese relations have led to
bilateral trade rising to
USD 2.26 billion by 2005, even though
India has not accorded
diplomatic recognition to
Taiwan ?
... that the
Berezan' Runestone is the only
runestone discovered in
Eastern Europe ?
... that
Hoosier tradition holds that
Christopher Harrison exiled himself from his native
Maryland due to failing to court the future wife of
Jérôme Bonaparte successfully?
... that, due to political pressure for quicker development,
Alfred Pippard was unable to finish his report on the
structural analysis of the
R101
airship (
pictured ) before it crashed?
... that the
first public anti-smoking campaign in modern history was launched in
Nazi Germany ?
... that in 1979,
Joseph C. Howard, Sr. , whose mother was
Sioux and father was
African American , was the first African American named to the
United States District Court for the District of Maryland ?
... that there has been a
windmill in
Mountnessing since 1477?
... that a
revolution in 1688 in the
Kingdom of Siam (modernday
Thailand ) severed virtually all
ties with the
Western world for nearly two centuries?
... that
rock climber
Peter Harding developed the art of hanging from one hand jammed into a crack, while smoking a cigarette with the other?
... that
Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX is a collection of nearly 1,000 ancient historical anecdotes written by
Valerius Maximus ?
... that
Wrigley Square 's Millennium Monument is a near replica of a monument destroyed in 1953 that stood in almost the exact same location in
Chicago, Illinois ?
... that
Pinnacle@Duxton (
model pictured ) , at 50 floors, is set to be the tallest
public housing in
Singapore upon completion?
... that Captain
Juan de Amezquita defended
Puerto Rico from an invasion by the
Dutch in 1625?
... that each chapter of the
2005
chick lit
romantic comedy novel
The Thing About Jane Spring begins with a quote from a
Doris Day film?
... that
Viking warrior
Šimon is honoured in the
cave monastery of Kiev ?
... that the 1900
Carpenter Gothic
Wadsworth Chapel has separate
Catholic and
Protestant chapels under one roof?
... that
T. V. Sundaram Iyengar laid the foundation for the motor transport industry in
South India , when he started a bus service in
Madurai ,
Madras Presidency in 1912?
... that having reached peak windspeed on
September 6 ,
1959 ,
Hurricane Patsy is the earliest known
Category 5
Pacific hurricane ?
... that while serving in
World War II ,
baseball player
Eddie Kazak spent 18 months in hospitals recovering from a
bayonet wound to his left arm and his right elbow being shattered by
shrapnel ?
... that the
Art Deco
Montecito Apartments (pictured) had been the home of
Ronald Reagan ,
James Cagney ,
Montgomery Clift , and
George C. Scott before becoming a
senior citizens ' housing project?
... that the
Eimsbütteler TV , a German
football club, failed to advance in the
national championship finals in 1934 and 1935 despite beating the later champion,
FC Schalke 04 , in both years?
... that
Pulau Merambong is located within the largest
seagrass bed in
Malaysia ?
... that in 1795
John Billingsley advocated straightening sections of the rivers
Brue ,
Axe and
Parrett , to increase reclamation of the
Somerset Levels ?
... that
Skinnand is a
deserted medieval village in
Lincolnshire , and that its
Norman church was probably burned down by
Oliver Cromwell in the
English Civil War ?
... that the
prescription most often dispensed at the
Vatican Pharmacy is
Valium ?
... that in 1656, German
violinist
Thomas Baltzar helped premiere
The Siege of Rhodes , thought to have been the first all-sung
English
opera ?
... that four generations of
Vikings can be traced on the
Gällsta Runestones (
example pictured ) ?
... that the
Franklin County Courthouse incorporates the walls and columns left after
Confederate forces burned the previous courthouse during the
American Civil War ?
... that
sumo wrestler
Keisuke Itai caused controversy by claiming that the outcome of up to 80 percent of his matches was
fixed ?
... that Penedo, a small town in
Brazil was colonized by
immigrants from Finland ?
... that although
Portland, Oregon 's 140-mile (225 km) long
greenway system, the
40 Mile Loop , is far from complete, it has been described as "one of the most creative and resourceful greenway projects" in the U.S.?
... that
Indian coracles , which probably existed since the prehistoric times, have recently been used for giving tourists rides on the
Kaveri River ?
... that
fighter ace
Hartmann Grasser , who is credited for shooting down 103 enemy aircraft during
World War II , later worked as an adviser for the
Syrian Air Force ?
... that the
Skyline Towers apartment building in
Saint Paul, Minnesota is often referred to as a "
ghetto in the sky"?
... that a
calf is said to haunt the
Kramgasse (
pictured ) , a main street in the
Old City of Berne ,
Switzerland , where it had been
flayed alive?
... that the
Japanese
visual novel
5 has been described by its development team as a "noisy northern province
love comedy "?
... that
Royal Navy
seaman
Harry Price recounted in a memoir how he once instigated a minor
mutiny , only to end it when it reached "ugly proportions"?
... that
India 's
"Look East" policy aims to establish extensive
relations with Asian countries to project its influence as a counterweight to that of the
People's Republic of China ?
... that
Australian
composer and
ABC broadcaster
William G. James dedicated his Six Australian Bush Songs to
Dame Nellie Melba ?
... that the role of
alpha-synuclein in
Parkinson's disease was discovered by genetic studies of a family from
Contursi Terme in
Italy , which had 61 members with Parkinson's?
... that
Hardy Lake is
Indiana 's smallest
reservoir at 741 acres of surface area?
... that, during the
1989 Revolution ,
Romanian actor
Victor Rebengiuc appeared on television with a
toilet paper roll, as a symbol of "wiping out" the
communist regime 's traces?
... that the
war veterans' memorial (
pictured ) in
Suffern, New York , is built on land where
George Washington and
Rochambeau camped with the
Continental Army during the
Revolutionary War ?
... that a 1974 provincial
Order-in-Council has prohibited
hunting on the
Grand Codroy Estuary , the "most important wetland" on the
island of Newfoundland ?
... that the
Battle of Sena Gallica , fought in 551 AD, was the last major
naval battle to take place in the
Mediterranean Sea for more than a century?
... that
Frank Gehry used a hollow design for the
BP Pedestrian Bridge in order to reduce the load on underground
parking garages that support the bridge?
... that
UnrealIRCd is used on the largest number of
IRC servers?
... that before
Brad Pitt and
Angelina Jolie selected it for a retreat from
paparazzi , the
Château Miraval, Correns-Var was already well-known as a
Provençal
vineyard ?
... that
China sought to strengthen
Sino-Nepalese relations by supplying arms to the
Nepalese monarchy against the country's
Maoist insurgents ?
... that
Zac Efron and
Claire Danes claim they saw a ghostlike figure while filming
Me and Orson Welles at
Gaiety Theatre on the
Isle of Man ?
... that
Hugh de Largie (
pictured ) , who was banned from working as a
miner in
Newcastle for his
union activities, later became an inaugural member of the
Australian Senate ?
... that
stained glass from
Judson Studios is found not only in churches, but also in
Frank Lloyd Wright houses, the
U.S. Capitol and the
Tropicana Casino ?
... that
Mary Shelley 's
verse drama
Midas is a commentary on both
Ovid 's
Metamorphoses and
Chaucer 's
The Wife of Bath's Tale ?
... that the
sociology of the Internet is a newly emerging
branch of sociology concerned with issues such as the
digital divide , online
social capital and the
public sphere ?
... that the
Tang Dynasty
eunuch
Li Fuguo , whose assassin had cut off his head and one of his arms, was buried with a wooden head and a wooden arm?
... that between 1970 and 1984 the
WE Seal of approval program aided in an estimated
US$ 100,000 in restitution being made to collectors of comics and other
memorabilia victimized by
mail fraud ?
... that deforestation in
Staffordshire inspired contributions from
Erasmus Darwin and
Anna Seward to a book of poetry about
Needwood Forest by
Francis Mundy ?
... that a
heckling comb is used when
hand processing
flax to comb out and clean the fibers?
... that one novelty of
Hans Gieng 's 1543 statue on the
Fountain of Justice (
pictured ) in
Berne was the portrayal of
Lady Justice as
blindfolded ?
... that goalkeeper
Bob Roberts was the first
West Bromwich Albion player to win an international
cap ?
... that the meandering
Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad line took 77.2 miles (124 km) to connect
Baltimore, Maryland and
York, Pennsylvania although the two cities are only 45 miles (72 km) apart in a straight line?
... that
Clarendon is known as the heartland of
Anglo-Saxon Protestantism in western
Quebec ,
Canada , because its founder required that all
settlers be Protestant?
... that the
Tang Dynasty 's
Empress Zhang , during her husband
Emperor Suzong 's illness, used her blood to write
Buddhist
sutras in order to seek blessings for him?
... that the namesake of the
Paxton Hotel in
Downtown Omaha ,
William A. Paxton , was also instrumental in founding the
Omaha Stockyards , the
Omaha Driving Park and the
South Omaha Land Company ?
... that although the
blackmouth angler is known for its ugly appearance, it is used for making
agujjim (
pictured ) , a popular
Korean dish ?
... that
Oregon 's
Devils Punch Bowl State Natural Area has a naturally eroded bowl carved in the rock by swirling ocean waves?
... that the
Luxembourgian
football club
FV Stadt Düdelingen won the
German
Gauliga Mittelrhein in 1942 and went on to the German championship finals, losing 0–2 to
FC Schalke 04 ?
... that the sinking of the
Nantucket Lightship LV58 on
December 10
1905 was the first time that an
American ship transmitted a
distress signal by
radio ?
... that the
Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca in
Romania was formed from two separate collections housed and operated independently in the same building for 50 years?
... that
Thelma Keane was not only the inspiration for "Mommy" in
The Family Circus , but also headed the
negotiations in which her husband,
cartoonist
Bil Keane , regained full
copyrights to the
comic strip ?
... that the
lobby of the
Suffern, New York
post office (
pictured ) , features a
relief depicting a semi-naked woman shooting a flaming arrow?
... that
Juozas Urbšys was the last
Foreign Minister of
independent interwar Lithuania ?
... that at 1,237-metre (4,060 ft) elevation, the highest point on the
Norwegian railways is the
Finse Tunnel ?
... that
Soviet
test pilot
Vladimir Kokkinaki set twenty aviation world records?
... that
Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor contains a 367-acre (149 ha) land gift made in 1950 by Borax Consolidated, which was the first non-domestic donation to the
Oregon Parks commission ?
... that
Vancouver 's
tallest completed building has been called "the crowning achievement" of the
Ukraine -born businessman
Peter Wall ?
... that the
veldamai were released from their duty to pay taxes to the state by the
privileges of the
Grand Dukes of Lithuania ?
... that some claim
World War II
German
fighter ace
Walter Zellot was killed in September 1942 by
friendly fire ?
... that the United States
Class II 1804 Silver Dollar (
pictured ) is alleged to have been struck over a Swiss Shooting
Thaler ?
... that
Japanese
mangaka
Ken Akamatsu received
Kodansha 's Freshman Manga Award for his debut
manga
Hito Natsu no Kids Game ?
... that the
Welshmen
Edward Edwards ,
Griffith Griffith ,
Owen Owen ,
Richard Richards ,
Robert Roberts and
Thomas Thomas (and his son
Thomas Thomas ) were all educated at
Jesus College, Oxford ?
... that the
Denny Chimes features a Walk of Fame of former captains of the
Alabama Crimson Tide football team at its base?
... that
Gibraltarian
pop rock
band
Taxi is made up of three of
Melon Diesel 's former members and write songs in
Spanish only despite their being
British ?
... that after ten years as an
outlaw in the
American Southwest in the 1890s,
Nathaniel "Texas Jack" Reed became an
evangelist and sold copies of his memoir on life as a bandit?
... that early residents of
Sydney called the
Leaden Flycatcher (
pictured ) the "Frogbird" on account of its guttural
call ?
... that after the overthrow in the 9th century of the
Sailendra dynasty in
Java , its leader
Balaputra became
maharaja of
Srivijaya ?
... that in January 2006,
British
Paralympic
sprinter
John McFall 's racing
prosthesis was stolen, but anonymously returned a week later?
... that in a 1998
bilateral agreement ,
China pledged to respect the
sovereignty and
territorial integrity of
Bhutan even though they have never established
diplomatic relations ?
... that
Angela James , once called the "
Wayne Gretzky of
women's ice hockey ," was amongst the first three women inducted into the
International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame ?
... that legend has it that anyone who spends a night at
Tinkinswood on the evenings before
May Day ,
St John's Day (
23 June ), or
Midwinter Day would either die, go mad, or become a poet?
... that the
parish church of St. Mary in
Chepstow ,
Wales , was founded as a
Benedictine
priory in 1072 and retains its original
Norman doorway (
pictured ) ?
... that some
Aleutian natives were still
enslaved in Alaska as late as 1903?
... that
Australian
James Blair introduced laws to protect children by establishing a
children's court , and by preventing unjust
disinheritance in parents'
wills , before he became
chief justice of
Queensland ?
... that despite being the first official
Atlantic
hurricane season on record, the
1851 Atlantic hurricane season included a hurricane that is the equal-longest on record for the period prior to 1870?
... that the
Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway , one of
London's early
underground "tube" railway lines, was built with finance raised by American
Charles Yerkes ?
... that the
genus
Melampitta is a
taxonomic mystery, having been considered at one time either belonging to the
pitta ,
babbler ,
logrunner ,
bird of paradise , or
cinclosomatid
families ?
... that the first coach of
Lithuanian
chess
International Master and
Woman Grandmaster
Viktorija Čmilytė (
pictured ) was her father?
... that the
Port Oneida Rural Historic District is the largest historic agricultural community fully protected by government ownership in the
United States ?
... that
China has sought to cultivate strong
ties with Burma by providing extensive aid and
vetoing a
UN resolution proposed in 2007 condemning
Burma for
human rights violations?
... that
The Reenactment , a 1968 film by
Romanian director
Lucian Pintilie , was banned by the
communist regime because it showed authorities engaged in tormenting two young delinquents?
... that with the
Philippine Basketball Association 's
acceptance of
Solar Sports ' bid to cover the league, the games will be aired again to the
network that originally aired the games in the
inaugural 1975 season ?
... that the
Clarence Islands were discovered and charted as a group of three
Arctic islands by
James Clark Ross , then re-charted with fictional additions totaling nine islands by his uncle,
John Ross , who never saw them?
... that the relatively unknown
Verdeja
(pictured) was an indigenous
Spanish
tank program to replace the
T-26 and
Panzer I ?
... that
Vuestar Technologies in
Singapore claims to own
patents for
hyperlinking a visual image to webpages, and plans to bill virtually all websites including Google and Microsoft for its use?
... that the lyrics of
Naer Mataron , a
black metal band from
Greece , are influenced by
Greek mythology ?
... that
James H. Howard was the only fighter pilot to be awarded the
Medal of Honor —the
U.S. military 's highest decoration—in the
European Theater of Operations during
World War II ?
... that the
Villa Medici del Trebbio was one of the first of the
Medici villas outside
Florence ?
... that the
One-armed bandit murder , the first gangland killing in
North-East England , inspired
the novel on which the film
Get Carter was based?
... that the
Missoula floods deposited a 40-ton rock atop a 250-foot tall hill at what is now the
Erratic Rock State Natural Site in
Oregon ?
... that one theory why the
virginal (
pictured ) was so called is that the
keyboard instrument was thought to sound like the voice of a young girl?
... that the
Pasco-Kennewick Bridge in
Washington was the first of its size to be financed entirely by sales of
stock ?
... that
cholesterol embolism may result from common medical procedures such as
coronary catheterization , and can cause
kidney damage ?
... that the church tower for the
Fourth Universalist Society of New York is the "high-tech command center" for
NBC 's coverage of the
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ?
... that
Leurospondylus ultimus was so named as it was originally thought to be the last occurrence of a
plesiosaur ?
... that the
Huckleberry Trail takes its name from the former Virginia Anthracite & Coal Railroad, nicknamed the Huckleberry, on whose abandoned railbed this
rail trail was constructed?
... that
Miriam Ben-Porat was the first woman appointed to the
Supreme Court of Israel and the first woman to serve as
Israel 's
State Comptroller ?
... that
Winston Churchill was an Honorary
Colonel in the "Queer Objects On Horseback"—
better known as the
Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars ?
... that
Albrecht Dürer 's
pupil
Hans Springinklee is best known for his
woodcuts (
example pictured ) ?
... that
Tunisia's tourist industry is said to benefit from its
Mediterranean location and its "tradition of low cost package holidays from
Western Europe "?
... that
W. Jasper Blackburn , a
Republican
newspaper
publisher in
Louisiana , was acquitted by a one-vote margin—and thus spared execution—of having printed
counterfeit
Confederate
currency ?
... that the 1974 film
Lost in the Stars , set in
apartheid -era
South Africa , was actually shot in
Oregon ?
... that over fifty surrendered
U-boats were gathered at
HMS Ferret awaiting disposal in
Operation Deadlight ?
... that
Howlin' Dave was credited with introducing
Filipino rock music to Filipino radio listeners?
... that
Oregon 's
Collier Memorial State Park has a
logging museum with equipment dating back to 1880 including ox-drawn "
high wheels ", steam-powered "
donkey engines ", and antique
saw mill machinery?
... that
anaesthetic pioneer
Joseph Thomas Clover anaesthetised
Florence Nightingale ,
Napoleon III and the future king
Edward VII during his career?
... that the
binomial name of the
White-throated Treecreeper (
pictured ) translates as "brown and white
trunk traveller"?
... that a
movie set built for the
1962
Rat Pack film
Sergeants 3 is often mistaken for the
ghost town of
Paria, Utah ?
... that
Tunisian writer, actor, and director of theatre
Mohamed Driss paid tribute to the historian
Ibn Khaldoun by writing an
opera in his honor?
... that the
Minden Press-Herald , a daily
newspaper in
Minden, Louisiana , was not established until 1966 though an earlier Minden Herald dates to 1849?
... that in
Korean cuisine , dishes made by steaming vegetables stuffed with seasoned
fillings are called
Seon ?
... that the
Pike Place Fish Market is a
Seattle, Washington
fishmonger known for throwing fish to customers?
... that on
December 12 ,
1996 ,
India and
Bangladesh signed a 30-year treaty resolving the long-standing dispute over the
sharing of Ganges Waters ?
... that the
New Jersey Library Association , the oldest
library organization in
New Jersey , began in 1890 with 39 members and currently has over 1,600?
... that the
Portland Armory (
pictured ) in
Portland, Oregon was the first building on the
National Register of Historic Places to achieve a Platinum
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification?
... that
Shih Chih-wei was the first player of the
La New Bears to receive a monthly
Most Valuable Player award in the
Chinese Professional Baseball League in
Taiwan ?
... that British TV presenter
Dermot O'Leary once played as a
punt returner for the
Colchester Gladiators ?
... that the
SC Johnson & Son -produced film
To Be Alive! was the first non-theatrical production to receive an award from the
New York Film Critics Circle ?
... that Lady
Elsie Mackay , socialite, actress and interior designer, died in 1928 with
WWI ace
Walter G. R. Hinchcliffe , attempting to be the first woman to fly across the
Atlantic ?
... that in its last completed season in 1943–44, out of twelve clubs in the
Gauliga Pommern , five belonged to the German
Luftwaffe (Air Force), one to the
Kriegsmarine (Navy) and one to the
Heer (Army)?
... that author
Laura Vernon Hamner , informally known as "Miss Amarillo", lived over thirty years in an
Amarillo, Texas hotel?
... that
Hebrew publisher
Hayyim Selig Slonimski (
pictured ) was awarded the
Demidov prize of 2,500
rubles in 1844 by the
Russian Academy of Sciences for the invention of a
calculating machine ?
... that the
Nankin
bantam
breed of
chicken is classified as critically endangered by the
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy ?
... that the 17th-century
Buu Phong Temple in
Vietnam has exactly 100 hillside steps from the road up to its entrance?
... that the
Louisiana
politician
Earl Williamson was a confidant of
Governor
Earl Kemp Long , who shared his interest in
buttermilk ,
horse racing , and politicking?
... that Mevlüde Genç, a
Turk living in Germany who had lost five of her family members to
Neo-Nazi violence in the
Solingen arson attack of 1993 , went on to advocate tolerance between Turks and Germans?
... that
Albert J. Hofstede was
Minneapolis 's first
Catholic mayor?
... that
Circle of Chalk , a
Yuan Dynasty play, is still being performed in European versions set in 14th-century
China ,
Soviet Georgia and
East Germany ?
... that
Coirpre mac Néill is said to have been cursed by
Saint Patrick so that none of his descendants would be
High King of Ireland ?
... that the conical
step pyramids (
reconstruction pictured ) and circular public architecture of
ancient Mexico 's
Teuchitlan tradition were unique in
Mesoamerica ?
... that the
Florida Comptroller refused to pay
Lieutenant Governor
Edmund C. Weeks his salary because he was not elected?
... that the
1966–68 Liga Leumit season was played over two years in an effort to rid
Israeli football of corruption and violence, which included riots on the field?
... that
Kari Blackburn , daughter of
Irish
educationist
Robert Blackburn , taught in a
primary school in
Tanzania before joining the
BBC ?
... that the
Soviet Union made its debut at the
1954 ISSF World Shooting Championships in
Caracas and won 20 of the 30 gold medals?
... that
Native American activist
Jay Morago was the first
Governor of the
Gila River Indian Community ,
Arizona ?
... that the burial of
John Mildenhall at
Agra in 1614 is the oldest recorded burial of an Englishman in India?
... that the
Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive was originally a route called the Sleeping Bear Dunes Park?
... that
twin brothers
David and
Peter Jackson played together for seven clubs in
English football ?
... that the architects of the
Florida Tropical House (
pictured ) , located in
Beverly Shores ,
Indiana designed the house with
Florida residents in mind?
... that
Penelope Boothby was painted by
Henry Fuseli and sculpted by
Thomas Banks , as well as being the subject of a book of poetry by her grieving father
Sir Brooke Boothby, Bt ?
... that
Doge
Andrea
Vendramin of the
Republic of Venice has what is generally agreed to be "the most lavish
funerary monument of
Renaissance
Venice " in the
basilica of
Santi Giovanni e Paolo ?
... that
The Paperboys are an award-winning
Canadian
folk music band that blends
Celtic folk with
Bluegrass ,
Mexican ,
Eastern European ,
African ,
zydeco ,
soul and
country influences?
... that
India has developed
close bilateral relations with
Burma with the aim of countering
China 's growing influence and to elevate itself as a
regional power ?
... that
Murray Jarvik and Jed Rose, who invented the
nicotine patch , could not get approval to conduct their research on human subjects and performed the initial tests of the patch on themselves?
... that the
canine teeth of male
baboons —which can be up to four times as long as those of females—are an example of a
sexual dimorphism ?
... that
Barbette , a
female impersonator
aerialist , served as inspiration to such artists as
Jean Cocteau ,
Man Ray and
Alfred Hitchcock ?
... that
Marilyn Monroe posed naked in 1948 to raise US$50 to pay the rent for her room at the
Hollywood Studio Club (
pictured ) ?
... that at least 37 people have died in the
ongoing caste violence in
Rajasthan ,
India ?
... that
French writer
Honoré de Balzac 's
1831 novel
La Peau de chagrin was the last book read by
Sigmund Freud before he committed suicide?
... that the proposed
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would allow security officials at some
international borders to randomly search travelers'
MP3 players ,
laptops , and
cell phones for
copyright-infringing music files?
... that
Vinh Trang Temple in southern
Vietnam has been severely damaged by both
French
military action and extreme weather?
... that
Bill Flemming called over 600 events as a broadcaster for the
ABC Sports '
Wide World of Sports during his career?
... that the
1994
French –
Romanian film
An Unforgettable Summer depicts the persecution of
Bulgarians by
Romanian Army personnel, in a
metaphor of the
Yugoslav wars ?
... that the state of
Indiana in 1972 set aside 6,000 acres (2,400 ha) of
Hoosier National Forest just for the purpose of reintroducing
wild turkey to the Hoosier state?
... that dried
teasel pods (
pictured ) were used to raise the
nap on woolen fabrics?
... that the
Gazette Building in
Little Rock ,
Arkansas served as headquarters for the
1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign ?
... that
Weeb Ewbank
coached the most games in
New York Jets franchise history?
... that the
Norwegian lake
Lutvann leaked 1,000 liters of water per minute into the railway tunnel
Romeriksporten during its construction in 1997?
... that
Isfield railway station , now the terminus of a
preserved railway line , was used during the
First World War to take German
prisoners of war to work in nearby woodland?
... that the
Martinican Communist Party became the largest
political party in the
French
département d'outre-mer of
Martinique in the 1960s?
... that the emotional, agitated figures depicted in the 9th-century
Ebbo Gospels bear a striking resemblance to illustrations in the
Utrecht Psalter ?
... that
Poole Stadium , a former
football ground now used for
greyhound racing and
speedway , was the venue for the
2004 Speedway World Cup final?
... that
Aythorpe Roding Windmill (
pictured ) is the largest surviving
post mill in
Essex ,
England ?
... that, although projects for
restoration of the Everglades are the most comprehensive attempts at environmental repair in history, they are in danger of being eliminated?
... that
Maryland 's
Frederick High School can trace its roots back more than a century, and has won over 35 state championships in various sports since the late 1950s?
... that
Carlos Minc , the current
Brazilian Minister of Environment, was one of the founding members of the
Green Party ?
... that in 1880 the
United States Congress adjourned so members could watch the
single scull race on the
Potomac River between
Charles E. Courtney and
Ned Hanlan ?
... that
Georgian
footballer
Georgi Kiknadze won five consecutive
league championships with
Dinamo Tbilisi ?
... that the
1881
children's novel
Toby Tyler; or, Ten Weeks with a Circus by
James Otis was made into a
1960 Disney film ?
... that the
Seaboard Air Line Railroad was the first to provide
streamlined passenger trains from New York to Florida, beginning with the
Silver Meteor in 1939?
... that the
Flammulated Flycatcher (
pictured ) , a
tyrant flycatcher
endemic to
Mexico , was eventually placed in the
monotypic
genus Deltarhynchus because of its broad
bill ?
... that by the time
Fort Scott was completed, it was already obsolete?
... that
General
Ziauddin Butt , former head of the
Pakistani intelligence agency , was nominated to head the army in 1999?
... that during the
War of 1812 ,
Laura Secord went to
DeCou House to warn
James FitzGibbon and his
British troops about the surprise
American attack now known as the
Battle of Beaver Dams ?
... that in
Victor Hugo 's novel
Les Misérables ,
Cosette 's
wedding gown was made of
Binche lace because Hugo remembered it from his youth as being a lace of beauty?
... that land agent
Timothy Dwight Hobart from 1886 to 1924 supervised the stringing of hundreds of miles of
barbed wire and the digging of hundreds of
wells topped by
windmills to settle the
Texas Panhandle ?
... that
Islam: The Straight Path by
John L. Esposito is an introductory text on
Islam that devotes half its content to the development of
Islam in modern and
reformist times?
... that inflatable and wooden
dummy tanks (
pictured ) were used in
Operation Fortitude to confuse German intelligence?
... that in 1866,
French
chessplayer
Napoleon Marache published one of the first chess books in the
United States , which also discussed strategy for
backgammon and
dominoes ?
... that
Fountains Fell , a mountain in the
Yorkshire Dales ,
England , is named after
Fountains Abbey whose monks grazed sheep there in the 13th century?
... that
Mark Goffeney , nicknamed "Big Toe", is a professional
guitarist who plays with his feet because he was
born without hands ?
... that the
Gibraltar Football Association had their
UEFA
membership application blocked by Spain due to their
claim on the territory ?
... that
North 24th Street in
Omaha, Nebraska , considered the heart of the
city's African American community , has not fully recovered since
several riots destroyed businesses along the strip in the 1960s?
... that 1999 book
Gone with the Wind in the Vatican narrated alleged scandals in
Vatican City using
pseudonyms from
Gone with the Wind ?
... that
Mary Augusta Dickerson found it inspirational to write her
children's books inside a
Pickle Barrel House ?
... that the stationmaster of the Kinokawa train station in
Kinokawa ,
Japan is a cat named
Tama (
pictured )?
... that
neurologist
Derek Denny-Brown introduced
British anti-Lewisite as a treatment for the
copper overload disorder
Wilson's disease ?
... that the
oldest firehouse still standing in
Louisville ,
Kentucky was once a church?
... that a
free trade agreement made effective in 2000 strengthened
Indo-Sri Lankan relations and quadrupled
bilateral trade , which grew to
US$ 2.6 billion by 2006?
... that 17th-century
French
buccaneer
Montbars the Exterminator attacked
Spanish settlements in the
New World , after reading about
conquistador atrocities?
... that despite being considered "much too far away" to affect weather in
California ,
Hurricane Liza of 1968 caused
US$ 5,000 in damage and the closure of a portion of Ocean Boulevard in
Long Beach ?
... that some
pulvinones have shown
anticoagulant activity in
rats , whilst other pulvinone derivatives are
patented
antibiotics for use in animals?
... that the
Golden Age Passport has been replaced by the "Senior Pass" of the new pass series now called "America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass"?
... that the
Forest Kingfisher (
pictured ) of
Australian
forest and
Melaleuca
swampland , burrows its nest in
termite mounds
in trees up to 12 metres (39 ft) above the ground?
... that the
presidential campaign of Bob Barr began following a successful
draft effort on
Facebook ?
... that in a major improvement in
bilateral ties since it blocked
Bangladesh 's entry in the
U.N. in 1972,
China offered to help Bangladesh construct its first
nuclear plant ?
... that
Native American actor and director
James Young Deer and his wife were an "influential force" in the production of one-reel
Westerns during the early
silent film era?
... that
torchon lace is one of the oldest
bobbin laces and has strictly geometric patterns?
... that
Philippine National Artist
Amado V. Hernandez wrote his masterpieces while being imprisoned in the
New Bilibid Prison ?
... that the
Rio Napo Screech-Owl is part of
a group of owls that have been reclassified three times since 1850?
... that
A Stillness at Appomattox by
Bruce Catton won the
1954 Pulitzer Prize in history?
... that
U.S. Route 127 in Michigan (
pictured ) was tripled in length by extending the highway to replace its parent route,
U.S. Route 27 in 2002?
... that the
Young Religious Unitarian Universalists protested against
Victoria's Secret for allegedly printing their catalogues with paper sourced from endangered forests?
... that the
yuja hwachae ,
Korean traditional
fruit punch made with
Korean pear and
yuja , is often served with
flower pancakes made of
chrysanthemum ?
... that
mathematician
Nathan Mendelsohn was on the first
Putnam Competition -winning team in 1938, but also won second prize in an
International Brotherhood of Magicians contest, behind
Johnny Carson ?
... that the
Webster ruling is a legal
precedent clarified by the
Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2008, which extends to professional
footballers in
Europe the same
contractual
freedom of movement as workers in other industries?
... that
Zaha Hadid 's architectural design won an international competition for the upcoming
Vilnius Guggenheim Hermitage Museum ?
... that father and son
James E. Bolin and
Bruce M. Bolin both served in the
Louisiana House of Representatives and as a state district court
judge – thirty-eight years apart in each case?
... that after serving three terms in the
Norwegian Parliament for the
Conservative Party ,
Georg Apenes took over as director of the
Norwegian Data Inspectorate ?
... that although the
Ishvara temple (
pictured ) in
Karnataka ,
India , seems modest in construction, it is in fact the most complicated
Hoysala monument ?
... that
John Kempthorne defeated an attack by seven
Algerine
corsairs on his single ship,
HMS Mary Rose ?
... that
Eisenhower's home cost more than six times to renovate than it did to purchase, due to union labor and
Mamie Eisenhower 's whims?
... that
German
chemist
Albert Niemann was the first person to isolate
cocaine in 1859?
... that the
U.S. suspended the
Commercial Import Program to
South Vietnam after concluding that President
Ngo Dinh Diem was using the funds to repress
Buddhists rather than
communists ?
... that
Cornelia Adair , during
World War I , invited
Belgian
refugees to stay at her
Glenveagh Castle in
County Donegal ,
Ireland ?
... that the
Museum at Bethel Woods is devoted mostly to the
Woodstock Festival , and located on its site?
... that the remnants of
defensive walls and stone shelters built by
shipwreck survivor
Wiebbe Hayes and his men on
West Wallabi Island in 1629, are
Australia 's oldest known
European structures?
... that the
Neoclassical
Hollywood Masonic Temple (
pictured ) has been used as a
Masonic Lodge ,
opera house , and
nightclub , and is now the home of the
Jimmy Kimmel Live! television show?
... that
Gerobatrachus is considered to be a
missing link that supports the hypothesis offered by
cladistics , that
frogs and
salamanders had a common ancestor?
... that
Ngo Dinh Diem 's
presidential visit to Australia saw him receive the
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George , one of the highest
British imperial honours bestowed on a non-British subject?
... that the
Cosmographia by
Sebastian Münster from 1544 is the earliest German description of the world?
... that soldiers from
Fort Benning patrolled the woods around the
Little White House during
World War II ?
... that
Bishop Hannington Memorial Church in
Hove ,
England , is dedicated to a
missionary killed in
Uganda on
King Mwanga II 's orders ?
... that in his book
A More Perfect Union: Advancing New American Rights ,
U.S. Congressman
Jesse Jackson, Jr. proposed eight
constitutional amendments ?
... that
Robert Parker Parrott 's last home,
Plumbush (pictured) , outside
Cold Spring, New York , is now a
bed and breakfast ?
... that the
Sperrgebiet , a
diamond mining area closed to the public, makes up 3 percent of
Namibia 's surface area?
... that the oddly-named
Saints' Roost Museum in
Clarendon, Texas refers to the town having been a
prohibition settlement in the 1880s that
cowboys referred to as where the "saints roost"?
... that the
Academic Gymnasium Danzig , along with similar schools in
Elbląg and
Toruń , transformed
Royal Prussia into a center of
classical studies in the 16th century?
... that
Texas
rancher
Montie Ritchie was the
photographer on a British Alpine Club expedition in 1949 to the
Baffin Islands in the
Canadian Arctic ?
... that the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation is proposing a
regional free trade area that would accounting for almost half of
world trade ?
... that
Jack Christiansen and
Bill Walsh are the only
San Francisco 49ers head coaches in the
Pro Football Hall of Fame ?
... that
Hindus often worship the
Krishna often as the small child
Bala Krishna (pictured) , crawling on his hands and knees with a lump of butter in his hands?
... that boundary
surveyor
Joseph Smith Harris , climbed a ship's mast to direct
mortars during the
Civil War
Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip ?
... that
Petubastis III led a
revolt in
Egypt against
Persian rule in circa 522 BCE?
... that the
Coffee Creek Correctional Facility is the only women's
prison in
Oregon ?
... that
Walter Emden designed
London
theatres and
music halls in the late 19th century, including the
Palace Theatre , the
Duke of York's , the
Garrick and the
Royal Court ?
... that
John Aspinall was the first recipient of the
James Watt International Medal ?
... that the original images of
Lord Swaminarayan (
pictured ) at the
Shri Swaminarayan Temple in
Karachi ,
Pakistan were removed and taken to
India during the turbulent times of its
partition ?
... that
QUIET , an
astronomy
experiment due to start observing in 2008 at the
Llano de Chajnantor Observatory , will make measurements of the
polarization of the
cosmic microwave background radiation ?
... that
prehistoric people used the same 89 °F (32 °C)
warm springs that
Franklin Delano Roosevelt would use in the 20th century?
... that
Kaunas University Hospital , the largest medical institution in
Lithuania , was named as a cultural monument in 2008?
... that
Nielluccio ,
Sciacarello and
Vermentino are the three leading
grape
varieties for
making
Corsica wine ?
... that the
Web Site Administration Tool simplifies the creation of an
authentication and
authorization system in an
ASP.NET website?
... that in
1968 ,
The Detroit Wheels recorded "
Linda Sue Dixon ", a thinly-veiled
paean to the illicit
hallucinogenic drug
LSD ?
... that the
Wawelberg Group was a
Polish special-forces unit which began the 1921
Third Silesian Uprising by blowing up seven rail bridges linking
Upper Silesia with the rest of
Germany ?
... that
Richard Neutra 's
Jardinette Apartments in
Hollywood is considered one of the first
Modernist buildings in America?
... that
samite was a luxurious and heavy
silk
fabric worn in the
Middle Ages , and famously by
Tennyson 's
Lady of the Lake (
pictured ) ?
... that before the release of the
Japanese
visual novel
Sora o Tobu, Mittsu no Hōhō , there was a similarly based
manga series by
Kensha Shimotsuki ?
... that a cat named "
Room 8 " was the subject of a book, a documentary, a song by
Leo Kottke , and obituaries that appeared in papers from the
Los Angeles Times to the
Hartford Courant ?
... that the
Red Cross with Imperial Portraits
Fabergé egg commemorates the work of women from the
House of Romanov for the
Red Cross during
World War I ?
... that
American
physicist
Hugh Bradner developed the first
neoprene
wetsuit but was unable to
patent it?
... that the present
Cape Rachado Lighthouse , erected in 1863 in
Malacca ,
Malaysia , includes an additional concrete tower that was completed in 1990 to house a
MEASAT
radar ?
... that
Calsoyasuchus valleyceps , an extinct
crocodile relative from the
Early Jurassic , has a deep groove in its
skull from which its
species name , "valley head", derives?
... that in 1847
Thomas Huling sold the town of
Zavala, Texas for
US$ 1,000 and 5,000 boxes of Green Mountain Vegetable Ointment?
... that the
120-cell 4-dimensional puzzle (
pictured ) is one of several
n-dimensional sequential move puzzles that have been implemented as virtual puzzles but have never been solved?
... that
Rachel Wall was the first American-born
female pirate , and the last woman to be
hanged in
Massachusetts ?
... that in a major improvement in
bilateral relations in 2008,
Pakistan proposed sharing
nuclear technology with
Bangladesh ?
... that the
Captain Andrew Offutt Monument barely mentioning Sherman's March to the Sea makes it only one of two
Civil War related monuments in Kentucky to stress strong Union sentiment?
... that
Étienne-Théodore Pâquet defeated a man twice his age to become one of the youngest ever members of the
Legislative Assembly of Quebec ?
... that
Jeb Bush became the first
Republican
Governor of Florida to be re-elected to a second term after winning the
2002 Florida gubernatorial election ?
... that the
Philadelphia Phillies were the last of the original 16
Major League Baseball franchises to win the
World Series ?
... that
aviation
historian
Randy Acord was awarded the
Alaska –
Siberian
Lend Lease Award for his role in improving
Russian –
North American relations during
World War II ?
... that the suit of
armour on the
effigy of
Sir Ralph Fitzherbert (
pictured ) has been reproduced as a
Second Life
avatar ?
... that
mathematician
Paul Erdős called the
Hadwiger conjecture , a still-open generalization of the
four-color problem , "one of the deepest unsolved problems in
graph theory "?
... that the
1975 film
Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris starred theater and
cabaret stars Elly Stone and Joe Masiell in their only film performances?
... that more than 5 million people
died of starvation or disease in the
Southern India famine of 1876–78 ?
... that
neo-Nazi politician and member of the
Bundestag
Fritz Rössler , who resembled
Adolf Hitler , had a habit of attending parliament drunk?
... that
Muscatatuck State Park was the first
Indiana state park to need no additional financial assistance, even through it never charged admission?
... the
Paris -based
Naye Prese was the sole
Yiddish -language
communist daily newspaper in
Europe during the
interbellum period?
... that the
Crown Point Light , constructed as a conventional
lighthouse , was rebuilt in 1912 as a monument to
Samuel de Champlain 's explorations?
... that the 850-foot (260 m)
Commerzbank Tower (
pictured ) is the
tallest building in the
European Union ?
... that the discovery of a stone
celt with
Indus script in Tamil Nadu in 2006 was regarded by
Indian
epigraphist
Iravatham Mahadevan as the "greatest archaeological discovery of a century in
Tamil Nadu "?
... that the
Omaha Star building housed the
DePorres Club after they were asked to leave
Creighton University because of their
activism in
Omaha's civil rights movement ?
... that
Russian right-wing politician
Nikolai Markov tried to convince
Germany to contribute to a conspiracy to re-instate the
House of Romanov after the post-World War I revolutions?
... that the first live television broadcast viewed on a moving train was on
October 7 ,
1948 , when passengers on the
B&O Railroad 's
Marylander saw the second game of the
1948 World Series ?
... that the
1994 Bolivia earthquake was the largest
earthquake ever recorded with a focal depth greater or equal to 300 km (190 mi)?
... that
Bucks point lace is a
bobbin lace from the
East Midlands in England with both floral and geometric designs?
... that
paleoecologist
Heinz Lowenstam discovered that living organisms can manufacture
magnetite within their bodies?
... that although the
Siddhesvara Temple (
pictured ) in
Karnataka ,
India , is currently a
temple of
Shiva , historians are unsure of its original
faith ?
... that
English musician and
poet
Robert Wydow is the earliest known recipient of a
Bachelor of Music
degree from
Oxford University ?
... that the
2003 earthquake that killed more than 2,200, was the strongest to hit
Algeria since 1980?
... that the
Rohm and Haas Corporate Headquarters ' main architectural feature is the use of sunscreens on the
facade made of their principal product,
Plexiglas ?
... that
Kenyan lawyer
Gitobu Imanyara was reported to have died after he was rumored to have been slapped by Kenyan first lady
Lucy Kibaki ?
... that the cap and sails of
Shiremark Mill were blown off in 1886?
... that historian
Lon Tinkle demanded that he not be credited as historical advisor of
John Wayne 's 1960 film
The Alamo because he felt the film misrepresented the
Battle of the Alamo ?
... that
Bangladesh declined to renew its
1972 Friendship Treaty with India , criticizing it as unequal and an imposition of excessive
Indian influence?
... that when
John Stanley recreated one of his covers for
Little Lulu for the cover of the
Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide in 2005, both editions sold out within three days?
... that the age of a
Green Sea Urchin (
pictured ) is generally calculable based on its size since it grows 10 mm (0.4 in) every year?
... that during the
Battle of Ridgefield in April 1777,
Benedict Arnold escaped unharmed after being pinned to the ground when his horse was shot?
... that the city of
Nairobi ,
Kenya , averages about
ten vehicle hijackings per day?
... that
Joshua Packwood is the first
white man to graduate as
valedictorian of the all-male
HBCU ,
Morehouse College , an overwhelmingly
African American university in
Atlanta, Georgia ?
... that the
Bedouin villagers of
al-Sayyid developed
their own form of sign language in response to the high rate of
deafness amongst their tribe?
... that
Stave Puzzles makes a 44-piece
jigsaw puzzle named Champ that can be put together 32 different ways but has only one correct solution?
... that in 1898, the
Egyptian government appointed
Maurice Fitzmaurice as their chief resident engineer for the construction of the
Aswan Dam ?
... that the
Confederate Monument in Danville ,
Kentucky was built on grave plots local citizens had given up to fallen soldiers?
... that among gifts which
Toirdelbach Ua Briain , later
High King of Ireland , received from his patron
Diarmait mac Maíl na mBó was the sword of
Brian Boru (
pictured ) ?
... that
Mukti Bahini
guerrillas were absorbed into the ranks of regular
military officers and
personnel upon
the formation of Bangladesh's armed forces ?
... that the
Greasestock festival in
New York showcases
green technologies , such as
vegetable powered vehicles ,
solar powered cars , and
organic farming exhibits?
... that
World War II
fighter ace
Franz Barten is credited for shooting down a total of 55 enemy aircraft?
... that
The Metros , a five-piece
punk pop band from
Peckham ,
London , were formerly known as The Wanking Skankers?
... that a
poem by
Edward Coote Pinkney , a failed lawyer and former
Navy
midshipman , was used by
Edgar Allan Poe to woo
Sarah Helen Whitman ?
... that a 2007 treaty significantly modified
Indo-Bhutanese relations by reducing
India 's guiding role over
Bhutan 's
foreign policy ?
... that the
Champlain Valley Transportation Museum in
Plattsburgh ,
New York is home to the only known Type 82
Lozier in existence?
... that with a height of 154 m (505 ft), the
wooden pagoda of Tianning Temple in
Changzhou ,
China (
pictured ) is the tallest
Buddhist
pagoda in the world?
... that
Zygmunt Rumel , a
Polish poet and soldier of the
Bataliony Chlopskie , was
tied to four horses and ripped apart in 1943 during the
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia ?
... that
The Locusts , an early 19th-century house in
New Paltz, New York , has no
fireplaces ?
... that
British Army officer
Sir William Horrocks confirmed
Sir David Bruce 's theory that
Malta fever was spread through
goat 's
milk ?
... that during
Hossain Mohammad Ershad 's rule, chiefs of
Bangladeshi intelligence agencies were amongst his closest advisers?
... that a
film director hired
independent film actress
Tanna Frederick when she praised a film of his—one she had not seen?
... that
Banya: The Explosive Delivery Man is a
Korean action comic that combines the styles of
Mad Max ,
Dune and
The Lord of the Rings ?
... that the Dictionary of Information Security by
Robert Slade has five
forewords , each by an expert in the field of
information security ?
... that
Lake Balaton (
pictured ) , a popular
tourist attraction in Hungary , is the largest
freshwater
lake in
Central Europe ?
... that the
1820
children's story
Maurice by
Mary Shelley was lost until 1997?
... that the 9th century
Navalinga temple in
Karnataka ,
India , is a cluster of nine
Hindu temples , each containing a
Shiva
linga ?
... that in an uncommon job for women, Mary Herwerth was appointed
lighthouse keeper at
Bluff Point Light on
Valcour Island upon the death of her husband while on duty in 1881?
... the
British
MI6 tried to hire the
Austrian -
German physicist
Josef Schintlmeister as a spy in the
Soviet Union , where he had worked for ten years?
... that a collection of 247 tiles illustrating
children's books are installed on the Story Book Wall at the
Alamogordo Public Library in
New Mexico , U.S.?
... that the first regular
British
light infantry regiment, the
52nd Regiment of Foot , awarded the title "Valiant Stormer" to those who survived the
Forlorn Hopes at
Ciudad Rodrigo and
Badajoz ?
... that after preaching
Baptist ideas in the 1760s,
Toliver Craig, Sr. and his sons were imprisoned by colonial authorities?
... that
rabbi
Dow Ber Meisels of
Kraków and
Warsaw was a prominent supporter of Polish independence, including both the
November (
artist's impression pictured ) and
January Uprisings ?
... that
Antwerp lace is also known as "Pot Lace" because of its repeated flowerpot
motifs ?
... that the 1945 loss of
German
U-boat
U-864 during
Operation Caesar , a secret mission to deliver technology to
Japan , is the only known incident of one submerged submarine sinking another?
... that
Fire Station No. 19 in
Minneapolis, Minnesota is the birthplace of
kittenball , a forerunner of modern
softball ?
... that the
Jabalpur and the
Mandla districts in
Madhya Pradesh were the worst affected districts in the
1997 Jabalpur earthquake ?
... that the percussion instruments the
txalaparta and
kirikoketa originated as pieces of equipment from a
Sagardotegi ?
... that famous
Hispanics in the United States Navy include the country's first
full admiral ,
David Glasgow Farragut ?
... that the
population dynamics of fisheries is a discipline used by
fisheries scientists to determine
sustainable yields ?
... that the
Dutch Gift was a collection of 40 paintings and sculptures (example pictured) , presented to King
Charles II of England by the
Dutch Republic in
1660 ?
... that the
US government took control of the
Alaska Steamship Company 's fleet during
World War II ?
... that the
Nootka Crisis of 1789–90 marked the beginning of the end of the
Spanish Empire ?
... that
Maharajbagh zoo in
Nagpur ,
India , has been built on the garden of
Bhonsle ,
Maratha rulers of the
Nagpur kingdom ?
... that future
Admiral
John Moore joined the
Royal Navy when he was just 11 years old?
... that in the
primaries for the
2002 Oregon gubernatorial election , candidates included one who called himself the "flying governor"?
... that the
Hotel Bellevue Palace in
Berne (
pictured ) was called "the best-protected building in Europe" by participants in
Cold War negotiations?
... that
Nona L. Brooks , a founder of the
Church of Divine Science and leader in the
New Thought religious movement, was the first woman
pastor in
Denver ?
... that the celebrated
Canadian broadcaster
Linden MacIntyre wrote his memoir during a fifty-day lockout at the
CBC ?
... that on
September 23 ,
1868 , the
Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico led a revolt in
Lares , declaring it the "Republic of Puerto Rico"?
... that according to one account, after
Thomas Attwood accused fellow composer
Charles Edward Horn of
plagiarizing a song, Horn helped clear himself in court by singing his version and that of Attwood's?
... that the church of St. Barlock at
Norbury has a monument to the "lewd and vile" wife of its thirteenth Lord?
... that only three people have been awarded the
State Prize of the Russian Federation (
medal pictured ) for their
humanitarian work?
... that
Aston Villa 's
Bob Chatt scored an
FA Cup Final goal 30 seconds after kick-off?
... that the
Catalan municipality of
Alcanar is officially stated as being founded in 1252, despite having a
charter signed in 1239?
... that
Thomas Jefferson Ramsdell built the
opera house where
James Earl Jones started his career?
... that the 12th-century
All Saints Church, Patcham , largely unchanged since the 14th century, was rebuilt or restored four times in a 74-year period from 1824?
... that former
Israeli politician and
Speaker of the Knesset
Shlomo Hillel was in charge of an underground
ammunition factory disguised as a
laundry facility during the
British Mandate of Palestine ?
... that the
baesuk (
pictured ) is a
Korean traditional
fruit punch made by
simmering slices of
Korean pear ,
black peppercorns ,
ginger ,
honey or sugar, and water?
... that
Alexander Wilkinson managed to play 74 more
first-class cricket matches despite an injured hand that almost had to be
amputated after
World War I ?
... that
caste -based
communal reservations in
Tamil Nadu were introduced by the government of the
Raja of Panagal in August
1921 ?
... that the
Rotunda Museum houses one of the foremost collections of
Jurassic
geology on the
Yorkshire Coast?
... that
Time magazine covers have featured
self-portraits of
film director and artist
Matt Mahurin , who has portrayed himself as
Sigmund Freud , a
caveman and an
Abu Ghraib prisoner ?
... that the
Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings was surprised to learn of the existence of
Buckland Windmill , the only
wind sawmill in the
United Kingdom ?
... that some of the fingers of
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia (
pictured ) , still with rings on them, were found in a building of the
Kremlin ?
... that
Clan Campbell of Cawdor is a
Scottish clan which currently does not have a recognised
clan chief ?
... that the
Hotel Monaco in
Washington, D.C. is located inside a
National Historic Landmark building that was patterned after the
Roman
Temple of Jupiter ?
... that the
First Congress of Vienna was held three hundred years before the more famous
1815 Congress ?
... that
Ernie Fletcher became the first
Republican
Governor of Kentucky in thirty-two years after winning the
2003 Kentucky gubernatorial election ?
... that between 1920 and 1929 the
Canadian Pacific Steamships vessel
SS Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm bore six different names, but sailed under only four of them?
... that
computer security expert
Dan Kaminsky demonstrated a security vulnerability by setting up
Rickrolls on
Facebook and
PayPal ?
... that the
1957
nonfiction novel
Operación Masacre (
pictured ) by
Rodolfo Walsh was published seven years before
Truman Capote's
In Cold Blood , which is frequently cited as creating the genre?
... that
Hall of Fame basketball coach
Clarence "Big House" Gaines originally planned to become a
dentist before taking on a temporary
coaching job that lasted 47 years?
... that
Narciso Bassols as
Secretariat of Public Education founded Mexico's first systematic
sex education program?
... that
Len Boyd , captain of
Birmingham City F.C. in the 1950s, once played four games with a
fractured leg?
... that
Action Hyacinth was an operation of the
Polish communist police, carried out in the years 1985–1987, whose purpose was to create national database of Polish
homosexuals ?
... that "
Uncommon Sense " by
Hal Clement received a
Hugo Award for Best Short Story 51 years after it was first published?
... that
Samuel B. Huston (pictured) switched
counties and political parties between two elections to the
Oregon State Senate ?
... that the supreme
god of the
southern African
Bushmen is
Cagn , a
trickster who
shapeshifts into a
praying mantis ?
... that an
April Fool's Day "news story" which suggested that
bull sharks had been found in
Minneapolis 's
Minnehaha Creek drew almost 1,000 hits a day to the
Nokomis East Neighborhood Association 's website?
... that
1944 film
Haridas was the last completed work of
Kollywood
icon
M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar prior to his arrest in the Lakshmikanthan Murder Case?
... that
Margie (
ABC ,
1961 –
1962 ) is one of the few network programs set during the
Roaring Twenties , complete with
jalopies ,
raccoon coats , period music, and references to
flappers ?
... that the
Master of Anthony of Burgundy was one of the
Flemish
miniature painters of the late 15th century, and may have made the first
engravings for books?
... that the contributions of
Mary Shelley (pictured) to
Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men are considered early works of
feminist
historiography ?
... that the two-inch-tall people of
The Teenie Weenies were a
Chicago Tribune
comic strip written by
William Donahey for over 50 years?
... that the
Northern Irish
marilyn
Slieve Gallion is a
volcanic plug ?
... that
Page Cortez , a
Republican member of the
Louisiana House of Representatives , gained vital name recognition in part from
television ads promoting his
furniture store?
... that
Ashby's windmill in
Brixton worked by
steam rather than wind power after 1902?
... that
Russian writer and activist
Zoya Krakhmalnikova 's
baptism in 1971 resulted in her dismissal from her job and from the
USSR Union of Writers , which effectively banned her from publishing?
... that despite weighing little more than a pound (0.45 kg), the
Dutch Bantam breed of
chicken (
rooster pictured ) can lay more than 160
eggs in a year?
... that
Henriade , an
epic poem by
French Enlightenment writer
Voltaire , was written in honour of the life of
Henry IV ?
... that much of the interior of the 19th-century
St Patrick's Church, Hove has been rebuilt as a
night shelter which includes a variation on the 1970s "
sleep capsule " concept?
... that a
Brazilian music expert noted
Caetano Veloso 's uncertain sexual orientation in his
2006 album
cê ?
... that
California v. Byers was the 1971
U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that providing one's own information in a vehicle accident does not violate the privilege against self-incrimination under the
Fifth Amendment ?
... that the
Palestinian town of
Tuqu' is the birthplace of the
Hebrew prophet
Amos ?
... that the
federal administration of Switzerland (
government buildings pictured ) has been described as "seven co-existing governments" due to the absence of hierarchy in the
government ?
... that
Radha Ramana is the only image of
Krishna that remained in
Vrindavana during the 17th-century raids by
Islamic king
Aurangzeb ?
... that
Camille Le Mercier d'Erm and his colleagues formed the
Breton Nationalist Party in 1911 to advocate the independence of
Brittany from
France ?
... that the
Colored Soldiers Monument in
Frankfort, Kentucky is the only one dedicated to
Black
Union soldiers in
Kentucky , and only one of four in the
United States ?
... that nine
riparian countries along
River Nile launched the
Nile Basin Initiative in 1999 to better manage and utilize their common
water resources ?
... that 19th-century
English
architect
John Foulston was responsible for the construction of
Union Street across
marshland to unite the
Three Towns which became
Plymouth ?
... that the age of a
Stair-step Moss (
pictured ) can be estimated by counting the number of "steps"?
... that the Chief Minister of the
Eastern Province of
Sri Lanka ,
Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan joined the
Tamil Tigers as a
child soldier at the age of fifteen?
... that
Victoria Hotel in
Darwin ,
Australia , has survived three major
cyclones and
Japanese air raids during
World War II ?
... that
Blonde lace was made out of two different thicknesses of thread to create greater contrast between the pattern and the ground?
... that
Captain
Richard Whitaker Porritt was the first British
Member of Parliament to be killed in
World War II ?
... that
First Lady
Laura Bush serves as ambassador of
The Heart Truth awareness campaign?
... that the
ancient Greek city of
Psophis was said to have been ravaged by the
Erymanthian Boar ?
... that
Hazel Dolling , the
châtelaine of
Lissan House , always kept a
chainsaw in her car while driving, in case trees had fallen on her mile-long avenue?
... that the
accolade (
pictured ) was a ceremony for
knighthood in the
Middle Ages ?
... that
Yolngu
aboriginal leader
Raymattja Marika was
Northern Territory 's
Australian of the Year in 2006?
... that the
Atlantic bumper is only found in the
Atlantic Ocean because its
ecological niche is filled by the only other member of its
genus elsewhere?
... that
director
Goran Dukić chose only songs by musicians who had committed suicide to accompany his
2007 film
Wristcutters ?
... that after a
chest injury , air can escape from the
lungs and travel to the
subcutaneous tissue of the
skin , causing
subcutaneous emphysema ?
... that
Oladevi , a
deity whose worship may have originated in the
Indus Valley Civilization , was honoured and feared as the
goddess of
cholera in rural
Bengal ?
... that
Reigate Heath Windmill is the only
windmill in
England that has been
consecrated as a
church ?
... that the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service paid for the establishment of
Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge , along the
Muscatatuck River , by selling
waterfowl
stamps ?
... that a 12th-century
epigraph styles the
Mahadeva temple (
pictured ) in
Karnataka ,
India , as "the emperor among temples"?
... that the
Seaway Trail Discovery Center is one of the few
attractions in the
North Country, New York , that is open year-round?
... that
German
mathematician
Friedrich Heinrich Albert Wangerin wrote an important two-volume treatise on
potential theory and
spherical functions , Theorie des Potentials und der Kugelfunktionen , in 1909 and 1921?
... that
Malinda Cramer , a founder of the
Church of Divine Science and an early influence in the
New Thought movement, died in the great
1906 San Francisco earthquake ?
... that the
Coalition of Workers, Peasants, and Students of the Isthmus was the first elected
socialist municipal government in
Mexico ?
... that
British
Conservative
MP
Alan Gomme-Duncan , despite being strongly
unionist , did not want the
Stone of Scone returned to
Westminster Abbey after Scottish nationalists stole it in 1951?
... that a
Confederate scouting party entered
Indiana in June 1863 dressed as a Union army patrol searching for deserters?
... that in addition to
ballistics , the
ballistic pendulum (pictured) was also used by
physicists to evaluate the
elasticity and flight of
golf balls ?
... that
Republican Monty Warner called on his
Democratic rival
Joe Manchin to endorse
George Bush for re-election during the
2004 West Virginia gubernatorial election ?
... that the
Polish-Lithuanian
union of Lublin in 1569 marked the beginning of centuries of struggle
between Poland and Russia over
Central and
Eastern Europe ?
... that the colonial
ghost town of
Brunswick, North Carolina was named after
Braunschweig ,
Germany , the birthplace of
Great Britain's
King George I ?
... that a large part of the first
vintage from the
Spanish
winery
Dominio de Pingus was lost in 1997 when the transporting ship bound for the
United States disappeared somewhere off the
Azores ?
... that
Nathan Daboll wrote the
mathematics
textbook most commonly used in American schools during the first half of the 19th century?
... that
cystatin C (
structure
pictured ) is a human
protein studied as a
biomarker of decreased
kidney function and
prognosis in
cardiovascular diseases ?
... that the forced
removal of 700,000 people from slums in
Zimbabwe in 2005 was called "a
crime against humanity " by the
UN ?
... that
Juniper Valley Park in
New York City used to be a
swamp owned by
Arnold Rothstein , who in the 1920s tried to sell it to the city for use as an airport?
... that
Indo-Iraqi relations improved considerably after
Iraq supported
India 's
1998 nuclear tests and its stand on the
Kashmir dispute ?
... that
Sir William Edge , a
Liberal
MP , once raced against a flock of
homing pigeons from
London to
Leicestershire by car and train, but lost the race by two minutes because the train was delayed?
... that the 1964
CBS
sitcom
Many Happy Returns featured
character actor
John McGiver managing the complaints division of a fictitious
California
department store ?
... that
Kosa Pan (
pictured ) led one of the earliest
Siamese embassies to France in the 1680s?
... that
Harvard
Japanologist
Susan Pharr was recently awarded the
Order of the Rising Sun by the
Japanese government ?
... that the town of
Melattur in
Tamil Nadu ,
India is famous for its
Bharatanatyam , a classic
South Indian dance ?
... that the
Wallingford Tornado of 1878 was the deadliest
tornado in
Connecticut history, and the second deadliest ever to strike
New England ?
... that Fidler Point on
Lake Athabasca is named for
Peter Fidler , a
map-maker ,
fur trader and explorer who worked for the
Hudson's Bay Company ?
... that
New Zealand currently has
free trade agreements with
Australia ,
Singapore ,
Thailand ,
Brunei ,
Chile and
China ?
... that
Bolton Hall , the community center for a
Utopian community formed in 1913 in the foothills north of
Los Angeles , was later used as a jail?
... that during
World War I , a
torpedo struck the
ocean liner
SS Kroonland (pictured) without exploding?
... that the 1948
Tamil film
Chandralekha had the longest sword-fight sequence in any
Indian film ?
... that
Equality North Carolina was successful in getting the 2008 edition of the State Personnel manual to prohibit
discrimination based on sexuality and gender identity ?
... that the City of
Los Angeles has
186 sites listed on the
National Register of Historic Places ?
... that
English musician and composer
Charles Frederick Horn served as personal music tutor to
Queen Charlotte ?
... that the
Welsh
Tractarian priest
John David Jenkins , known as the "Rail men's Apostle", became President of the
Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants ?
... that the
Pickle Barrel House (pictured) , a cabin built of two large
barrels , is based on
comic strip characters that were two inches (5 cm) tall and lived in a pickle barrel?
... that
international airport project
MIHAN in
Nagpur is the biggest economical development project currently underway in
India in terms of investment?
... that
ATF
undercover agent
William Queen infiltrated the
Mongols
motorcycle gang so successfully that he was elected treasurer and vice-president of his chapter?
... that the new
Maoist -led government seeks to scrap
Nepal 's
1950 treaty with India , which sought to build strong
Indo-Nepal relations to counter perceived threats from
China ?
... that
water supply and sanitation in Uganda are recognized as key issues under the government's 2004 national "
Poverty Eradication Action Plan"?
... that
Kentucky 's
Livermore Bridge starts and ends in
McLean County , but passes over two rivers and
Ohio County to reach its destination?
... that erotic sculptures (
example pictured ) found in the 11th century
Tripurantaka Temple in
Karnataka state,
India , are miniatures?
... that the
Alexandria Daily Town Talk , the principal
newspaper of
Central Louisiana , was established by
Irish immigrants on
St. Patrick's Day in
1883 ?
... that the only items found in the
burial chamber of the
Pyramid of Neferefre upon excavation were
mummy fragments and broken
canopic jars ?
... that eleven
U.S. presidents stayed at the
Portland Hotel , a
Queen Anne-style ,
Châteauesque hotel which opened in
Portland ,
Oregon in 1890?
... that the game between
FC Bayern Munich and
1860 Munich on
23 April
1945 in the
Gauliga Bayern , ending 3–2, was the last official
football game played in
Nazi Germany ?
... that
Indiana's state parks were initially designed to preserve their natural state, but gradually began to include recreational activities?
... that
Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I commissioned the
Triumphal Arch (
pictured ) , a monumental
woodcut
print over 3½ m (11½ ft) tall and nearly 3 m (10 ft) wide printed from 192 separate
wood blocks ?
... that the
Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in
Oregon is home to a small population of
wolverines , which are rare within the United States?
... that
Outwood is the oldest working
windmill in the United Kingdom, having been built the year before the
Great Fire of London ?
... that
US-CERT developed the
Einstein program that monitors and protects the computer networks of
U.S. departments and agencies ?
... that
sociology was banned as a
bourgeois science by the
Polish government in the
Stalinist period 1948–1956?
... that
Henry Failing won his second term as
mayor of
Portland ,
Oregon with only five dissenting votes?
... that the last man to be
gibbetted in
Derbyshire was hung in chains near
Wardlow and Wardlow Mires (
pictured ) because he had the tollkeeper's red shoes?
... that the
armed merchant cruiser
HMS Hector was in the process of being decommissioned when she was sunk in the
Easter Sunday Raid ?
... that the oldest
courthouse west of the
Allegheny Mountains is in the
historic district of Greensburg, Kentucky ?
... that the
Saharan silver ant has several unique
adaptations that led it to be called "one of the most heat-resistant animals known"?
... that
Edmund Graves Brown , a member of the
Louisiana
Ewing
newspaper family, was a
U.S. Army officer in the
Battle of the Bulge in 1944?
... that
Edward Lamson Henry paid such close attention to detail that his
nostalgic paintings of
agrarian
America (example
pictured ) were considered authentic historical reconstructions?
... that
G1.9+0.3 is the youngest known
supernova remnant in the
Milky Way ?
... that the only peacetime
George Cross won by a woman was awarded to
Barbara Jane Harrison as a result of her actions during the fire on board
BOAC Flight 712 in 1968?
... that the WF01, the first
racing car built by
Embassy Racing , was named after team founder Jonathan France's recently born son?
... that
Haley Barbour became only the second
Republican
Governor of Mississippi since
Reconstruction after winning the
2003 Mississippi gubernatorial election ?
... that 22-year-old
Ling Ling was the oldest
panda in
Japan at the time of his death in April 2008?
... that the
Hooper-Bowler-Hillstrom House features an indoor
well pump , but a five-hole, two-story
outhouse connected to the house via a
skyway ?
... that
lithophane (example pictured) is an artwork in
porcelain that can only be seen clearly when lit from behind?
... that
John Benjamin Murphy was an early advocate of
appendectomies as an intervention for signs of
appendicitis ?
... that the
Gauliga was a
German football league system introduced by the
Nazis after they
took over the country in 1933?
... that the
Oregon Korean War Memorial was not built until nearly 50 years after the
Korean War began?
... that makers of
Chantilly lace were
guillotined during the
French Revolution because they were seen as
protégés of the royals?
... that despite being the first
hot blast iron
furnace in
Centre County, Pennsylvania ,
Bellefonte Furnace was idle for more than six of its first ten years of existence?
... that by the end of the
Second World War 60,968
ratings had passed through the
Royal Navy
stone frigate
HMS Ganges ?
... that
Run, Buddy, Run , a 1966
CBS
sitcom , featured
Jack Sheldon fleeing from the mob after he overhears a
gangster during a
steam bath plotting a murder?
... that
Jordanian politician
Sa`id al-Mufti 's wife continued living in the
Al-Mufti House (
pictured ) after his death?
... that for 25 years,
Jack O'Brien conducted two parallel
directing careers:
Broadway
musicals in
New York City and
Shakespeare in
San Diego ,
California ?
... that
Welsh lawyer
Edward Wynne was, in 1714, the first landowner to grow turnips on
Anglesey ?
... that the
ethnic population of Omaha, Nebraska , including
new and
first generation immigrants , comprised fifty percent of that city's population in the
1920s ?
... that in 1876, British barrister, publicist, and historian
Edwin Pears , as correspondent of The Daily News , sent letters home describing
Ottoman atrocities in
Bulgaria during the
April Uprising which aroused popular demonstrations in
England led by
William Gladstone ?
... that a 2003 medical study by
Peter Pronovost , an
intensive care
physician at
Johns Hopkins Hospital , on the use of simple
checklists helped save 1500 lives and US$100 million?
... that in the 1430s, the
feudal lord Ashina Morihisa kept
Aizu Matsudaira's Royal Garden (
pictured ) as a villa believing it to be a sacred place?
... that the
Irish in Omaha, Nebraska were singled out by the
American Protective Association for exclusion from
public office in the 1890s?
... that music printer
Robert Birchall published the first English edition of
Johann Sebastian Bach 's
Well-Tempered Clavier in 1810?
... that attempts to merge Cardiff Rugby Football Club and Cardiff Cricket Club to form
Cardiff Athletic Club began as early as 1892, but were unsuccessful until 1922?
... that although an engineer's report proposing the
draining and development of the Everglades in 1912 was riddled with errors, it was still promoted by
real estate developers?
... that
Project Runway Australia will air on
Arena , which was recently re-branded to the American
Project Runway' s first station,
Bravo ?
... that
Malcolm Baker won a national championship in
rowing as a freshman at
Brown University although he never rowed in high school?
... that golfer
Edith Cummings (pictured) was the first female athlete to appear on the cover of
Time magazine and the inspiration for a character in
The Great Gatsby ?
... that a year after conducting rival
nuclear tests ,
India and
Pakistan issued the 1999
Lahore Declaration , committing to develop safeguards to prevent
nuclear conflict ?
... that
Aaron Lopez , who was denied citizenship in
Colonial Rhode Island because he was
Jewish , later became
Newport 's wealthiest resident?
... that before
1 January
2008 ,
milk with a
fat content of 1 or 2% could not be labelled as milk in the
United Kingdom ?
... that
Orlando Magic
general manager
Otis Smith founded a
children's charity in his native
Jacksonville which ran for two decades?
... that the tiny
Musselburgh and Fisherrow Co-operative Society created headlines when it began a process of
demutualization after 140 years as a
co-operative ?
... that the
Caprock Chief was a proposed
passenger train which would have connected
Fort Worth, Texas and
Denver, Colorado via the
Texas Panhandle ?
... that the 12th century
Doddabasappa Temple (pictured) in
Karnataka state,
India , has a 24-pointed star-shaped plan?
... that
William Henry Leonard Poe wrote a short story about the failed relationship of his younger brother
Edgar Allan Poe with
Sarah Elmira Royster ?
... that
Jimmy Doolittle commanded a 22
plane demonstration celebrating the opening of
Henderson, Kentucky 's
Audubon Memorial Bridge in 1932?
... that
British
Major-General
Eric Cole , who helped plan the
invasion of Normandy , was born in
Malta and once played cricket with the
Egypt national cricket team ?
... that the
New York Times wrote that
W. S. Gilbert 's play
Creatures of Impulse was a "
burletta of the stamp that was in vogue a hundred years ago, resembling
Midas "?
... that
Kuxa Kanema is a documentary about the
Mozambique government’s first attempts to create a national
cinema ?
... that
Kentucky 's
Union County largely supported the
Confederacy in the
Civil War and built
a monument to its Confederate dead afterwards?
... that
Thomas Scott (pictured) , a
member of the
Canadian House of Commons , organized the 95th Manitoba Grenadiers in thirteen days to put down the
North-West Rebellion of 1885?
... that
Whitney Ellsworth became associated with
Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson 's fledgling company
National Allied Publications , later known as
DC Comics ?
... that 6 of the Top 8 players at the 2002
Magic: The Gathering
World Championship used
Psychatog decks?
... that by 1901,
£ 4m of shares in the
Suez Canal bought by
Benjamin Disraeli in 1875 during his
premiership were rising in value by £2m per year and yielding an annual
dividend of £880,000?
... that during
World War I ,
aerial warfare expert
Philip Roosevelt , first cousin once removed of
Theodore Roosevelt , helped the
United States Army plan its first air-land battle?
... that
Brussels lace is made in pieces, with the design made separate from the ground, unlike
Mechlin lace or
Valenciennes lace , and is known for its delicacy and beauty?
... that the
Soviet Union won a medal at every single
Ice Hockey World Championships competition in which it participated?
... that when the
Weekly Arizonian withdrew its endorsement for
Richard C. McCormick 's (pictured) reelection, he repossessed the newspaper's printing press and began the
Arizona Citizen ?
... that Are you a
True Scotsman ? is part of
Scottish
military ritual determining that a
kilted soldier is not wearing undergarments?
... that
Verna Arvey got her first break as an
opera
librettist after poet
Langston Hughes left his libretto for the production Troubled Island unfinished?
... that although the first
Callawayasaurus
fossil was discovered in 1962, it was not until 1999 that they were recognized as a separate
genus ?
... that
Ayesha Omar sparked controversy in
Pakistan when she painted two semi-
nude self-portraits?
... that Operation Facelift unified the United Kingdom's co-operative
retailers with a single
logo in
1968 , reinforcing
The Co-operative brand ?
... that
HMNZS Te Mana (F111) (
pictured ) was the first
New Zealand
warship to visit a Russian port?
... that
Georgia Moffett was selected for the eponymous role in the
Doctor Who episode "
The Doctor's Daughter ", but not because her father is
Peter Davison , the
Fifth Doctor ?
... that the 1911 Confederate Dedication Day ceremony key speakers at the
Battle of Tebb's Bend Monument were former
Union officers ?
... that the
African
mustard
Subularia monticola can be found forming a dense mat on sometimes flooded muds in a lake on
Mount Elgon at 4,150 meters (13,620 ft) high?
... that the unsolved murder of
Mary Rogers was fictionalized as "
The Mystery of Marie Roget " by
Edgar Allan Poe ?
... that the town of
La Balize, Louisiana , at the mouth of the
Mississippi River , was rebuilt several times after 1699 because of
hurricanes before it was destroyed and abandoned around 1860?
... that
Erik Möller , Deputy Director of the
Wikimedia Foundation , helped to develop both
Wikinews and
Wikimedia Commons ?
... the
Harihareshwara temple in
Karnataka ,
India , was consecrated in 1224 CE, in dedication to
Harihara (
pictured ) , a fusion of the
Hindu gods
Shiva and
Vishnu ?
... that the
St. Philip's Church Ruins include the graves of two
North Carolina governors and an
Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court ?
... that
Pythagoras , a
sculptor from
Samos in the 5th century BCE, was credited with the innovation of sculpting
athletes with visible
veins ?
... that
serial killer
Nathaniel White claimed his first murder was inspired by a scene in
Robocop 2 ?
... that Ichitaro Kanie grew
Japan 's first
tomatoes in 1899, founding the
¥ 157 billion
Kagome tomato empire?
... that the
Confederate-Union Veterans' Monument in
Morgantown, Kentucky was built due to the feelings of reconciliation following the
Spanish-American War ?
... that the term
choral symphony was coined by
French
composer
Hector Berlioz (
pictured ) when describing his
symphony ,
Roméo et Juliette ?
... that the
Gottlieb Storz House in
Omaha, Nebraska is home to the Astaire Ballroom, which is the only memorial to
Adele and
Fred Astaire in their home city?
... that the
1999 Chamoli earthquake in
India , in which 103 people died, was also felt in the
Baitadi ,
Dadeldhura and
Kanchanpur districts in
Nepal ?
... that former
Detroit Red Wings
head coach
Jacques Demers is the only coach in the
National Hockey League to have won the
Jack Adams Award twice with the same team?
... that
Hoi Khanh Temple in
Thu Dau Mot was once used as a meeting place by Vietnamese independence activists, including
Ho Chi Minh 's father?
... that
A Bayou Legend by
William Grant Still was the first
opera composed by an
African American to be broadcast on television?
... that
Union general
Stephen G. Burbridge spent many years trying to remove the letters CSA from the
Thompson and Powell Martyrs Monument (pictured) ?
... that
Israeli actress
Hanna Maron lost her leg after a
grenade was thrown at her airplane, but resumed her acting career a year later?
... that
Jordan 's
Municipality of Salt derives its name from the
Latin saltus meaning valley of trees as there is much greenery in the area?
... that
Harold Clapp 's "fiendish efficiency" in improving
Victorian Railways ' train reliability was credited with losing
Melbourne commuters "another excuse for being late for work in the mornings"?
... that the
Japanese
visual novel
Yotsunoha allows the player to navigate in a
top-down perspective similar to a
console role-playing game ?
... that before
Homer Plessy challenged the
Separate Car Act leading to
Plessy v. Ferguson , Daniel Desdunes had challenged it but had his charges dropped?
... that the
first generation jet fighters include designs from
WWII -era
ME-262 (pictured) to
Korean War -era
F-86 ?
... that the
Orton Plantation near
Wilmington, North Carolina , was attacked by
Native Americans , used as a military hospital, and once owned by a Colonial governor?
... that
Brazilian actress
Carmen Silva was diagnosed with the same illness,
multiple organ dysfunction syndrome , as
actor
Oswaldo Louzada , who played her husband on the Brazilian
telenovela ,
Mulheres Apaixonadas ?
... that scholars disagree on whether the name of the
Viking chieftain
Jakun means either "blind" or "the handsome one"?
... that
Safi Faye 's 1975 film
Kaddu Beykat was the first commercially distributed
feature film made by a
Sub-Saharan
African woman?
... that one of the major differences between
Mechlin (pictured) and
Valenciennes lace is the cordonnet , a loosely spun
silk cord used to outline and define the pattern?
... that although she was born in
Argentina ,
Renata Fronzi pursued a successful acting career in
theater ,
film and
telenovelas in the neighboring country of
Brazil ?
... that while the
New York Vauxhall Gardens drew in colonial
New Yorkers with a
wax museum and outdoor
theater , a copycat competitor attracted them with
ice cream ?
... that
khutba is the sermon delivered before the
Muslim weekly
congregational prayers on Friday , and after the annual congregational prayers on each of the two
Muslim festivals ?
... that the second major
land reform in Romania took place in 1921, following a promise made by
King Ferdinand to the troops during
World War I ?
... that
Major League Baseball
pitcher
Dom Zanni was once knocked unconscious in the seventh
inning , yet went on to finish pitching the game and earn the win for the
Chicago White Sox ?
... that the
Uppland
runestone U 328 is an example of the
Ringerike style ?
... that the
Tamil film
Nam Iruvar featured songs written by
Indian
nationalist
Subramania Bharati ?
... that
San Diego 's
El Cortez Hotel , site of the world's first outdoor glass
elevator and
moving sidewalk , became a school for
evangelists in the 1970s?
... that in his first murder case,
real estate and
divorce specialist
Frederick Geoffrey Lawrence saved suspected
serial killer
Dr John Bodkin Adams from being hanged?
... that
railway
transport in Nagpur started in 1867 when the
Nagpur
railway station was constructed using locally found pink
sandstone ?
... that in her 1992
documentary film
Nitrate Kisses
Barbara Hammer filmed an elderly
lesbian couple making love as part of an exploration of the repression and marginalization of
LGBT history?
... that the track "Hell's Angels" from
Roy Harper 's 1970 album
Flat Baroque and Berserk features an
acoustic guitar played through a
wah-wah pedal ?
... that the $2 million
Baltimore City Hall (pictured) was designed in 1860 by architect
George A. Frederick ?
... that the
theory of camouflage led the
Special Air Service to use pink as the primary color on the
desert camouflaged
Land Rover Series IIA patrol vehicles, leading to the nickname The Pink Panthers ?
... that the assembly location
Arkils tingstad may have been made to
Christianize the
Vikings who lived in its vicinity?
... that the first
roadside park in the world was in 1919 at
Iron River, Michigan ?
... that the
Polish minority in Ireland is the country's largest minority group apart from
British people ?
... that the
Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece was among the leading painters in
Cologne at the beginning of the
sixteenth century ?
... that
astronauts have a patch of
velcro inside their
helmets that acts as a nose scratcher and that the manufacturing process used to create silent velcro for the
U.S. Army is a military secret?
... that
Bert Haney (pictured) lost an election to the
U.S. Senate , but was later confirmed by the Senate for a seat on the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ?
... that a
timber in
Nutley Windmill , an
open trestle
post mill in
Sussex ,
England , has been dated by
dendrochronology to 1738–70, and the main post is even older, dating to 1533–70?
... that former
University of Texas at Austin President
William S. Livingston also chaired the committee that established the
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs ?
... that
The Janus Man , a
thriller concerning espionage and betrayal, is the fourth book in the "Tweed and Co." series, for which
Colin Forbes published a book every single year from 1982 to his death in 2006?
... that the
40th Grey Cup in 1952 was the first time this
Canadian football championship was
broadcast on television?
... that
Gilberto Gil describes his 2006 album
Gil Luminoso as being religiously themed, although he is an
agnostic ?
... that the day after the death of six
IDF soldiers in the
Battle of the Beaufort (pictured) ,
Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin was still under the impression that it was won without casualties?
... that the historic
Golden Gate Theater was saved by a stop-work order after
demolition crews had begun to dismantle the walls?
... that
Sam Cowan is the only
footballer to have represented
Manchester City in three
FA Cup finals?
... that after writing
Confederates in the Attic ,
Tony Horwitz was sued for calling
Alberta Martin 's husband a
deserter in the book?
... that
DePauw Avenue Historic District ,
New Albany, Indiana , was once the summer estate of
the man who owned two thirds of the
plate glass business of the
United States ?
... that a report criticizing senior
Pakistani leaders—including
General
Abdul Hamid Khan —over their conduct during the 1971
Bangladesh Liberation War , was long suppressed by the Pakistani government?
... that
Harley Parker , in
1973 , was selected to be the first William A. Kern Institute Professor of Communications at the
Rochester Institute of Technology , in
Rochester, New York ?
... that
Amman 's
Mango House (
pictured ) was built in separate halves for the two brothers who lived there?
... that the
cargo ship
MV Virginian , now under contract to
Military Sealift Command , was accidentally hit by an
Exocet missile while unloading cargo in
Iraq in 1986?
... that the
Madhu school bus bombing was one of a number of attacks on civilian buses in
Sri Lanka in early 2008?
... that prior to his election to the
Oregon State Senate ,
Rick Metsger was best-known as a
sportscaster for a
Portland, Oregon television station?
... that the
idiopathic
inflammatory
lung disease
diffuse panbronchiolitis has the highest incidence among
Japanese ,
Korean ,
Chinese and
Thai cases, indicating a
genetic predisposition among
East Asians ?
... that
Dr Arthur Henry Douthwaite 's testimony in court against suspected
serial killer
Dr John Bodkin Adams is said to have cost him the presidency of the
Royal College of Physicians ?
... that
Daddy Cool’s 1971 single "
Eagle Rock " remained at #1 on the
Australian National charts for a record ten weeks before being replaced by the single "Daddy Cool" by another band cashing in their success?
... that 37 people were killed during construction of the
Big Four Bridge (pictured) connecting
Louisville, Kentucky to
Jeffersonville, Indiana across the
Ohio River ?
... that
Italy 's newly appointed Minister for Equal Opportunity,
Mara Carfagna , used to be a
showgirl and a
glamour model ?
... that the
1952 Pittsburgh Pirates , the worst
Pirates team of the
20th century , were so bad that their
catcher
Joe Garagiola later said "In an eight-team
league , we should've finished ninth"?
... that the highest
temperature ever recorded in
Ireland , where the
climate is
temperate
oceanic , was 33.3ºC (91.9ºF) at
Kilkenny Castle on
26 June ,
1887 ?
... that the
Kaleva Bottle House was built using over 60,000
bottles ?
... that S.A. Swaminatha Iyer protested the
British salt tax in India at the first session of the
Indian National Congress in
1885 ?
... that after months of work, future
Canadian
impresario
Samuel Gesser made only $200 from his first production, a 1953
Pete Seeger concert?
... that
Hurricane Alma (
pictured ) was the first of three consecutive
tropical cyclones to
strike the
Pacific coast of
Mexico during a ten day span?
... that
Methodist
minister
Ephraim Kingsbury Avery is amongst the first
clergymen known to have been
tried for
murder in the
United States ?
... that
England 's
Auditor of the Imprests , an office responsible for
auditing the accounts of public officials such as the
Paymaster of the Forces , became a lucrative
sinecure before being abolished in 1782?
... that after being found not guilty of murdering her ex-husband,
Mary Leonard became the first woman in
Oregon allowed to practice law?
... that
Safi Faye is a
Senegalese film director whose work is better known in
Europe than in her native
Africa ?
... that
Ulysses S. Grant sent his family to live in the
Licking Riverside neighborhood of
Covington, Kentucky in 1862?
... that
Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company is the world's largest limestone quarry?
... that The Reverend
John H. Taylor served as post-
Chief of Staff for former
United States President
Richard Nixon from 1979 to 1994?
... that
Friedrich Guggenberger ' s
U-81 sank the
Royal Navy
aircraft carrier
HMS Ark Royal (
pictured ) with a single
torpedo ?
... that
association footballers
Jimmy Willis and
Steve Finnan are the only players to have scored in the top five divisions of
English league football ?
... that in addition to providing cargo service to
Ascension Island , the
freighter
MV Ascension also helped researchers study its
green sea turtle population?
... that in 1838,
Philip Kelland became the first English-born and wholly English-educated mathematician to hold the chair of Professor of Mathematics at the
University of Edinburgh ?
... that
American
manufacturing executive
Chris J. Lee left the business of making
air springs ,
elastomers ,
rate controls ,
rope isolators and
solenoid valves to
run for
Congress ?
... that
Lakshmisha ' s 16th century
Kannada writing, the Jaimini Bharata , focuses on the
horse sacrifice chapter of the
Hindu epic
Mahabharata ?
... that the
ghost town of
Buffalo City, North Carolina (
pictured ) was once the largest community in
Dare County ?
... that
the largest post mill in Sussex received the largest
Heritage Lottery Fund grant for an individual
windmill in the United Kingdom?
... that
J. Evetts Haley , the
historian of the
American West who ran in
1956 for
governor of
Texas , told
Duval County
political boss
George Parr that "it will be my pleasure to lock you up"?
... that in a
VFL game against
North Melbourne ,
Fitzroy player,
Frank Curcio , famously stated, hit me as hard as you like, but don’t hurt my fingers ?
... that
Gibraltarian
degree level students studying in a
UK university receive a
full scholarship from the Government of Gibraltar ?
... that
Omaha
pioneer
Andrew J. Hanscom started a large scale fight in the
Nebraska Territory
House of Representatives over the location of the territorial capital?
... that
New Mill, Cross in Hand (
pictured ) , was the last
windmill to operate commercially by wind in
Sussex ?
... that
Van Hanh Zen Temple is the base of a team of
Buddhist scholars who are producing a
Vietnamese translation of the
Pali Canon ?
... that the effects of
tides can affect
ice sheet dynamics up to 100 km (150 miles) inland?
... that the author of Captain Lindley Miller's 1864 "
Marching Song of the First Arkansas " has only recently been determined?
... that dissidents within the
Polish community in Omaha burnt down a church in the
Sheelytown neighborhood in 1895 rather than relinquish control to the
local Roman Catholic bishop ?
... that
Heinrich Barbl , an
SS -
Rottenführer , helped install piping for the gas chambers at
Sobibór extermination camp ?
... that in 1892,
George Brann became only the third
cricketer to score two
centuries in a match, after
W. G. Grace and
William Lambert ?
... that
Sac Tu Tam Bao Temple was used by
Vietnamese revolutionaries as a munitions factory by in the
1916 Cochinchina uprising ?
... that a
swift (pictured) is a tool with an adjustable
diameter used to hold a
skein of
yarn while it is being wound off?
... that the
Tinh Xa Trung Tam
Buddhist
temple in
Ho Chi Minh City is regarded as the spiritual birthplace of the khất sĩ tradition?
... that
Elvia Carrillo Puerto founded the first
feminist leagues to provide
family planning programs with legalized
birth control in the
Western Hemisphere ?
... that
Hall of Fame
goaltender
Glenn Hall ended his
record -setting 502 consecutive games streak in the
National Hockey League as a
Chicago Blackhawk during the
1962–63 season ?
... that
British actress
Jacqueline Voltaire won a "most bizarre sex scene" award in 2005 for her performance in the
Mexican film
Matando Cabos ?
... that the
Kh'Leang Temple in
Soc Trang is a
Khmer
Theravada building from 1533—predating
Vietnamese settlement—which incorporates
Greek architecture ?
... that
screenwriter
Allan Loeb 's
agent dropped him the day he began writing the
script that saved his career?
...that the
footprints of the Buddha (
pictured ) often bear distinguishing marks, such as a
Dharmachakra or the 32, 108 or 132 auspicious signs of the
Buddha ?
...that fire is one of the most important forming processes of the
geography and ecology of the Everglades ?
...that the
barrack at
Aghavannagh , which was primarily built so that British forces could more easily track rebels of the
1798 rebellion , became a
youth hostel during the 1900s?
...that sportswriter and
Green Bay Packers employee
Lee Remmel was one of twelve people to cover the first forty
Super Bowls ?
...that to preserve national unity,
Polish king
Stefan Batory restored the city of
Danzig 's
economic and religious privileges after
an uprising ?
...that the
Silver Snoopy award is presented to recipients personally by
astronauts ?
...that
Israeli writer
Eli Amir called for more
Israeli literature to be translated into
Arabic to promote understanding?
...that
Bobby Hull became the third player in
NHL history to score 50 goals in a season during the
1961–62 Chicago Black Hawks season ?
...that the main hall of
Tay An Temple contains around 200
Buddhist statues?
... that at age 14
Amy Evans (pictured) , a
Welsh singer and actress, won the
Welsh National Eisteddfod in
Cardiff ?
... that as a college athlete,
Detroit Tigers
outfielder
Matt Joyce (pictured) played in an
exhibition game against the Tigers three years before his
Major League debut with them?
... that Belgian filmmaker
Armand Denis , who became famous for his
wildlife
documentaries with his wife
Michaela in the 1950s, began his career working as a scientist and inventor?
... that the rural settlement of
Mount Mee, Queensland , gets its name from the local
Indigenous Australian word mia-mia , meaning "lookout"?
... that a young
black aspiring actor by the name of
James Earl Jones had his beginnings at the
Ramsdell Theatre in
Manistee, Michigan ?
... that
Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism was a concept adapted by the
same people who earlier thought that this concept was suicidal?
... that
Kitch-iti-kipi is Michigan's largest freshwater spring and a major tourist attraction?
... that
pulmonary laceration was thought to be uncommon before
CT scanning (
example pictured ) became widely available, because the injury is difficult to detect with
X-rays alone?
... that
sanfedisti irregulars, led by
Cardinal
Fabrizio Ruffo , toppled the
Parthenopaean Republic in 1799, restoring the monarchy of
Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies ?
... that
Barzillai Quaife has been described both as "
New Zealand 's first public anti-
racist " and "
Australia 's first
philosopher "?
... that the
Pond Eddy Bridge , built in 1904, is the only artery to access 22 homes in
Pennsylvania ?
... that because it reflects
Hungarian phonology , the original middle name of singer and comedian
Ioan Gyuri Pascu was misspelled on his
Romanian -issued
birth certificate ?
... that Devil's Den
gully , located within the
Heber Down Conservation Area , was so named because the local inhabitants believed that the
Devil was holding court there?
... that
Chris Garneau 's debut album
Music For Tourists has a
hidden track that is a cover of an
Elliott Smith song?
... that the
Medusa Rondanini (
pictured ) in a prominent Roman collection was ignored until it was praised by
Goethe in 1786?
... that the Reverend
Henry Tibbs was accused of calling
Winston Churchill a drug addict in 1940?
... that
Birely, Hillman & Streaker was the only
Philadelphian manufacturer of wooden ships to survive the post-
Civil War slump?
... that
Odd With , member of the
Norwegian Parliament for the
Christian Democratic Party , was the grandfather of
2006 Pop Idol victor
Aleksander Denstad With ?
... that the
US Navy 's
Casco -class
monitors , long delayed due to the exacting standards of
Chief Engineer
Alban C. Stimers , proved barely able to float on debut and were quickly withdrawn from service?
... that the
Vondelpark in
Amsterdam ,
Netherlands annually attracts around 10 million visitors?
... that the
Nebraska Republican Party nabbed
Democratic candidate
Max Yashirin 's namesake
domain name and posted unflattering photos of him there after he stood for
Nebraska's 1st congressional district ?
... that the
Buis (
pictured ) was first adapted for use as a fishing vessel in the
Netherlands , after the invention of
gibbing made it possible to preserve
herring at sea?
... that
Milorg
resistance member
Osmund Faremo later served as member of the
national parliament and local
mayor for the
Norwegian Labour Party ?
... that the last
old-Kannada grammar , authored by
Bhattakalanka Deva in circa 1604 CE, followed the model of
Sanskrit grammar?
... that US
abolitionist
Robert Purvis had two grandparents who were
English , a grandmother kidnapped at twelve from
Morocco and enslaved in
Charleston , and a grandfather who was
German Jewish ?
... that in
Holy Trinity Church, Warrington , is a brass
chandelier which formerly hung in
St Stephen's Chapel in the
British House of Commons ?
... that
publisher
Gopal Raju , considered a pioneer of
ethnic
media in the
United States , founded
India Abroad , which claims to be the oldest
Indian American
newspaper in
North America ?
... that the
Klaipėda Geothermal Demonstration Plant in
Klaipėda ,
Lithuania , constructed during the late 1990s and early 2000s, is the first
geothermal heating plant in the
Baltic Sea region?
... that
Soviet film director
Sergei Eisenstein (
pictured ) shot many miles of film in
Mexico with the backing of American author
Upton Sinclair to make
¡Qué viva México! ?
... that the military prowess of the
Tulunid dynasty of
Arab Egypt was due to its
multi-ethnic army composed of
Turkish ,
Sudanese , and
Greek soldiers?
... that a
nuclear bomb test that significantly fails to produce its estimated
yield is called a
fizzle ?
... that the
Yan emperor
Shi Chaoyi committed suicide to avoid capture, and that after his death, his head was delivered to the
Tang Dynasty capital
Chang'an ?
... that
Theodore O'Hara 's
Bivouac of the Dead , popularized in
American Civil War
memorials , was actually written for fallen
Kentucky soldiers in
Latin America a decade before the War?
... that
Harold Dow Bugbee of
Texas sought to become the premier
artist of the
South Plains , as
Charles M. Russell became for the northern
Great Plains ?
... that
William Miles Maskell was a
New Zealandic farmer and entomologist who advocated
biological pest control ?
... that after surviving a
dynamite attack in 1896,
fraternity parties in the 1940s, and an
earthquake in 1994,
Stimson House (pictured) is now a
convent for
Catholic
nuns ?
... that
Rajah Sir Muthiah Chettiar was the first
Mayor of
Chennai Corporation , after the mayoralty was reinstated in 1933?
... that U.S.
shipping company
Sealift Incorporated has been awarded over
US$ 400,000,000 in government contracts since the start of the 2000
fiscal year ?
... that
Bahá'í Faith in Niger began during a period of wide scale growth in the religion across
Sub-Saharan Africa near the end of its
colonial period ?
... that
Albert Kidd scored two
goals in the last 10 minutes of the
1985-86
Scottish football season to deny
Hearts the
championship , despite having not scored in the whole season until then?
... that the
Champion
passenger train connected
New York City and
St. Petersburg, Florida for forty years before
Amtrak consolidated it with its former rival the
Silver Meteor ?
... that
Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones (pictured) was the first African-American to sing at
Carnegie Hall ?
... that the
Central Eurasian Studies Society is the first society for
Central Asian scholars based in North America?
... that the book
Fear by
Jan T. Gross has been a subject of significant controversy in
Poland ?
... that
De Doctrina Christiana , identified as
John Milton 's attempt to define his own particular
Christian theology , was suppressed by the government of the day and not published until 150 years after his death?
... that
Valda Cooper became the first female
managing editor of any
daily newspaper in
New Mexico ?
... that
Louisville, Kentucky 's first
rock and roll venue, in
Lake Dreamland , may have been burned down by an angry resident?
... that the portrait bust of the
Beriah Magoffin Monument (pictured) in
Harrodsburg, Kentucky was built in
Neoclassical style, a style more commonly used a century before the monument was constructed?
... that in 1686
Michael Shen Fu-Tsung , a
Jesuit convert from
Nanking , arrived at the court of
James II and became the first recorded
Chinese person to visit
Britain ?
... that in the
Jilava Massacre , perpetrated in
Romania in 1940, 64 prisoners were shot to death, including a former prime minister, justice minister, and chief of secret police?
... that Indian film director
Nitin Bose , who directed the blockbuster
Ganga Jamuna in 1961, had introduced
playback singing in
Indian cinema in 1935?
... that during the
Liberian Civil Wars over 5,000 artifacts were looted from the
Liberian National Museum but a 250-year-old dining table given as a gift from
Queen Victoria to
Liberia 's first President remains?
... that
Raleigh Springs Mall in
Memphis, Tennessee lost three of its four
anchor stores (
JCPenney ,
Dillard's and
Goldsmith's ) all in the same year?
... that
Flaithbertach Ua Néill ,
king of Ailech in
Ireland , was called Flaithbertach an Trostáin, Flaithbertach of the Pilgrim's staff, as a result of his
pilgrimage to
Rome in 1030?
... that
William H. Mumler claimed to take a photograph (pictured) showing
Mary Todd Lincoln with the
spirit of her deceased husband,
Abraham Lincoln ?
... that besides training its own officers, the
Pakistan Naval Academy has trained over 2000 officers of allied navies including the Chief of Naval Staff of the
Qatar Emiri Navy?
... that the
United States Forest Service and
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife partnered with the
Paisley, Oregon community to restore the
Chewaucan River habitat for native
redband trout ?
... that French
Jesuit missionary and mathematician
Guy Tachard was involved in embassies to
Siam , which came as responses to embassies sent by the Siamese King
Narai to France in order to obtain an alliance against the Dutch?
... that the
Schweizer SGP 1-1
glider was launched by an elastic
bungee cord , originally pulled by children and later by a
Ford Model A car?
... that Governor of
Italian Libya
Italo Balbo brought 20,000
Italians to Libya in 1938, founding 26 new villages for them, in an attempt to colonise it?
... that
bouclé is a type of
novelty yarn that uses special
plying techniques to obtain its characteristic loopy appearance?
... that in 1687
Philippe Couplet published Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (pictured) , the first known
Western translation of a
Chinese
literary work?
... that
tourism in Kenya is the country's second largest source of foreign revenue?
... that the
Buckeye is the only U.S. breed of
chicken known to have been created by a woman?
... that the
TARDIS broke while filming the final scene of the
Doctor Who episode "
The Poison Sky "?
... that a story in
Janna 's 13th-century
Kannada classic Yashodhara Charite deals with
sadomasochism and
transmigration of the soul ?
... that the land acquisitions for the
Southern Railway's Spencer Shops in 1896 were secretly done to prevent
land speculation ?
... that
anthropologist
Therkel Mathiassen described
Comer's Midden as the only substantial find of pure
Thule culture in
Greenland ?
... that the revitalized
Historic District of
Apex, North Carolina has been described as a "
Gucci
Mayberry "?
... that legendary princess
Yennenga , the "mother" of the
Mossi people, was such a great warrior that her father refused to allow her to marry?
... that publication of
Malaysian
newspaper
Makkal Osai was
suspended following its printing of a
caricature of
Jesus holding a cigarette and a can of beer?
... that
Sark Windmill (pictured) , built in 1571, is the second oldest surviving
windmill in the
British Isles ?
... that
Joseph M. Street a
19th century
American pioneer, was present at the signing of the
peace treaty ending the
Winnebago War ?
... that following the
Darwin Rebellion of December 1918,
HMAS Encounter was sent to
Darwin to protect
Administrator
John Gilruth and his family?
... that troops of
Tadayoshi Sano , a
lieutenant general for the
Imperial Japanese Army , were reported to have committed atrocities against civilians in
Hong Kong and
British
prisoners of war ?
... that, during a
Fersommling , the only language spoken is
Pennsylvania Dutch and that anyone who speaks
English has to pay a fine for each word?
... that the
French stormed the
Bagration flèches eight times during the
Battle of Borodino in 1812?
... that
Canadian radio broadcaster
Clyde Gilmour hosted a weekly national show for more than 40 years, presenting from his substantial personal music collection?
... that in 1789
Spain seized the
British sloop
Princess Royal , nearly
causing a war , then used the vessel to explore the
Strait of Juan de Fuca , finding the
San Juan Islands and the entrances to
Puget Sound and the
Strait of Georgia ?
... that the
obscure mealybug , a
pest of
vineyards in
New Zealand and
California , is believed to have been
introduced from
Australia or
South America ?
... that the present-day city of
Davenport, Iowa is named after
George Davenport , a 19th century American frontiersman, trader and US Army officer?
... that the Tamil film
Thyagabhoomi is the only Indian film banned by the
British Raj for propagating the cause of
India's freedom struggle ?
... that
Benjamin Motte published many famous works such as
Jonathan Swift 's
Gulliver's Travels and the first English edition of
Isaac Newton 's
Principia , an edition that became the standard translation for over 200 years?
... that
Daniel Carter Beard 's
boyhood home was a nurses' dormitory when it became a
National Historic Landmark ?
... that it was rumored that some
seals escaped
Minneapolis 's
Longfellow Zoological Gardens into nearby
Minnehaha Creek ?
... that the forthcoming
Tamil film ,
Guru En Aalu , starring
Madhavan and
Mamta Mohandas is a remake of the
1997 film,
Yes Boss ?
... that
McCarty Church (pictured) in
Los Angeles gained attention for its pastor's decision to racially integrate his white Protestant church in the mid-1950s?
... that
Bradford City
footballers
Geoff Smith and
George Mulholland each played more than 200 consecutive appearances for the club during the 1950s?
... that
Salt Lake City -based robotics firm
Sarcos is developing a military
powered exoskeleton allowing wearers to easily lift 200 pounds (91 kg)?
... that in 1847
French
Admiral
Jean-Baptiste Cécille sent a captain to attack
Vietnam to obtain the release of a
bishop , not knowing the bishop had already been freed?
... that a riot reportedly instigated by writer
André Breton broke out during the 1923 premiere of
Tristan Tzara 's
Le Cœur à gaz , a play written as a nonsensical dialog between human body parts?
... that in 1994
Martin Doherty became the first person to be killed in the
Republic of Ireland by
loyalist paramilitaries since 1975?
... that inscriptions found on a stone pillar in the village of
Talagunda in
India describe the rise of the
Kadamba dynasty?
... that in spite of its similar appearance to the
European Robin , the colourful
Rose Robin (pictured) of southeastern
Australia is more closely related to the
crow family ?
... that
Andayya 's
13th century
Kannada work Kabbigara Kava is considered important for its strict adherence to the indigenous
Kannada language?
... that the sacrifice of Jean Cadieux on behalf of his companions during an
Iroquois attack in 1707 is still commemorated by the inhabitants of
Calumet Island ?
... that
Lena Guerrero (
1957 -
2008 ), a
Texas state legislator at twenty-five, was the first non-
Anglo person to have served on the
Texas Railroad Commission ?
... that
Robert the Devil , an operatic parody by
W. S. Gilbert of
Meyerbeer's opera
Robert le diable , ends with the devil being punished by becoming part of the exhibit at
Madame Tussaud's ?
... that
VFL
footballer
Charlie Moore , the first
Australian to die of gunshot wounds in the
Boer War , played in the
1898 VFL Grand Final against
Stan Reid , who died in the same war six weeks later?
... that the
Stöðulög laws of 1871 declared
Iceland an inseparable part of
Denmark ?
... that the
18th century American soldier
Isaac Bowman , his father
George Bowman , and his grandfather Jost Hite were all prominent pioneers in the
Colony of Virginia ?
... that the
windmill at South Barrule ,
Isle of Man (pictured) worked an
incline on a railway at a
slate quarry?
... that
Shabdamanidarpana , a comprehensive and authoritative work on the
grammar of the
Kannada language , was written in the 13th century by the
Indian linguist and poet
Kesiraja ?
... that the
1927 disappearance of the French biplane
The White Bird (L'Oiseau Blanc ), in an attempt to make the first nonstop
transatlantic flight from
Paris to
New York , is one of the great unexplained mysteries of
aviation ?
... that
English
football full back
Alfred Bower was the last
amateur player to captain the
English national team in 1927?
... that
screenwriter
Daniel Knauf 's
polio -afflicted father was the inspiration for his
television series
Carnivàle ?
... that a majority of the 114 killed in the
1994 Gowari stampede at
Nagpur were women and children crushed to death under the crowd’s feet?
... that according to
Brunei
folklore
Nakhoda Manis disrespected his mother, which caused a storm to sink his ship in the
Brunei River , transforming the ship into the rock known as
Jong Batu ?
... that
Elizabethan
mathematician and
cartographer
Edward Wright is said to be "the only
Fellow of
Caius ever to be granted
sabbatical leave in order to engage in
piracy "?
... that
Aberdour Castle (pictured) , with parts dating from around 1200, is one of the two oldest datable standing
castles in
Scotland ?
... that
Kim Swoo Geun , a leading
South Korean architect was referred to as "
Lorenzo de Medici of
Seoul " by
Time for his contributions to
Korean culture ?
... that the
Bevier House Museum in
Marbletown, New York includes the earliest known
land grant map for
Ulster County ?
... that the lawsuit
Motte v. Faulkner in 1735 was a legal dispute over the right to publish
Jonathan Swift 's complete works and its outcome was viewed by Swift as another example of English oppression?
... that although there is no commercial
mining in Equatorial Guinea , 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of
gold were retrieved in 2006?
... that
Swedish soldier
Charles F. Henningsen participated in civil wars and independence movements in
Spain ,
Nicaragua ,
Hungary and the
United States , but died without ever winning any of the causes for which he fought?
... that the
distribution company
Bunzl once held a virtual
monopoly on the manufacture of
cigarette filters in the
U.K. ?
... that in April 2008,
Forbes listed
Omid Tahvili (pictured) as one of the world's ten most wanted
fugitives ?
... that
Dr. Seuss's book
The Seven Lady Godivas is one of his only books written for adults, and though it was initially a failure when first published in 1939, original editions have sold for upwards of
US$ 300?
... that
L'Insoumis , a
film noir alluding to the
Algerian war , was
Alain Delon 's first real failure despite his acclaimed performance?
... that the
Pinchot Sycamore , a centuries-old
American sycamore , is the largest tree in
Connecticut ?
... that
ablative brain surgery , which involves destroying
brain tissue by heat or freezing, was used until recently in the
People's Republic of China to treat people with
schizophrenia ?
... that Winkhurst Kitchen and Titchfield Market Hall, which are now at the
Weald and Downland Open Air Museum ,
Singleton ,
Sussex , have been dismantled and re-erected twice?
... that the
Congressional Bowl is one of two new
college football
bowl games that will be played in the United States this year?
... that
Jane Loftus, Marchioness of Ely (pictured) was one of
Queen Victoria 's closest
ladies-in-waiting for nearly forty years?
... that
Rosetta Genomics Ltd. is a molecular diagnostics company that uses
micro-ribonucleic acid
biomarkers to develop diagnostic tests designed to differentiate between various types of
cancer ?
... that the first
public library in
Covington, Kentucky was built by its
Trinity Episcopal Church ?
... that at only five-weeks-old,
Flocke the
polar bear cub from Nuremberg Zoo was touted by
Bild to be the future "Mrs.
Knut "?
... that when the first
indigenous people of the Everglades region arrived in southern
Florida 15,000 years ago, the region was an arid sandy landscape?
... that visiting
Cistercian monks could extend the hospitality of
Stratford Langthorne Abbey , near
London , by supplying wine and beer for themselves and oats and hay for their horses?
... that the
Mark Eden bust developer , a product claimed to
enlarge women's breasts , actually worked by increasing the
pectoral and
back muscles?
... that the
Moscow Kremlin 's
Church of the Deposition (pictured) is named after a
Byzantine tradition that the robe of the
Virgin Mary was taken to
Constantinople ?
... that the
Galena Historic District in
Illinois ,
USA , includes more than a thousand
historic properties and occupies as much as 85 percent of the city of
Galena ?
... that in
Claude Ashton 's only international appearance for the
English national football team , he
captained the squad?
... that the 12th century
Kannada poet
Harihara was initially an accountant in the
Hoysala court?
... that restoration of the
Old Savannah School House was the first project undertaken by the
National Trust for the Cayman Islands after its creation?
... that the
Knickerbocker Baseball Club of
New York used the first recorded
baseball uniform in
1849 ?
... that in
St Peter's Church, Heysham ,
Lancashire , is a
Viking
hogback stone , and in the churchyard is the base of an
Anglo-Saxon cross (pictured) ?
... that as
General Secretary of the
Mexican railroad workers union,
Demetrio Vallejo renounced his salary of 20,000
pesos a month, requesting it be turned over to the railway union treasury?
... that the 1852
Lombard Street Riot capped thirteen years of recurring racial violence in
Philadelphia ,
Pennsylvania ?
... that after
Roche MacGeoghegan ,
Bishop of Kildare , died in 1644, his library was divided between his
diocese and the
Dominican Order ?
... that excavations of the
Cherokee town
Tallassee , burnt down during the
Chickamauga Wars and submerged by an
artificial lake since 1957, uncovered evidence of habitation as early as the
Woodland period ?
... that
Kisan Kanya made by
Ardeshir Irani in
1937 is
India 's first indigenously made
color film ?
... that
Omaha's zoo was renamed in honor of longtime
Omaha World-Herald
publisher
Henry Doorly in 1963?
... that Oregon's
Warrior Rock Light (pictured) operated uneventfully for 80 years until it was struck by a barge in 1969?
... that forces of the
Dutch West India Company captured
Axim in present-day
Ghana and signed a
treaty with the local
West Africans in 1642 to become the major European power in the
Gold Coast region ? .
... that
Frank Ford , an
organic foods
farmer in
Deaf Smith County, Texas , was the chief
advertising spokesman for the health foods industry during its founding
decades of the
1960s and the
1970s ?
... that
Lithuanian
nobleman
Feodor Ostrogski was a
governor of
Volhynia , a region of
Ukraine ?
... that the
Ilmin Museum of Art is an art museum of
South Korea , located on
Sejongno ,
Jongno-gu , central district of
Seoul where royal palaces and gates of
Joseon dynasty are also situated?
... that some scholars believe that
John Wannuaucon Quinney was the originator of the term
Native American ?
... that the 122-year old
Baltimore Steam Packet Company ("Old Bay Line") (pictured) was the last overnight steamship service in the U.S. when it ceased operation in 1962?
... that
China and
Peru are expected to sign a
free trade agreement during the
2008 APEC summit ?
... that the tiny
Dinkey Train of only a passenger coach and dummy engine went to the
Mammoth Caves ?
... that in February 2008,
rugby league player
Dan Dempsey was named in the list of Australia's
100 Greatest Players ?
... that eight buildings in
Newport, Rhode Island 's
Bellevue Avenue Historic District are designated as
National Historic Landmarks , in addition to the district itself?
... that
HNoMS Honningsvåg (pictured) was a German fishing trawler captured in the
Norwegian Campaign and served the
Royal Norwegian Navy throughout
World War II ?
... that
Spanish American
cardiologist
Valentin Fuster is the only cardiologist to receive all four major research awards from the world's four major
cardiovascular organizations?
... that the
steam yacht Gondola on
Coniston Water is thought to be the inspiration for
Captain Flint's houseboat in
Arthur Ransome 's
Swallows and Amazons ?
... that the
May 30, 1998 Afghanistan earthquake was also felt at
Samarkand in
Uzbekistan ,
Islamabad in
Pakistan , and
Dushanbe in
Tajikistan ?
... that the late
actress and
theatrical producer ,
Madeline Lee Gilford , who was
blacklisted during the
McCarthy Era , is scheduled to appear in the forthcoming 2008 film,
Sex and the City: The Movie ?
... that
Sabr is the
Islamic virtue of
patience and
endurance ?
... that the
Roanoke Apartments , which opened as
Roanoke 's largest
apartment complex, are an example of
Streamline Moderne architecture?
... that
Mathilde Ludendorff , a leader in the German
Völkisch movement , claimed
astrology was part of a Jewish effort to enslave the Germans?
... that an uncle of
Christopher Columbus served as a
keeper of
Genoa 's
Torre della Lanterna ?
... that the spirits of a wealthy rancher and his Indian wife have been seen and heard since the 1920s at
Leonis Adobe , according to TV show
Most Haunted ?
... that
Turkey was so dissatisfied with
its first set of stamps that it had
France make the second set (example pictured) ?
... that
Lopez and
Pico Adobes , built near the
San Fernando Mission , are the oldest residences in
San Fernando Valley ,
California ?
... that in February 2008,
rugby league player
Brian Hambly was named in the list of
Australia 's
100 Greatest Players ?
... that
Samuel Johnson failed to get a job at
Brewood Grammar School because headmaster
William Budworth was concerned with Johnson's head movements?
... that a
shrew's fiddle was used to punish women who were caught fighting or arguing in
Germany and
Switzerland , and
slaves in the
United States ?
... that a 150 year-old weeping
beech tree , considered to be the source of weeping beeches in the
United States and declared a
landmark in 1966, was located in Weeping Beech Park at
Kingsland Homestead in
Queens ,
New York ?
... that the
Denver Broncos , who made the
National Football League playoffs
seventeen times between
1977 and
2005 , did not make the playoffs at all in their first seventeen
seasons ?
... that the photographs taken of
Peter Jones in 1845 (
pictured ) are the oldest surviving photographs of a
North American Indian ?
... that despite never making landfall, remnant moisture from
Hurricane Madeline in
1998 contributed to
severe flooding in central
Texas which killed 32 people?
... that despite nine hundred
Roman Catholic churches being built in
England in the fifty years after
1791 ,
St John the Baptist's Church in
Brighton was only the fourth to be
consecrated since the
Reformation ?
... that
U-boat commander
Heinrich Bleichrodt refused to wear his
Knight's Cross until his subordinate,
Reinhard Suhren received one as well?
... that
NASCAR took away the first win for its
all-time winningest driver at
Lakewood Speedway after
his father protested the scoring?
... that the
Old Stone House is the oldest standing building in
Washington, D.C. ?
... that the annual Chembuduppu festival at
St. George Orthodox Church, Chandanapally is held in commemoration of non-
Christians bringing
rice to feed hundreds of voluntary labourers during its construction?
... that the
herb
Forsskaolea tenacissima was so
named by
Carl Linnaeus because it was as stubborn and persistent as his student
Peter Forsskål (
pictured ) had been?
... that
Breed Street Shul , now vacant in a Hispanic part of
Los Angeles , was the largest
Orthodox
synagogue in the western
United States from 1915 to 1951?
... that "
Guten Tag " , the first single of German band
Wir sind Helden featured a video which was a self-ironic statement against commercial music?
... that
Raghavanka , a 12th century writer of
Kannada literature , penned five classics just to expiate a
sin his
guru felt he had committed?
... that
Omaha University was first located in the
Redick Mansion of
North
Omaha 's once-affluent
Kountze Place suburb?
... that
An Qingxu killed his father
An Lushan , the Emperor of
Yan , because he feared that his father would kill him and make his brother
crown prince ?
... that the first
East Lake Community Library in
Minneapolis was called a "reading factory" because it looked like a storefront?
... that the
English names for the towns of
Brecon (pictured) and
Cardigan derive from the names of
Welsh
mediaeval kingdoms, but the
Welsh names for those same places refer to local rivers?
... that
Tamil politician
E. V. K. Sampath , nephew of
Periyar , co-founded the
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party?
... that the
pumpman is the person aboard an
oil tanker who maintains the liquid cargo system?
... that
screenwriter
Jamie Linden interpreted his winning of
US$ 5,000 on
game show
The Price Is Right as a sign to relocate to
Hollywood ,
California ?
... that the
G.A.R. Monument in
Covington, Kentucky is the only
American Civil War monument in the
Bluegrass state shaped like a
sarcophagus ?
... that
Russell B. Cummings , as a member of the
Texas House of Representatives in the 1960s, was credited with procuring passage of his state's open
beach and
kindergarten access laws?
... that
Rim Drive in
Oregon , a scenic
highway cited by the
American Automobile Association as one of the ten most beautiful roads in the
U.S. , is a 33-mile loop that follows the
caldera rim around
Crater Lake (pictured) ?
... that the
Japanese
virtual
3D
massively multiplayer online social game
Ai Sp@ce will launch in summer 2008 featuring interaction with
bishōjo game characters?
... that
Cormac mac Cuilennáin ,
bishop and
king of Munster , later considered a
saint , was killed in battle in
908 while leading an invasion of
Leinster ?
... that the
Zimbabwe Open University is the largest university in
Zimbabwe and the only
distance education university in the country?
... that the
Veteran's Monument in Covington in
Kentucky is the state's only
Civil War platform memorial and also the only one referring to that conflict as the "War Between the States"?
... that
Frederick II of Prussia was elated by the
First Partition of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ?
... that
silva rerum (pictured) was a type of a multi-generational
chronicle , kept by many
Polish noble families from the 16th through 18th centuries?
... that the 27th
U.S. President
William Howard Taft 's
boyhood home almost became a
funeral parlor ?
... that
male prostitutes in Pakistan generally range from fifteen to twenty-five years of age?
... that, in a bid to remain in power,
Philippine
President
Ferdinand Marcos asked his
Labor Minister
Blas Ople to reach out to the
Soviet Union ?
... that
Raymond Berry is a member of the
Pro Football Hall of Fame , having been inducted in 1973, eleven years before he became the
Patriots' head coach ?
... that
Shnaim Ohazin was an
Israeli Educational Television show that taught basic concepts from the
Talmud with fictionalized
time travel segments?
... that
Larry Gossett works in an office at the
King County Courthouse in
King County, Washington , located exactly where he was jailed for
unlawful assembly after a 1968
sit-in ?
... that the
Berthouville Treasure (pictured) of first and second-century
Roman silver was uncovered accidentally by a farmer's plough in 1830?
... that English
engineer
Roy Lunn was responsible for the development of the
Ford Mustang I and the first
American
4WD cars?
... that you can
travel to some parts of Botswana for less than
US$ 50 a night?
... that despite over 85% of
American Indian students giving it their support,
mascot controversy at
Humboldt High School in
Saint Paul, Minnesota resulted in the abandonment of its Indians
mascot ?
... that some
Bahá'í prayers have been translated into more than five hundred languages?
... that
Cheryl Dunye 's 1996 film
The Watermelon Woman was the first feature film to be directed by a black lesbian?
... that the
Failing Office Building in
Portland, Oregon is named after a mayor of Portland and built by a locally prominent
architecture firm?
... that the
art deco
Burbank City Hall (pictured) , with
murals by
Hugo Ballin , uses more than twenty types of
marble in its main lobby?
... that the
flora of Scotland includes
the world's tallest hedge ,
a yew which may be
Europe 's oldest tree, and Dughall Mor ("big dark stranger") –
Britain 's tallest tree?
... that the dialogues for the
Tamil film
Parasakthi were penned by
M. Karunanidhi who later became the
Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu ?
... that a scrapped
demolition proposal for the
Baytown Tunnel in
Baytown, Texas would have utilized former pieces of its structure in the creation of an
artificial reef in the
Gulf of Mexico ?
... that the first organized
postal system in
India was established between the
British East India Company factories at
Madras and
Calcutta during the tenure of
Edward Harrison ?
... that
Maher Arar was deported to
Syria and tortured after being wrongly identified as an "Islamic Extremist" by
Project O Canada ?
... that
wildlife biologist
Olaus Murie was the first
American
Fulbright Scholar to study in
New Zealand ?
... that
Pogórzanie are an
ethnic group of
Poles from the
Subcarpathian Voivodeship ?
... that
Clarence Hailey Long , a
ranch foreman in the
Texas Panhandle , was the inspiration for the original
Marlboro Man
advertising campaign by
Philip Morris ?
... that
prison contemplative programs like
meditation were used in 19th century
Pennsylvania as an early
prison reform ?
... that after 12 years of legal tussling over delays and cost overruns on the
Taipei Metro Muzha Line , the
Taipei City Government was ordered to compensate its contractor
Matra for US$50 million?
... that
Minneapolis businessman
Robert "Fish" Jones drove
Ulysses Grant and
William T. Sherman down
Nicollet Avenue in downtown Minneapolis on their post-war tours?
... that the
Doctor Who episode "
The Sontaran Stratagem " is the first appearance of the
eponymous aliens since the 1985 serial
The Two Doctors ?
... that the
Lynchburg Ferry in
Lynchburg, Texas is the oldest operating
ferry service in
Texas ?
... that on every
May 1 , the
hamlet of
Ickwell celebrates
May Day with
dancing around a
Maypole (
pictured ) and with the crowning of a
May Queen ?
... that
Ben Gold was just 14 years old when he was elected assistant shop chairman by his local
union during the first
furriers'
strike in the United States?
... that the
Abyssinian
slave
Jamal-ud-Din Yaqut was a close adviser and speculated to be the
lover of
Razia Sultana , the first and only female
Sultan of Delhi ?
... that by using the
Bevatron and nuclear emulsion technique,
Sulamith Goldhaber was the first person to observe nuclear interactions of the
antiproton ?
... that
Durum wheat was used to make al-fidawsh , a dry
pasta popular in
Muslim Spain ?
... that the
Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company was the second largest steel manufacturer in the USA before it merged with
U.S. Steel in 1907?
... that
Steven Spielberg filmed much of
Amistad in
Newport 's
downtown historic district because it has enough
colonial buildings (
pictured ) to resemble 1840s
New Haven ?
... that the ground living
warblers in the
genus
Tesia appear to almost lack a
tail and have very long legs?
... that the people of the
planet
Krikkit are the main
antagonists in the
Douglas Adams novel,
Life, the Universe and Everything ?
... that within the
Special Economic Zone
SEEPZ ,
Mumbai lies an abandoned
Portuguese
church built in 1579?
... that
Jane Addams ,
Mary Harris Jones and
Abe Fortas have all made notable contributions to the
history of children's rights in the United States ?
... that the
Piliyandala bombing of
April 25 ,
2008 was the deadliest attack on a
commuter bus in
Sri Lanka since the January 16
Buttala attack ?
... that the
Tregenna Castle Hotel in
St Ives, Cornwall was the
Great Western Railway 's first holiday destination hotel?
... that the
bombardment of Brussels by
French troops (ruins pictured) in 1695 was later described by
Napoleon Bonaparte as being "as barbarous as it was useless?"
... that the
Transition Towns movement inspired
Totnes ,
England to introduce their own town-wide currency redeemable only in local shops?
... that
anarchist Internet archive
Spunk Library was once falsely accused of collaborating with the terrorist guerrilla outfit
Red Army Faction ?
... that in
Grosvenor Park , in the city of
Chester , is an archway which had been in the city's
St Michael's Church ?
... that
Anna Maria Garthwaite , the daughter of a
Lincolnshire
clergyman , became the leading
designer of
flowered
fabrics for the
Spitalfields
silk -
weaving trade in
18th century
England ?
... that
Wade Phillips holds the best
coaching record for the Atlanta Falcons , winning two out of the three games he coached?
... that
Ratnakaravarni , the noted 16th century
Kannada poet of the
Vijayanagara times, was an expert on erotic writings?
... that the
Purna-Kalasha (
pictured ) , worshipped by
Hindus as the
Divine Mother , symbolizes mother
Earth with her water, minerals and vegetation?
... that a fossil plesiosaur skull named
Kimmerosaurus may be actually be the missing head of a fossil plesiosaur
Colymbosaurus ?
... that
Richard Honaker ,
Bush nominee for
U.S. District Judge in
Wyoming , washed dishes in a
work-study program while studying at
Harvard University with future
comedian
Al Franken ?
... that in 2007 the
Royal Australasian College of Physicians revoked the teaching accreditation of
Shellharbour Hospital due to a lack of senior staff?
... that
Norwegian
sociologist
Ingrid Eide was also a
United Nations official and a politician for the
Norwegian Labour Party ?
... that the first refuge from
malaria that residents of
Memphis, Tennessee had in 1878 was
Kentucky's
Louisville and Nashville Railroad Station ?
... that the German author
Heinrich Böll 's humorous short story
Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral was written for a
May Day broadcast on the
Norddeutscher Rundfunk ?
... that
Runcorn Town Hall (
pictured ) was originally built as Halton Grange, a mansion for Thomas Johnson, a local soap and
alkali manufacturer?
... that
Palestinian nationalist poet
Ibrahim Touqan wrote the poem
Mawtini , which has been the national anthem of
Iraq since 2003?
... that the
Shell Quiz is the longest-running television programme in
Thailand , being broadcast since 1965?
... that a
Balzac
comedy was inspired by an
academic squabble over the claim that
Spaniard
Blasco de Garay built the first
steam powered ship in 1543?
... that
Kiev Governorate was one of the
first eight governorates of the
Russian Empire ?
... that a scandal arose when
African-American actor
Lorenzo Tucker , known as the "Black Valentino", playing a
pimp in a play, kissed
Mae West , playing a
prostitute ?
... that
Pierre the penguin is the first bird to don a custom-made wetsuit?
... that a building fire destroyed the first designs for the
South Australian National War Memorial ?
...that American theater critic and historian
T. Allston Brown earned the title "Colonel" by riding on the back of a
tightrope walker in a circus performance?
...that the
endowment by
Edmund Meyrick , a
Welsh cleric and philanthropist who died in 1713, is still awarding
scholarships to students at
Jesus College ,
Oxford in
England after nearly three centuries?
...that British author
Bernard Newman , an authority on
spies , gave more than 2,000 lectures throughout Europe during the
Interbellum ?
... that the
February 4, 1998 Afghanistan earthquake , in which nearly 4,000 people were killed and 15,000 homes destroyed, was also felt at
Tashkent and
Dushanbe ?
...that
Kenyan public health advocate
Miriam Were and
British
biomedical researcher
Brian Greenwood are the inaugural laureates of the
Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize ?
...that after his climbing partner was killed in a fall,
Jean-Christophe Lafaille survived a descent of the South Face of
Annapurna (pictured) alone and with a broken arm?
...that the
Thich Ca Phat Dai
Buddhist temple in
Vung Tau has a prominent lookout over the city?
...that
George W. Woodbey was the sole
African American delegate to the
Socialist Party of America conventions in 1904 and 1908?
...that during hot
greenhouse periods in Earth's history, the
tropics appeared to be cooler than they are today?
...that Lieutenant-General
Sir Maurice Johnston was made an
Honorary Freeman of the
Borough of
Swindon in 2004?
...that the
Capitol Center has been the tallest commercial building in
Salem, Oregon , since its completion in 1926?
...that instead of voting to determine the site of a proposed
hydroelectricity
dam , tens of thousands of
Tasmanians protested by writing "No Dams" on their ballot papers in the
1981 power referendum ?
...that after unsuccessfully standing for the
National Socialist German Workers Party in the
1925 German presidential election ,
Erich Ludendorff left the party to found the
Tannenbergbund ?
...that
Wilshire Boulevard Temple , with its landmark
Byzantine
dome (pictured ), is the oldest
Jewish
synagogue in
Los Angeles ?
...that the government of
Malaysia has been alleged to be behind
Project IC which involves the systematic granting of
citizenship to hundreds of thousands of
immigrants to alter the demographic and voting pattern in their favour?
...that priest
Benjamin Pâquet was such a controversial figure in 19th century
Quebec that his possible nomination to
bishopry was rejected for three different
dioceses ?
...that
Detroit Tigers
pitcher
Denny Bautista is the
second cousin of
New York Mets pitcher
Pedro Martínez ?
...that
Norwegian
politician
Helge Seip was succeeded by
Helge Rognlien both as
Minister of Local Government and Regional Development and later as leader of the
Liberal Party ?
...that veterinarian
Martha Kostuch (pictured) linked reproductive and immunological problems among cattle to
sulphur dioxide emitted in the oil and gas industry in
Alberta ?
...that the
Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize , for achievements in
medical research and services to combat diseases in
Africa , is named after a
Japanese scientist whose portrait can be found on
recent ¥1000 banknotes ?
...that
Ronald J. Rábago became the first
Hispanic American to be promoted to the rank of
Rear Admiral in the
United States Coast Guard ?
...that
St. James' Episcopal Church (pictured) held the first
U2charist in
Wisconsin ?
...that
Sailor's Creek Battlefield State Park 's Hillsman House still has bloodstains on its floor dating to its use as a hospital after the
Battle of Sayler's Creek in April 1865?
...that the seeds of
Trillium grandiflorum are dispersed by
ants , who interpret the seeds as corpses?
...that
Ringle Crouch Green ,
Sandhurst was the only five-sailed
corn mill in
Kent ?
...that the first wife of
Arizona Territorial Governor
A.P.K. Safford printed notices accusing him of having
venereal disease ?
...that the
Sembawang , discovered in 1909, is the only natural
hot spring on the main island of
Singapore ?
...that the
Camp Dump Strike in
Omaha was
Nebraska 's first
organized labor
strike and the first to receive national attention?
...that the former
Indian Deputy Prime Minister
LK Advani famously promoted a
Indo-Pakistani confederation , asserting that the
partition was mutually harmful?
...that
Johann Myburgh , a
South African
cricketer playing in
New Zealand , broke
Graeme Pollock 's mark for the fastest first-class
double century ?
...that children are more vulnerable to
pulmonary contusion because their chest walls are more flexible?
... that the
Rhode Island state legislature met regularly at the
Old Colony House (pictured) in
Newport until 1900?
... that the
National Courtesy Campaign was the first government campaign in
Singapore to adopt a
mascot ?
... that after attempting to
bribe a teammate to lose a game during the
1876 season ,
George Bechtel of the
Louisville Grays became one of the first players
banned for life from
Major League Baseball ?
... that
Academy Award -nominated screenwriter
Nancy Oliver considered leaving show business shortly before being offered her first full-time position writing for
Six Feet Under ?
... that
merkhets were
Ancient Egyptian timekeeping devices that tracked the movement of certain stars over the
meridian in order to ascertain the time during the night, when
sundials could not function?
... that after competing for many years on a world-class level in the
400 metres hurdles ,
German athlete
Heike Meißner tried competing in the
800 metres ?
... that
Hollywood 's
Blessed Sacrament Church was the site of
Bing Crosby 's wedding and funerals for
John Ford and
Mack Sennett ?
... that the
Royal Air Force designed the
rotabuggy as a combination
autogyro /
jeep ?
...that the bronze of Mary (pictured) atop
Mary Star of the Sea , known as the "Fishermen's Church," is lit at night so she can be seen from the
Port of Los Angeles harbor?
...that a recent report released by the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has shown an increase in
felony waivers by
U.S. military
recruiters ?
...that young shoots of the ornamental Australian tree
Alphitonia excelsa give off an odour of
sarsaparilla when broken?
...that
Canada 's largest
dry-bulk shipping company,
The Fednav Group , has a fleet of over eighty
ships ?
...that construction of the
stupa of
Giac Lam Pagoda was halted for 18 years after the
Fall of Saigon ?
...that
Kikuchi lines , formed in
diffraction patterns by diffusely scattered
electrons , are useful tools in
electron microscopy of
crystalline and
nanocrystalline materials?
...that unlike other
sampradayas in
Hinduism , which insist that the clergy lead an
ascetic's life , the clergy in most
Rudra sampradaya sects are expected to marry and live a worldly life with their family?
...that
Mary K. Shell , the first woman
mayor of
Bakersfield, California , chided
NBC 's
Johnny Carson for his jokes about "beautiful downtown Bakersfield" and invited Carson to visit the city to see its improvements?
...that
Florentine law required the commissioning of unflattering
frescoes ,
pittura infamante , on the exterior of the
Bargello of those found in
contempt of court for financial offenses?
...that
anti-German and
anti-Chinese sentiments have motivated two of the several
riots in the
history of Calgary ?
...that according to the
World Bank , investment commitments in
Chile's water and sanitation sector reached US$ 5.7 billion in 1993-2005?
...that gallery owner
Victoria Miro described
Jake Chapman —now famous for art which includes explicit and distorted mannequins—as an "adorable" baby sitter?
...that
hexachlorobutadiene , a colorless
solvent commonly used for
chlorine -containing compounds, is also a potent
herbicide , but this application has been discouraged because it is too
toxic ?
...that both
Hillary Clinton and
Barack Obama refused to hand out
street money , a political tactic common in
Philadelphia , during the
2008 Pennsylvania primary ?
...that
Tuoba Gui , the prince of
Northern Wei , crushed
Later Yan forces at the
Battle of Canhe Slope , leading to Later Yan's decline and Northern Wei's rise?
...that
Julian Sturgis , the novelist, poet,
librettist and lyricist was the first
American to win an English
FA Cup Final in
1873 ?
...that
environmental stress cracking accounts for around 15-30% of all plastic component failures in service?
...that the
Philadelphia Lazaretto is the oldest surviving quarantine hospital in the United States?
...that
Ukrainian
poet
Yevhen Hrebinka helped purchase fellow poet
Taras Shevchenko 's freedom from
serfdom in 1838?
...that
John Caldwell was originally given the name at birth of George Washington Caldwell because he was born on the Fourth of July?
...that the 1938 western
Rawhide was baseball great
Lou Gehrig 's only feature film appearance?
...that the
European Union is an example of a
security community , in which
war has become unthinkable?
...that the cost of building the base of the
Great Mill ,
Sheerness was so great that the
mill was left unfinished for over two years before being completed?
...that Australian cabaret singer, stage actor, dancer and comedienne
Toni Lamond was nicknamed "Lolly-Legs Lamond" after being voted as having the second-best pair of legs in television while doing
In Melbourne Tonight ?
...that
Sid Gillman is the only
head coach in the San Diego Chargers to make it into the
Pro Football Hall of Fame ?
...that
McDonald's signs (
pictured ) once had only one
golden arch ?
...that the
Greek musical group
C:Real sang only in
English before the arrival of lead vocalist Irini Douka in 2002, which led to their focus on
Greek language songs?
...that
Papa II , an
Indian
detention centre once infamous for reports of
torture , is now the official residence of senior state politician
Mehbooba Mufti ?
...that the
Confederate Monument of
Glasgow, Kentucky honors
Confederate soldiers of Glasgow and
Barren County, Kentucky , who won more
Southern Cross of Honors than those from any other
Kentucky county?
...that
Hong Kong director
Ann Hui 's 1982 award-winning film
Boat People depicting life in
communist
Vietnam was banned in
Taiwan because it was filmed in
communist China ?
...that
Swiss dissident
Ami Perrin was the leader of the
Libertine faction which rebelled against
John Calvin 's
theocratic rule of
Geneva in 1551?
...that
Mark Twain's daughter,
Clara Clemens was saved from being dragged over a cliff by a horse by her future husband, the Russian born concert pianist,
Ossip Gabrilowitsch ?
...that it was at the urging of
Pei Mian and Du Hongjian that
Emperor Suzong of Tang claimed the throne, despite the fact that his father
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang was still alive?
...that the
Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House (pictured) was renovated in different
styles to depict the evolution of the oldest house in
Newport, Rhode Island ?
...that
Kettle Falls , known to native peoples as Shonitkwu ("roaring or noisy waters "), lies silenced beneath the waters of
Lake Roosevelt trapped behind the
Grand Coulee Dam ?
...that when the
RAF 's
High Speed Flight won the
Schneider seaplane in perpetuity in 1931, there were no other teams competing against them?
...that
Josef Smrkovský boasted he had kept American units away from
Prague in
1945 , allowing the liberation of the city by the
Red Army , and then in
1968 he and
Dubček became the most popular politicians of the
Prague Spring ?
...that
Igor Stravinsky agreed to compose the musical score for the ballet
Circus Polka only under the condition that the elephants performing it be very young?
...that
Cardinal Mahony petitioned Rome to name
Padre Serra Church after
Junipero Serra despite controversy over his treatment of
California
Indians ?
...that
William Glanville calculated the size of explosives required for
Operation Chastise and was portrayed by
Colin Tapley in the 1955 film
The Dam Busters ?
...that the distinctive
pagodas created for
Wadham's Oil and Grease Company of Milwaukee (pictured) are among the earliest examples of
architecture used to forge a
brand identity?
...that
Sheesh Mahal (Palace of Mirrors) in
Lahore Fort was originally decorated with
frescoes that were later replaced with
pietra dura and
convex glass and mirror
mosaic ?
...that
Martial van Schelle fought as an
American
soldier in
World War I , but was
executed as a
Belgian citizen during
World War II ?
...that
Allumette Island (
Quebec ,
Canada ), the largest island in the
Ottawa River , was once called One-Eyed Island because Algonquin chief
Tessouat had only one eye?
...that
mutations in the
CNDP1 gene may cause
carnosinemia , a rare
metabolic disorder with diverse
neurological problems, such as
hypotonia ,
tremors and
seizures ,
neuronal degeneration and
mental retardation ?
...that the
John Coltrane Home is where the saxophonist composed many of his later works including the masterwork, A Love Supreme ?
...that the
first printing press in Sierra Leone was destroyed by the French before it could be used?
...that
Theodor von Holst was the first illustrator of
Mary Shelley 's novel
Frankenstein (pictured) ?
...that photographer
Burt Glinn was at a New Year's Party when
Fidel Castro took over Cuba, and he arrived at the scene before dawn?
...that
mental conditioning
coach
Paddy Upton helped
cricketers
Gary Kirsten and
Jacques Kallis overcome personal crises and helped
Virender Sehwag stay focused as he scored 319 in the
2008 Chennai Test ?
...that the
Healthcare system in France was ranked number one in the world by the
World Health Organization in 1997 and 2000?
...that the
San Ardo Oil Field is the 13th-largest oil field in
California , and of the top twenty California oil fields in size, it is the most recent to be discovered?
...that
David Goodstein 's book
Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil rejected the notion that after
peak oil alternative energy will be able to keep industry supplied?
...that
Lower Mill, Woodchurch , a
smock mill in Kent, is a
Scheduled Ancient Monument ?
...that
Kaash , was the last Hindi film in which
Kishore Kumar did
playback singing ?
...that the travel time of the
sternwheeler
Lytton (pictured) on the stretch of the
Columbia River known as Little Dalles was six hours upriver, but less than seven minutes downriver?
...that
Boston Red Sox
pitcher
Mike Nagy was selected as American League rookie pitcher of the year in
1969 , but never pitched another full season due to injury?
...that Monk Estill, who was captured by the
Wyandot prior to the
Battle of Little Mountain and escaped during the battle, was the first
slave to be freed in the
Kentucky ?
...that, at one point during the
chancellorship of
Yang Guozhong , he served in over 40 posts simultaneously?
...that guests on the American
PBS television series
Soul! (1967–1971) included
Stevie Wonder , African musician
Hugh Masekela , and
Nation of Islam leader
Louis Farrakhan ?
...that the
2008 film
Forever the Moment is based on the real life story of
South Korea 's women's
handball team which won
silver at the
2004 Summer Olympics , and is also the first film to revolve around the sport of handball?
...that the
Our Lady of Atonement Cathedral (pictured) , consecrated in 1936, is the largest
Catholic church building in
Baguio City ?
...that after losing to
Tiger Woods in the 1994
U.S. Amateur Championship ,
amateur
golfer
Trip Kuehne pursued a career in
finance in lieu of
professional golf ?
...that
San Sebastian Church , the only
all-steel church in
Asia , is threatened by
rust caused by the salty sea breeze from nearby
Manila Bay ?
...that Lt.
John Weston Brooke , a veteran of the
Second Boer War and an explorer with the East African Syndicate, was the first
Englishman to gain an audience with the
Dalai Lama , in 1906?
...that the
first U.S. patent , numbered
X 000001 (pictured) , was issued to
Samuel Hopkins on
July 31 ,
1790 for "the making of
pot ash and pearl ash "?
...that the inscription eulogising
Kappe Arabhatta , a 7th century
Chalukya warrior, records the earliest example of
Kannada
poetry metre
Tripadi ?
...that the
court appointment of
valet de chambre (pictured) , nominally as a personal servant, was given to a wide range of artists, musicians, poets and others, including
the first air crash fatality ?
...that
Oregon 's
Boone Bridge is named for
Daniel Boone 's grandson, who operated the first
river crossing at that location ?
...that
Enfield Old Park contained 207
fallow deer in April 1620, of which 73 were
antlered males?
...that
Major League Baseball
catcher
Ellie Rodríguez caught the fourth of
Nolan Ryan 's seven career
no-hitters ?
...that
William Godwin 's philosophical work
Political Justice (1793) argues that the existence of governments indicates that people are not yet ready to rely on their reason to regulate their conduct?
...that
Davison's Mill ,
Stelling Minnis , was the last
windmill in Kent working commercially by wind when it closed in the autumn of 1970?
...that the
Tang Dynasty
chancellor
Chen Xilie first endeared
Emperor Xuanzong by explaining the
Tao Te Ching and the
I Ching to Emperor Xuanzong?
...that the
Chigi vase is the earliest representation of the ancient Greek
hoplite
phalanx ?
...that "
4 Mots sur un piano ", which deals with the theme of a
romantic relationship between two men and one woman, was the fifth
best-selling
single of
2007 in
France ?
...that
Kevin O'Brien (
1955 –
2008 ), an
Independent Baptist minister in
Lubbock, Texas , was among the founders of the
fundamentalist
Heartland Baptist Bible College in
Oklahoma City ?
...that
Kloster Wienhausen , a medieval convent in Germany, has the world's oldest surviving example of
rivet eyeglasses?
...that
sprinter
Jaysuma Saidy Ndure holds both the
Gambian and
Norwegian records in both the
100 and
200 metres ?
...that the
Ellsworth Street Bridge in
Albany, Oregon , was designed by
Conde McCullough who was both a bridge engineer and an attorney?
...that
Sarre Windmill was the first
windmill in
Kent to have a
steam engine installed as auxiliary power?
...that at 15 years and 156 days,
Albert Geldard became the youngest player to appear in
The Football League in 1929?
...that
Annie Armstrong , for whom the
Southern Baptist
Easter collection for domestic
missions is named, resigned from the missionary organization she founded vowing never to serve the SBC again?
...that
Magat Dam was at one time
Southeast Asia 's largest multipurpose
dam ?
...that in May 1899, less than 18 months after he led the
Australian cricket team to an
Ashes victory over
England in 1897–98,
Australian Test cricket captain
Harry Trott was committed to a
psychiatric hospital ?
...that
Platt Fields Park in
Manchester ,
England , was used as a
country park for over 400 years before being converted for public use in 1908–1910?
...that
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow never lived in
Minneapolis 's
Longfellow House (pictured ), a two-thirds
scale model of his house built by an admirer of his work?
...that certain flies such as the Cayman crab fly
Drosophila endobranchia live solely in and on
land crabs ?
...that in the 2000 offseason
Matt Lytle , a former
American football
quarterback , played for the
Rhein Fire of NFL Europe who won
World Bowl VIII ?
...that the titular planet in the
Doctor Who episode "
Planet of the Ood " is in the same solar system as the Sense-Sphere, the location for the 1964 serial
The Sensorites ?
...that during the
Shuliavka workers' uprising of 1905 , groups of 150 armed men patrolled the streets of the
Shuliavka neighborhood in
Kiev to clean the area of any resistors to their movement?
...that
architect
John Desmond was able to design the acclaimed
Louisiana State University Student Union building in
Baton Rouge without disturbing a canopy of stately
oak trees ?
...that
Edgar Allan Poe's 1831 short story "
Bon-Bon " features an
amateur
philosopher who meets a
soul -eating
devil ?
...that
Halemaʻumaʻu crater (pictured) in
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park erupted explosively on
March 19
2008 for the first time since 1924?
...that
Siegfried Kasche , the
Third Reich 's ambassador to
Croatia from 1941 to 1945, was tried for "complicity in deportations and murders" by a Yugoslav court and executed in June 1947?
...that the first
organochromium compound was described by German scientist
Franz Hein in 1919?
...that
American pioneer
John Bowman , granduncle of
Kentucky University founder
John Bryan Bowman , presided over the first county court held in
Kentucky ?
...that
Cryptosporidium hominis , an
obligate parasite usually spread through
fecal -contaminated
drinking water , is responsible for a seasonal increase in cases of
cryptosporidiosis in the
Netherlands in
autumn ?
...that nineteenth-century Irish
portrait painter
Richard Rothwell is buried next to the
Romantic poet
John Keats in the
Protestant cemetery in
Rome ?
...that as Kid Galahad ,
The Furze recorded "
Stealin’ Beats " which featured on the
PlayStation 2 game
Dancing Stage MegaMix ?
...that
Annette E. Brown was the
first female commander of
Navy Region Southeast of the
United States Navy ?
...that
BY Draconis , a multi-star system in the
constellation
Draco , includes a
binary star system with an
orbital period of only 5.98 days?
...that the cultures of the
Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition not only considered dogs to be
soul guides for the dead, but a major source of protein as well?
...that despite
Al Gore 's efforts to appease
Congressman
Jesse Jackson, Jr. and
Jesse Jackson , at the
2000 Democratic National Convention they agreed that endorsing Gore was like taking
castor oil ?
...that modern historians still debate on whether or not the
Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) of
China
had sovereignty over
Tibet ?
...that the recent
Typhoon Neoguri was the earliest tropical cyclone on record to affect
China ?
...that
Lesotho is the
only country in the world that
lies entirely over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft)
above mean sea level ?
...that
St. Brendan's Church has been a location for two apocalypse movies: the
Martian attack in 1953's
War of the Worlds and the wedding at the end of
Armageddon ?
...that
Percy Hoskins , was the only journalist working for a national British newspaper to defend suspected
serial killer
Dr. John Adams when he was arrested for murdering patients in 1956?