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1
...that
British -
American
philanthropist
Rhoda Pritzker reportedly wore a
life preserver on her entire
trans-Atlantic voyage to the United States in 1939 due to the threat of
German
U-boat attacks?
...that the
Italian government submitted the
Medici villas (pictured) in
Tuscany for designation as a
World Heritage Site in 2006?
...that one of the most important advances in
psychology in the medieval Muslim world was the establishment of the first
psychiatric hospitals ?
...that in
Slavic
vampire folklore ,
vampires could take the form of
butterflies ?
...that because of the laws pertaining to
birth aboard aircraft and ships , that it is possible for a person born in a British ship, anchored at a United States port, with a Chinese father and a Turkish mother, to have
quadruple nationality ?
...that
German -born
Guenther Podola was the last man to be
hanged in
Britain for killing a police officer?
...that the
Koitsenko were the honorary elite of the
Kiowa
dog soldiers , who tribal lore says called themselves that because they had dreams or visions of dogs?
...that the
genus
Entomocorus includes a
catfish species that lives only one year?
...that in the year
1214 , the
Scot
Ruaidhri mac Raghnaill , Lord of
Kintyre , stole the treasures of
Derry from its
monastery ?
...that
Independence Day Award is the highest state award given by the Government of
Bangladesh ?
...that
dhakis (
pictured ) , traditional
Bengali
drummers , kill more than 40,000
egrets ,
pheasants ,
herons and open bill
storks every year to decorate their instruments with feathers?
...that
British
Conservative politician
Sir John Loveridge published
poetry and exhibited
paintings and
sculpture after serving 13 years as a
member of Parliament ?
...that the
Aboriginal Community Court is an
Australian court which aims to reduce the overrepresentation of
aboriginal criminal offenders in the justice system?
...that because of
Canada 's controversial cancellation of the
Avro Arrow ,
428 All Weather Fighter Squadron of the
RCAF was disbanded on
June 1 ,
1961 ?
...that
New York Giants
quarterback
Harry Newman threw the first
touchdown pass in an
NFL Championship Game 75 years ago in the
1933 NFL Championship Game against the
Chicago Bears ?
...that less than two months after showing what would become the
dress of the season for Spring 2006,
Roland Mouret split from his backers and took a two-year hiatus from the fashion industry?
...that when
San Francisco –based photographer
William Rulofson fell to his death, he was heard to have exclaimed, "I am killed"?
...that the
Pea Island Life-Saving Station (
pictured ) on the
Outer Banks of
North Carolina was the first station of the
United States Life-Saving Service to be staffed entirely by an
African American crew?
...that the
passing lanes of the
Arroyo Seco Parkway ,
California 's first
freeway , were paved in a different color to encourage drivers to stay in their lanes?
...that Terminonatator ponteixensis is the
type and only
species described for
Terminonatator , a
genus of
elasmosaurid
plesiosaur from
Late Cretaceous of
Saskatchewan ,
Canada ?
...that the
Cohocksink Creek was once the boundary between two
Pennsylvania towns and now runs beneath the streets of the
Philadelphia neighborhood of
Northern Liberties ?
...that 2002's
Hurricane Elida was the first hurricane to be observed by the
MERIS sensor aboard the
ESA's satellite
Envisat ?
...that the former chief
architect of
Yerevan ,
Arthur Meschian , was also one of the founders of
Armenian rock ?
...that London's
Gresham Club (1843-1991) was named after
Sir Thomas Gresham , an
Elizabethan merchant?
...that violent,
porno-chic
fashion photography in French and Italian
Vogue influenced the sexualized glamor of
cosmetics in the 1970s ?
...that the
Roman Temple of Évora (
pictured ) in
Portugal , was used as a
butcher shop for nearly 500 years and thus survived destruction?
...that the
San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway was
San Francisco 's first electric
streetcar company?
...that the
bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track constructed for the
1976 Winter Olympics was the first combination track that later served as a model for future tracks of its kind?
...that only the shorter of the two
Berks and Hants Railway lines actually entered
Hants , the longer being entirely in the
county of
Berks ?
...that Danish film director
Pernille Fischer Christensen ' s first
feature film , about the relationship between a beauty shop owner and a transvestite, won a Silver Bear prize at the
2006 Berlin International Film Festival ?
...that the
type specimen of
Dromicosuchus had damage to its jaw and neck that may have been inflicted by the teeth of the large
carnivore it was found underneath?
...that
Tommy Johnson holds the record for the most goals scored by a
Manchester City player in a single season?
...that
Solomon Bibo was a
Prussian -born
Jew who became the equivalent of
tribal chief of the
Acoma Pueblo ?
...that the
scientific name of the common Australian garden
fungus
Aseroë rubra (pictured ) means 'red disgusting juice'?
...that Indian company
Reliance Power attracted US$27.5 billion of bids on the first day of its
initial public offering (IPO), equivalent to 10.5 times the
stock on offer, thereby creating
India 's IPO record?
...that the statue of
King Louis XVI built in 1829, currently at the
Metro Hall in
Louisville, Kentucky , was endangered by the
Second French Revolution in 1830?
...that
Midford Castle was built in the shape of the
ace of clubs (♣)?
...that
Edwin Q. Cannon was sent by the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a
missionary to establish the first LDS churches in
Sub-Saharan Africa ?
...that
FPT University , a college in
Ho Chi Minh City specializing in
information technology , became the first
private university in
Vietnam when it was established in 2006?
...that
Sankey Valley Park ,
Warrington (
pictured ) follows the course of the historical
Sankey Canal ,
England 's first
canal ?
...that
Scottish film actor
Moultrie Kelsall played a pivotal role in saving the dilapidated
Menstrie Castle in
Clackmannanshire from demolition?
...that during the reign of King
Beorhtwulf of Mercia ,
London , the chief trading centre of
Mercia , was attacked twice, in 842 and again in 851, by
Viking armies?
...that
football
manager
Yvon Pouliquen led two clubs to victory in the
French Cup Final and
relegation from
the top division in consecutive seasons?
...that the 1956
My Fair Lady by
Shelly Manne & His Friends was the first album ever made consisting entirely of jazz versions of tunes from a single
Broadway musical ?
...that after
Comanche
prophet
Isa-tai promised a coalition of Native American warriors they would be invulnerable in battle and they lost, he blamed a
Cheyenne killing a
skunk for negating his magic?
...that 2005's
Hurricane Kenneth (pictured ) brought heavy rainfall to
Oahu and
Kauai in
Hawaii , enough for its name to be considered for
retirement ?
...that the
Japanese
visual novel
True Tears was adapted into an
animated
television series that is planned to consist of
thirteen episodes ?
...that the
One Child Policy of the
People's Republic of China is based on
Ma Yinchu ' s New Population Theory, which was criticized by the government after its publication in 1957?
...that
Stubbins Ffirth drank
vomit and smeared
bodily fluids over himself in an attempt to prove that
yellow fever was not
contagious ?
...that the death from disease in 951 of
Gofraid mac Sitriuc ,
King of Dublin , was described as divine vengeance for his attack on the
Abbey of Kells earlier in the year?
...that the
military operation against the
dervish forces of
Mohammed Abdullah Hassan , commonly known as the "Mad Mullah", were described by a British politician as "the cheapest war in history"?
...that the origins of
Castle Lake (
pictured ) in
California date to the
Pleistocene Era (more than 10,000 years ago) when a
glacier carved a basin in the location of the current lake?
...that
Milwaukee Hawks player
Don Boven
fouled out of six consecutive
NBA games in 1952–a record that still stands?
...that
Italian explorer
Rafael Perestrello , a cousin of
Christopher Columbus , sailed on behalf of
Portugal and established trading relationships for that country with the
Ming Dynasty in
China in 1516?
...that the
Two Ladies was a
euphemism used for the
Ancient Egyptian
deities
Wadjet and
Nekhbet , represented on the royal crowns of the merged Upper and Lower Egypt as a
cobra and a
vulture , respectively?
...that
Inuit fur trader
Stephen Angulalik sold umbrellas and parasols at his trading post in
Northern Canada , which were covered in white cotton and used by hunters to sneak up on sleeping
seals ?
...that
Kirill Eskov named a
genus from the
Linyphiidae
spider family discovered by him in 1988 after
Kikimora , a female spirit in
Slavic
mythology ?
...that
Ong Kim Seng is the only
Asian artist outside the
USA to be admitted into the American Watercolor Society, having won six awards from the society?
...that
St Barnabas' Church (
pictured ) , completed in
Bromborough ,
England in 1864, has been called a "well-designed example of the work" of its architect, Sir
George Gilbert Scott ?
...that the
supermassive black hole at the center of the quasar
OJ287 has been measured as weighing 18 billion times the mass of the
Sun , six times heavier than the previous record holder?
...that
Ralph Heikkinen was the first
All-American football player from the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan , being raised in the
Finnish-American communities of the
Gogebic Range ?
...that the new
BBC Two
sitcom
Never Better has been unfavourably compared with other dark sitcoms such as
Curb Your Enthusiasm and
Lead Balloon ?
...that the
English historian
Sir Raymond Carr was
knighted for services to History in the
New Year Honours List , 1987?"
...that an
Enoteca , from the
Italian for wine library , is a shop that offers tourists and visitors the opportunity to sample local wines for a reasonable fee?
...there is a belief that a dip in the waters of Papanasam Beach (
pictured ), one of the
beaches in Kerala , washes away sins?
...that the
Ottoman frigate
Ertuğrul disaster, which occurred in 1890 off
Kushimoto , led to strengthening foreign relations between
Turkey and
Japan ?
...that
amphibious tanks which were used on
D-Day were developed by
Nicholas Straussler from
Hungary ?
...that
Umberto Boccioni 's
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space pays homage to
Auguste Rodin 's
Walking Man ?
...that the
weedy scorpionfish can vary considerably in color as well as appendages depending on its environment?
...that the
Matisse Museum in
Le Cateau was created by
Henri Matisse himself in 1952?
...that the landmark 1924 case
Tournier v National Provincial and Union Bank of England clarified
English law on the obligations that a bank has to protect the confidentiality of its customers?
...that
Colorado
state representative
Joe Rice (
pictured ) resigned from the
Glendale city council in 2003 when called up to serve in the
U.S. Army in
Iraq , where he advised the
Baghdad city council?
...that it is expected to take 17 years to design and build the first of
Australia's new submarines ?
...that investment banker
John P. Clay pursued his interest in
Sanskrit literature by endowing the
Clay Sanskrit Library , a 100-volume series of
Sanskrit works translated into English?
...that
surface weather observations play a key role in determining aircraft safety at airports?
...that
Tommy Fleming was inducted into the
National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2005, one of five soccer players unanimously selected to represent overlooked players from before the 1950s?
...that
Abani Mukherji , co-founder of the
Communist Party of India , died in
Soviet captivity in the 1930s?
...that
Stanfield Wells was the first of more than ten
All-American
football players from
Washinton High School in
Massillon, Ohio ?
...that a
coal mining
spoil heap at
Writhlington ,
England was the site for the discovery of
fossilised remains of the world's earliest known
Damselfly ?
...that
Richard C. McCarty helped launch the "
Decade of Behavior " campaign to bring attention to the importance of
behavioral and
social research ?
...that
Charles Moir ' s first
recruit as
Roanoke College 's
basketball coach was
Frankie Allen , who would eventually succeed Moir as head coach of
Virginia Tech and become the school's first
African American head coach?
...that the extinct
Greenlandic Norse language is believed to have left loanwords in
Kalaallisut ?
...that
Mohammad Shukri played for the Malaysian Under-15
cricket team at the age of 18, and for the Under-19 team at the age of 20?
...that on
August 5
1893 ,
Cub Stricker (
pictured ) of the
Washington Senators
baseball team was arrested after intentionally throwing a baseball into the crowd that broke the nose of a fan?
...that
Adelaide Johnson , sculptor of a memorial to women's suffrage in the
US Capitol , was married in 1896 by a female minister, with two of her busts as bridesmaids?
...that the
Directa Decretal (385 AD) was a strongly-worded letter written by
Pope Siricius emphatically reminding priests of the perpetual
celibacy required of them?
...that graphic artist
Rea Irvin ' s portrait of
Eustace Tilly , a
dandy peering at a
butterfly through a
monocle , appeared on the debut issue of
The New Yorker in 1925, and annually each February until 1994?
...that the vote by
Stanley Forman Reed to join the majority in
Brown v. Board of Education made the ruling unanimous, and helped win public acceptance for the decision?
...that the escape of
two teenage brothers from Poland to
Sweden under a truck was depicted in the
1989 movie 300 miles to heaven ?
...that
Karachi ’s
Lyari River is the major contributor to the
annual discharge of 200
million
gallons of
sewage and
Industrial waste into the
Arabian Sea ?
...that
Cliff Friend co-wrote "
The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down ", the theme tune of the
Looney Tunes cartoon series?
...that French aristocrats saw
Jean-François Millet 's
The Gleaners (
pictured ) as an alarming glorification of the
working classes ?
...that
Chardonnay grapes are very neutral in flavor with many of the characteristics commonly associated with Chardonnay
wine being derived from influences like
terroir and the use of
oak during
winemaking ?
...that
London 's
St James's Club (1857-1978) was claimed to be the only
gentlemen's club with a room devoted solely to
backgammon ?
...that the traditional song "
Happy Birthday to You " was first sung at the
Little Loomhouse of
Louisville, Kentucky ?
...that before
Nielsen BookScan began tracking
point of sale data at bookstores, nobody knew how many copies were being sold of
literary works that had entered the
public domain ?
...that when
World War I aviator
Stephen W. Thompson downed an
Imperial German Army Air Service
Albatros D.III on
February 5 ,
1918 , he became the first American in a U.S. uniform to ever shoot down an enemy airplane?
...that Sydney's
Alexandra Canal is an artificial waterway originally planned to join
Sydney Harbour to
Botany Bay ?
...that when
Manolo Reyes created and hosted one of
South Florida 's first
Spanish-language
newscasts in 1960, the station received a number of complaints from non-Spanish speakers?
...that
St John the Evangelist's Church, Weston ,
Runcorn ,
Cheshire is known as "The Choirboys' Church" because its choirboys wrote thousands of letters to raise money to build it?
...that the largest private home in the U.S. in 1790,
Hampton Mansion (
pictured ) , was occupied by the same family until 1948 and is the first national historic site selected by the U.S. National Park Service for architectural significance?
...that
Louisville's
Eleven Jones Cave is the only known location for the Louisville cave
beetle , Pseudanophthalmus troglodytes ?
...that
"Big" Alma Spreckels once successfully sued an ex-lover for "personal
defloweration "?
...that the church of
Hagia Thekla in
Constantinople , now a
mosque , was rebuilt by Emperor
Isaac I Komnenos as thanks for surviving a hunting accident?
...that the
six episodes of the
Japanese
original video animation series
FLCL were produced by the FLCL Production Committee, which included
Gainax ,
Production I.G , and Starchild Records?
...that
Hurricane Henri of 1979 was only one of four tropical cyclones in the
20th century to enter the
Gulf of Mexico and not make
landfall ?
...that
Alameda Street was built by
Los Angeles County, California as a "truck boulevard" to the
port ?
...that
Jeffrey Miles , a chief justice in Australia, once heard a case in which a woman sought damages for losing the opportunity to work as a prostitute following a fall in a supermarket?
...that
Mount Rumpke is a
landfill , that at 1,045 feet above
sea level , it is the second highest point in
Ohio ?
...that
American
lyric soprano
Helen Jepson was first soprano on the original recording of
Porgy and Bess ?
...that
Böttcherstrasse in
Bremen ,
Germany , is an unusual ensemble of
expressionist architecture ?
...that
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres 's
La Grande Odalisque (
pictured ) is thought to be painted with between two and five
vertebrae "too many"?
...that
Susy Clemens , daughter of
Mark Twain , wrote a biography of her father at age 13 that was included in his posthumously published work,
Chapters from my Autobiography ?
...that the
Chief Industrial Magistrate's Court heard the first
Australian criminal prosecution of a bank for failing to protect its employees from armed holdups by improving safety at branches?
...that
Towson (Md.) Methodist Church 's membership split in two in a dispute over the
American Civil War and didn't reunite for 90 years?
...that
Capitol Offense , the
rock band of Republican presidential candidate
Mike Huckabee , has opened for
REO Speedwagon ,
Percy Sledge ,
Willie Nelson , and even
Grand Funk Railroad ?
...that
Lorenzo Sawyer was the first
judge on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ?
...that the main house of the
Thaddeus Hait Farm (pictured, right ), is built of wood and stone, an unusual combination in a
Federal style building?
...that
Blessed Veronica of Milan unsuccessfully tried to
teach herself to read until an
apparition of
the Virgin told her that spiritual lessons were more important?
...that
Hurricane Ava was the first
Pacific hurricane flown into by
NOAA aircraft?
...that since its original completion in 1972, the
bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track in
Oberhof, Germany has undergone three separate
renovations ?
...that the
Frauenfriedenskirche (
pictured ) at
Frankfurt am Main (
Germany ) is an unusual
expressionist church, decorated with monumental
mosaics ?
...that two new
amphibious warfare ships of Australia to be added to the nation's fleet starting in 2012 will each be able to carry an entire
infantry
battalion and up to 16 helicopters?
...that
The Expert at the Card Table , one of the most famous books on magic and card tricks, was written in 1902 by
S. W. Erdnase , an author whose identity has been an enduring mystery for over 100 years?
...that
Robert Campbell Reeve , the founder of
Reeve Aleutian Airways , set a new world record for the highest landing of a ski equipped aircraft at 8,750 feet (2,667 m) on
Mount Lucania in 1937?
...that the
Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque (pictured) in
Istanbul features a
cypress tree with a chain that was swung between two people who gave contradictory statements to determine which one was telling the truth?
...that
William Melmoth ' s
1711 work The Great Importance of a Religious Life Consider'd went through thirty editions and sold over 420,000 copies by the end of the century?
...that
Polly Horvath 's award-winning 2001 children's novel
Everything on a Waffle tells the story of Primrose Squarp, an 11-year old girl whose parents are lost in a typhoon?
...that
Hurricane Greg caused one of
Mexico 's highest rainfall totals from a
Pacific hurricane ?
...that the original land
deed requires that a jail cell from the original
Dutchess County
courthouse be preserved in the current building?
...that the
Nepalese
Maoist
Newar National Liberation Front sponsored the 'Miss
Newa '
beauty pageant despite having previously demonstrated against them?
...that
William Hogarth 's
The Distrest Poet (
pictured ) depicts a very poor family living in a squalid
garret while the man of the family, who fancifully pursues a literary career without regarding his family's poverty, attempts to write a poem entitled "Upon Riches"?
...that
London 's historic
United University Club (1821-1972) is now occupied by the London Centre of the
University of Notre Dame ?
... that
Francisco de Quevedo 's 1626 novel
El Buscón , a major work of
Spanish literature , was published without the permission of the author?
...that
Operation Camargue was one of the largest operations of the
First Indochina War but it failed to snare the
Viet-Minh 's Regiment 95?
...that in 1920,
George Shima controlled 85% of
California 's
potato market, earning him the nickname "The Potato King"?
...that Think! , the
Jeopardy! theme song composed by show creator
Merv Griffin , earned royalties of over $70 million (U.S.) since it debuted on the show in 1964?
...that
Le chemin de fer , a piano composition by
Charles-Valentin Alkan , is the first musical depiction of a
railway ?
...that
Hugh Denis Macrossan was one of the shortest serving
chief justices of
Queensland and that his brother and his nephew also became chief justices of that
Australian state?
...that
Cyclone Inigo (
pictured ) caused more casualties before
forming than after?
...that
R.E.M. guitarist
Peter Buck wanted to produce
Uncle Tupelo 's album
March 16–20, 1992 after seeing the band perform a
cover version of the
Louvin Brothers ' "Great Atomic Power"?
...that American
mathematician and classical
pianist
Leonard Gillman received his
Ph.D. from
Columbia University in 1953, a decade after completing the required
coursework ?