| 3061/
Margo Daly and Martin Wilson have carried out a fascinating
study of crime statistics across several dozen different cultures
ranging from an English University town to the BaSoga people
of Uganda. They drew out the figures for 'same sex' murders
- murders which involved males killing males, or females killing
females. Male-male murders made up the vast majority of cases,
anywhere from 85 per cent to 100 per cent, with most cultures
scoring in the mid-nineties.
3062/ Toys R Us redesigned
their stores so that products were grouped according to which
group, boys or girls was most likly to buy them. After their
own research showed that gender differences start as young
as 2 years old. 'In general terms', they said, 'girls are
more interested in entertainment that is relationship-oriented,
and boys are more action oriented'.
3063/ A national holiday
in Vietnam celebrates the suicide of two sisters, Trung Trae
and Trung Nhi, who lived in the first century AD. These two
legendary women, symbols of Vietnamese national pride, organized
a revolt against Chinese rule which involved their heroically
commanding an army of eighty thousand peasants.
3064/ Castimandua was
a Celtic Queen in Britain during the time of the Emperor Claudius.
When a group of Castimandua's soldiers was broght to Rome
as prisoners, they bowed in front of Agrippina the Younger,
Claudius's wife, assuming that she was the Emperor.
3065/ Of all history's
women warriors, perhaps the most famous are the Amazons. Their
greatest Queen, Myrene, conquered great swathes of the Middle
East and the Mediterranean from Samothrace to Syria. It's
said that in a battle in North Africa she once commanded an
army of thirty thousand women on horseback.
3066/ In fact, the description
of the North African battle in which she led a cavalry of
30,000 women is believed to be the earliest record of troops
riding horses into combat.
3067/ In one study, the
American Psychological Association estimated that the average
American child sees more than 100,000 acts of violence and
8,000 murders on television.
3068/ Of the approximately
200 eggs laid by a female leatherback sea turtle an average
of two will survive their youth and grow to sexual maturity.
3069/ Vampire bats cannot
go for more than two or three days without food. They become
weak extremely rapidly and die of malnutition.
3070/ When the Germans
marched into Holland in May 1940, the first anti-Jewish measure
imposed by the occupying force was a ban on Jews visiting
the cinema.
3071/ Within a year,
Dutch Jews were required to have a letter 'J' stamped in their
passport, soon after to wear a yellow star, and then a ban
was placed on their graduating from a University. By the end
of the war four out of every five Dutch jews were dead.
3072/ Binti Jua, a seven
year old female western lowland gorilla at the Brookfield
Zoo in Chicago, who was carrying her own baby at the time,
rescued a three year old boy who had fallen over the wall
into the gorilla enclosure. He dropped eighteen feet onto
the concrete floor, hit his head and lay there unconscious.
Binti Jua picked up the child, carried him gently and placed
him near a door within easy reach of zoo staff. He was then
taken to hospital, where he made a speedy recovery.
3073/ From the age of
twelve months normally developed babies instinctively follow
a person's gaze if it quickly changes direction.
3074/ The Carnegie Medal
is awarded to civilians in the United States and Canada who
have risked their lives for strangers. Andrew Carnegie established
the fund in 1904 after an accident in one of his mines killed
186 workers. He was impressed by the heroic attempts to rescue
those trapped in the mine and set up a fund to reward similar
acts of bravery. The medal has been awarded to over eight
and a half thousand people.
3075/ William Thompson,
Lord Kelvin, a President of the Royal Society, affirmed fewer
than ten years before the flight of the Wright Brothers, 'I
can state flatly that heavier than air flying machines are
impossible'.
3076/ Among other pronouncements
Lord Kelvin is also on record as saying, 'Radio has no future'
and 'X-rays will prove to be a hoax'.
3077/ Church membership
is six times higher in Northern Ireland than England.
3078/ Studies by the
European Values Group show that more than 70 per cent of the
British and European population believe in God, more than
50 per cent need moments ofd prayer, and 55 to 60 per cent
define themselves as 'a religious person'. Two thirds of Britons
believe in the concept of 'sin' and the 'soul', and over 50
per cent in heaven. Despite these figures only 14.4 per cent
of the adult population of Britain were active members of
a Christian Church.
3079/ Wade Clark Roof,
in his book, Spiritual Marketplace: The Baby Boomers and the
Remaking of American Religion, points out that current surveys
show that 94 per cent of Americans believe in God, 90 per
cent report praying to God regularly and around 90 per cent
claim some form of religious affiliation.
3080/ At least one third
of British and European adults profess to 'often think about
the meaning of life'.
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