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561/ "The Boston Nation",
a newspaper published in Ohio during the middle of the nineteenth
century, had pages seven and a half feet long and five and
a half feet wide. It required two people to hold the paper
in proper reading position.
562/ $1,000,000 in $1 bills
would weigh approximately one ton. Placed in a pile it would
be 360 feet (110m) high - as tall as 60 average adults standing
on top of each other.
563/ 'The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer', written by Mark Twain, was the first novel ever to
be written on a typewriter.
564/ A trokenbeerenauslese
is a German wine made from vine-dried grapes so rare that
it can take a skilled picker a day to gather enough for a
single bottle.
565/ The US two-cent coin
was minted between 1864 and 1873 and was the first coin to
bear the motto 'In God We Trust'. The motto was omitted from
the new gold coins issued in 1907, causing a storm of public
criticism. As a result, legislation passed in May 1908 made
'In God We Trust' mandatory on all coins on which it had previously
appeared. Legislation approved July 11th, 1955, made the appearance
of 'In God We Trust' mandatory on all coins and paper currency
of the United States. By Act of July 30th, 1956, 'In God We
Trust' became the National motto of the United States.
566/ There is no more than
one-tenth of a calorie's worth of glue on every stamp.
567/ The weight of air in
a milk glass is about the same as the weight of one aspirin
tablet.
568/ The first advertisement
printed in English in 1477 offered a prayer book. The ad was
published by William Caxton on his press in Westminster Abbey.
No price was mentioned, only that the book was 'good chepe'.
569/ The working section of
the piano is called the action. There are about 7,500 parts
here, all playing a role in sending the hammers against the
strings when keys are struck.
570/ There are 1,783 diamonds
in Great Britain's Imperial State Crown. This includes the
309 carat Star of Africa.
571/ There are forty two dots
on a pair of dice.
572/ There are odour technicians
in the perfume trade with the olfactory skills to distinguish
19,000 different odours at twenty levels of intensity each.
573/ There are three sets
of letters on the standard typewriter and computer keyboards
which are in alphabetical order. Reading left to right they
are f-g-h, j-k-l, and o-p.
574/ There is one mile of
railroad track in Belgium for every one and a half square
miles of land.
575/ There is one slot machine
in Las Vegas for every eight inhabitants.
576/ A bubble is round because
the air within it presses equally against all its parts, thus
causing all surfaces to be equidistant from its centre.
577/ A conventional sign of
virginity in Tudor England was a high exposed bosom and a
sleeve full to the wrists.
578/ A diamond will not dissolve
in acid. The only thing that can destroy it is intense heat.
579/ A female pharoah was
unknown in Egypt before Hatshepsut, who began her reign in
1502 BC. In order not to shock local convention, she had herself
portrayed in male costume, with a beard, and without breasts.
580/ A jet or turbo-jet powered
aircraft uses more fuel flying at 25,000 feet than 30,000
feet. The higher it flies, the thinner the atmosphere and
the less atmospheric resistance it must buck.
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