|
641/ Gutenburg invented the
printing press in the 1450s, and the first book to ever be
printed was the bible. It was however in Latin rather than
English.
642/ Henry Waterman invented
the modern elevator in 1850. He intended it to transport barrels
of flour.
643/ Shampoo was first marketed
in the US in 1930 by John Breck, who was the captain of a
volunteer fire department.
644/ 'Spacewar'
is generally considered to be the first video game. Programmed
in 1962 by MIT student Steve Russell, Spacewar was a simple
game with ASCII graphics where two players would blast lasers
at each other. At the time, the game only ran on massive,
million dollar mainframes the size of a small house. Spacewar
was circulated to other computer labs across the country,
but only college students with access to mainframes could
play it. (You can play a version of Spacewar on MITs website
here)
645/ Sylvan N. Goldman of
Humpty Dumpty Stores and Standard Food Markets developed the
shopping trolley so that people could buy more in a single
visit. He unveiled his creation in Oklahoma City on June 4,
1937.
646/ In 1832 the Scottish
surgeon Neil Arnott devised water beds as a way of improving
patients comfort.
647/ In 1901, Wilhelm Conrad
Roentgen won the first Nobel Prize for physics. He noticed
that certain rays caused paper coated with barium platinocyanide
to glow, even when the paper was in the next room. Baffled
by the mystery, he called them "X Rays".
648/ "Honolulu"
means "sheltered harbour".
649/ "Utah" is from
the Navajo word meaning "upper".
650/ According to Greek historian
Herodotus, Egyptian men never became bald. The reason for
this was that, as children, Egyptian males had their heads
shaved, and their scalps were continually exposed to the health-giving
rays of the sun.
651/ According to a National
Geographic Society survey of 18-24 year old high school and
college graduates in the United States. One in seven could
not find the US on a world map.
652/ According to the US Naval
Observatory, the first populated land where the sun will rise
on a new day is at Kahuitara Point on Pitt Island in the Chatham
Islands, a dependency of New Zealand.
653/ Approximately 70 percent
of the Earth is covered with water. Only 1 percent of the
water is drinkable.
654/ Australia's highest mountain
is named for Thaddeus Kosciuko, the Polish general who fought
in the American Revolution.
655/ Bhutan is derived from
the Indian word Bhotanta, meaning "the edge of Tibet".
It is located in Asia near the southern fringes of the eastern
Himalayas.
656/ Bore-hole seisometry
indicates that the land in Oklahoma moves up and down 25cm
throughout the day, corresponding with the tides. Earth tides
are generally about one-third the size of ocean tides.
657/ Canada is home to the
world's most remote weather station. Its Eureka weather station
is 600 miles from the North Pole.
658/ Daily average yield of
an oil well at full production in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay field
is 10,000 barrels. In the other 48 states, the average is
only 11 barrels.
659/ Europe has no deserts
- it is the only continent without one.
660/ The first city to reach
a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133BC.
London, England reached the mark in 1810 and New York City,
USA made it in 1875. Today there are over 300 cities in the
world that boast a population in excess of 1 million.
Click on the links below for more great
facts...
More Next Week...
|
