As many as 1 million workers died building the Great Wall of China.
It’s been called the “longest cemetery on Earth.”
Great Wall of China
Month: April 2006
In a Word
goluptious
adj. delicious; voluptuous
Palindrome Years
2002 was a palindrome year — it reads the same forward and backward.
They occur only once a century. The next one will be 2112.
TKO
In 1983, the Journal of the American Medical Association called for a ban on boxing. The editor, George Lundberg, called boxing an “obscenity” that “should not be sanctioned by any civilized society.” Since then, the American Neurological Association, the American Academy of Neurology and the British, Canadian and Australian medical associations have also called for abolishing the sport.
Among boxers with 20 or more professional fights, the AMA says three out of four show brain deterioration.
Divisibility Rules
A number is divisible by 3 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 3.
A number is divisible by 4 if the number formed by the last two digits is divisible by 4.
A number is divisible by 8 if the number formed by the last three digits is divisible by 8.
A number is divisible by 9 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 9.
Homebodies
Only about 400 people have ever left Earth’s atmosphere. Only 12 have walked on the moon.
Animal Trials
Witches weren’t the only ones in danger during the Middle Ages. In 1386, when a pig tore a French child’s face, the tribunal of Falaise put it on trial, ultimately sentencing it to be maimed and hanged in human clothing.
In 1474 the Swiss town of Basel tried a rooster for sorcery (it had allegedly produced an egg) and burned it at the stake.
Likewise wolves, snakes, crows, bats, owls, rats — even dogs and cats were put on trial. Like women, animals were considered demonic whenever men couldn’t understand their behavior.
Two’s Company
Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were roommates at Harvard.
Hare Today
On the Isle of Portland, in the English Channel, it’s considered bad luck to say the word rabbit.
So people use the term “underground mutton.”
Everybody Wins
The fishermen of Laguna in southern Brazil have a unique arrangement with local bottlenose dolphins. A pod of dolphins will drive fish toward the beach, where fishermen stand in the surf. When they see a dolphin roll over, the men throw out their nets, and the dolphins eat the escaping fish.
No one trained the dolphins to do this. It’s been going on since at least 1847.