The coronation of every Byzantine emperor was celebrated by distribution of 10,000 loaves of bread with 3 gold coins displaying the head of the new ruler baked inside each loaf.
I Bet Ya Didn't Know
I bet ya' didn't know…. 978 items · page 12 of 25
A cuneiform record found in Ur of the Chaldees, home of the patriarch Abraham, lists 1,197 slaves and the daily allowance they received over 5,000 years ago.
The brain is surrounded by a membrane laced with nerves that transmit sensations to the organ. However, the brain itself has no feeling; if it is cut into, the person feels no pain.
Paul Morphy (1837-1884), American chess wizard, memorized the 535-page Louisiana Civil Code and passed his bar examination at the age of 19. He was admitted to the bar with the stipulation that he could not practice law until he became 21.
Four gold rods found in the tomb of King Tut were constructed at an angle of 26¹/² degrees because that is the angle of the refraction of light, and the ancients expected their monarch's soul to rise to Heaven on a ray of sunlight. The Great Pyramid is also constructed at an angle of 26¹/² degrees.
Frank Tower, an oiler, swam away from 3 major sea disasters: THE TITANIC in 1912, THE EMPRESS OF IRELAND in 1914, and THE LUSITANIA in 1915.
The real name of director Stanley Kubrick was Terrence Nezman. His parents changed it on the second day after he was born.
After a 2-hour plane flight, about 1 in 5 people catch a cold, likely due to the proximity of other passengers.
Two of the world's five largest cities are in Latin America. Mexico City is #2, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, is #3.
The chief Latin American languages are Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
An entire whaling fleet, comprising 29 ships, was crushed to splinters by icebergs off icy capes in the Arctic in September 1871, yet although many wives and children were aboard, not a single life was lost.
The women of the Aures Mountain region of Algeria never have to sew a gown. The cloth used is woven in a size and shape that makes it ready to wear.
An Italian-stye deli in New York's SoHo section offers a "Fellini" sandwich. The price, in dollars, is 8¹/².
Paruma, a village in Venezuela, is destroyed by flooding of the Orinoco River every year. The villagers rebuild on the same spot because thousands of turtles appear on the river bank after each flood.
An impressionist painting entitled "And the Sun Went Down Over the Adriatic," exhibited in 1910 in the Salon des Independents, in Paris, France, won high praise. It was subsequently revealed that it had been done by a donkey with a brush tied to its tail.
William Leggett (1802-1875) attended services daily at both the St. George and Eton Chapels in Eton, England, for 50 years, without once being late or tardy. He had memorized the entire BIBLE, yet he could neither read nor write.
In 2002 it cost Uncle Sam three cents to make each $1 bill that was printed.
The first movie shown in a drive-in theater was "Wife Beware", in 1933. (I love this one!)
The largest stained-glass window is in the Resurrection Mausoleum in Justice, Illinois. It consists of 24-hundred-48 panels and it measures 22-thousand-381 square feet. The window was completed in 1971.
The original government house of Aukland, N.Z., was built in England, taken apart, transported by ship to New Zealand, and reassembled there in 1840. The structure, which measured 120 feet by 50 feet and weighed 250 tons, was a replica of the house built for Napoleon on St. Helena.
Billy Peirse (1764-1839), an English jockey, read only 2 books in his entire lifetime, the BIBLE and Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS, yet he read both of those from cover to cover 30 times.
15% of women polled drove themselves to a hospital before giving birth. (115% drive their husbands just a bit crazy before...)
We age not because our cells die but because they stop dividing.
The "Othello," the first official lifeboat of Barfleur, France, in its first rescue effort, saved 28 members of the crew of an American ship named the "Othello" (Dec. 4, 1872).
The Parliament House in Sydney, Australia, was built in 1811 by three contractors who in payment were granted exclusive rights to sell rum in the colony.
Cookies shaped like exploding fireworks are baked annually in Valencia, Spain, to observe the anniversary of King Jaime's triumphal entry into the city over 628 years ago.
The Marquis de la Ensenada (1702-1781), Spanish statesman, for a period of 20 years always ornamented his uniform with diamonds, beginning each week with $100,000 worth of gems and adding more each day until on Saturdays he displayed diamonds valued at $700,000.
In his 1960 autobiography, Norman Rockwell said of his quaint style, "I paint life as I want it to be."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1943 speech "Four Freedoms" led to a series of Norman Rockwell paintings entitled FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM TO WORSHIP, FREEDOM FROM WANT, and FREEDOM FROM FEAR.
Eighty-five years ago this month, Norman Rockwell painted his first cover for THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. During the next half-century, he illustrated more than 300 POST covers.
In 1809, Meslitta Bentz invented the world's first drip coffeemaker by making a filter out of her son's notebook paper.
The first license plate on a car in the United States was issued in Denver, Colorado in 1908.
A sailing ship, abandoned in the Maroni River between French and Dutch Guiana, filled with soil and sprouted trees and plants, all in a period of 36 years.
Thomas Edison held over 1,300 US and foreign patents.
The letters of the alphabet in order of their frequency of use are, ETAISONHRDLUCMFWYPGVBKJQXZ
The average American, in a lifetime, spends six months waiting for red lights to change.
The "Mercury 13" were women who qualified for astronaut training in the 1960's but were never sent into space.
Eileen Collins was the first woman to pilot (1995) and command (1999) a space shuttle.
In 1992, Mae Jemison was the first African-American woman in space, and N. Jan Davis was half of the first married couple in space aboard the space shuttle ENDEAVOUR.
The temple of Ningpo, China, was created exclusively as a place of prayer for women who hope in reincarnation to be reborn as men.