TRIVIA BITS

 

• Per capita, the Irish eat more chocolate than Americans, Swedes, Danes, French, and Italians.
• Persians first began using coloured eggs to celebrate spring in 3,000 B.C. 13th century Macedonians were the first Christians on record to use coloured eggs in Easter celebrations. Crusaders returning from the Middle East spread the custom of colouring eggs, and Europeans began to use them to celebrate Easter and other warm weather holidays.
• Peter the Great had the head of his wife's lover cut off and put into a jar of preserving alcohol, which he then ordered to be placed by her bed.
• Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as quarks for a random line in James Joyce, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"
• Pierce Brosnan's first appearance as James Bond was in 1995 Golden Eye.
• Pierre and Marie Currie's notebooks were sold in auction in 1984, after their radiation levels were checked.
• Pine, spruce, or other evergreen wood should never be used in barbecues. These woods, when burning or smoking, can add harmful tar and resins to the food. Only hardwoods should be used for smoking and grilling, such as oak, pecan, hickory, maple, cherry, alder, apple, or mesquite, depending on the type of meat being cooked.
• Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."
• Pistols were first used in the Olympic games shooting events in 1984.
• Plants that need to attract moths for pollination are generally white or pale yellow, to be better seen when the light is dim. Plants that depend on butterflies, such as the poppy or the hibiscus, have more colourful flowers.