TRIVIA BITS

 

• Round arm bowling in cricket was invented by Christina Wells.
• Rubber is an impertinent ingredient in the manufacture of bubble gum.
• Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, was created in 1939, in Chicago, for the Montgomery Ward department stores for a Christmas promotion. The lyrics were written as a poem by Robert May, but weren't set to music until 1947. Gene Autry recorded the hit song in 1949.
• Rugby was discovered by accident. A student during a game of football decided to pick up the ball and run to the opposition goal - thus the formation of rugby.
• Saffron, made from the dried stamens of cultivated crocus flowers, is the most expensive cooking spice.
• Sahara means 'desert' in Arabic.
• Salvador Dali once arrived to an art exhibition in a limousine filled with turnips.
• Samuel Clemens was not the only writer to use the pen-name ' Mark Twain '. It was used several years earlier by Isaiah Sellers. Both men were river pilots on the Mississippi, where ' Mark Twain ' was a common technical term.
• Santa's reindeer are: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen.
• Scientists at Australia's Parkes Observatory thought they had positive proof of alien life, when they began picking up radio-waves from space. However, after investigation, the radio emissions where traced to a microwave oven in the building.