TRIVIA BITS 18 APRIL

 

• The river Danube empties into the Black Sea.
• The River Nile has frozen over only twice in living memory - once in the ninth century, and then again in the eleventh century.
• The rock music video channel MTV made its debut in 1981.
• The Roman Emperor Nero killed his wife after she 'scalded' him for going to the races.
• The rose family of plants, in addition to flowers, gives us apples, pears, plums, cherries, almonds, peaches and apricots.
• The ruby red slippers seen in the movie "The Wizard of Oz" once sold at an auction for $660,000.
• The Russian Imperial Necklace has been loaned out by Joseff jewellers of Hollywood for 1,215 different feature films.
• The Russian mystic, Rasputin, was the victim of a series of murder attempts on this day in 1916. The assassins poisoned, shot and stabbed him in quick succession, but they found they were unable to finish him off. Rasputin finally succumbed to the ice-cold waters of a river.
• The San Diego Zoo in California has the largest collection of animals in the world.
• The sandwich is named for the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92), for whom sandwiches were made so that he could stay at the gambling table without interruptions for meals.