Trivia Bits 20 September

 

• Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love.
• Australia has no state religion with section 116 of the Australian Constitution prohibiting the federal government from making any law to establish any religion, impose any religious observance, or prohibit the free exercise of any religion. In the 2011 census, 61.1 per cent of Australians were counted as Christian, including 25.3 per cent as Roman Catholic and 17.1 per cent as Anglican. About 22 per cent of the population stated "no religion" (which includes humanism, atheism, agnosticism and rationalism). The largest non-Christian religion in Australia is Buddhism (2.5 per cent), followed by Islam (2.2 per cent), Hinduism (1.3 per cent) and Judaism (0.5 per cent). Overall, 7.2 per cent of Australians identify with non-Christian religions. A 2001 census showed there are almost 9,000 Wiccans and 10,623 pagans.
• The musician Yehudi Menuhin was closely associated with the violin.
• Released in 1925, the movie Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ boasted a cast of 125,000.
• Irish poet, W B Yeats, wrote The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
• Scientist Henry Cavendish discovered the existence of the chemical element Hydrogen.
• Saturn is the least dense planet.
• Gelati is the plural of the word Gelato.
• Sally Ride was the first American woman in space.
• The French word auberge means inn or tavern.