Trivia Bits 10 November

 

• In 1892, Italy raised the minimum age for marriage for girls - to 12.
• In 1865, several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, called the Ku Klux Klan.
• Australia’s Elle Macpherson is a supermodel and actress who is referred to as The Body was born Eleanor Gow and became an international star through her appearances in Elle Magazine and Sports illustrated
• In 1947, Toys for Tots started making the holidays a little happier for children by organizing its first Christmas toy drive for needy youngsters.
• In 1965, Congress authorized the Secret Service to protect former presidents and their spouses for their lifetime, unless they decline the protection. Recently, Congress limited the protection of former presidents and their spouses (elected after January 1, 1997) to 10 years after leaving office. President Clinton, who was elected in 1996, will be the last president to receive lifelong protection from the Secret Service.
• In England and the American colonies the year 1752 only had 354 days. In that year, the type of calendar was changed, and 11 days were lost.
• In the Holocaust between 5.1 and 6 million of Europe's 10 million Jews were killed. An additional 6 million 'unwanted' people were also executed, including more than half of Poland's educated populace.
• The Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish Architect Jørn Utzon, was formally opened on 20 October 1973 and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007.
• Many of Rome's most ambitious emperors idolized Alexander the Great. When Julius Caesar was a 33 year-old general in Spain, he wept when he saw a statue of Alexander, lamenting that he had accomplished nothing, while Alexander had conquered the whole world by his age. The schizophrenic emperor Caligula built a bridge of wooden boats across the Bay of Naples and rode back and forth across it on a horse, wearing armor he stole from Alexander's tomb. Emperor Caracalla set out to conquer the same eastern lands Alexander had conquered, and made a great show of visiting his grave in Alexandria, Egypt.
• A dry champagne is termed as Brut.
• Australian Cricketer Sir Donald George Bradman is regarded as the greatest batsman in the world. As a child, Bradman invented a game which involved the throwing a golf ball against a water tank and then trying to hit the rebounding ball with a cricket stump. The claim that a batsman is best since Bradman is not uncommon, but rarely sticks longer than a season. His test average was an astonishing 99.94 runs.
• Another name for a bissextile year is a Leap Year.
• The name of the dog breed Shih Tzu comes from the Chinese words for Lion Dog and is considered a toy dog breed weighing 5–7.25 kilograms (11–15.98 lb) with long silky hair.
• The University of Sydney is Australia’s oldest university being founded in 1850.
• In the film industry, Pakistan is known as Lollywood.
• Martha Washington in the only woman whose portrait has ever appeared on a US currency note. Her portrait was on the face of the $1 silver certificate issues of 1886 and 1891, and on the back of the $1 silver certificate of 1896. Sacagewea and Susan B. Anthony are the only women pictured on a US coin. Both were honored on a dollar coin.
• Members of the Nazi SS had their blood type tattooed on their armpits.
• More than 20,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing in action in the battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862. This was the bloodiest one-day fight during the Civil War.
• Napoleon took 14,000 French decrees and simplified them into a unified set of 7 laws. This was the first time in modern history that a nation's laws applied equally to all citizens. Napoleon's 7 laws are so impressive that by 1960 more than 70 governments had patterned their own laws after them or used them verbatim.
• Nevada was the first state to sanction the use of the gas chamber, and the first execution by lethal gas took place in February, 1924.