Trivia Bits 27 April

 

• The discovery of the J/Ψ particle in 1974 earned Burton Richter from Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Samuel Ting at MIT Brookhaven National Laboratory the Nobel prize as it confirmed the idea that baryonic matter (such as the nuclei of atoms) is made out of quarks.
• The famous younger brother of American film and theatre actress, singer, dancer, activist and author Shirley MacLaine, born Shirley MacLean Beatty, is Warren Beatty, American actor, producer, screenwriter and director.
• The Giant Oceanic Manta Ray is the largest species of ray and reaches 7 m (23 ft) in width.
• Swedish author, Astrid Lindren, invented the character Pippi Longstocking.
• The X-Files is a paranormal – thriller franchise that generally focused on paranormal or unexplained happenings with the first franchise release—simply titled The X-Files—debuted in September 1993 and ended in May 2002 with its characters and slogans e.g., "The Truth Is Out There", "Trust No One", "I Want to Believe" became pop culture touchstones in the 1990s and originally followed Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and their work in the FBI office dedicated to the X-Files.
• When Lilian Bland built an aircraft in 1910 in Carnmoney in Northern Ireland, she used her aunt's ear-trumpet and a whisky bottle to feed petrol to the engine. The Bland Mayfly is credited as the first aeroplane to be designed and constructed by a woman.
• The four main colours in a deck of Uno cards are red, blue, green and yellow.
• Known as the Warrior Princess, Xena, played by Lucy Lawless, was an infamous warrior on a quest to seek redemption for her past sins against the innocent by using her formidable fighting skills to now help those who are unable to defend themselves and was American television series filmed in New Zealand airing from syndication from September 4, 1995, until June 18, 2001.
• The name of the sub-region of Oceania that includes Vanuata, Fiji and Papua New Guinea is Melanesia.
• The 2013 novel Happy Eva After was written by Australian journalist, editor and award-winning author. Chris Harrison.
• Models Inc. is an American prime time soap opera that aired during the 1994-1995 television season starring Australian actor, musician and presenter Cameron Daddo as Brian Peterson who was a photographer dating supermodel Teri Spencer.
• The 1999 novel The Hunter is about efforts to find the last remaining Tasmanian Tiger and was the first novel by Julia Leigh, Australian novelist, film director and screenwriter.
• Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, first published his laws of planetary motion in 1592 in the Mysterium Cosmographicum (The Cosmographic Mystery). This was modified in a later publication in 1621 when Kepler published an expanded second edition of Mysteriumdetailing in footnotes the corrections and improvements he had achieved.
• Wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s full surname is Spencer-Churchill.
• In 2008, Heinz Baked Beans became "Heinz Beanz" because the company thought the original name "a bit of a mouthful".
• The Laccadive Sea is located in the Indian Ocean and borders India, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka.
• Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott was a Scottish-born Australian rock musician, best known for being the lead singer and lyricist of Australian hard rock band AC/DC from 1974 until his death in 1980. His grave site has become a cultural landmark; with the National Trust of Australia listing his grave the list of classified heritage places as it is reportedly the most visited grave in Australia.
• Great Britain is made up of the here constituent countries of England, Scotland and Wales.
• The Erta Ale a continuously active basaltic shield volcano in the Afar Region of north-eastern Ethiopia, the most active volcano in Ethiopia.
• Ratel is an animal that is better known as a Honey Badger and is a species of mustelid native to Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent.