Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Trivia Bits 17 June

 

 hippopotamus

The collective noun for hippopotamus (pictured)  is a bloat.

Named after Spanish professional tennis player Rafael Nadal, 128036 Rafaelnadal is a main belt asteroid discovered in 2003 at the Observatorio Astronómico de Mallorca, just south of Costitx, Mallorca, Spain.

The Loire is the longest river in France rises in the highlands of the south-eastern quarter of the Massif Central in the Cévennes and flows 1,012 kilometres (629 mi) to the Bay of Biscay (Atlantic Ocean) at St Nazaire.

The Black September Organization is best known for its actions during the 1972 Berlin Olympic Summer Games with the group’s infamous operation killing 11 Israeli athletes, nine of whom were first taken hostage, and the killing of a German police officer.

Edgar Allan Poe introduced mystery fiction's first fictional detective, Auguste C. Dupin, in his 1841 story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

Designed by the Mayor of Johannesburg in 1906, Johann Van Der Puf, The Coat of Arms of Mauritius features a dodo an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

Famous for creating historical scenes, Francisco Pradilla Ortiz was a prolific Spanish painter who not only produced over 1,000 paintings but also was from 1897 briefly the director of the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

One of the 12 minor prophets of the Old Testament, Nahum, predicted the fall of Nineveh in the mid-7th century BC, several decades before the city actually fell in 612 BC.

Tegernsee Abbey in Bavaria was founded by the nobleman Otkar somewhere between 476 and 765, supposedly after his son had been killed during a game of chess by the son of King Pippin III with a chessboard.

By area, the second largest state in the United States is Texas with an area of 268,581 sq mi (696,241 kmsq) after Alaska with a total area of 663,268 sq mi (1,717,854 kmsq).

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