Trivia Bits 09 August

 

The first permanent bridge across the Penobscot River below Bangor in Maine, the Waldo-Hancock Bridge (pictured), designed by David B. Steinman in 1931, came in so far under budget that another bridge was built with the money saved.

American actress and author Tatum O'Neal is the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award, which she won at age 10 for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon (1973) opposite her father, Ryan O’Neal and who is 1986 married the professional tennis player John McEnroe, but divorced in 1994.

English former footballer Mick Mills was made captain of the England national football team which commenced the 1982 World Cup because Kevin Keegan was unable to play through injury.

Erected December 18, 1804, Jefferson Pier in Washington, D.C. was a survey monument for the first meridian of the United States, replacing one set by Thomas Jefferson in 1793, and was later used as a mooring bollard on the Potomac River.

Approximately 13.1 billion light years away, Galaxy EGS-zs8-1 was discovered by astronomers by Yale and University of California Santa Cruz scientists in May 2015 and is thought to being formed about 670 Million years after the Big Bang.

Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemies to rule Egypt and when she committed suicide in 30 B.C., Rome annexed Egypt as a province.

Originally known as Les Schtroumpfs, The Smurfs was originally created and published in 1958 in Belgium as a comic and television franchise centred on a fictional colony of small blue creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest and their names based on adjectives that emphasize their characteristics, such as "Clumsy Smurf".

When ants find food, they lay down a chemical trail, called a pheromone, so that other ants can find their way from the nest to the food source.

Australian radio host, comedian and television personality Wendy Harmer wrote the 2006 wickedly funny little illustrated gift book Nagging for Beginners.

Roquefort cheese a sheep milk blue cheese from the south of France and is white, tangy, crumbly and slightly moist, with distinctive veins of green mold.