July 2012
67 posts
6 tags
6 tags
In all of Shakespeare’s works, only one word starts with an “X” - Xanthippe, Socrates wife. He uses her name in The Taming of the Shrew.
6 tags
6 tags
The Forgotten Internment
Everyone knows (or should know) that thousands of Japanese-Americans were held in ‘internment’ aka concentration camps during WWII, by order of the president. People don’t know that over 11,000 German-Americans and Latin American citizens were also imprisoned in camps throughout the country. Some were outright jailed. Their families were subjected to humiliating surprise raids by...
6 tags
7 tags
“When the Russian prince Dimitri, the son of Ivan II, was assassinated on May 15,...”
– E.P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, 1906
5 tags
5 tags
Thai Cats Save Dutch in Russia
In Holland’s embassy in Moscow, Russia, the staff noticed that the two Siamese cats kept meowing and clawing at the walls of the building. Their owners finally investigated, thinking they would find mice. Instead, they discovered microphones hidden by Russian spies. The cats heard the microphones when they turned on.
1 tag
7 tags
Saints Preserve Us!
Some funny and quirky facts about everybody’s favorite miracle-wielders of the Catholic Church
St. Simeon Stylites (ca. 386–459) spent the last thirty-nine years of his life sitting on top of a pillar 70 feet high. He holds the longest-standing individual record in the Guinness World Records book for doing so.
Slavery ended in Western Europe in the 7th century, when a British girl,...
5 tags
“Nothing hath an uglier Look to us than Reason, when it is not of our side.”
– George Savile, Marquess of Halifax
4 tags
5 tags
“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
– Popular Mechanics magazine, 1949
4 tags
6 tags
The Japanese Do Everything Weird
Valentine’s Day was first introduced to Japan in 1936 and has become widely popular. However, because of a translation error made by a chocolate company, only women buy Valentine chocolates for their spouses, boyfriends, or friends. In fact, it is the only day of the year many single women will reveal their crush on a man by giving him chocolate. The men don’t return the favor until White Day, a...
3 tags
1 tag
Siamese, If You Please
Some fun facts about this interesting variety of cat, (also known as seal points)
When Siamese cats were first shown in England in 1871 they were described as ‘an unnatural nightmare kind of cat’ because of their strange coloring.
The Thai name means “moon diamond”
President Rutherford B. Hayes was given a Siamese cat called Siam in 1879. Siam was the first ever...
4 tags
5 tags
“Sir.–The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give him a...”
– Benjamin Franklin. While visiting France in 1777, he received hundreds of inquiries from ardent Frenchmen seeking to join the American army. Finally he penned a “model of a letter of recommendation of a person you are unacquainted with”
3 tags
