Fastfacts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Friday, March 5, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
Mary Lamb, sister of essayist Charles Lamb, spent her adulthood at times in a straitjacket, at other times entertaining the literati. She suffered predictable psychotic attacks; during one of those attacks she slew her mother.
Until the 1850s, shoes were made by hand and most were "straight" ÷ they could be worn on either foot. There were two widths, fat and slim; most Americans wore slim. The concept and production of left and right shoes came with machines.
Assembly line methods made it possible for the U.S. shipyards of Henry J. Kaiser during World War II to produce a ship in just four days.
Manhattan Island from end to end is less than 1 million inches long.
The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Amiens, France, covers 8,500 square yards. When it was completed in the Middle Ages, the entire population of the city, about 10,000, could attend the same service.
The total number of different bridge hands possible is roughly 54 octillion. That's 54 followed by 27 zeroes.
The total population of Earth at the time of Julius Caesar was 150 million. The total population increase in two years on Earth today is 150 million.
The first children's book published in the United States was written by Puritan preacher John Cotton and printed in Cambridge, Mass., in 1646. Its title was "Spiritual Milk for Boston Babies in Either England Drawn from the Breasts of Both Testaments for Their Souls' Nourishment."
Perhaps the world's most prolific playwright was Lope de Vega (1562-1635). He may have written as many as 2,200 plays, of which less than 500 survive.