Illustration by Arnie Bermudez
|
|
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Friday, March 12, 2004
Print this
Things you always never wanted to know
St. Francis, who founded the Franciscan religious order in 1209, had no theological training. He was a layman, born rich. But when he gave away all his possessions and embarked on a career of charity and good deeds, his father disowned him.
In 1900, the U.S. Treasury showed a surplus of nearly $47 million in income over expenditures. The last time the Federal Budget was balanced was in 1969.
The American explorer Richard Byrd, the first man to fly over the North and South Poles, once spent five months alone in Antarctica.
The Parisian underground includes a system of pipes 600 miles long that furnishes compressed air to homes and businesses. It serves many purposes, but it was originally built to operate clocks and elevators.
In 1852, police estimated that 10,000 abandoned, orphaned and runaway children were roaming the streets of New York City.
Fra Filippo Lippi, a Carmelite monk and one of the master painters of the Renaissance, used a nun he ran off with as a model for his famous "Madonna and Child." He also wrote a racy and humorous romance.
"Buffalo Bill" Cody claimed he killed 4,862 bison in one season, including 69 in one day alone.
Between the mid-1860s and 1883, the bison population in North America was reduced from an estimated 13 million to a few hundred.
Write a Letter to the Editor
|
