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Illustration by Holly Randall
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Friday, April 16, 2004
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Things you always never wanted to know
Literacy in Iceland is 100 percent. Every Icelander must graduate from school in order to get a job, and has to be able to speak three languages. The native language, Icelandic, is spoken in no other country.
The Scottish writer Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, who won a seat as a Liberal member of Parliament in 1886, was suspended from the House of Commons for having the audacity to use the word "damn" in a public speech.
Not until November 18, 1951, had anyone in the United States seen both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans "live" and simultaneously. To demonstrate the power of television, Edward R. Murrow's first "See It Now" telecast, on that day, spanned the continent on a split screen.
Water freezes faster if cooled rapidly from a relatively warm temperature than if cooled at the same rate from a lower temperature.
The hardness of ice is similar to that of concrete.
February originally had 29 days every year. In 8 B.C., the Roman Emperor Augustus renamed the 30-day month of Sextilis, giving it the name of August to honor himself. He took a day from February so that his month would have as many days as July, which had been named for Julius Caesar.
Elephants, lions and camels roamed Alaska 12,000 years ago.
Thanks to ovum transplants of livestock, a bull in Texas can be mated with a cow in Scotland. The several progeny, incubated in the wombs of rabbits, can be flown to any country on Earth for implantation into cows there.
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