Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
The Abbaye of Toulouse, in medieval France, was a municipal brothel whose revenues supported the University of Toulouse. It bore a royal charter and flourished until a prostitutes' strike and attacks by angry mobs caused its decline.
No one went hungry or unclothed under the benevolent dictatorship of the Incan Empire.
Frank James, after a career of robbery and murder in the company of his brother Jesse, settled down to a peaceful life. He sold souvenirs at the James farm, worked as the doorman of a theater and fired the starter's gun at Missouri race tracks, where he was always cheered by the crowd.
The leaves of the mallow weed follow the movement of the sun's light, turning with it as it moves across the sky. More unusual is the plant's reaction at sundown. As soon as the sun sets, all its leaves turn around and face east, where the sun will rise in the morning.
Thomas Jefferson invented a wooden forerunner of the modern moldboard plow in the late 1700s.
Envelopes didn't come into use until 1839. Until then, people usually folded their letters both ways, sealed them with wax and wrote the address on the back.
Eskimos use refrigerators to keep food from freezing.
Benito Mussolini was originally one of the most vocal critics of Adolf Hitler. "Il Dulce" formed his pre-World War II union with the German dictator only when the free nations of the world censured him for his attack on Ethiopia.