Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday, April 26, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
The Hundred Years War technically never ended, as there was never a peace treaty. No English government could bring itself to make peace with France and admit that the battles of Crecy and Poitiers and even Agincourt had come to nothing. The English would sign a truce only, and that was all the French got.
The lowest point that a person can get on this planet, unless he descends in a submarine or a mine shaft, is where the Jordan River enters the Dead Sea - 1,290 feet below sea level.
An acre of typical farm soil (to a depth of 6 inches) has 1 ton of fungi, several tons of bacteria, 200 pounds of protozoa, 100 pounds of algae and 100 pounds of yeast.
Science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke may have lost out on millions of dollars in royalties when he wrote an article about radio communication via a satellite before taking out a U.S. patent.
The bubonic plague that swept through much of the civilized world from A.D. 542 to 543 killed up to 10,000 people per day in Byzantium alone at the height of its virulence.
Since the Early Bronze Age, about 5,000 years ago, the seemingly worthless, underpopulated, undercultivated Sinai Peninsula has been the world's most besieged land, the battlefield for at least 50 invading armies on their way to grander prizes in Africa and the Middle East.
When the United States was building the atomic bomb at Alamagordo, N.M., applicants for routine jobs such as janitor were disqualified if they could read. This way, authorities wouldn't worry about their trash or mislaid plans being read.
William Penn, the Quaker pacifist, was the son of a renowned fighting man, Adm. William Penn. The admiral took part in battles under Cromwell against the Dutch and Spaniards, helped capture Jamaica and was knighted for supporting the Restoration of Charles II. The admiral never could convince his son that pacifism was wrong, nor did the son's beliefs affect the father.
Englishmen of the 16th and 17th centuries believed that no one who lay upon feather could die in peace. Therefore, as death approached, the pillow was withdrawn from under the dying person's head to ease the passing.
At the height of their power, before the Spanish conquest in 1532, the Incas ruled the entire sea in South America from Quito, Ecuador, to the Rio Maule, Chile. However, the Incas, experts at organization and engineering, did not have wheels, arches or writing.