Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Things you always never wanted to know
Although "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, it was not adopted as the national anthem of the United States until 1931.
Almost half a century passed before a man born in the United States, rather than in the English colonies, became President in 1837 - Martin Van Buren, the eighth president.
Though he had never seen a clock, Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) was able to make a clock, in 1754, that ran accurately for a score of years. Banneker was a mathematician, astronomer, surveyor of the District of Columbia and almanac publisher.
Henri Matisse's "Le Bateau" hung in New York's Museum of Modern Art for 47 days in 1961 before someone noticed it was upside-down. About 116,000 people had passed in front of the painting before the error was noted.
The Chinese physician Hua T'o, born sometime between 140 and 150 A.D., was the first doctor known to perform surgery under general anesthetic. The potion used to render his patients unconscious was a mixture of hemp and strong wine called "ma fei san." Prior to the Communist Revolution, a national holiday commemorated his birth.
Courts of law in the United States devote more than half their time to cases involving automobiles.
Almost every bit of helium that exists in the world is a product of natural-gas wells in the United States. The gas produced by one such well in Arizona is 8 percent helium.
James Madison was the only president to exercise actively his role as commander in chief of U.S. military forces. On Aug. 25, 1814, when British troops were attacking Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812, Madison took command of Commodore Joshua Barney's battery in Bladensburg, Md., in an attempt to protect the capital, which lay a few miles to the south.
The sun contains 99.8 percent of the total mass of the solar system.