Granola bars, instant noodle soup, and freeze-dried coffee were all created for the military.
TIME FOR TANGRAMS
Here’s the story behind one of the most popular puzzles in the world: the simple, and yet maddeningly complicated, seven-piece tangram.
SQUARE DEAL
A few years ago, a friend introduced Uncle John to a puzzle called a tangram. It looked simple enough, consisting of only seven pieces, or “tans”: five right triangles (two large, one medium, and two small), a small square, and a four-sided parallelogram. The seven pieces fit together to make one large square, like this:
Included with the puzzle were a few dozen problems—silhouetted shapes that could be made by arranging the seven pieces in different combinations. The silhouette on the left, for example, is made by arranging the seven pieces as shown:
First female federal judge: Burnita Shelton Matthews, appointed by Harry Truman (1949).
Here’s another problem and its solution:
The rules for tangram problems are pretty simple: Each silhouetted shape uses all seven pieces. Each piece touches at least one other piece, to make a single contiguous shape. The pieces do not overlap. That’s it.
A DIM HISTORY
The early history of tangrams is pretty sketchy; they are believed to have been invented in China sometime around 1800 by a writer known only by his pen name: Yang-cho-chü-shi, or “Dimwitted Recluse,” who called the puzzle Ch’i ch’iao t’u, or “Pictures Using Seven Clever Pieces.” No copies of this book have survived; very little else is known about Dim-witted Recluse.
Mr. Recluse is believed to have been inspired by furniture from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), known as “butterfly-wing” tables. A butterfly wing table was a set of 13 smaller tables that, like tangrams, could be arranged in countless ways to symbolize different objects: flowers, dragons, mountains, boats, and, of course, butterflies.
TO THE FOUR CORNERS
By 1815 merchant ships visiting Chinese ports of call began to bring tangram puzzle books to the rest of the world. Because the books were composed almost entirely of the silhouette images and their solutions, they were easy to translate into other languages. The puzzle pieces were cheap and easy to make; people could even cut them out of pieces of paper. All that—and the novelty of the puzzles—helped spark a tangram craze that swept Europe and the United States. In France tangrams became so popular that cartoonists began to lampoon them; one cartoon from the time shows a wife ignoring her husband and baby as she sits at a table puzzling over a tangram. Napoleon had a tangram set. So did Edgar Allan Poe. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, also wrote puzzle books, some of which included tangrams.
In the last 150 years, the magnetic North Pole has “wandered” a total of about 685 miles.
SQUARE ROOTS
Historians think there might have been another inspiration for the invention of tangrams: the fact that you can arrange all the tans in a single tangram set into either one large square, or two smaller squares of equal size. Do you remember the Pythagorean theorem from your high-school math class? (Neither did we—we had to look it up.) Here’s a quick refresher: In the case of a right triangle (one with a 90° angle), the square of the length of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle), is equal to the sum of the squares of the two other sides. Put more simply, the area of the big square below is equal to the area of the two smaller squares combined:
The area of the large square, c2, is equal to the area of the two smaller squares combined: a2 + b2.
The first American cattle ranch was started on Long Island in 1747.
One technique for proving the theorem is to see if you can cut the larger square into pieces that can be made into the two smaller squares. If it’s possible, then the theorem is true.
Because the pieces of a tangram do just that, it’s possible that they were originally used as tools to demonstrate the concept of the Pythagorean theorem. Only later, when arranging the pieces into other shapes proved to be more fun than math class, did they become more popular as puzzles. We can’t know for sure, since no copies of Dim-witted Recluse’s first tangram book survive. But the oldest tangram books that do survive, and which date back to 1813, mention the Pythagorean theorem.
GET IN SHAPE
See if you can solve the following tangram problems. Trace the pieces on page 415 onto a piece of paper and cut them out. The answers are on page 542.
Iceland has more tractors per acre of cropland than any other nation.
WORD ORIGINS
Ever wonder where common words come from? Here are some everyday words and their interesting origins.
BUFF
Meaning: Someone who pursues an interest as a pastime
Origin: “In New York, in the burgeoning days of firefighting (early 1800s), men followed fire engines to watch firefighters extinguish blazes. During the icy winters, they wore buffalo fur to keep warm. The firefighters viewed spectators with contempt and nicknamed them ‘buffalos,’ which was shortened to ‘buffs.’” (From March Hares and Monkeys’ Uncles, by Harry Oliver)
EGGHEAD
Meaning: A term of derision applied to intellectuals
Origin: “First used to describe Adlai Stevenson during the 1952 Presidential campaign, the term echoes the popular misconception that intellectuals have high brows and heads shaped like eggs, the kind of heads cartoonists give to ‘superior beings’ from outer space.” (From QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, by Robert Hendrickson)
CYNIC
Meaning: One who sees the worst in other people and in life
Origin: “First used by the followers of the Greek philosopher Antisthenes (440 B.C.), a student of Socrates who scorned the pursuit of wealth and fame. It came from the name of his school, Cynosarges (‘white dog’). His students were kynikos (‘doglike’) because they ignored public customs.” (From The Story Behind the Word, by Morton S. Freeman)
FOOL
Meaning: A person who acts unwisely
Origin: “It seems no woman can really be a fool, since the word comes from the Latin follis, which means bellows, wind-bag, or scrotum.” (From In a Word, by Margaret S. Ernst)
Nation with the most McDonald’s restaurants per capita: the United States. #2: New Zealand.
GEEK
Meaning: A socially inept person
Origin: “From the Scottish word geck (fool), for a long time geek referred solely to a performer whose act consisted of biting the head off a live chicken.” (From An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology, by Anatoly Liberman)
YOKEL
Meaning: A country bumpkin
Origin: “In England, before the 19th century, a yokel was a woodpecker named after its distinctive call: yo-KEL, yo-KEL. Today the term refers to people who live in the country (where the yokels live).” (From “I Didn’t Know That,” Volume I, by Karlen Evins)
GUY
Meaning: A regular person
Origin: “Used by the British to refer to an effigy of Guy Fawkes, the leader of the infamous Gunpowder Plot, the word still means ‘a thoroughly grotesque person’ in England. The American usage started with playwright Eugene O’Neill in a 1927 letter to a friend.” (From Origins, by Eric Partridge)
RIFF-RAFF
Meaning: People regarded as disreputable or worthless
Origin: “From the medieval French expression rifle et rafle. The phrase referred to lowly scavengers who would plunder (rifle) the dead bodies on the battlefield and then carry off (rafle) their belongings.” (From World Wide Words, by Michael Quinion)
HAM
Meaning: Someone who overacts, sometimes to unintentionally humorous results (like William Shatner as Captain Kirk)
Origin: “In 19th-century minstrel shows, white actors in ‘black face’ used ham fat to remove their makeup. (They often strummed the banjo song, ‘Ham-fat Man.’) These performances were usually less than first quality.” (From Why You Say It, by Webb Garrison)
> Aristotle believed that going barefoot diminished the libido.
CANADA AT RANDOM
A few facts to bring you up to speed (in kilometers).
• The highest-grossing domestic film in Canadian history is 2006’s . Once you factor in inflation, though, it comes in third behind Bon Cop, Bad Cop, a bilingual buddy film about a serial killer who’s murdering hockey executivesPorky’s (1982) and the 1970 porn film Deux Femmes En Or.
• Average high July temperature in Toronto: 28°C (82°F). In Alert, the northernmost permanently inhabited locale in Canada (and the entire world), the average July temp is a mere 6°C (42°F). Population of Alert: 5.
• In 1992 Michael Ondaatje became the first Canadian author to win the Man Booker Prize, the highest literary prize in the British Commonwealth. Ondaatje’s prize-winning book: The English Patient.
• Some Canadian slang: kerfuffle (a commotion), timbits (doughnut holes), and two-four (a case of beer).
• Alberta’s West Edmonton Shopping Mall was the world’s largest when it opened in 1981. It has since dropped to fifth place, but it still holds the record for the world’s largest indoor amusement park.
• Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first European born in North America, lived in Newfoundland around 1010 A.D. His parents, Þorfinnr Karlsefni and Guðríðr Eiríksdóttir, were Viking explorers.
• You probably know that Canada has two official languages—English and French. How many Canadians actually speak both? About 17 percent.
• Canada has its own version of the Loch Ness Monster—a beast called Ogopogo that reportedly lives in British Columbia’s Okanagan Lake.
• The most-viewed television program in Canadian history: the gold-medal men’s hockey game during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Over 80 percent of the country tuned in to watch Canada beat the U.S. 3–2.
Worth it? When sea turtles eat man-of-war jellyfish, they give off a scent that attracts sharks.
WORLD HAIRSTORY
There have always been things people were willing to dye for.
BED HEAD
Black hair was the norm in ancient Rome. Blond hair was associated with exotic foreigners from places like Gaul (France) and Germany, and with...prostitutes. To set themselves apart from other citizens, Roman prostitutes were required by law to dye their hair blond. Natural blonds who weren’t prostitutes could apply a mixture of vinegar and ground-up leeches to their hair and sit in the sun until it baked in, turning their hair black.
DYE, YOU SAXON PUNKS!
When the Germanic Saxons invaded Britain 2,500 years ago, they sported colors meant to terrify. They headed into battle with hair and beards dyed bright orange, green, red, and blue, giving them a distinct psychological advantage. (Of course, those two-handed battle-axes that could cleave a man in half probably enhanced the effect, too.)
BLONDS HAVE MORE SUN
In the late 16th century, women of Venice, Italy, who wanted blond hair wore special crownless hats that allowed their hair to stick out the top as they sat all day in the blazing sun. Richard Corson’s book Fashions in Hair describes one woman who stayed out so long that, “she bled almost every day abundantly through the nose,” but she “obtained the effect of her desires”—bleached hair.
THE RED QUEEN
Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) had red hair that started a hair-dyeing fad as men and women of rank vied to show their loyalty through their locks. Using a mixture of lead, quicklime, and sulfur, women dyed their hair to match the queen’s. High-ranking men dyed theirs auburn, and some male courtiers dyed their beards as well. Loyalty, how ever, came with side effects: nausea, headaches, nosebleeds, and, thanks to the lead, kidney failure and death.
Another reason to stay inside: Sunlight can trigger a cold-sore breakout.
OPERATION
PAUL BUNYAN
The unoccupied Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea has been a tense place since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s. It’s been the site of periodic flare-ups, one of which involved a tree.
TWO KOREAS
For most of its history, Korea has been a single country, often a very powerful one. In the late 19th century, the nation lost its independence to Japan. At the time, Japan was trying to build a global empire, and Korea was a valuable strategic target. After World War II, the Japanese Empire fell apart, and the countries it had once controlled became independent nations once again. But a new conflict was developing: the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Korea’s strategic location made it an important ally to both sides.
The United States assumed the administration of the southern part of Korea, taking steps to assure that it would develop into a capitalist economy. American diplomats and politicians micro-managed the region’s political process to produce leaders sympathetic to the West. At the same time, the Soviet Union oversaw the development of the north, and encouraged that part of Korea to develop along socialist lines. The split was formalized in 1948, when the north refused to participate in United Nations–supervised free elections. Both sides claimed to be the only legitimate government on the Korean peninsula. The Korean War was fought over this issue, which led to two separate nations. To this day, South Korea maintains that it lawfully controls North Korea, while North Korea believes the same thing about South Korea.
Technically, the Korean War never formally ended. There was no peace treaty—only an armistice that ended the shooting (it was temporary, but it’s lasted since 1953) and established a two-mile wide DMZ, or Demilitarized Zone, as a neutral buffer between North Korea and South Korea.
Lose-lose situation: Couples who diet while on vacation argue three times more often.
STAY POSTED
Like all Cold War hot spots, the DMZ was rife with political intrigue and paranoia (and heavily guarded by troops). North Korea accused the South of periodically sending spies into the North, and in 1975 South Korea discovered secret tunnels that North Korea had built under the DMZ.
In the early 1970s, the United Nations set up multiple command posts within the DMZ to help control the situation. U.N. Command Post #3 was critical. It was the northernmost post, situated within sight of North Korean territory. North Korean soldiers had repeatedly attempted to kidnap U.N. officials from Command Post #3, so soldiers stationed at the southern end of the DMZ believed it was vital to keep a close eye on the post at all times. Only problem: Command Post #3 was surrounded by dense foliage, which made the post impossible to observe during summer months. One particularly troublesome poplar tree directly blocked the view.
THE KOREAN AXE MASSACRE
So on August 18, 1976, under U.N. orders, the South Korean military sent five soldiers, escorted by a dozen U.S. troops, into the DMZ to chop down the poplar. Because soldiers are not allowed to carry firearms inside the DMZ, the squad carried only the axes and machetes they planned to use.
Just as the troops began trimming the tree, a delegation of North Korean soldiers arrived at the site and demanded that the South Koreans drop their axes. The tree in question, they said, had been personally planted and tended by Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s first “great leader.” Despite repeated warnings from the North Koreans, the squadron from the South continued to chop... prompting the commanding officer of the North Korean detachment to order, “Kill them!”
The South Korean troops immediately dropped their axes and attempted to flee. The North Koreans—unarmed because of the weapon-free DMZ rule—then picked up the axes and attacked the American escorts, killing the commanding officer, Capt. Arthur Bonifas, and fatally wounding Lt. Mark Barret, and injuring most of the South Koreans. United Nations soldiers at Observation Post #5, watching the proceedings unfold, recorded the entire incident on camera, and it was quickly reported to the leaders of North Korea and to the general public in South Korea. Through it all, the poplar tree remained standing.
Washington’s Mount Rainier was named for a British soldier who fought against the Americans in the Revolutionary War.
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THE ART OF WAR
Because two Americans had been killed, many expected the full military power of the United States to come down on North Korea. But waging all-out war would have been extraordinarily dangerous during the Cold War. Seoul, the bustling capital of South Korea, was located directly south of the DMZ, well within range of North Korean artillery. And while the U.S. had superior air and sea power, North Korea maintained a close diplomatic relationship with China, which had tens of millions of troops that it would almost certainly send to aid North Korea.
Henry Kissinger, then serving as both U.S. Secretary of State and national security advisor to President Ford, was prepared to fight. He suggested to Ford that the best course of action would be a full-scale bombing campaign of the North. Kissinger believed that holding back would make the United States appear diplomatically and militarily weak. Ford, however, did not want to start a new Korean War, or worse, another world war, so he devised a solution that he hoped would allow the U.S. to save face while avoiding a major escalation: Send in the troops...and chop down the tree.
TIMBER!
“Operation Paul Bunyan,” as it was called, commenced on August 21, 1976, just three days after the original confrontation—which was being referred to as “the axe murder incident”—and involved a major military incursion into the DMZ. The primary “attack arms” consisted of two six-man units from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, all armed with chain saws. Each unit was accompanied by a support unit of 30 heavily armed soldiers, and backed up by two dozen attack helicopters and a wing of B-52 Stratofortress bombers. Meanwhile, every military unit south of the DMZ was on high alert: Aircraft patrols were launched from air bases all over South Korea, and the USS Midway carrier group held a position just off the Korean Peninsula. Artillery units stood by to detonate critical bridges in the vicinity, and South Korean special forces ran secret scouting missions along the most critical areas of the DMZ. North Korea responded in kind, dispatching hundreds of sharpshooters and machine gunners to their forward posts along the DMZ. Northern forces set up machine-gun nests in view of Command Post #3.
Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® Page 47
