by Bill McLain
Before the arrival of the Spaniards in our country, the Paiute Indians called the Grand Canyon “Mountain Lying Down.” The Spaniards who first saw the canyon named it “Gran Cañon,” which is how it is still known today.
A courageous one-armed army veteran, Major John Wesley Powell, and nine companions were the first men to navigate the Colorado River 1,000 miles through the Grand Canyon. They had flimsy boats, few rations, and endured many hardships. Three men died on the journey.
DID YOU KNOW?
Each of the seven wonders of the natural world has its own legends. Stories of courage, tragedy, deprivation, and even humor. But perhaps one of the most interesting stories is that of the Niagara Falls daredevils who were willing to risk their lives for a moment of fame. They went over the falls in a barrel.
The first person to go over the falls in a barrel and survive was Annie Taylor, who performed the amazing feat in 1901. She wore a special harness inside a wooden barrel that was towed into the mainstream of the river and cut loose. After going down the falls and slamming into numerous rocks, she was pulled from the barrel 17 minutes later. Upon emerging, the slightly dazed Annie said, “No one ought ever do that again!”
The day she went over the falls Annie claimed she was just 43 years old. However, historical records proved that she was actually 63 years old at the time.
An Englishman, Bobby Leach, was another survivor of the falls. Although he had used a steel barrel, he still spent six months in the hospital recovering from numerous fractures and injuries. At age 67 he went on a tour of Australia. While walking on a New Zealand street he slipped on an orange peel and fell. Complications led to the amputation of his leg. Unfortunately, he got gangrene poisoning and died. A plunge from Niagara Falls could not kill him but a simple orange peel did.
Why is the Tower of Pisa leaning and will anyone ever straighten it?
A bell tower was built in the town of Pisa, Italy, in 1174 near a church in Cathedral Square. It was the final structure in the city’s cathedral complex and was made of white marble. It was supposed to be eight stories (185 feet) high. However, after the third floor was completed, the building started to sink because of the marshy, unstable soil. As they continued construction, workers tried to compensate for the lean by making the new stories slightly taller on the short side. However, the extra construction material made it sink even more. Since that time, the tower has leaned a little bit more each year. Today the 185-foot tower leans at a 10-degree angle and is now about 17 feet out of perpendicular.
This 800-year-old tower looks as if it defies the laws of gravity and is an extremely popular tourist attraction. More than 700,000 tourists climbed to the top in 1989, but no visitors have been allowed to climb the structure since then. Although this resulted in the city of Pisa losing millions of dollars in tourist revenue each year, it was deemed necessary for safety reasons. Tourists were banned because a similar bell tower had collapsed without warning in 1989.
Today an international commission of experts has agreed to save the famous Tower of Pisa. Eight years of effort to correct the tilt have only changed it one inch. A plan to dismantle the tower stone by stone and then rebuild it on more solid ground has also been rejected. Current plans are to correct the tilt to about 5 degrees.
FACTOIDS
Because the tower tilted in different directions during the first stages of construction, it has become curved like a banana and can never be truly upright.
Various wars took away money slated for the tower’s construction, which was halted a number of times. It actually took 200 years before the tower was finished.
The tower walls are 13 feet wide, and you must climb 300 steps to reach the top.
It is often said that Galileo dropped a cannonball and a wooden ball of the same size from the top of the tower to prove that balls of different weights fall at the same rate. However, this story has been proven to be untrue.
The first bells were added when the third floor was completed, probably because it was designed as a bell tower and because builders were unsure if they could continue construction because of the leaning.
There are seven bells in the tower tuned to a musical scale. The largest bell weighs 3½ tons. The oldest bell is named Pasquarreccia.
In a war with Florence, Pisans lost a major sea battle because they were betrayed by their own count, Count Ugolino della Gherardesca. Citizens locked the count and his family in the tower of Gualandi and then threw the key into the Arno River. The count and his family died of starvation in the tower.
DID YOU KNOW?
Pisa became a Roman colony around 180 B.C. yet survived the collapse of the Roman Empire to remain a principal urban center and flourishing center of commerce. Because of its participation in the Crusades, it gained valuable contacts with Syrian traders and eventually rivaled Genoa and Venice.
Later defeated by the Genoese fleet, Pisa still became a busy center of woolen manufacturing and was also the chief port of Tuscany.
The Tower of Pisa was originally designed to show the entire world how wealthy the city of Pisa was. The city’s fortunes eventually turned and the entire town was sold to the city of Florence.
Although the town never managed to regain its former wealth, the citizens of this small city in Italy are still showing off their tower.
What is the largest museum in the world? (From the Spirit of Saint Louis to The Star-Spangled Banner.)
If we talk about museums in the most general sense, then it is the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It has well over 160 million items and a staff of 6,000. The Smithsonian is actually a complex of 16 different museums, including the National Museum of Natural History, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the National Museum of History and Technology.
However, if we talk about single museums, then the largest in the world is the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, which houses over 30 million artifacts and has more than 3 million visitors a year.
The Louvre in Paris, France, is one of the largest art museums in the world and houses over 400,000 works of art. Not only does it have an unsurpassed collection of fifteenth- to nineteenth-century French paintings, it also houses the antiquities that Napoleon brought from Egypt.
The Russian State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, which sometimes claims to have the largest museum collection in the world, houses a rich assortment of European paintings and extensive collections of Asian art.
The Smithsonian was founded in 1846 when James Smithson, an English scientist, bequeathed funds to the United States. This money is held in trust “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”
Among its many exhibits, the Smithsonian has the Wright brothers’ 1903 airplane, Lindbergh’s Spirit of Saint Louis, Chuck Yeager’s Bell X-1 rocket plane, the Apollo 11 command module, and a moon rock. It also houses Benjamin Franklin’s printing press, Alexander Graham Bell’s experimental telephone, and the American flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. The flag is currently being meticulously restored.
FACTOIDS
Although people tend to think of museums as cultural sites exhibiting great works of art and historical artifacts, our country is full of unique private museums.
The American Police Hall of Fame and Museum in Miami, Florida, has a bloody guillotine, an electric chair, skulls showing entry wounds, and bricks from the Chicago garage where the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre occurred on February 14, 1929.
The Gourd Museum in Angier, North Carolina, displays a Last Supper picture made out of gourd seeds, a gourd xylophone, and gourd lamps.
Medical monstrosities are housed in the Philadelphia College of Physicians’ Mutter Museum. Interested physicians can see not only a display of numerous objects swallowed and surgically removed but also the soap woman, who died in 1792 and was buried in soil containing chemicals that turned her into soap.
Specialty museums include F
rederick’s Bra Museum in Hollywood, California; the Museum of Whiskey History in Bardstown, Kentucky; the Wheels Museum in Woodhull, Illinois, where you can see a collection of spark plugs and gearshift knobs; and the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which boasts a prostate warmer, an abdominal brain, and an ultraviolet comb.
DID YOU KNOW?
Historically, museums are not very old. During the Renaissance, wealthy individuals kept private collections of art and artifacts as a symbol of prestige. However, the first recorded case of a collection being turned over to a public body did not occur until 1523 when two Venetian brothers bequeathed their private collection to the Venetian republic.
Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum opened in 1683. This was the first time a building was constructed for the sole purpose of housing a collection of art and artifacts. This museum has the honor of being the oldest museum in the world still in use today.
The British Museum, the Louvre, and the Vatican City’s Capitoline Museum all opened in the eighteenth century. After that, museums started cropping up all over the world.
We often forget about the treasures housed in a museum. If you want to do something different for diversion, visit a public museum. You might find it both educational and fun.
More questions? Try these websites.
WORLD ALMANAC
http://cirrus.sprl.umich.edu/wxnet/
This is an Internet world almanac covering everything from architecture to disasters to a chronology of historical events.
NATIONAL FLACS
http://osprey.erin.gov.au/flags/nation-flags.html
Just click on a country to see its flag.
SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
http://www.grouptravels.com/wonders/2hp7w.htm
This site has pictures and facts about each of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Acknowledgments
Although an author gets the credit for writing a book, there are always others who are instrumental in its creation. I would like to thank them.
First of all, I want to thank the people at Xerox, including Bob Taylor, who persuaded me to accept a position with Xerox, Mark Resch, who persuaded me to write a book, Jeff Simek and Karen Arena, who encouraged and supported me from the beginning and were always there when I needed them, and my wonderful staff, especially Christine Lamm, and Sonja-Lin Rose.
I want to thank Sonia Saruba not only for her wonderful job in editing my original draft but also for her suggestions, comments, and support.
I also want to thank the people at William Morrow, especially my editor, Zach Schisgal, whose insight and recommendations greatly enhanced the book; his assistant, Taije Silverman, who was always there with help whenever I needed it; Rich Aquan for his creativity in designing the wonderful book jacket; Virginia McRae for her excellent job on editing the final draft; and all of the other people at William Morrow who contributed their time and talents.
Finally, I want to thank the thousands of people who have sent me questions. Without them, this book could never have been written.
Exploring the Internet
Many websites allow you to find information on the Internet by searching on keywords. I know of over 50 such sites, but rather than list them all, I’ll just give you 5 that I’ve found to be most helpful.
ALTAVISTA
http://altavista.digltal.com/
HOT BOT
http://www.hotbot.com/
YAHOO
http://www.yahoo.com/
INFOSEEK
http://www.infoseek.com/
LYCOS
http://www.lycos.com/
To use a search tool effectively, you must try to be as precise as possible. For example, let’s say you want to find a recipe for chocolate fudge cake.
If you search on “cake” you’ll get a list of over half a million links (540,830 to be exact). If you are a little more specific and enter “chocolate cake” you’ll see a list of over 13,000 links. If you next try “chocolate cake recipe” you’ve narrowed the list down to 222 links but that’s still too many to look through. If you enter “chocolate fudge cake recipe” you’ll see only 4 links. Of these, 2 simply have references to the cake while the other 2 are recipes.
If you run into trouble when looking for an item, try synonyms or related words. For instance, if you are looking for the “origin” of something and having difficulty finding what you want, try using the words “history,” “beginning,” and “start.”
The search tools have explanations or tips on how to use them effectively. Be sure to read them carefully. For instance, when you use AltaVista you must put a + sign between the words.
If you search on “chocolate+fudge+cake+recipe” you will find only 4 links. However, if you search on “chocolate fudge cake recipe,” the search tool will find every site that has the word “chocolate,” every site that has the word “fudge,” and so on. You’ll end up with 656,740 links.
Finally, don’t be surprised when you see what the search tool finds. When I was answering a question relating to jelly and jam, I searched on the word “jam.” In addition to the food, I discovered that rock groups share that name. There were many links to “Space Jam” and “Pearl Jam.” There may be times when you search on a simple word and end up finding a rock group, a book, or a pornographic site. If that happens, refine your search and try again.
Index
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
Aborigines, Australian, 223
acronyms and abbreviations, website, 122
additives, gasoline, 38
Akron (dirigible), 251
Alamo, battle of the, 76
albinos, 12
ale, 46
almanac, world, website, 296
Alpha Centauri, 218-219
Amish, 196-197
Apaches, 114-116
applejack, 54
apple juice, 53-55
area codes, website, 269
Ark of the Covenant, 85-87
Arlington National Cemetery, 82
armonicas, 157-158
Asimov, Isaac, 126
Ask Doctor Math, website, 224
assassinations, 79-80
asteroid hitting earth, 219
astronauts, 10
oldest, 257
youngest, 257
Australian:
Aborigines, 223
dictionary, website, 254
average height, 255-257
Aztec calendar, 194
Bartlett’s Quotations, website, 135
baseball, 231-233
official major league, website, 242
Bay of Fundy, 221
beer, 45-47
Bertillon system of identification, 212
Bible, finding passages in, website, 202
bifocals, 22
Big Ben, 284-286
Bighorn medicine wheel, 207
billiards, 233-235
bills, denominations of, 31
blesbok antelopes, 11
blimps, 249-250
blindness. 142-143
blood:
transfusions, 147-148
types, 146
bloomers, 23
blue moon, 206-207
blue urine, 83
bola ties, 28
Bolshevik revolution, 85
books:
first, 127
first “detective” novel, 133
first written on a typewriter, 128
Internet books, website, 136
longest ever written, 126
Project Gutenberg, website, 135
bubbles, blowing soap, 188
bubonic plague, 109-110
buffalo, 12
white, 13
Buffalo wings, website, 59
bums, 160
see also hoboes
buses, school, 248
> butterflies, 3-5, 99-100
BVDs, 24
caffe latte, 49
calendars, 193-195
Campanile, 284-286
canals:
China Grand, 288
Panama, 286-288
Suez, 288
Venice, Calif., 288
candles, 166-168
candy:
M&M’s, 47-48
Tootsie Pops, 178-180
cappuccino, 49
capsaicin, 51
capybaras, 252
cats, 5-7
website, 20
celebrity addresses, website, 176
chicken, 183-185
chimpanzees, 253
Chinese New Year, 97
chocolate chip cookies, 186
Christmas:
mistletoe, 94,
tree, 100-102
websites, 103
CIA, website, 269
Fact Book, website, 69
cider, 53-55
Civil War, U.S., 81-82
clothes in the 1800s, website, 29
coffee, 49-50
coins, 33-34
compasses, 210
contact lenses, 22
continents, 62-65
origin of names, 62-63
supercontinent, 64
cookies, 185-187
Coriolis effect, 203-205
counterfeiting, 32
Crapper, Thomas, 168
cravats, 27
creosote bush, 282-283
cults, religious, 198
Curly (dog), 82
currency, U.S., 30-34
converter, website, 41
Custer, General George A., 152-154
