Here are some fun little tidbits that you may not know:


Important Dates in History

1860 BC

• Construction of Stonehenge

1186 BC

• The Trojan War

1020 BC

• Saul becomes the first Israelite king

71

• Colosseum building starts in Rome (finished in 79)
• Spartacus and other slaves are crucified on the Appian road to Rome

73

• Siege of Massada

77

• Around this year, the last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Esther, is translated into Greek

79

• Emperor Titus dedicates the Roman Colosseum, the amphitheater has 160-foot walls and 50,000 marble seats
• Mount Vesuvius erupts, killing thousands in Herculaneum and Pompeii

726

• Byzantine Emperor Leo III forbids the worship of icons in an attempt to limit the powers of the monasteries

748

• First printed newspaper appears in Peking, China

1023

• Paper money is printed in China

1077

• Windsor Castle is built
  

1096

• The First Crusade begins

1906

• William Kellog invents cornflakes
• Lewis Nixon invents sonar
• Picasso invents cubism

1915

• James Lewis Kraft launches process cheese in Canada
• Eugene Sullivan and William Taylor invent Pyrex in New York

1917

• George Jung produces the first fortune cookies in Los Angeles
• Coca-Cola launches its vurvaceous bottle, modeled on the cola nut
• John D. Rockefeller becomes the first billionaire

1919

• The Treaty Of Versailles is signed on June 28, concluding WWI
• Physicist Ernest Rutherford discovers a means of splitting the atom

1938

• Nestle introduces it's instant coffee, Nescafe
• Supermarket trolleys (shopping carts) are introduced in Oklahoma
• Roy Plunkett discovers Teflon
• Superman debuts in Action Comics

1942

• Tony the Tiger debuts as mascot for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes
• A sell-by date is first used on Lyons Coffee in Britain

1948

• Israel is established
• LP Bell Laboratories displays the first transistor

1957

• USSR launches the Sputnik satellite into space
• The Medical Research Council links lung cancer with smoking

1959

• Ermal Cleon Fraze invents the easy-open can
• The Beatles form

1977

• Apple II becomes the first mass-produced home computer
• Star Wars debuts
• Rings around Uranus are discovered

1981

• IBM launches their PC
• PacMan hits the arcade
• Prince Charles and Lady Diana wed

1986

• Nuclear reactor explodes in Chernobyl, Ukraine
• Fuji introduces disposable camera

1989

• The Berlin Wall comes down
• One of the last unspoiled areas on earth is threatened when the tanker Exxon Valdes runs aground in Alaska
• Tim Berners-Lee develops the World Wide Web

1991

• End of the Soviet Union

1998

• Frenchman Benoit Lecomte swims across the Atlantic Ocean

1999

• World population reaches the 6 billion mark

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Phobias - Fear of:
mirrors = catoptrophobia
touching money = chrematophobia
crossing bridges = gephyrophobia
birds = ornithophobia
being touched = aphephobia
travel = hodophobia
knees = genuphobia

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Real Names of Famous Entertainers
The Big Bopper = Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.
Billie Holiday = Eleanora Fagan Gough
Buddy Holly = Charles Hardin Holley
Cher = Cherilyn Sarkisian
Dean Martin = Dino Crocetti
Engelbert Humperdinck = Arnold Dorsey (and you'd think he would have kept his real name!)
Groucho Marx = Julius Henry Marx
Judy Garland = Frances Gumm
Mariah Carey = Maria Nuez
Sting = Gordon Sumner
Tina Turner = Anna Mae Bullock
Bob Hope = Leslie Townes Hope
Carole Lombard = Jane Alice Peters
Catherine Deneuve = Catherine
Doris Day = Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff
Ernest Borgnine = Ermes Effron Borgnino
Fred Austaire Frederick Austerlitz
Gene Wilder = Jerome Silberman
Ginger Rogers = Virginia Katherine McMath
Harry Houdini = Ehrich Weiss
Joan Crawford = Lucille Fay LeSueur
Lauren Bacall = Betty Joan Perske
Mary Pickford = Gladys Smith
Natalie Wood = Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko
Rock Hudson = Roy Harold Scherer, Jr.
Woody Allen = Allen Stewart Konigsberg
Abigail Van Buren = Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips
Ann Landers = Esther "Eppie" Pauline Friedman Lederer
Anne Rice = Howard Allen O'Brien
Dr. Seuss = Theodore Geisel
George Orwell = Eric Arthur Blair
Mark Twain = Samuel Langhorne Clemens

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Length
The length from your wrist to your elbow is the same as the length of your foot. (I bet you are going to try this.)

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Eyes
Our eyes are always the same size from birth.

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A Tribute to the Memory of George Washington, on the Anniversary of His Death -
He died at 10 PM on Dec. 14, 1799 of probable Strep throat. He had gone out several days earlier for his afternoon ride on his favorite horse, and was caught in a heavy cold downpour of rain and sleet. Five hours later he returned home and sat around in his damp clothes, waking up the next morning with a severe sore throat. His condition worsened for the next two days until he finally expired the evening of Dec. 14. He was 66, 1/2 year old. We remember him with thanks and appreciation on the anniversary of his death. (Thanks to our friend Gwen, for passing along this information.)

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Green Potatoes
The greenish hue is actually chlorophyll, but it is also an indicator that an alkaloid, called solanine, may be present under the skin of the potato. Solanine develops in potatoes when they are stored in the presence of light (which also encourages chlorophyll formation) and either at very cold or quite warm temperatures. It is toxic, however it would take a very large number of green potatoes to make one ill.
Since solanine collects just under the skin, it is safe to peel away the skin and a thin layer of white flesh before cooking the potato. Spouted potatoes can also be toxic and shouldn't be eaten, though it would take many sprouts to make one ill.

It's best to check potatoes for any green coloring before you buy them. Then, store them at cool room temperature in a dark, dry place. (Source: http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking)

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Where's George?
(Nicki says) I found a dollar bill in my purse with the URL http://www.wheresgeorge.com stamped on it. On this site you can track your paper currency around the world, as long as others enter the serial numbers on the website. Previously, my bill was registered being used at the South of the Border in South Carolina. A man in PA had a stamp made at an office supply store with the URL on it (in red, just so you know if you ever get one) to track all of his currency. Another man is tracking his currency with a huge poster of the USA with thumbtacks everywhere his bills have been registered. This sounds like a fun project that we might start here. So if you get a bill with the URL on it, in say, purple...... :-)

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Perhaps You've Heard of Some of These Famous Homeschooled People:
ARTISTS:
Leonardo da Vinci, Claude Monet, John Singleton Copley, Andrew Wyeth, Jamie Wyeth

COMPOSERS:
Irving Berlin, Anton Bruckner, Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Francis Poulenc

EDUCATORS:
Fred Terman (Stanford University President),
William Samuel Johnson (Columbia University President),
Frank Vandiver (Texas A&M University President),
John Witherspoon (Princeton University President)

GENERALS:
Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Douglas Mac Arthur, George Patton

INVENTORS:
Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Cyrus McCormick, Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright

PRESIDENTS:
John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, John Tyler, George Washington, Woodrow Wilson

PREACHERS & RELIGIOUS LEADERS:
Moses, Joan of Arc, John the Baptist, William Cary, Jonathan Edwards, Phillip Melanchthon, Dwight L. Moody, John Newton, John Owen, Charles Wesley, John Wesley, Brigham Young

SCIENTISTS:
George Washington Carver, Pierre Curie, Albert Einstein, Blaise Pascal, Booker T. Washington

STATESMEN:
Konrad Adenauer, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, William Penn, Henry Clay

U.S. SUPPREME COURT JUDGES:
John Jay, John Marshall, John Rutledge

WRITERS:
Hans Christian Andersen, Pearl S. Buck, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Bret Harte, C.S. Lewis, Sean O'Casey, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain, Mercy Warren, Daniel Webster, Phillis Wheatley

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION DELEGATES:
Richard Basset (Governor of Delaware)
William Blount (U.S. Senator)
George Clymer (U.S. Representative)
William Few (U.S. Senator)
Benjamin Franklin (Inventor and Statesman)
William Houston (Lawyer)
William S. Johnson (President of Columbia C.)
William Livingston (Governor of New Jersey)
James Madison (4th President of the U.S.)
George Mason
John Francis Mercer (U.S. Representative)
Charles Pickney III (Governor of S. Carolina)
John Rutledge (Chief Justice U.S. Supreme Court)
Richard D. Spaight (Governor of N. Carolina)
George Washington (1st President of the U.S.)
John Witherspoon (President of Princeton U.)
George Wythe (Justice of Virginia High Court)

OTHERS:
Abigail Adams (Wife of John Adams)
Ansel Adams (Photographer)
Clara Barton (Started the Red Cross)
John Burroughs (Naturalist)
Andrew Carnegie (Industrialist)
Charles Chaplin (Actor)
George Rogers Clark - Explorer
Noel Coward (Playwright)
John Paul Jones (Father of the American Navy)
Sandra Day O'Connor
Tamara McKinney (World Cup Skier)
John Stuart Mill (Economist)
Charles Louis Montesquieu (Philosopher)
Florence Nightingale (Nurse)
Sally Ride (Astronaut)
Bill Ridell (Newspaperman)
George Rogers Clark (Explorer)
Will Rogers (Humorist)
Jim Ryan (World Runner)
Albert Schweitzer (Physician)
Leo Tolstoy
Martha Washington (Wife of George Washington)
Source: For biographies on the above, see http://www.christianhomeschoolers.com/hs_famous_homeschoolers.html

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Special Zip Codes:
Did you know that both the U.S. President and First Lady have their own zip codes? His is 20501 and hers is 20502. (Source: "Around Washington DC With Kids - 68 Great Things To Do Together" by Fodor's / 917.53