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1
...that
Bruce Smith (
pictured ) was the only member of the first
Parliament of Australia to oppose the
White Australia Policy ?
...that
George Crichton 's death in 1544 initiated a decade long quarrel over the position of
Bishop of Dunkeld until the appointment of his nephew,
Robert Crichton ?
...that
The Log from the Sea of Cortez documents a trip taken by
John Steinbeck and
Ed Ricketts around the
Gulf of California , but neither is mentioned by name in the book?
...that as part of a
publicity stunt , the
1927
Texas Relays held a 89 mile (143 km)
running
race from
San Antonio to
Austin ?
...that the entire
Kannada film industry lead by
Dr.Rajkumar participated in the
Gokak agitation to demand the first language status of
Kannada in the
Indian state of
Karnataka ?
...that
Anne Lynch Botta (
pictured ) introduced
Edgar Allan Poe to literary society at her receptions?
...that
German
painter
Ludwig Thiersch influenced the debate over
Byzantine and
Western influences in
modern Greek art , and painted church
frescoes in
Greece ,
Austria ,
Germany ,
England , and
Russia ?
...that
Emil Calmanovici , the main financial backer of the
Romanian Communist Party in the 1940s, was later imprisoned by
Communist authorities and died as a result of
force-feeding ?
...that the performance of "
Romeo " at the
Eurovision Song Contest 1986 , was the first time that a
drag queen or any other sexual minority had been openly visible onstage at
Eurovision ?
...that 2007
Grammy Award winning single
Eyes of the Insane by American
thrash band
Slayer had two alternative endings filmed for its war-themed music video?
...that four artillery submarines were among many
uncompleted U-boat projects planned by
Nazi Germany ?
...that
Saint Reineldis (
pictured ) is commonly depicted in
art being dragged by the hair by
Huns ?
...that the
Hungarian village of
Beloiannisz was founded in 1950 by
Greek refugees ?
...that
Robert Adler invented the
Space Command
ultrasonic
television
remote control ?
...that
John McFee and the late
Keith Knudsen were the only band members of the
country rock group
Southern Pacific to stay for its entire eight-year run from 1983 to 1991?
...that to save weight while walking 1,000 km along the
Camino de Santiago ,
Canadian fiddler
Oliver Schroer packed a sleeping bag and clothes around his
violin instead of using a case?
...that
Oscar -winning
executive producer
Randy Stone co-founded
The Trevor Project , which provided the first 24-hour, toll-free
suicide prevention
hotline aimed at
gay and questioning youth in the
United States ?
...that the
artist and
illustrator
N. C. Wyeth (
pictured ) was the grandfather of
Howard Wyeth , the
stride pianist and
drummer for
Bob Dylan ?
...that large-scale
Greek settlement in what is today
Bulgaria dates to the 7th century BC?
...that the novel
Raptor Red , by
paleontologist
Robert T. Bakker , is told from the perspective of an intelligent
therapod
dinosaur ,
Utahraptor ?
...that
Japanese author
Kodō Nomura , who patterned his fictional detective
Zenigata Heiji after
Arthur Conan Doyle 's
Sherlock Holmes , wrote 383
detective stories set in
Edo period
Japan ?
...that the
Potawatomi tribe believed that the natural
pond in the backyard of the
Chauncey Ellwood House in
Sycamore, Illinois was once a
watering hole for native
buffalo ?
...that Professor
Józef Łukaszewicz took part in a failed attempt to
assassinate
Tsar
Alexander III of Russia ?
...that the
Old Sycamore Hospital (
pictured ) , founded in 1899, was designed and funded by the first female doctor in
Sycamore, Illinois ?
...that the
Alignment is the only
political party in
Israel ever to have held a majority of seats in the
Knesset ?
...that the
venomous snake used for
murder in
Arthur Conan Doyle 's
short story "
The Adventure of the Speckled Band " is most likely the
Indian Cobra or one of its
hybrids ?
...that according to the
framework interpretation of
Genesis Chapter One, the first three days of
creation are
poetically reflected in the last three days of creation?
...that the website of the
rock
magazine
Rock Street Journal has a database of over a thousand
South Asian rock bands ?
...that
Hurricane Wilma
set records for the lowest recorded pressure and the smallest
eye of any
Atlantic hurricane ?
...that an estimated 20 people died after eating
peppermint
humbugs that were accidentally been made with
arsenic in the 1858
Bradford sweets poisoning ?
...that the potential for the production of
renewable energy in Scotland (
5 MW wind turbine pictured ) includes up to 25% of the
EU ’s capacity for both wind and tidal power generation?
...that although
Russian
playwright
Viktoriya Tokareva's writing style is often compared to that of
Anton Chekhov , none of her work has been published in
English ?
...that the
Polish manoeuvre in the
Battle of Koziatyn in 1920 is an example of a
blitzkrieg -like offensive before the advent of
tank warfare ?
...that the bulk of
Bulgarians in Hungary descend from gardeners and other professionals who settled in the country prior to
World War I ?
...that
Eric Jansson led a
pietist sect of
Swedish immigrants to
Bishop Hill, Illinois in 1846, where they founded a
collective religious colony ?
...that
Dwarkanath Vidyabhusan preferred to close down his weekly newspaper Somprakash rather than sign an undertaking for it?
...that
Charles Dickens composed the
epitaph for
Charles Irving Thornton despite never having met the dead child or his family?
...that
John de Ralston , the chaplain of
Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas , rose to become
Bishop of Dunkeld and helped to arrange the marriage of King
James II of Scotland to
Mary of Gueldres ?
...that although the
series
1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + · · · is ordinarily said to
diverge to
infinity , there is at least one generally useful method that gives its sum as
−1 ?
...that
Ivan Ray Tannehill ruled out weather balloons as the cause of a rash of UFO sightings, which included the
Roswell UFO incident , seen during the summer of 1947?
...that a
discharge petition can force a
bill to be considered by the
United States House of Representatives if the leadership tries to suppress it?
...that children as young as three were employed as
hurriers at
British
coal mines ?
...that
Šárka Záhrobská (
pictured ) was the first
Czech
alpine skier to win a medal in the
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships ?
...that
Robert Coleman , owner of several
iron furnaces , was
Pennsylvania 's first
millionaire ?
...that the
Vorontsovsky Palace in
Ukraine was designed by the
English
architect
Edward Blore ?
...that the
World War II
Italian submarine Cappellini was in all three major
Axis navies, before being captured by the
U.S. Navy ?
...that the
Australian
Test
cricketer
"Ranji" Hordern played for
Philadelphia while studying
dentistry at the
University of Pennsylvania ?
...that
Charles Grant of the
British East India Company wanted it to promote
Christianity as well as trade in
India ?
...that the
comic strip
Happy Hooligan by
Frederick Burr Opper is said to be the first comic to consistently use
speech balloons , and was the first North American comic to be adapted into a
movie ?
...that
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
American
college basketball player
Thaddeus Young (
pictured ) was a
McDonald's All-American and graduated
high school with a 4.3
grade point average ?
...that the three-day
S.S. California strike in 1936 triggered a wave of
strikes by
merchant seamen and led to the founding of the
National Maritime Union ?
...that the
Russian Fascist Party was at one point the most influential Russian emigre group in
Manchukuo ?
...that the
Grand Crimean Central Railway was built very rapidly in 1855 enabling heavy ammunition to be transported to the Allied troops to end the siege of
Sevastopol in the
Crimean War ?
...that the view that
Jesus and
John were
lovers , considered a blasphemy, evolved during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries?
...that Sir
Edwin Lutyens included a landscaped circular
depression in his design for the
Hooge Crater Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery (
pictured ) in
Flanders , to evoke the
mine craters that once surrounded it?
...that the
United States Department of Agriculture expects the
boll weevil to be eradicated by 2009 as a result of its
Boll Weevil Eradication Program ?
...that in
penny gaffs , theatrical entertainments enjoyed by the
working classes in
19th century
England , the plays were often brought to an end by a timekeeper, regardless of what point in the script the actors had reached?
...that
Nabisco 's
bakery in
Chicago Lawn was the biggest in the world when it opened in 1941?
...that the town of
Cheshire, Massachusetts created the
Cheshire Mammoth Cheese , a four-foot-wide
cheese wheel , to honor
Thomas Jefferson following his
Presidential electoral victory?
...that
poverty in France went down by 60% from 1970 to 2001, despite an increase in poverty among the workforce?
...that the term "
stay the course " was dropped by
United States President
George W. Bush two weeks before the
2006 midterm elections ?
...that the unusual configuration of the
running track at
Mike A. Myers Stadium in
Austin, Texas – 84
m straights and 118 m curves – has garnered it a reputation as one of the fastest tracks in the world?
...that after one group he founded was banned, the
neo-Nazi leader
Michael Kühnen began a policy of regularly starting up new organizations in order to confuse the authorities?
...that the
Broadway opening of the
musical
Wildcat had to be postponed, because the trucks hauling the sets and costumes to
New York were stranded as a result of a major
blizzard ?
...that from 1897 until his retirement in 1908,
American
cricketer
John Lester led the batting averages of the
Philadelphians ?
...that
English
theatre director
Steven Pimlott directed a wide variety of performances from popular
musicals , through
avant garde theatre and
Shakespeare , to
opera ?
...that
Cornwall Iron Furnace in
Pennsylvania is the only intact charcoal-burning iron
blast furnace on its original plantation in the
western hemisphere ?
...that the
Romanian
Union of Communist Youth underwent a total of four purges, which resulted in the expulsion of tens of thousands of members?
...that
Hurricane Able of
1951 was the strongest
hurricane to form outside of the
Atlantic hurricane
season ?
...that
Sulejman Talović , who went on a
shooting rampage at a
shopping mall in
Salt Lake City, Utah , was a
refugee from
Bosnia and Herzegovina ?
...that
Peter Böhler and other
Moravian followers founded the towns of
Bethlehem and
Nazareth, Pennsylvania ?
...that a
fluidized bed reactor can be used in the creation of
fuel ,
rubber ,
vinyl chloride ,
polyethylene , and
styrenes ?
...that
Wye Valley Brewery ’s Dorothy Goodbody line of beers were all originally supposed to feature
Herefordshire -grown
hops , but the best-known beer in that line contains hops grown in
Ireland ?
...that in
Islamic law , a
mukataba is a contract of
manumission according to which the slave buys his freedom from his master?
...that
Ishmael Beah , a former
child soldier from
Sierra Leone , was rescued by
UNICEF and has written about his ordeal and rehabilitation in his new book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier ?
...that
Beverley Baxter raised circulation of the
Daily Express from under one million to over two million during his four years as editor?
...that
Ice-minus bacteria , a variant of
genus
Pseudomonas , are useful in
agriculture , because they can prevent the formation of
ice on crops?
...that
Rembrandt collected the works of
Hercules Seghers (example pictured) and partially reworked two of his works?
...that
Ponary massacre lasted for 3 years as 100,000
Jews ,
Poles and
Russians were murdered by the
Nazis and their collaborators near
Vilnius ?
...that
Joseph Legros , who first performed in 1764, was the principal
tenor at the
Paris Opéra until his retirement in 1783?
...that Archbishop
Anthony Forbes Moreton Clavier was ordained as a priest by five different churches in five years?
...that
New York 's "
Timothy's Law " mandated that New York
health insurance plans provide coverage for biologically-based mental health conditions comparable to coverage for physical ailments?
...that
England 's
cricket selectors picked "
coloured "
Basil D'Oliveira to replaced the injured
Tom Cartwright for the tour to
South Africa in 1968-69, triggering the cancellation of the tour and leading to the exclusion of the
South African cricket team from international cricket until
apartheid was abolished in 1991?
...that
Eldon Hill (quarry pictured) in the
Peak District ,
England lost much of its area through
limestone quarrying between 1950 and 1999?
...that
Kazimierz Pelczar , a Polish professor of the
Stefan Batory University and pioneer of
oncological research, was one of the 100,000 victims of the
Ponary massacre ?
...that
M. Athalie Range was the first black since
Reconstruction and the first woman to head a state agency in
Florida ?
...that the
non-fiction book
Inside Scientology , published in 1972 by
Olympia Press , was the first to disclose secret
Scientology materials?
...that during the
100 point game ,
Philadelphia Warriors player
Wilt Chamberlain became the only player in history to score at least 100 points in a
National Basketball Association match?
...that
Thomas Vose Daily resigned his position as
Archbishop of Brooklyn one week after being criticized by the
Massachusetts attorney general in a report on the recent
Roman Catholic sex abuse cases ?
...that
American
college basketball player
Javaris Crittenton is projected by major media outlets such as
ESPN to be a potential first round draft pick in the
2007 NBA Draft ?
...that a
planning application for a 42-story building in the recent
New England Quarter development in
Brighton ,
England , was rejected on twenty separate counts, including the negative effect it would have on the local
microclimate ?
...that
Dallas Theological Seminary , a center of
dispensational
Christian theology and
alma mater for people including
Chuck Swindoll and
Hal Lindsey , has been in operation since
1924 ?
...that the
Mifflin Street Block Party , which attracted around 20,000 participants in
2005 , began as a street dance in protest against the
Vietnam War ?
...that archaeologists at the
El Manatí
Olmec site have not only found the earliest
rubber
balls yet discovered and the earliest wooden artifacts in
Mexico , but also the
skeletons ,
femurs , and crania of
human
infants ?
...that
Old Walton Bridge was the subject of a painting by
Canaletto in which he included an image of himself painting?
...that a
general contractor makes
submittals which are required by the
architect and
engineer for verification that correct products will be installed in a
construction project ?
...that the
1971
Harley-Davidson Super Glide , the first
factory custom motorcycle , used an
Electra Glide frame mated to
Sportster forks?
...that the
British Indian Association played a catalytic role in building up Indian political consciousness?
...that
Jamestown Rediscovery is an ongoing
archaeological project of the
APVA which discovered the long-lost remains of the first fort built by the settlers at
Jamestown in the
Virginia Colony ?
...that retired
Seventh United States Army General
Frederick Kroesen survived an
RPG-7
anti-tank rocket attack by the
Red Army Faction ?
...that the
Great Western Railway 's
Cornish Riviera Express (
pictured ) was named following a public competition in
The Railway Magazine ?
...that one method of
torture used by the
French Army in the
Algerian War of Independence was to throw prisoners into the sea from
helicopters in so-called
death flights ?
...that the
Bronx, New York , farmhouse which belonged to
Isaac Varian ,
mayor of New York City in 1839-41, currently houses the Museum of Bronx History?
...that
Brian Williams was one of three
Welsh farmers in the "farming"
front row at
Neath RFC ?
...that
Hawaii Route 560 was added to the
National Register of Historic Places in 2004 because of its historical character of one lane bridges?
...that
grape and raisin toxicity is a potential cause of
acute renal failure in
dogs ?
...that
Aaron Clark (
pictured ) was the only
Whig Party candidate ever elected
mayor of New York City ?
...that approximately 10,000 young
Germans known as the
Ritchie Boys served in the
United States Army in
World War II helping conduct
psychological warfare against
Nazi Germany ?
...that
Adelaide was the first city in
Australia to introduce
horse trams and the last to discard them for more modern public transport?
...that
Hurricane Sergio in
2006 was the strongest
Pacific hurricane in the month of
November on record?
...that
Blackadder Goes Forth , the final series of the
BBC
situation comedy
Blackadder , is noted for its sensitive depiction of
World War I
trench warfare and was placed 16th in the
100 Greatest British Television Programmes by the
British Film Institute ?
...that the
Australian
serial murder
Catherine Birnie ’s insanity is believed to have been caused by the death of her son?
...that
Isidore van Kinsbergen had to dig and to clean for four months before he could take the first picture of the
9th century
Indonesian
Buddhist monument of
Borobudur (
pictured ) in 1873 ?
...that the
San Bruno Creek
Trail provides a key link in the
San Francisco Bay perimeter trail, but a two mile detour inland is required?
...that the town of
Sayram in
Kazakhstan has earned the nickname "Little
Uzbekistan " because of its large Uzbek population?
...that
Lyman Reed Blake devised a
sewing machine for sewing the sole to the
vamp of the shoe?
...that
French
Major General
René Cogny , who later commanded French forces during the
First Indochina War , was captured in
June
1940 by the
German army, and had to escape by crawling naked through a drainpipe?
...that the Pianta Grande di Roma by
Giambattista Nolli of 1748 was still being used in urban planning in Rome down to the 1970s?
...that
Mooney Mooney Bridge (
pictured ) is the highest road bridge in the
southern hemisphere ?
...that besides founding
Phi Tau Sigma ,
Guy Livingston was also responsible for developing a
sanitation certification program for
foodservice managers that was later adopted by the federal, state, and local governments in the
United States ?
...that kissing the statue
Il Gobbo di Rialto marked the conclusion of a traditional
Venetian punishment in which petty criminals were forced to run naked through the streets from
Piazza San Marco ?
...that
New Zealand
rugby union player
Billy Stead co-authored The Complete Rugby Footballer while on
tour with the
All Blacks in 1905-6?
...that the
Frank and Ernest
comic strip first remarked that
Fred Astaire "was great, but don't forget that
Ginger Rogers did everything he did, ... backwards and in high heels," according to
The Yale Book of Quotations ?
...that
Pinchas Rosen ,
Israel 's first
Minister of Justice , served in the
German army during
World War I ?
...that the original
Act of Independence of Lithuania (
pictured ), signed on
February 16 ,
1918 , has been lost since the
Soviet Union invaded
Lithuania in 1940?
...that the
subtropical ridge helps steer
tropical cyclones ?
...that the
Old Admiralty House , a
national monument in
Singapore , was used by the
British Armed Forces for
strategic planning during
World War II ?
...that
robotic jockeys are used in
camel racing events in
Qatar in an effort to phase out the widespread use of
forced
child labor in the races?
...over 250,000 pieces of
15th century
Vietnamese
pottery were recovered from the
Hoi An Wreck over a four year period from 1996, at a cost of
USD 14 million?
...that
British
Postmaster General
Reginald Bevins ' s promise in November 1962 to "do something" about the
BBC programme
That Was The Week That Was was immediately countered by the
Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan ?