1. In the mid-19th century, ‘hobbit’ (or ‘hobbet’) meant a seed basket or a measure of 2.5 bushels. 2. When Tolkien re-invented the word, he said it meant ‘hole-builder’ or ‘hole-dweller’. 3. ‘Hobbit’ is also the nickname given to the extinct race of dwarf humans, Homo floresiensis, found on the […]
10 Facts
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1. Mayfair and Park Lane in the traditional Monopoly have been transformed into tyrannosaurus and allosaurus… 2. …and the Chance and Community Chest cards are Excavation and Laboratory. 3. Dinosaurs lived on Earth for about 165 million years from 230 million BC to 65 million BC. 4. The word “dinosaur” […]
1. The date of September 19 for Talk Like A Pirate Day was chosen by co-founder Mark Summers as it was his ex-wife’s birthday. 2. The first documented pirates were a group called the Sea Peoples who attacked seafarers in the Aegean and Mediterranean regions. 3. Julius Caesar was once […]
1. The event commemorates the Bombay Bicycle Club which delivered food on penny farthings in 19th-century Bombay. 2. The name “penny-farthing” came from the sizes of the two wheels. Diameters varied but a typical example had 53-inch front and 18-inch rear wheel. 3. Before penny-farthings were invented, bicycles were called […]
1. The word “detective” for a crime-solver, was first used in 1843. 2. The first known use of the phrase “detective story” was in 1883 in the title of a crime story by the American author Anna Katharine Green. 3. The first literary detective was probably C Auguste Dupin in […]
1. The Russians called the date September 1 because they were still using the Julian Calendar. They adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1918. 2. For the same reason, they call the Russian Revolution the “October Revolution” though it began on November 7 by the modern calendar. 3. The Russian Empire […]
1. In the Second World War, Dahl was a fighter pilot and a spy, working alongside Ian Fleming. 2. He later wrote the screenplays for Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and You Only Live Twice. 3. Dahl’s parents were Norwegian immigrants. His first language during childhood was Norwegian. 4. The […]
1. There are five categories of hurricane, from category 1 (74-95mph) to category 5 (over 155mph). 2. The National Hurricane Center began giving female names to storms in 1953. Since 1978, male and female names have alternated. 3. The deadliest US hurricane was a storm that hit Galveston, Texas in […]