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FACT-OF-THE-DAY ARCHIVE
"Our life is what our thoughts make it."
- Marcus Aurelius

JAN 2011


Previous Archives

DATEFACT OF THE DAY
1/1/11     If you attempted to count the stars in a galaxy at a rate of one every second, it would take about 3,000 years to complete the task. - Provided by Reference.com
1/2/11     Other than France, Great Britain, and the United States, most of the world remained unmapped until the advent of accurate aerial photography in World War II. - Provided by Reference.com
1/3/11     Mammals are the singlemost adaptable class of animals (except for the less complex insects and arachnids) due to their ability to regulate their body temperatures and internal environment in weather extremes.- Provided by Reference.com
1/4/11     The tides along the Maine Coast are among the strongest in the world - along a total of 3,500 miles .- Provided by Reference.com
1/5/11     New Orleans is roughly on the same parallel as Cairo, New Delhi, and Shanghai. - Provided by Reference.com
1/6/11     Officially, El Pueblo de la Reyna de Los Angeles, the city of Los Angeles first remained isolated from the rest of the U.S. from 1769 to around 1850. - Provided by Reference.com
1/7/11     A camel can drink 25 gallons of water in 5-10 minutes. Cattle could not tolerate such a sudden dilution of the blood because their red blood cells would burst under the osmotic stress. - Provided by Reference.com
1/8/11     Like waterwheels, windmills were among the original prime movers that replaced human beings as a source of power; the earliest known reference to windmills date to c 900 AD Persia. Persian millwrights were taken prisoner by the forces of Genghis Khan and sent to China to instruct in the building of windmills. - Provided by Reference.com
1/9/11     Limes exceed lemons in both acid and sugar content. - Provided by Reference.com
1/10/11     Greek has the longest-documented history of any Indo-European language - from the 14th century BC. - Provided by Reference.com
1/11/11     Fruit produced without fertilization includes seedless oranges and grapes, the banana, and the cucumber. - Provided by Reference.com
1/12/11     Scientists estimate the earth is about 4.5 billions years old and first began to support life forms approximately 3.7 billion years ago. - Provided by Reference.com
1/13/11     An ounce (28 g) of gold can be beaten out to 187 square feet in extremely thin sheets called gold leaf. - Provided by Reference.com
1/14/11     Surfing originated in ancient Hawaii and there are 1600 recognized surf spots throughout the Hawaiian islands and 25 miles of public beach. - Provided by Reference.com
1/15/11     Horses were reintroduced to the New World about 10,000 years after wild horses became extinct there. - Provided by Reference.com
1/16/11     The human body consists of more than 75 trillion cells - each capable of growth, metabolism, response to stimuli, and (with some exceptions) reproduction. - Provided by Reference.com
1/17/11     To to a proper place setting: large dinner fork to the left of the napkin, smaller salad fork to the left of the dinner fork, knife to the right with the cutting edge toward the plate, small spoon to the right of the knife, and soup spoon to the right of the small spoon. - Provided by Reference.com
1/18/11     It took 46 years to wire 30 percent of the U.S. for electricity; it took only 7 years for the Internet to reach that level of connectivity to U.S. homes. - Provided by Reference.com
1/19/11     Before the latter part of the 19th century, most journalists learned their craft as apprentices; the first university course in journalism was given at the University of Missouri (1879). - Provided by Reference.com
1/20/11     Kansas is the geographic center of the 48 states - marked in a pasture in Lebanon, by the Nebraska border. Forty miles away is the magnetic/geodetic center of North America - the reference point for all land survey in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.- Provided by Reference.com
1/21/11     Karate was not systematized and spread until the 17th century and was imported to Japan in the 1920s. A karate match lasts about three minutes. - Provided by Reference.com
1/22/11     The diversity of microscopic organisms in the ocean is actually 10 to 100 times greater than previously estimated. A single liter of seawater may contain more than 20,000 kinds of microorganisms. - Provided by Reference.com
1/23/11     Growth has made Las Vegas one of the wealthiest cities in the country, but it has also brought problems to the area. Las Vegas is among the country's leaders in personal and property crimes, as well as suicide rates, alcohol consumption, and illegal drug use. - Provided by Reference.com
1/24/11     There are only two umpire schools accredited by The Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation, both of which are located in Florida. Out of the approximately 300 graduates, only the top 25 from each school are selected to attend an evaluation course. If you're one of the chosen few, you'll spend several years working your way up to the highest minor league level, Class AAA, from which MLB scouts for umpires. It takes an average of 8-12 years to work your way up to Triple-A. - Provided by Reference.com
1/25/11     U.S. football evolved in the 19th century as a combination of rugby and soccer - with the first college game in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton though quite different from the modern game. - Provided by Reference.com
1/26/11     With the exception of Hawaii, Florida is the southernmost state and its northernmost point is 100 miles farther south than California's southern border. - Provided by Reference.com
1/27/11     Flags are thought to be the invention of China or India. The first "national" flags in Europe didn't appear until the Middle Ages and Renaissance. - Provided by Reference.com
1/28/11     The human foot cannot grasp and is adapted for locomotion. Striding is a step unique to humans - allowing them to cover great distances with minimal energy expenditure. - Provided by Reference.com
1/29/11     An elephant's trunk is extremely complex and sensitive, capable of performing delicate functions like picking up a coin from a flat surface or cracking open a peanut, blowing away the shell, and putting the kernel in its mouth. - Provided by Reference.com
1/30/11     Electricity is a fundamental property of matter borne by elementary particles (electrons) - the manifestations of electricity being the result of the accumulation or motion of numbers of electrons. - Provided by Reference.com
1/31/11     The human ear is most sensitive to frequencies of 1000-4000 hertz, though young ears can hear 20-20,000 hertz. - Provided by Reference.com


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