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

OCT 2013


Previous Archives

DATEFACT OF THE DAY
10/1/13     Ancient Roman spies used urine as invisible ink to write secrets between the lines of their official documents, hence the saying: "read between the lines." The messages appeared only when heated. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/2/13     At some point in their lives, about one in four Americans will experience depression. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/3/13     Google CEO Eric Schmidt created controversy when he told Google users that the future of the Web is headed toward complete transparence and no anonymity. He says that if Google looked at enough of a person's messaging and a person's location, it could predict where a person will go. Additionally, according to Schmidt, if a person has just 14 photos on the Internet, Google could accurately identify the person. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/4/13     At its height in A.D. 117, the Roman Empire stretched from Portugal in the West to Syria in the east, and from Britain in the North to the North African deserts across the Mediterranean. It covered 2.3 million miles (two-thirds the size of the U.S.) and had a population of 120 million people. During the Middle Ages, Rome had perhaps no more than 13,000 residents. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/5/13     There are three kinds of moon rocks: basalt (dark), anorthosite (light), and breccia (a mixture of several rocks). These types of rocks are also found on Earth. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/6/13     Some Siamese cats appear cross-eyed because the nerves from the left side of the brain go to mostly the right eye and the nerves from the right side of the brain go mostly to the left eye. This causes some double vision, which the cat tries to correct by "crossing" its eyes. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/7/13     The biggest fish in the world is the giant whale shark, which can grow to nearly 60 feet, or the length of two school buses. It weighs over 25 tons and eats mainly plankton. It has over 4,000 teeth, though they are only 3 mm long. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/8/13     Sixty-seven percent of women lose sleep during their menstrual cycle each month. This is mostly due to a rapid drop in the hormone progesterone, which has sedative-type qualities. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/9/13     If a person yelled for 8 years, 7 months, and 6 days, he or she would produce enough energy to heat one cup of coffee. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/10/13     Studies show that 50-70% of doctor visits can be traced to psychological reasons. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/11/13     Nearly $72 billion is spent on weddings every year in the United States. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/12/13     The curve of the counter in a bar is designed so other customers can easily "check out" other customers. Bars also purposely place mirrors to help create a larger sense of place and to allow a person to scope out other people behind them. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/13/13     The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reports that only 30-40% of anorexics ever fully recover. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/14/13     Historians speculate that as the Chinese population grew, people had to conserve cooking fuel by chopping food into small pieces so that it could cook faster. These bite-sized foods eliminated the need for knives and, hence, chopsticks were invented. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/15/13     The Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's first written story, narrates the adventures of a legendary king who fought to preserve an ancient Iraqi city. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/16/13     Tsunamis can poison fresh-water surface and groundwater systems as well as soil by leaving large amounts of salt behind. Consequently, thousands of people can die of starvation and disease long after the tsunami is gone. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/17/13     Of all Americans with unhealthy levels of cholesterol, 1 in 7 have what is considered "high" cholesterol, or levels that put them at nearly twice the risk of developing heart disease. "High" cholesterol is defined as 240 mg. per deciliter (mg/dL) and above. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/18/13     Individuals with diabetes are more likely to die from a heart attack than those who don't have diabetes. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/19/13     The largest Hollywood film set ever built was the 1312' x 754' Roman Forum for the Hollywood epic The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/20/13     Neurological complications occur in at least 70% of patients who are diagnosed with AIDS. At autopsy, 80-90% have neurological abnormalities. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/21/13     State laws commonly use two different acronyms to describe drunken or impaired driving - DWI and DUI. DWI stands for "driving while intoxicated" and typically refers only to alcohol impairment, while DUI stands for "driving under the influence" and can refer to either alcohol or drugs. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/22/13     Saturn's ring system is very wide, spreading out over a distance of 175,000 miles (282,000 km.). If you traveled that distance from Earth, you would be more than halfway to the moon. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/23/13     If someone held cholesterol in his hand, it would look like a waxy substance that had been scraped from a whitish-yellow candle. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/24/13     Approximately 56% of boy babies born in the U.S. are circumcised at birth, representing a decline of 20% since 1950. Worldwide, approximately one-third of men have been circumcised. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/25/13     President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) is the only president to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms. He was the 22nd and 24th president. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/26/13     Archaeologists found grape pips (seeds), usually considered evidence of winemaking, dating from 8000 B.C. in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. The oldest pips of cultivated vines were found in (then Soviet) Georgia from 7000-5000 B.C. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/27/13     Arabic (in various dialects) is the most common language spoken in Africa with about 170 million speakers, primarily residing in North Africa. In the continent as a whole, there are over 2,000 recognized languages spoken. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/28/13     French anthropologist and ethnologist Claude Levi-Strauss argues that people smoking tobacco together reinforces personal relationships and often serves as a type of social initiation. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/29/13     In 1978, President Jimmy Carter, the first Southerner elected to the presidency following the Civil War, restored U.S. citizenship to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/30/13     Nitrites are chemical additives used to preserve and add flavoring to most lunch meats, including cold cuts and hot dogs. Once in the body, they react with body chemicals and turn into cancer-causing carcinogens. Americans eat more than 20 billion hot dogs per year. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/31/13     In the United States, June is the most popular month for weddings, followed by August. - Provided by RandomHistory.com


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