Serving Whitman County since 1877

Strange But True: March 28, 2019

* It was 20th-century French air force brigadier general and geopolitician -- and bearer of the nickname "father of the French atom bomb" -- Pierre Marie Gallois who made the following sage observation: "If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no one dares criticize it."

* Fashion historians claim that England's Queen Elizabeth I owned 3,000 of the elaborate dresses popular during her time.

* The Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt is so large that its base would cover 10 football fields.

* Without a bottle opener, a drunk homeless man in Belgrade, Serbia, was at a loss as to how to open his beer. So he hit upon the bright idea of using a hand grenade to pop the top. A live hand grenade, as it turned out. He popped his own top as well, dying in the incident. It's not known how he got the grenade to begin with.

* Human skin is about 70 percent water, and the human brain is 80 percent water.

* At 140,000 square miles, the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, located (unsurprisingly) in Hawaii, is larger than all the other U.S. national parks put together.

* Those who study such things say that the European starling is one of the world's great mimics. They have the ability to imitate a surprisingly wide variety of sounds, including a dog's bark, a cat's meow, a cow's moo, the songs of 50 other bird species, the drumming of a woodpecker and a ringing telephone.

Thought for the Day

"The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything."

--Walter Bagehot

(c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.

 

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