What Was the Longest Letter Ever Written?
The record for the longest letter was established in 1952, during the Korean War.
A lady in Brooklyn, New York, wrote to her boyfriend, a private in the U.S. Army, serving in Korea.
Instead of using regular writing paper, this ingenious lady used the narrow tape that is found on adding machines, 3,200 feet of it! The letter took her one month to write.
What Was the Shortest Letter Ever Written?
For the record of the world's shortest letter, we have to travel back to 1862 in France. The noted writer Victor Hugo had just completed his latest novel, Les Miserables, and had gone away on a vacation. But he was most anxious to learn how the book was selling, so he wrote the following letter to his publisher:
“?”
The publisher was just as imaginative as Hugo and must share the record with him for the world's shortest letter, for his reply to the writer was:
“!”
A reply that obviously made Hugo very happy.
What is also fascinating is that Victor Hugo is credited with writing the longest sentence ever to appear in a novel, in that very same Les Miserables. That sentence contains 823 words, 93 commas, 51 semicolons, and 4 dashes, and fills up almost 3 pages before a period appears!
Why Do You Cup Your Hands Around Your Mouth To Call Someone Far Away?
When you speak or shout or sing or even whisper, the vibrations of your voice send sound waves through the air.
These sound waves travel out from your mouth in all directions, out straight, to the right, to the left, and to all the places in between.
But when you cup your hands around your mouth, you are pointing the sound waves in only one direction and keeping them from spreading out in all the others.
By doing this, you are giving your sound waves more energy and making them louder and stronger.
Why Do We Have Leap Year?
Even though we call 365 days a year, the earth does not revolve around the sun in 365 days. Rather, it takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to do this.
The extra time is made up by adding one extra day to the end of February every four years, EXCEPT in those years which can be divided evenly by 100. Then that extra day is NOT added. However, in years divisible by 400, that extra day IS added.
What that means is simply this, the years 1200, 1600, and 2000 are divisible by 400, so they have the extra day added, making them Leap Years. However, 1300, 1400, 1500, 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not divisible by 400, so they were not Leap Years.
Can Lie Detectors Really Detect Lies?
Lie detectors cannot actually identify lies; all they can do is detect certain activities of a person's body that are usually associated with lying: abnormal perspiration and flushing of the face, rapid breathing, increased heartbeat, and excessive swallowing.
Because this method does not actually guarantee the truth, the results are not generally accepted as evidence in court.
Although each of the body changes, alone, does not necessarily indicate a lie, when put together, they can provide an indication of one.
When a person is given a lie detector test, various parts of the machine are attached to his body, and a written record is made of his answers. Usually, three or four tests are given to be sure that the answers were not accidental.
Yet, amazingly enough, a lie detector can be fooled! There are some people who are truly unaware that they are lying. These people cannot be caught by a lie detector.
Why Do People Wear Lucky Charms?
Since the time of the ancient Egyptians, people have worn charms, or talismans, for two reasons, to ward off evil or disease, and to bring good fortune.
Not only were these charms worn by living Egyptians, but they were also placed inside the coffins of mummies to assure them a happy afterlife.
Among the most popular talismans around the world are the Egyptian ankh, a life symbol, the Chinese shy-ching, an ancient engraving, and the African elephant hair ring.
Some well known American charms are horseshoes, rabbits' feet, and four-leafed clovers.
Why Do Cannibals Eat People?
To civilized people, the practice of cannibalism, or eating human flesh, is a horrible thought! Yet it was practiced by many primitive tribes and may still be practiced in some parts of the world today.
These tribes didn't eat human flesh because they liked it; they did it because it was usually part of a religious observance or part of a sacred ceremony.
Ancient tribes of India ate their parents as a sign of respect and honor. Many primitive people believed that they could acquire the traits of people they admired or respected by eating them, just as they ate lions to become lionhearted; deer, so they could run fast; and foxes, to be cunning.
Nobody is certain how many cannibal tribes exist today. Some say none; others say that there are still several tribes on the South Pacific island of New Guinea practicing cannibalism.
The rarest disease in the world, called Kuru, or laughing sickness, affects only the cannibals of New Guinea and is believed to be caused by eating human brains!
What Is the Most Popular Board Game Played?
The real-estate game of Monopoly is the all-time best-seller among board games. Since it was introduced in 1935 and up through 1974, more than 80,000,000 sets have been sold!
The company that manufactures the game, Parker Brothers, prints $18,500,000,000,000 (181/4 trillion dollars) worth of play money for Monopoly every year. This is more than the total of real money printed in the entire world.
Why Do You Hear the Ocean Roar in a Seashell?
Have you ever picked up a large shell on the beach and held it to your ear? If so, you were probably amazed to hear sounds, like the roar of the ocean, reach your ear from inside the shell.
But how could that be? Well, it can't! This is simply an exciting idea created perhaps by someone with a vivid imagination. However, there is a perfectly logical scientific explanation for it.
The sounds you hear in a seashell are the exact same sounds that are always being made around you, although some may be so low that either you don't hear them or you don't pay attention to them.
However, when you put a seashell to your ear, something happens to those sounds. Inside the shell is a hollow, or "empty," area. This hollow area works like the hollow body of a guitar, to amplify sounds, or make them louder.
So the seashell's hollow body is actually picking up all the little noises around you and amplifying them, so that together they make the sounds that make you think of the ocean's roar.
Why Does the Leaning Tower of Pisa Lean?
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a marble bell tower at Pisa, Italy. Even though the tower has been leaning since it was under construction, it has stood for hundreds of years, despite the fact that it looks as if it might fall any minute.
The tower was begun over 800 years ago, in 1173, and after the first three of its eight stories were built, the ground started to sink, and the tower began to lean. It has continued leaning, a millimeter each year, and now leans 14 feet out of line.
Still, the lean does not stop thousands of tourists each year from climbing its 300 winding steps to the bell tower to view Pisa and the surrounding countryside.
Why Did People Put Gargoyles on Buildings?
Gargoyles are weird stone figures which are half human and half animal or half bird. They sit on edges of roofs of many old cathedrals, palaces, and other buildings. But these frightening figures are not there to frighten away passers-by; they serve a very useful purpose.
Gargoyles are actually waterspouts to catch the rain as it flows off the roof. This water is piped into the mouths of the gargoyles and is emptied into the street, instead of dripping down the sides of the building and damaging it.
Stoneworkers who created these gargoyles in medieval times are said to have represented their friends in the grotesque forms of these gargoyles.
Some people believe that gargoyles were named from the French word gargouiller, which means "to gargle." Perhaps this is true, since people do make strange and even grotesque faces when they gargle water in their throats.
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