The Pattern Still Remains

A boomerang cannot return to the thrower after hitting anything.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

A contrivance as simple as the envelope did not come into use until 1839. Up until then, people usually folded their letters both ways, sealed them with wax, and wrote the address on the back.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

The plant life of the oceans makes up about 85 percent of all the greenery on the planet.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

The Romans’ milia (“thousands”) as come down to us as “mile.” A milia was the distance covered by 1,000 paces of a marching legionnaire.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

Paper was invented in China about 105 A.D., by Ts’ai Lun, a eunuch - the only eunuch of importance in the history of technology.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic that, more than a hundred miles at sea, off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean and drink it.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

The female pigeon cannot lay eggs if she is alone. In order for her ovaries to function, she must be able to see another pigeon. If no other pigeon is available, her own reflection in a mirror will suffice.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

The founding fathers of the United States encouraged the making and drinking of beer and ale as temperance beverages, preferable to hard liquor. To aid the establishment and growth of breweries in America, James Madison urged the first Congress to place a heavy tax on imported beer.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

The Nile has frozen over at least twice, in 829 A.D. and in 1010.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

Henry Ford shocked his fellow capitalists by more than doubling the daily wage of most of his workers in 1914, eleven years after he established the first automobile factory. He knew what he was doing. The buying power of his workers was increased, and their raised consumption stimulated buying elsewhere. Ford called it the “wage motive.”

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

February originally had twenty-nine days every year. In 8 B.C., the Roman Emperor Augustus renamed the thirty-day month of Sextilis, giving it the name of August to honor himself. He took a day from February so that his month would have as many days as July, which had been named for Julius Caesar.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

The Egyptians were crippling their own economy when they buried quantities of gold and silver with their dead leaders for, presumably, their leaders’ use in afterlife.  Grave robbers, whatever their motives, served to keep the wheels of Egyptian society turning by restoring the gold and silver to circulation.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.

Spanish soldiers in Francisco Pizarro’s expedition to Peru, in 1532, found emeralds as large as pigeon eggs. In the mistaken belief that true emeralds could not be broken, they pounded their finds with hammers and decided, when the stones shattered, that all they had found was colored glass.

Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.