The December 1946 issue of "Arizona Highways" was the first all-color issue of a nationally circulated magazine in the United States.
In the marriage ceremony of the ancient Incas, the couple was considered officially wed when they took off their sandals and handed them to each other.
The democratic custom of shaking hands instead of bowing at White House receptions was initiated in the Blue Room by Thomas Jefferson early in his first term as U.S. president.
In the Middle Ages, the wearing of fur became so widespread, its use was forbidden to all but nobility. Even today ermine is used in regal coronation robes.
The Directors Guild of America initiated a strike on July 14, 1987 in Hollywood, California, against Warner Brothers and Columbia Pictures at 6:00 a.m. Just five minutes later, at 6:05 a.m. that same day, a film and television contract of agreement was reached. It was the shortest strike in Hollywood history.
In the Netherlands, the Begijnhof is an enclosed courtyard dating from the early fourteenth century. Hidden behind the frantic Spui shopping strip, it is an anachronistic oasis of tranquility, with tiny houses surrounding a pristine courtyard. The Begijnhof was formerly a convent inhabited by the Beguines, a Catholic order of unmarried or widowed women from wealthy families who cared for the elderly and lived a religious life without taking monastic vows. The last true Beguines died in the 1970s. One of the houses at the Begijnhof dates from 1465, making it the oldest maintained wooden house in the country
The earliest known photograph of the star-spangled banner was made at the Boston Navy Yard in 1873.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Europe went wild for costly lace. Intricate needle- and bobbin-made laces were used to trim bed linen and clothing, including undergarments. The more lace you possessed, the more fashionable you were. As the seventeenth century progressed, the appetite for lace was out of control. Laces became more covetable if they came for other countries. Because of the high customs duties and trade restrictions imposed, there was much smuggling of the most desirable Belgian and Venetian laces into France, Spain, and England. Smuggling between Flanders and France was easier than smuggling into England. It was known for a dog to be wrapped like a mummy in lace, then dressed in a false furlike coat, taken to the border and released, to be collected on the other side. The major danger with this scheme was losing the dog.
The expression "the whole nine yards" comes from WWII aircraft whose ammunition belts were 27 feet long. When you used your entire ammo belt on a target, you exhausted "the whole nine yards."
In the tenth century, the Grand Vizier of Persia took his entire library with him wherever he went. The 117,000-volume library was carried by camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.
In the winter of 1724, while on an outing at sea, Peter the Great of Russia caught sight of a foundering ship, jumped in the water, and helped in the rescue. He caught cold, suffered from a high fever, and died several weeks later.
During World War II, the U.S. Navy's world champion chess player, Reuben Fine, calculated, on the basis of positional probability, where enemy submarines might surface.
Early guns took so long to load and fire that bows and arrows — in trained hands — were twelve times more efficient.
England's first great industry was wool. Its export had become the nation's largest source of income by the late Middle Ages.
English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is indirectly responsible for the presence of starlings in North America. The species did not exist there until, in the 1890s, a wealthy New Yorker named Eugene Scheifflin released 100 birds in the city’s Central Park as part of a project to bring to the United States all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s works.
Every queen named Jane has either been murdered, imprisoned, gone mad, died young, or been dethroned.
Every year, Bavarians and their guests drink 1.2 million gallons of beer during Oktoberfest. The first Oktoberfest was in 1810 and celebrated the marriage of King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
Fashion in the U.S. during the late 1950s had interesting restrictions. Women's trousers usually had side fastenings, as front zippers for women were considered "naughty."
Fighting alongside Americans and British during the D-Day invasion of 1944 were 15,000 Canadians. And it was the Canadian troops who were the first to reach their planned objective.
Fighting alongside Americans and British during the D-Day invasion of 1944 were 15,000 Canadians. And it was the Canadian troops who were the first to reach their planned objective.
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