Interesting Facts about Alan Turing .........

Here are some facts about Alan Turing.......

Alan Turing was a logician, mathematician and computer scientist. He is generally known for his work in artificial intelligence and computer science.

Turing was born in London in 1912, and at school was able to solve complex problems without having been taught them.

Once he cycled almost 100 km from his home to school as the General Strike was on.

In 1936, he came up with the idea of a machine that was able to compute anything that could be computed. This was known as the Turing Machine and led to the modern computer.

During World War 2, Turing worked at Bletchley Park and was involved in breaking the German Enigma Machine codes.

Turing often ran 60 km to London for meetings, and he liked to chain his coffee mug to a radiator at Bletchley Park to stop other people using it.

During the late 1940s he worked in the University of Manchester in mathematics and computing. His experiment, the Turing test tried to devise an intelligence standard for technology.

In 1948 he wrote a chess programme for a computer that had yet to be invented. He also published several important papers on mathematical biology.

He worked on standards for machines to be called intelligent. The same principle is used today in online CAPTCHA tests, which determine whether a user is a person or a machine.

Turing committed suicide in 1954, by eating an apple containing cyanide. He was fascinated with the Disney cartoon version of Snow White which features a similar idea.

Alan Turing has been named as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. A Manchester road is named for him, as are many colleges, and there is an Alan Turing version of Monopoly.

There is a statue of Turing in Whitworth Gardens, Manchester. In 2012, the Olympic flame was passed from one person to another in front of the statue, on what would have been his 100th birthday.

55 Interesting Facts About . . .The Human Mind

1. The mind is typically defined as the organized totality or system of all mental processes or psychic activities of an individual.
2. Many philosophers hold that the brain is a detector of the mind and that the mind is an inner, subjective state of consciousness.
3. Philosophers have used a variety of metaphors to describe the mind, including a blank sheet, a hydraulic device with different forces operating in it, or a television switchboard.
4. Attempts to understand the mind go back at least to the ancient Greeks. Plato, for example, believed that the mind acquired knowledge through virtue, independently of sense experience. Descartes and Leibniz also believed the mind gained knowledge through thinking and reasoning—or, in other words, rationalism.
5. In contrast to rationalists, empiricists, such as Aristotle, John Locke, and David Hume, believe that the mind gains knowledge from experience.
6. Combining both rationalism and empiricism, Kant argued that human knowledge depends on both sense experience and innate capacities of the mind.
7. Scientists are unsure if other types of animals have a mind or if some man-made machines could ever possess a mind.
8. Historically, there have been three major schools of thought that describe the relationship of the brain and the mind: 1) dualism, which holds that the mind exists independently from the brain; 2) materialism, which argues that the mind is identical to the physical processes of the brain; and 3) idealism, which posits that only mental phenomena exist.
9. Scientists propose that the human mind evolved largely through the sexual choices our ancestors made, similar to the way a peacock’s tail evolved through sexual selection.
10. In one study, a group of experimenters were given unlabeled samples of both Pepsi and Coke. Not a single tester could tell the difference between the two. The test was repeated with the correct labels attached. Three out of the four testers chose Coke. In fact, the Coke label activated parts of the brain associated with the mind (memory, self-image, and culture) that the Pepsi label didn’t.
11. Most scientists argue that there is no evidence that playing classical music to babies increases the power of their mind. However, children who learn to play a musical instrument can develop their mental skills further than those who don’t learn a musical instrument.
12. Early-life stress negatively affects the mind. Abuse, neglect, and harsh or inconsistent discipline in early life increases the risk of depression and anxiety as well as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.
13. The term “mind” is from the Old English gemynd, or “memory,” and the Proto-Indo-European verbal root *men-, meaning “to think, remember.” The use of “mind” to refer to all mental faculties, thought, feelings, memory, and volition developed gradually over the 14th and 15th centuries.
14. The NSF estimates that a human brain produces as many as 12,000 to 50,000 thoughts per day, depending on how deep a thinker a person is. Most of the so-called random daily thoughts are about our social environment and ourselves.
15. Buddha described the mind as being filled with drunken monkeys who jumped, screeched, and chatted endlessly. Fear, according to Buddha, was an especially loud monkey. Buddha taught meditation as a way to tame the “drunken monkeys” in the mind.
16. A group of scientists from Cal Tech and UCLA have developed a way for epilepsy patients who have had electrodes implanted inside their brains to control a computer mouse with their minds.
17. The Stanford Prison Experiment is an infamous experiment that took average people and randomly assigned them to be either guards or prisoners. After a few days, the prisoners and guards became grossly absorbed in their roles. The experiment revealed how readily the human mind accepts authority and institutional ideologies.
18. A single descriptive word can manipulate how the mind remembers an event. For example, in a 1974 experiment, 45 people watched the film of a car accident. Different groups of people were asked how fast the cars were going using different trigger words, such as “hit,” “smashed,” “collided,” bumped,” and “contacted.” The group whose question included the word “smashed” estimated the cars were going 10 mph faster than the group whose word was “contacted.” A week later, when participants were asked about broken glass, those who were asked more forceful trigger words reported that there was broken glass even though there was none.
19. Studies show that people are able to group items in short-term memory into roughly seven units that allow them to hold more individual items. Interestingly, many human belief systems have considered the number 7 to be a sacred number.
20. In 1938, Orson Wells broadcasted an adaption of H.G. Wells’ War of the World on the radio. The broadcast caused mass panic in nearly 3 million of the 6 million listeners. Psychologists note that even highly educated people believed it because it was on the radio and thus “authoritative.” They also note that media manipulation of our minds is a regular art form.
21. Psychologists have noted that in the mind of suicidal people, time seemed to move significantly slower. The suicidal mind also had a more difficult time thinking about the future. Researchers suggest this helped the person withdraw from thinking about past failures and what was perceived as a hopeless future.
22. The mind of a suicidal person tends to focus increasingly on concrete thought, which is often conveyed in suicide notes. For example, suicide notes tend to be more banal and specific, such as “Don’t forget to feed the cat.” Fake suicide notes, however, tend to include more contemplative language, such as “Always be happy.” Psychologists note the suicidal mind is trying to slip into idle mental labor to avoid unpleasant emotions.
23. Some scientists believe that there may be universal features of the human mind that make it easier for people to believe in a higher power. In fact, brain scans of Franciscan nuns, Tibetan Buddhists, and Pentecostal Christians showed similar activity in their brains during prayer and meditation. Interestingly, both believers and atheists point to brain scans as proof of their positions.
24. The conscious mind includes sensations, perceptions, memories, feelings, and fantasies inside of our current awareness. The preconscious mind includes those thoughts that we are thinking at the moment but can easily draw into our conscious mind. The subconscious mind is the psychic activity that operates below the level of awareness.
25. Studies show that people clean up more if there is a faint smell of cleaning liquid in the air, they become more competitive if they see a briefcase, and they become more cooperative if they glimpse words like “dependable”—all without being aware of the change or what triggered it. Scientists note that this shows how everyday sights, smells, and sounds, can activate the subconscious mind.
26. Mind control is the unethical use of manipulative techniques to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator. It was first recorded during the Korean War.
27. During the famous Milgram Experiment (1961), 65% of volunteers gave what they thought was a fatal dose of electric shock to someone when told to do so, even though less than 1% said they would in a pre-experiment survey. The study showed that the human mind does not necessarily operate based on personality but rather on the roles we are asked to play to make society move smoothly.
28. The CIA reportedly created a project called Project MK-ULTRA to experiment with mind control using LSD. They even tried to use the drug as a way to completely wipe the memories of retiring CIA agents.
29. One of the crueler mind experiments was conducted by psychologist Harry Harlow who studied severe maternal deprivation. He separated a baby monkey from its mother and raised it in a cage with two substitute mothers. One mother was made from wire and had a bottle. The other mother was made from cloth, but didn’t have a bottle. As soon the infant finished nursing, it would cling to the cloth monkey. When the experimenters introduced frightening stimulus into the cage, the monkeys ran to the cloth monkey for protection. The monkeys grew up with severe emotional and behavioral problems.
30. Scientists believe that the mind forgets in order to avoid information overload, to think more quickly, assimilate new information easier, and to avoid emotional hangovers.
31. Solomon Shereshevsky was a Russian journalist who couldn’t forget. He suffered from synesthesia, a phenomenon in which one sense (for example, vision) stimulates another sense (such as hearing). Solomon’s extreme synesthesia led him to taste, smell, and see vivid images in conjunction with numbers and sounds. Because a single word could trigger a flood of memories and associations, he had a difficult time reading a book or having a simple conversation.
32. The human mind has a difficult time differentiating the innate from the environmental. In other words, if the mind is used to interpreting the world a certain way, it expects that the world is that way naturally and unalterably. For example, for many people, the color pink is naturally feminine and blue is naturally male. However, in the 1920s, parents dressed boys in pink because it was a watered down version of red, which was seen as masculine and fierce. Girls were dressed in pale blue because it was associated with the Virgin Mary.
33. In 1965, a botched circumcision burned away David Reimer’s entire penis. Doctors decided to raise him as a girl, and removed his testicles and fashioned female genitalia. His parents changed his name to Brenda. He finally learned at age 14 that he was a boy, and later committed suicide at age 38. He reported that what they did to his body was not as bad as what they did to his mind.
34. More than 100 studies show that about half of crime is largely under genetic control. Environmental factors such as parenting, poverty, and discrimination account for the other half. In other words, nature and nurture are both important in developing the mind.
35. When the mind recalls a memory, it’s not the original memory. In fact, the act of remembering is an act of creative reimagination. The put-together memory doesn’t just have a few holes; it also has some entirely new bits pasted in.
36. Research has proven how easy it is to create false memories through the force of suggestion. Psychologists found that if they repeated questions (e.g. hugging Bugs Bunny at Disney World—an impossibility) and invited the mind to imagine sensory detail (do you remember stroking Bugs Bunny’s velvety ears), a person would begin to believe it was an actual event.
37. The mind can practice new tasks, such as learning a new piece of music during REM sleep. REM sleep also appears to boost performance with tasks involving procedural memory, or the subconscious “how-to” knowledge that a person uses when walking, riding a bike, or performing most physical tasks.
38. Most people assume that our conscious mind continues until the end of day and then picks up after we wake up. Scientists argue, however, that dreaming is a phenomenon that’s just as visceral and immediate as consciousness is and that since we spend roughly 20 years asleep, dreams should be considered an alternate reality.
39. Advertisers use mind illusions to make their products more appealing. For example, they produce condiment bottles with long necks because the mind is better at judging size than volume. Bottles of maple syrup are narrow at the base but bulge in the middle because that is where a person is most likely to look.
40. The moon appears to be much larger than usual when it’s low in the sky because the mind interprets the size of the moon in relation to distant objects and the horizon. But when the moon is high in the sky, the mind has no such frame of reference, and so the moon appears smaller.
41. Scientists note that the mind is a giant pattern-making machine. It invents shapes and identifiable things to explain odd patterns in arrangements. The mind can also block out things it wants to ignore, such as the tactile sensation of clothes rubbing on a person’s skin or a person’s own body odor.
42. The mind’s power of expectation can blind people to facts and lure them into unwitting conjecture in virtually every way they perceive the world. For example, testers in a study responded differently to an odor that they sniffed out of a test tube depending on whether they were told that it was fancy cheese or human waste.
43. The mind stores memories in different ways, although the boundaries are not always clear cut: short-term memory (working memory), long-term memory (declarative memory), and procedural memory (“how-to” memory associated with physical skills such as shoe tying). Procedural memory is remarkably durable and is even able to survive the ravages of diseases like Alzheimer’s.
44. Scientists are unsure how things are forgotten; in other words, they are unsure what makes a person unable to remember even long-term memories. New research shows that people don’t necessarily forget, they simply lose the ability to retrieve older, rarely visited memories.
45. Short-term memory is linked to current electrical activity taking place in a person’s neurons, or the pattern of signal transmission that goes through the brain. Long-term memory, however, depends on permanent physical changes in the brain.
46. A human’s eye is able to see fine detail in only a small sliver of its visual field. However, the mind uses saccades (quick, automatic eye movements) to compensate for this weakness. The eye performs two or three saccades each second to give the mind a single, seamless whole. When a person is severely drunk, the saccades slow down, and the mind begins to see the world as the eye perceives it, a patch of sharpness surrounded by a blurry field.
47. The placebo (Latin for “I will please”) effect occurs when the mind believes that a certain medication will help them when the medicine in fact has no proven therapeutic effects for a particular condition.
48. Studies show that 50-70% of doctor visits can be traced to psychological reasons.
49. A study of nearly 1 million students in New York showed that those who ate lunches without preservatives, dyes, and other additives performed 14% better on IQ tests.
50. Memories that are triggered by scent have some of the strongest emotional connections and appear more intense than other memory triggers.
51. The mind wanders about 30% of the time and sometimes as much as 70%, say, for example, when someone is driving down an uncrowded freeway.
52. Researchers found that distorting body image can change the mind’s perception of pain. Subjects who viewed their wounded hands through the wrong end of binoculars, which made their hand look smaller, experienced decreased pain and decreased swelling. However, those who looked at the wounded hand through the right side of the binoculars, which made the hand look larger, experienced increased pain.
53. Some researchers argue that the Internet is changing the structure of our brains, which changes the mind’s ability to think and to learn. Specifically, the Internet overstimulates the part of the brain involved in temporary memory so that deep thinking and creativity become increasingly difficult.
54. Researchers note that like a mathematical formula, which is a statement about a number represented by a number, the mind trying to understand the nature of the mind introduces a certain paradoxical “loopiness.” Scientists use the famous Escher print of a right hand drawing a left hand that in turn is drawing a right hand as a visual example of this paradox.
55. The mind imagines objects slightly from above and tilted. For example, researchers asked people around the world to draw a coffee cup. Almost everyone drew a coffee cup from a perspective slightly above the cup looking down and offset a little to the right or left. No one drew it looking straight down from above. This uniformity in perspective has been dubbed the “canonical perspective.”

99 Interesting Facts About . . .Egypt

1. The shape of ancient Egyptian pyramids is thought to have been inspired by the spreading rays of the sun
2. An Egyptian father named his newborn daughter “Facebook” to commemorate the role Facebook played in the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Her full name is Facebook Jamal Ibrahim
3. Egypt has the largest Arabic population in the world.
4. There are five million Facebook users in Egypt, more than any other Middle Eastern country. As of 2009, Egypt has 20.136 million Internet users, ranking 21st in the world.
5. The formal name of Egypt is the Arab Republic of Egypt.
6. Approximately 90% of Egyptians are Muslim (primarily Sunni), 9% are Coptic, and 1% is Christian.
7. Pharaoh Pepi II (2246-2152 B.C.) had the longest reign in history—94 years. He became Egypt’s king when he was only 6 years old.
8. Pharaoh Pepi II allegedly would smear naked slaves with honey to attract flies away from him
9. The Egyptian flag is similar to the flags of Syria, Iraq, and Yemen and consists of three bands of colors from the Arab Liberation flag—red, white, and black—with the golden eagle of Saladin on the white band. On the Egyptian flag, black represents oppression, red represents the bloody struggle against oppression, and white is symbolic of a bright future.
10. The literacy rate for Egyptian men is 83% and 59.4% for women.
11. On average, only an inch of rain falls in Egypt per year.
12. Egyptian history is generally considered to have begun in 3200 B.C. when King Menes (also called Narmer) united the Upper and Lower Kingdoms. The last native dynasty fell to the Persians in 341 B.C. and was replaced by Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. Arabs introduced Islam and the Arabic language into Egypt in the seventh century.
13. As of July 2011, the population of Egypt was 82,079,663, making it the 15th most populated country in the world. Approximately 99% of the population lives on about 5.5% of the land.
14. Ramses II (1279-1212 B.C.) is often considered the greatest pharaoh (“great house”) of the Egyptian empire. He ruled Egypt for 60 years and was the only pharaoh to carry the title “the Great” after his name. He had over 90 children: approximately 56 boys and 44 girls. He had eight official wives and nearly 100 concubines. He also had red hair, which was associated with the god Seth.
15. The famous Great Pyramid at Giza was built as a burial place for King Khufu (2589-2566 B.C.) and took more than 20 years to build. It is built from over two million blocks of limestone, each one weighing as much as two and a half elephants. It stands about 460 feet (149 m) high—taller than the Statue of Liberty. The base of the Great Pyramid takes up almost as much space as five football fields.
16. Ancient Egyptians believed that mummification ensured the deceased a safe passage to the afterlife. The mummification process had two stages: first the embalming of the body, then the wrapping and burial of the body. Organs were stored in canopic jars, each jar representing a god.
17. Ancient Egyptians mummified not only people but animals as well. Archeologists discovered a 15-foot- (4.5-m-) long mummified crocodile. The crocodile is known as the “devourer of human hearts” in the ancient Book of the Dead.
18. Fly swatters made from giraffe tails were a popular fashion item in ancient Egypt.
19. Ancient Egyptian women had more rights and privileges than most other women in the ancient world. For example, they could own property, carry out business deals, and initiate divorce. Women from wealthy families could become doctors or priestesses
20. In Egypt, both men and women wore eye make-up called kohl, which was made from ground-up raw material mixed with oil. They believed it had magical healing powers that could restore poor eyesight and fight eye infections.
21. For ancient Egyptians, bread was the most important food and beer was their favorite drink. Models of brewers were even left in tombs to ensure that the deceased had plenty of beer in the next world.
22. The ancient Egyptians had three different calendars: an everyday farming calendar, an astronomical calendar, and a lunar calendar. The 365-day farming calendar was made up of three seasons of four months. The astronomical calendar was based on observations of the star Sirius, which reappeared each year at the start of the flood season. Finally, priests kept a lunar calendar that told them when to perform ceremonies for the moon god Khonsu.
23. Hieroglyphs were developed about 3,000 B.C. and may have started as early wall paintings. In contrast to English’s 26 letters, there are more than 700 different Egyptian hieroglyphs.
24. Egypt’s first pyramid was a step pyramid built by famed Egyptian architect Imhotep for the pharaoh Djoser in 2600 B.C.
25. The ancient Egyptians worshipped more than 1,000 different gods and goddesses. The most important god of all was Ra, the sun god.
26. Over its long history, Egypt has been known by many different names. For example, during the Old Kingdom (2650-2134 B.C.), Egypt was called Kemet or Black Land, which referred to the dark, rich soil of the Nile Valley. It was also called Deshret, or Red Land, which referred to Egypt’s vast deserts. Later, it was known as Hwt-ka-Ptah or “House of the Ka of Ptah.” Ptah was one of Egypt’s earliest gods. The Greeks changed Hwt-ka-ptah to Aegyptus.
27. Tourism compromises 12% of the work force in Egypt.
28. The Sahara Desert at one time was lush grassland and savannah. Overgrazing and/or climate change in 8000 B.C. began to change the area from pastoral land to desert. Now it is the world’s largest hot desert at over 3,630,000 square miles—roughly the size of the United States. Antarctica is considered the largest desert (of any type) in the world.
29. The first pharaoh of Egypt is considered to be King Menes, who united the Upper and Lower Kingdoms in 3150 B.C. He named the capital of the united lands Memphis, which means “Balance of Two Lands.” Legend says he ruled for 60 years until he was killed by a hippopotamus.
30. The life expectancy of Egyptians is approximately 72.66 years, which ranks 124th in the world. The life expectancy of males is approximately 70.07 years and 75.38 years for females. Monaco has the world’s highest life expectancy at 89.73 years old. The United States is 50th, with a life expectancy of 78.37 years.
31. The fertility rate in Egypt is 2.97 children per woman, which is the 66th highest fertility rate in the world. Niger ranks first with 7.60 children per woman. The United States is 124th with 2.06 children per woman.
32. Egypt is the 30th largest country in the world by area. Slightly three times larger than New Mexico, Egypt’s area is 386,560 square miles (1,001,450 square km).
33. The 2011 Egyptian revolution began on January 25th. Egyptian protestors focused on lack of free speech and free elections, police brutality, government corruption, high unemployment, inflation, and continued use of emergency law. An estimated 800 people died and over 6,000 were injured in the process. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned on February 11th. The Egyptian revolution sparked other revolutions in Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Libya, and Bahrain.
34. To stay cool and avoid lice, both men and women in ancient Egypt shaved their heads and often wore wigs. In fact, because wigs indicated social status, they became one of the most important fashion accessories in ancient Egypt. Rich people wore wigs made from human hair, while poor people wore wigs made from wool or vegetable fiber.
35. The ancient Egyptians were the first people to have a year consisting of 365 days divided into 12 months. They also invented clocks.
36. The Egyptian polymath Imhotep (“the one who comes in peace”) is known as the first physician, the first engineer, and the first architect.
37. Egypt’s Nile River is the world’s longest, running 4,135 miles (6,670 km). Ancient Egyptians would measure the depth of the Nile using a “nilometer.” The English word “Nile” is derived from the Semitic nahal, meaning “river.” Ancient Egyptians called the river iteru, meaning “great river.”
38. In an attempt to control the annual flooding of the Nile, one of the largest dams in the world was built in Egypt in 1971: Aswan High Dam. Unfortunately, the rich silt that normally fertilized the dry Egyptian land settled in Lake Nasser after the building of the dam, forcing farmers to use one million tons of artificial fertilizer every year
39. Ancient Egyptians believed the tears of the goddess Isis made the Nile overflow each year. They celebrated the flood with a festival called the “Night of the Tear Drop.”
40. A priest often wore the jackal-headed mask of the god Anubis when making a body into a mummy. Ancient Egyptians associated Anubis (the god of the death) with jackals because jackals would uncover bodies from Egyptian cemeteries and eat them.
41. The Copts are the largest Christian community in Egypt and in the Middle East. Because Christianity was the main religion in Egypt between the fourth and sixth centuries, the term “Copt” originally meant all Egyptians.
42. In France, a glass pyramid stands outside the famous Louvre museum as a tribute to the ancient Egyptians and their amazing world.
43. The quality that ancient Egyptians valued most was called ma’at, which means good behavior, honesty, and justice. Ma’at is also the name of the goddess of truth who, according to myth, weighs every Egyptian heart after death
44. Before an ancient Egyptian scribe wrote anything, he always poured out some water mixed with ink as an offering to the god Thoth, the messenger of the gods and patron of scribes and learning. Egyptians who could write were believed to have power from the gods.
45. The ancient Egyptians believed that the god Thoth invented writing and passed its secret to humans. His symbols were a bird called an ibis and a baboon.
46. Just 150 years ago, Americans and Europeans believed that mummies had great healing powers. They ground up the mummies into powder and used it as medicine for all kinds of diseases.
47. The word pharaoh began as a nickname for the Egyptian king. It means “great house” because everyone believed the king’s human body was home to a god. The term wasn’t actually used until the 20th dynasty (1185-1070 B.C.).
48. The Great Pyramid at Giza has vents pointing to the constellation of Orion so the mummy’s spirit could fly straight up to the gods.
49. Ancient Egyptians believed they were made from clay on a potter’s wheel by the river god Khnum.
50. In ancient Egypt, every big city supported one favorite god, similar to people who support football teams today.
51. Ancient Egyptians needed to predict when the Nile would flood, which led to the development of the world’s first calendar.
52. Mexico, not Egypt, has the largest pyramid in the world in terms of volume. The Cholula Pyramid (sometimes referred to as Quetzalcoatl) was built around the year A.D. 100. Though it is 40% the height of Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, it covers an area of 39.5 acres. In contrast, the Great Pyramid is 480 feet high and covers 13 acres. Additionally, the Mexican pyramid has a volume of 4,300,000 cubic yards, while the Great Pyramid has 3,360,000.
53. The pyramids of Egypt are not only the oldest of the seven wonders of the ancient world, they are the only ones to survive today. An Arab proverb captures the pyramids endurance: “Man fears Time, yet Time fears the pyramids.” The other six wonders are (1) the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, (2) the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, (3) the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, (4) the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, (5) the Colossus of Rhodes, and (6) the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
54. The oldest surviving work about mathematics was written by the ancient Egyptian scribe Ahmes around 1650 B.C. Found on the Rhine Mathematical Papyrus, it is titled “The Entrance into the Knowledge of All Existing Things and All Obscure Secrets.”
55. The oldest death sentence recorded is found in ancient Egypt. Found in the Amherst papyri, a teenaged male in 1500 B.C. is sentenced to kill himself by either poison or stabbing for practicing magic
56. Hieroglyphs were used only for ritual purposes and official inscriptions. For everyday use, Egyptians used a script called “hieratic.” In 700 B.C., a second script called “demotic” was used, of which a derivative is used by Coptic Christians today.
57. Ancient Egyptian tomb builders had their own guarded villages. They were well fed and looked after because their work was so important.
58. The oldest recorded standard of weight is the beqa, an ancient Egyptian unit equal to between 6.66 and 7.45 ounces. It is still used today.
59. In 2011, archeologists discovered an enormous statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III (grandfather of Tutankhamen). One of the largest statues ever found, it was actually first discovered in 1923 and then rehidden
60. The ancient obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle has suffered more damage in the 125 years it has stood in New York City from pollution and weather than in the thousands of years it stood in Egypt.
61. The last known hieroglyphic inscription was made in A.D. 394 in the temple of Isis in Philae.
62. Although it is a popular notion that Napoleon’s troops shot off the nose of the Sphinx at Giza, sketches of the Sphinx from 1737 show it without a nose, more than 60 years before Napoleon reached Egypt. The only person known to have damaged it was an Islamic cleric, Sa’im al-dahr, who was hanged in 1378 for vandalism. He reportedly disapproved of “graven images.”
63. Scholars believe that ancient Egyptians were the first to sew wounds closed some 4,000 years ago. Egyptian doctors would often store their surgical needles in a case made from a hollowed-out bird bone.
64. Hippos were considered bad omens and were associated with the evil god Seth. They were more dangerous than crocodiles and they often capsized boats traveling the Nile.
65. The first person in Egypt identified by name (Mery) for tax evasion was sentenced to 100 blows for his crime.
66. Medical examinations reveal that parasites such as worms were a problem for ancient Egyptians. One common parasite, the Guinea worm, would mature into a three-foot long worm inside the body and then painfully exit through the skin after a year.
67. In Egypt, children (even girls) were considered a blessing. The Greeks who sometimes left unwanted infants (most often girls) outdoors to die, were shocked to discover that the Egyptians did not.
68. The Berlin Papyrus (c. 1800 B.C.) contains directions for the oldest known pregnancy test. The test involved wetting cereals with urine. If barley grew, it meant the woman was pregnant with a male child; if the wheat grew, she was pregnant with a girl. If neither grew, the woman would not give birth.
69. To keep the hook shape of Ramses II’s nose from collapsing, embalmers stuffed his nostrils with peppercorns
70. The scarab beetle was sacred to the Egyptians and represented life after death or resurrection.
71. Toilets were also included in some ancient Egyptian tombs.
72. Some people blamed the sinking of the Titanic on a mummified Egyptian priestess the doomed ship was transporting
73. “The Beautiful House” is the name of the house or tent where mummification took place in ancient Egypt.
74. British monarch, Charles the II (1630-1685) would rub mummy dust on his skin, believing “Greatness” would rub off.
75. Contrary to popular belief, Cleopatra was actually Greek, not Egyptian or African. When Angelina Jolie was cast as Cleopatra in the 2011 movie, many erroneously argued that the role should have gone to an African American. Others claimed that the role should have gone to an actress of Greek descent, such as Jennifer Aniston.
76. Near Tuna el-Gebel on the edge of Egypt’s Western Desert, scientists have unearthed more than four million mummies of a stork-like bird called an ibis.
77. Ramses II was publicly unwrapped in June 1886 in just 15 minutes. His body became contaminated by fungi and bacteria, which literally ate him little by little. In 1975, scientists used gamma rays to sterilize his body. He is now stored in an antibacterial case.
78. The embalmer who made the first cut in the flank during the mummification process was called “the ripper.” The Egyptians considered any cut an offense to the body—so in a symbolic performance, the rest of the embalmers threw stones at the ripper and chased him away with curses.
79. The Egyptians called the pyramids mer, a word whose etymology is debated. The English word “pyramid” comes from the Greek word pyramis, a type of wheat cake shaped like a pyramid.
80. If the Great Pyramid were chopped into 12-inch cubes, there would be enough cubes to circle the moon almost three times.
81. Early pharaohs were buried with their real servants. Later, model servants calledshabti were used.
82. “Pyramid Power” or “pyramidology” refers to the belief that pyramids possess supernatural powers. For example, in 1959, Czech Radio engineer Karel Drbal patented the idea that pyramids could sharpen blunt razor blades. Late actress Gloria Swanson slept with a miniature pyramid under her pillow because it “made every cell in her body tingle.”
83. Egypt’s Health Ministry banned female circumcision (when a women’s clitoris is removed) in 1996, except in cases of emergency. This loophole, however, is so vague that female genital mutilation is still virtually universal in Egypt.
84. The first mummy is, according to legend, Osiris who was murdered by Seth. Isis wrapped him in bandages and he came back to life as the god of the dead, or the afterlife.
85. Mud was pushed under the mummy’s skin to pad it out. False eyes could be made from onions. Hooked tools pulled the brain (which was always removed, along with the kidneys, liver, lungs, and heart) through the nose.
86. The oldest dress in the world comes from Egypt. It is 5,000 years old.
87. Egyptians knew the existence of Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter. They had names for them such as Sebequ,a god associated with Set , (Mercury), “god of the morning” (Venus), “bull of the sky” (Saturn), “Horus the red” or “Horus of the horizon” (Mars), and “Horus who limits the Two Lands” (Jupiter).
88. For the ancient Egyptians, the Nile was mysterious. Unlike most other rivers, it flows south to north, it floods in the summer, and no one knew where the water came from. Explorers discovered the source of the Nile in East Africa just 150 years ago.
89. The ancient Egyptians may have been the first people to keep cattle.
90. There were three female pharaohs, of whom the greatest was Hatshepsut (reigned 1498-1483 B.C.).
91. The giant sphinx guarding the three pyramids of Giza is thought to represent the pharaoh Khafre (Chephren), son of Khufu. Sphinxes are generally believed to have been built to guard tombs.
92. The known tombs of Egyptian kings were all raided by robbers with one exception, the tomb of Tutankhamen (reigned 1334-1324 B.C.). It was discovered in 1922 and was full of priceless materials and beautiful workmanship.
93. For the ancient Egyptians, the world began when Atum-Ra (the sun god)—who personifies life, goodness, light, and energy—created the Earth (Geb) and the Sky (Nut) and the rest of the world. For the Egyptians, creation was a daily occurrence, repeated with every rising and setting of the sun.
94. Ancient Egyptian women wore wigs topped with a cone of a greasy substance that gradually melted, giving off a pleasing scent of myrrh
95. Ancient Egyptians kept such good flood records on the Nile that scientists today use their data to better understand rainfall patterns.
96. Scholars believe the Egyptian symbol called the ankh is the origin of the much later Christian cross. It also looks like a key—for ancient Egyptians, the key to eternal life
97. Because hieroglyphs have no vowels, we will never know for sure how the ancients pronounced their words.
98. The Greeks called Egyptian symbols hieroglyphs (hieros + glyphe = “sacred” + “carving”) because they saw them carved into the walls of temples and other sacred places.
99. During the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, some women protestors were not only forced to take virginity tests, but they were also threatened with prostitution charges

           Important Gods and Goddess of Ancient Egypt  

Amun	Creator god, associated with fertility. Sometimes pictured as a goose, but most often represented as a man.
Anubis	Necropolis god, connected with mummification. Usually has the head of a dog or jackal.
Bastet	War goddess, Has the head of lioness or cat.
Hathor	Goddess of women; also sky goddess, tree goddess, or necropolis goddess. Has the head of a cow or cow’s horns, often with a sun disk on her head.
Horus	Sky god. Has the head of a hawk, often with a double crown.
Isis	Wife of Osiris; guardian and magician. Often has the hieroglyph of her name on her head.
Montu	War god. Often has the head of a hawk with a sun disk and two plumes on top.
Neith	Goddess of war and hunting. Wears a red crown or has two crossed arrows and a shield on her head.
Osiris	Ruler of the Underworld, god of dying vegetation, and husband of Isis. Usually shown as a mummy, holding a scepter, and wearing a white crown with plumes and horns.
Ptah	Creator god; the patron of all craftsmen, including architects, artists, and sculptures. Frequently shown as a man dressed as a mummy.
Re	Sun god. Has the head of hawk, often with a sun disk on his head.
Seth	God of disorder, deserts, storms, and war. Usually has the head of an unidentified animal.
Thoth	God of writing and counting. Has the head of an ibis, often with a moon crescent. Sometimes depicted as a baboon.

        Important Dates

c. 5,000 B.C.	People begin to settle down to live and grow crops along the banks of the Nile for the first time.
c. 3200 B. C.	Writing begins in Egypt.
c. 3100 B.C.	Legendary King Menes (Namer) unites Egypt. Upper and Lower Egypt are joined together under one pharaoh for the first time.
c. 2630 B.C.	Imhotep builds the first pyramid.
c. 1500 B.C.	Earliest examples of the Book of the Dead.
c. 1380 B.C.	Temple of Luxor by Amenhotep III is built.
1367-1350 B.C.	Reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton) who abandons Egyptian polytheism for monotheism.
1347-1339 B.C.	Reign of Tutankhamen.
1182-1151 B.C.	Reign of Ramses III; Hebrew migration out of Egypt.
1070-712 B.C.	Collapse of the New Kingdom.
669 B.C.	Assyrians conquer and rule Egypt.
332 B.C.	Alexander the Great conquers Egypt and founds Alexandria. A Macedonian dynasty rules until 31 B.C.
31 B.C.	Rome conquers Egypt. Cleopatra commits suicide after Octavian’s armies defeat her forces.
A.D. 642	Arab conquest of Egypt. Egypt becomes Islamic.
969	Cairo is established as the capital of Egypt.
1250-1517	Mamluk (armies of slaves, often Turks/Cumans) rule.
1517	Egypt is absorbed into the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
1822	Jean Francois Champollion deciphers the system of Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone.
1882	British troops take control of Egypt.
1914	Egypt becomes a British protectorate.
1922	Egypt gains independence from Britain.
1953	Egypt is declared a Republic.
1954	The British finally leave Egypt.
1970	The Aswan High Dam is completed.
1971	Egypt’s new constitution is introduced. The country is renamed the Arab Republic of Egypt.
1979	Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., between Anwar El Sadat and Menachem Begin, making Egypt the first Arab country to official recognize Israel.
1981	President Anwar El Sadat is assassinated and Hosni Mubarak becomes president of Egypt by a national referendum.
2011	President Mubarak steps down amid protests.

50 Interesting Facts About . . .North Dakota

1. At 3.2%, North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the United States.
2. In 2012, North Dakota was the fastest-growing state in the United States. The growth was largely due to an oil boom in the Bakken fields in the western part of the state. The state became the 2nd-highest oil-producing state behind Texas. Despite its oil boom, agriculture or farming is still North Dakota’s top industry.
3. The world’s largest hamburger was eaten in Rutland, North Dakota. It weighed 3,591 pounds and more than 8,000 people were invited to the meal.
4. Most of the pasta in America is made from North Dakota durum wheat. Grand Forks holds a huge pasta party each year in honor of the crop.
5. In 2012, North Dakota was ranked as the best-run state in the country.
6. It’s illegal to go dancing in Fargo with a hat on. It is even illegal to wear a hat at a party where other people are dancing. It is also illegal in North Dakota to take a nap with your shoes on. After 11 pm, it is illegal to set off fireworks at Devil’s Lake in North Dakota.
7. The smallest city in North Dakota is Maza, with a population of 5 people. North Dakota does not have towns or villages. Each place is officially a city, no matter how small it is.
8. North Dakota is the least-visited state in America.
9. Lying just under the surface of western North Dakota is about 25 billion tons of lignite, enough to supply the region’s coal needs for over 800 years.
10. Dakota is the Sioux word for “friend” or “ally.”
11. Famous people from North Dakota include musician and bandleader Lawrence Welk, baseball legend Roger Maris, news reporter and commentator Eric Sevareid, author Louis L’Amour, singer Peggy Lee, actress Angie Dickenson, and actor Josh Duhamel.
12. In 2008, Fargo, North Dakota, hosted the largest pancake feed in the world.
13. In 1987, North Dakota passed a bill making English the official state language.
14. North Dakota is the only state in the country with a state-owned bank, the Bank of North Dakota. It also has a state-owned flour mill.
15. Lewis and Clark spent more time in North Dakota than in any other place they visited on their expedition.
16. By 2000, 99.5% of North Dakota’s original grassland had been turned into farms and ranches.
17. Huge herds of bison once roamed the plains of North Dakota. By 1900, fewer than 600 were left. President Roosevelt spearheaded efforts to save the bison, and today about 90,000 live in North Dakota. True buffalo are found only in Asia and Europe. Early European settlers thought bison looked like buffalo and, hence, confused the names.
18. In 1995 the square dance became North Dakota’s official American folk dance. Square dancing combines elements of various European dances, including the quadrille of France.
19. North Dakota holds the Guinness World Record for the most snow angels made simultaneously in one place. On February 17, 2007, 8,962 people made snow angels at the state capitol grounds. They beat the earlier record of 3,784 set at Michigan Technological University the previous year
20. North Dakota farmland would cover over 12 million city blocks. Farmers there produce enough wheat each year to make 12.6 billion loaves of bread.
21. North Dakota has the highest percentage of church-going population in the country. It also has more churches per capita than any other state.
22. North Dakota ranchers produce enough beef to make 113 million hamburgers each year. There are approximately three times more cattle than people in North Dakota and Angus is the most popular variety of cow.
23. North Dakota’s Jamestown, also known as Buffalo City, houses the “World’s Largest Buffalo.” The statue is 26 feet tall, 46 feet long, and weighs 60 tons. A herd of bison graze below the statue, including a rare albino named Mahpiya Ska, Lakota for “White Cloud.”
24. North Dakota’s state capitol is 242 feet high. It is the tallest building in North Dakota and the 3rd-tallest capitol in the country. The original capitol burned to the ground on December 28, 1930.
25. North Dakota produces enough canola oil every year to fill the state capitol’s 19-story tower 19 times.
26. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state in the United States. However, it is the 3rd-least populous and the 4th-least densely populated state in the U.S.
27. Comedian Red Skeleton once quipped that North Dakota is “the only place I’ve been where I didn’t have to look up to see the sky.”
28. North Dakota became the 39th state in 1889. It was admitted the same day as South Dakota. Because both states wanted to be the first state admitted, President Benjamin Harrison shuffled both statehood papers and signed them without knowing which one was first. However, because North Dakaota is alphabetically before South Dakota, its proclamation was published first.
29. Less than 1% of North Dakota is forest, the smallest amount of any state.
30. Rhode Island, the smallest state in the US, could fit inside North Dakota 46 times.
31. Temperatures drop below 0° F on average of 65 days a year near the Canadian border and 35 days a year in the southwestern part of the state, making it one of the coldest states in the nation. The western parts of both Dakotas are also the windiest area of the United States.
32. Between 1950-2004, an average of 21 tornadoes a year hit North Dakota. In 1999 alone, 65 tornadoes ripped through the state. North Dakota’s deadliest tornado had winds of more than 300 mph (483 kph) in 1957. It struck Fargo, killing 10 people and injuring 103.
33. French Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye led the first group of Europeans to explore what is now North Dakota.
34. North Dakota is the nation’s 3rd-top sugar producer.
35. In 1887, North Dakotan David Henderson Houston invented a camera. He named it by scrambling the first four letters of Dakota and adding a “K” to make Kodak. He later sold the rights of the Kodak camera to George Eastman.
36. North Dakota has had several nicknames, including Flickertail State, Roughrider State, and Peace Garden State.
37. Rugby, North Dakota, claims that it is the geographical center of North America. However, experts say the true center is closer to Balta, which is 15 miles southwest of Rugby.
38. Movies filmed in North Dakota including Dakota (1945), Fargo (1995), and the documentary My Father’s Garden (1996). None of the scenes in the popular movieFargo was filmed there. Additionally, the movie was loosely based on two true events that happened in Minnesota, not North Dakota. But the wood chipper used in the movie is now on display at the Fargo-Moorhead Visitor Center.d.
39. North Dakota is the home to the largest state-owned sheep research center in the United States.
40. North Dakota produces more honey than any other state.
41. The state that grows the most sunflowers is North Dakota.
42. North Dakota has only one abortion clinic and has been rated as the worst state in the country for women.
43. North Dakota has more national wildlife refuges (62) than any other state.
44. North Dakota has long, harsh winters and short, hot summers. Both of its recorded weather extremes occurred in 1936: -60° F in February and 121° F in July.
45. One of the quirkiest sports in North Dakota is lawn mower racing. By the time mowers are customized, they can reach speeds of 60 mph, compared to the 5 mph they might do in the backyard.
46. The J.R. Simplot potato processing plant in Grand Forks, ND, produces over 400 million pounds of French fries per year. McDonald’s is its main customers.
47. Quirky city and place names in North Dakota include Antler, Buttzville, Cannon Ball, Concrete, Flasher, Medicine Hole, On-a-Slant Village, Ops, Three V Crossing, and Zap.
48. The most popular tourist spot in North Dakota is the Wild West town of Medora, which was founded in 1883 by the Marquis de Mores, a French nobleman. According to the 2010 census, its population is 112 people.
49. In 2010, scientists discovered that 80% of the 406 road-side plants they collected in North Dakota showed evidence of genetic modification. Scientists note that the proper monitoring and control of genetically modified crops in the United States is severely lacking and that the escape of genetically modified crops is “unprecedented.”
50. A North Dakotan highway sculpture named “Geese in Flight” holds the Guinness World Record as the largest metal sculpture in the world. Erected in 2001, it is 156 feet long, 100 feet tall, and weighs 75 tons. Retired schoolteacher Gary Greff, who wanted to break up the tedium on the highway, constructed it.