Trivia Tuesday

Trivia! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s quiz night tonight, so I decided it was high time for another Trivia Tuesday.  I still live in hope that some day one of these posts might even be of use for the quiz 😉 Here are some random facts I’ve discovered over the past few weeks and thought were interesting enough to share…

• The first web cam watched a coffee pot. The Trojan Room Coffee Pot was created to save employees at The Cambridge University from having to make pointless trips to the coffee machine.
• Speaking of coffee… Central and South America produce approximately two thirds of the world’s coffee supply. The only US state in which coffee is grown commercially is Hawaii.
• From coffee to tea… The first tea bags were hand-sewn silk bags. They were originally intended hold samples of loose tea, which was meant to be removed from the bags, but customers found it easier to brew the tea with the tea still enclosed in the porous bags.
• The highest capital city in the world is Quito, Ecuador. The lowest is Baku, Azerbaijan.
• The term checkmate comes from the Persian phrase shāh māt, meaning “the king is helpless/defeated”.
• Almonds are a member of the peach family (they belong to the genus Prunus, which also includes plums, cherries and apricots. Almonds and peaches are classified in the sub-genus Amygdalus).
• Only female ducks quack. In general, ducks make a wide range of calls, including cooing, hooting and grunting, but the males never quack.
• One million seconds is roughly eleven and a half days (11.5741 days, to be precise).
• Albert Brooks, the actor who voiced Marlin the clownfish in Finding Nemo, was born Albert Einstein. He changed his surname to avoid confusion with the famous physicist.
• The Hundred Years’ War lasted 116 years, from 1337–1453. The Seven Years’ War lasted nine years, from 1754 to 1763, but the main period of fighting was in the seven years between 1756 and 1763.

And that was this month’s ten facts. I hope you enjoyed them! Wish us luck with the quiz…

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