English Is Awesome!!!!!: Interesting Facts

Interesting Facts

1. 10% of the world's population speak English as their mother tongue (Chinese 21%, Spanish 6%, Russian 6%, Malay 4%, Hindi 4%, Japanese 3%, Arabic 3%, Portuguese 3%, French 2%, German 2%)

2. Rains of many kinds of living creatures have actually been reported from earliest times and all over the world. On 28th May 1881, during a thunderstorm on the outskirts of Worcester, England, tons of periwinkles and small hermit crabs fell on Cromer Gardens Road and the surrounding fields.

3. The word "Christmas" comes from the Old English, "Cristes maesse" which means "Christ's mass" on which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. It is traditionally a celebration of family and children.

The modern Christmas tree tradition came from western Germany, from a medieval custom, as a paradise tree -- a tree decorated with apples, wafers (or cookies), and candles representing the Garden of Eden, the host, and Christ.

The alarm clock was not invented by the Marquis de Sade, as some suspect, but rather by a man named Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, in 1787. Perversity, though, characterized his invention from the beginning. The alarm on his clock could ring only at 4 am. Rumor has it that Hutchins was murdered by his wife at 4:05 am on a very dark and deeply cold New England morning.

If you went out into space, you would explode before you suffocated because there's no air pressure.

Only one satellite has been ever been destroyed by a meteor: the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.

5th Century, Rome Mid February was traditionally the time of the Lupercian festival, an ode to the God of fertility and a celebration of sensual pleasure, a time to meet and court a prospective mate. In AD 496, Pope Gelasius outlawed the pagan festival. But he was clever to replace it with a similar celebration, although one deemed morally suitable. He needed a "lovers" saint to replace the pagan deity Lupercus. The martyred Bishop Valentine was chosen as the patron saint of the new festival.