14/vii mmxvi

In 2015, Norwegians started a Facebook campaign to give Finland the Norwegian part of the Halti mountain as a gift for the centenary of its independence.

There is a town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo called Banana.

There are seven classifications of snowflakes: plates, stellar crystals, columns, needles, spatical dendrites, capped columns and irregular.

The wife of noted evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins is called Lalla.

In 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs called for the extermination of all Mormons in the State by means of an executive order. It was rescinded 138 years later.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

4/xii mmxiv

The December 2013 FIDE rating list recorded 1441 chess players holding the Grandmaster title, out of those 31 were women.

The Latin haedus means both ‘child’ and ‘young goat’.

Bonnie Prince Charles had a Polish mother, princess Maria Klementyna Sobieska, and spoke English with a Polish accent.

The phrase ‘OMG’ meaning ‘Oh my God’ dates back to 1917.

According to research conducted by the Daily Mail, British women spend 474 days putting on their make-up; this translates as three hours, 19 minutes each week in front of the mirror. The power of make-up is so strong that 27 per cent admit feeling ‘vulnerable’ without it. It also found losing expensive cosmetics now costs the typical British woman £248 a year. In fact, women mislay so much make-up they spend a staggering £15,872 replacing it during their lifetime.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Philia

Philia is a shared experience. The love we feel for people with whom share our innermost feelings and dreams, or with whom we strive with to achieve a shared goal.

Philia is what the Greeks called friendship, and they valued it far more than the base sexuality of Eros. It was about showing loyalty to your friends, sacrificing for them, as well as sharing your emotions with them.

Aristotle takes philia to be both necessary as a means to happiness. He argues that to be a wholly virtuous and fulfilled person necessarily involves having others for whom one is concerned; without them, one’s life is incomplete – “No one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods”.

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
– Elbert Hubbard

We can all ask ourselves how much of this philia we have in our lives. It’s an important question in an age when we attempt to amass “friends” on Facebook or “followers” on Twitter—achievements that would have hardly impressed the Greeks.

See other: Kinds of Greek Love