Kansas Classrooms

I can’t teach you about safe sex because it might encourage you to become promiscuous.

I can’t tell you what airbags do. That information will make you think it’s okay to start crashing into things.

I’m sorry class. We can no longer study Mexico. As you’d all run away to Tijuana if I told you what was there.

If I teach you girls how to rescue a burnt casserole, how can I trust you to follow the teachings of Héloise?

I’m afraid I can’t tell you how Hannibal crossed the Alps. If I did, you crazy kids are likely to conquer the prom with elephants. Oops.

Trigonometry will no longer be taught. You could use that knowledge to calculate the trajectory of eggs thrown at my Geo Metro.

We won’t be using safety glasses this year in shop class. I believe anyone who gets a word chip in their eye have it coming.

Science has been cancelled because your parents prefer to believe in magic.

– Big Fat Whale, Brian McFadden 2006

Death of the Dinosaurs

The fifth extinction
65 million years ago

Boom. Extinction. 65 million years ago, a huge chunk of rock from outer space smashed into what is now Mexico. The explosion was devastating, but the longer-term effects were worse. Dust was thrown into the upper atmosphere and blocked out sunlight, and in the ensuing cold and darkness Earth suffered its fifth and last mass extinction. The dinosaurs were the most famous casualties, but pterosaurs and giant marine reptiles were also wiped out.

See other: History of Life

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Mexican mole sauce can include chillies, cinnamon, garlic, chocolate, lard, and plantains.

Though Jones is the most common surname in Wales, there is no ‘J’ in the Welsh language.

A sheet of paper is a million atoms thick.

Sigmund Freud destroyed 14 years’ worth of notes, letters and manuscripts in order to confound future biographers.

The chance of cracking the enigma machine, used by the Germans to scramble their wartime messages, by chance is about the same as winning the lottery 11,000,000,000,000 times.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

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Henry IV of France promoted green parks in Paris. He is responsible for a street called the Street of the Bridge of Cabbages.

10,113 Americans insured themselves against giving birth to the messiah at the millennium.

The 10th President of Nigeria (that is, the 3rd President of the Fourth Nigerian Republic), was called Goodluck Jonathan.

Scorpions navigate by starlight.

More than 50% of the world’s languages are located in just eight countries: India, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, and Cameroon.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

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Michael Sata, the president of Zambia, previously worked as a cleaner at London Victoria railway station.

The longest duck penis ever found was 17 inches (43 centimetres) in length.

Under extreme high pressure, diamonds can be made from peanut butter.

The film Grease was released in Mexico under the name ‘Vaselina’.

In the autumn of 1940, students at Oslo University started wearing paperclips on their lapels as a non-violent symbol of resistance, unity, and national pride. When the occupying German forces caught on to the fact, wearing a paperclip promptly became a criminal offence.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Football War

The Football War was fought by Central American countries El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. In fact, it also went by the name of the 100 Hours’ War, and in reality there were a host of issues at the root of the troubles. Migration, trade and simmering land disputes on the border all conspired to spark social unrest between the two, but it wasn’t until the best-of-three World Cup qualifiers in 1969 that the tipping point was reached.

A map of Honduras

The first game – a 1-0 win for Honduras – in Tegucigalpa witnessed disturbances but things deteriorated significantly come the second in San Salvador: visiting Honduran players endured a sleepless night before the game, with rotten eggs, dead rats and stinking rags all tossed through the broken windows of their hotel; Honduran fans were brutalised at the game, and the country’s flag and national anthem were also mocked. “Under such conditions the players from Tegucigalpa did not, understandably, have their minds on the game,” admitted the Honduras coach Mario Griffin after his team lost 3-0. “They had their minds on getting out alive. We’re awfully lucky that we lost.”

Tension continued to increase before the decisive third match in Mexico, with the press stoking the frenzy. And on June 27 – the day of the play-off – Honduras broke off diplomatic relations with their neighbour. El Salvador eventually triumphed 3-2 after extra-time, booking their place in the 1970 World Cup (where they would lose all three of their group games without scoring). By July 14, El Salvador had invaded Honduras.

When the Organisation of American States negotiated a ceasefire on July 20, approximately 1,000 to 2,000 people had lost their lives and 100,000 more had become refugees. Troops from El Salvador were withdrawn in August, but it wasn’t until 11 years later that a peace treaty between the nations was agreed. A civil war in El Salvador ensued between 1980 until 1992, when the International Court of Justice awarded much of the originally disputed territory to Honduras.

On a happier note, two years previously football stopped a war – albeit temporarily. The opposing sides in the Biafran war declared a two-day truce in September 1967 so that they could watch Pele and his touring Santos team play in two exhibition matches.

See other: Admin’s Choice Posts

Linguistic Diversity

According to the Swedish linguist Mikael Parkvall: ‘Languages are very unevenly distributed among the countries of the world.’ He lists the world’s countries with the largest number of languages:

1. Papua New Guinea [823]
2. Indonesia [726]
3. Nigeria [505]
4. India [387]
5. Mexico [288]
6. Cameroon [279]
7. Australia [235]
8. DR Congo [218]
9. China [201]
10. Brazil [192]
11. United States [176]
12. Philippines [169]

It’s curious how the linguistically most diverse country in the world is Papua New Guinea – because it’s also the place with the biggest biodiversity anywhere, one of the last places in the world where new species get discovered regularly. It leads one to wonder whether there could there be a single explanation for both phenomena?