Page 45 - The 'X' Zone Book of Triviology

o In 1667, the Dutch traded Manhattan to get the swampy South American nation of Surinam. o For nine years, Idi Amin was Uganda’s heavyweight boxing champion. o Four of Mary Todd’s brothers fought for the Confederacy. Her husband was Abraham Lincoln. o Spain found so much silver in the New World that the inflation ruined its economy. o Portugal was the last country to hold onto its African colonies, losing them in the 1970s. o Nkosikazi Nomzamo Madikizela is better known under her married name, Winnie Mandela. o Berengaria became queen when she married Richard I, but never set foot in England. o In 1977, a cannibal declared himself Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Republic. o It nearly bankrupted England to ransom Richard the Lion-Hearted after he was kidnapped. o From 1958 to 1961, Egypt and Syria were one country called the United Arab Republic. o Idris I was the first and only modern King of Libya. Muammar al-Qaddafi deposed him. o In the 1970s, Grenada fell to Marxists after its prime minister became fixated on UFOs. o On July 4, 1776, George III wrote in his diary, “Nothing of importance happened today.” o The writings of Confucius were nearly lost when China’s Emperor tried to burn them all. o Winston Churchill was one-sixteenth Iroquois. o The speeches of England’s George VI were carefully written to minimize his stammer. o King James I was one of history’s first anti-smoking zealots. o Sweden has a Charles VII, but no Charles I, II, III, IV, V, or VI. o To pick a wife, Ivan the Terrible had 1,500 women sent to Moscow to choose from. o In 1941, Mongolians staged history’s last full-scale cavalry charge. German tanks flattened it. o The death of George V was timed so that it would make the better morning newspaper. o Turkey’s Sultan Mohammed VI started his coronation day in jail, where he’d spent 53 years. o Victoria’s first act as queen was to get her own bedroom. o The world population in 8000 B.C. was just 8 million. In 2020 it will be 8 billion. o The people of India and the Mayans were the only ancient people who knew about zero. o In 1864, the top U.S. income tax rate was 3%. o In 1978, Emilio Marco Palma became the first person born in Antarctica. o As a Member of Parliament, Isaac Newton only spoke once. He asked for an open window. o Florence Nightingale carried around a pet owl named Athena. o Antonio de Egas Moniz won a Nobel Prize in medicine for developing the lobotomy. o Mahatma Gandhi never won a Nobel Peace Prize. Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat have. o In 1990, Pan-Am began accepting reservations for moon flights. Pan-Am went under in 1991. o The first New York to California flight, in 1911, took 49 days. o In 1792, 1,200 free blacks sailed from Nova Scotia to found Sierra Leone in Africa. o Scalping was originally a Dutch idea, not an Indian one. o Josef Stalin’s son died in a Nazi German prison camp. o During World War II, the German-sounding sauerkraut was renamed “liberty cabbage.” o English and Portuguese troops have never faced each other in combat. o His pacifist parents raised Dwight David Eisenhower to hate war. o Hillary Clinton was once a Republican, and campaigned for right-winger Barry Goldwater. o Neither Germany nor Italy were united as modern countries until the 1800s. o One of Theodore Roosevelt’s sons was named Kermit. o St. Patrick wasn’t Irish. He was a Brit kidnapped by Irish pirates. o It was probably Francis Hopkinson, not Betsy Ross, who designed the U.S. flag. o Until 1832, Old Sarum had two members in Britain’s parliament, but nobody lived there.