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In the Fact File section we bring you a new collection of quick facts each week. (Click on the links below for more facts)

 
 

561/ "The Boston Nation", a newspaper published in Ohio during the middle of the nineteenth century, had pages seven and a half feet long and five and a half feet wide. It required two people to hold the paper in proper reading position.

562/ $1,000,000 in $1 bills would weigh approximately one ton. Placed in a pile it would be 360 feet (110m) high - as tall as 60 average adults standing on top of each other.

563/ 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer', written by Mark Twain, was the first novel ever to be written on a typewriter.

564/ A trokenbeerenauslese is a German wine made from vine-dried grapes so rare that it can take a skilled picker a day to gather enough for a single bottle.

565/ The US two-cent coin was minted between 1864 and 1873 and was the first coin to bear the motto 'In God We Trust'. The motto was omitted from the new gold coins issued in 1907, causing a storm of public criticism. As a result, legislation passed in May 1908 made 'In God We Trust' mandatory on all coins on which it had previously appeared. Legislation approved July 11th, 1955, made the appearance of 'In God We Trust' mandatory on all coins and paper currency of the United States. By Act of July 30th, 1956, 'In God We Trust' became the National motto of the United States.

566/ There is no more than one-tenth of a calorie's worth of glue on every stamp.

567/ The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of one aspirin tablet.

568/ The first advertisement printed in English in 1477 offered a prayer book. The ad was published by William Caxton on his press in Westminster Abbey. No price was mentioned, only that the book was 'good chepe'.

569/ The working section of the piano is called the action. There are about 7,500 parts here, all playing a role in sending the hammers against the strings when keys are struck.

570/ There are 1,783 diamonds in Great Britain's Imperial State Crown. This includes the 309 carat Star of Africa.

571/ There are forty two dots on a pair of dice.

572/ There are odour technicians in the perfume trade with the olfactory skills to distinguish 19,000 different odours at twenty levels of intensity each.

573/ There are three sets of letters on the standard typewriter and computer keyboards which are in alphabetical order. Reading left to right they are f-g-h, j-k-l, and o-p.

574/ There is one mile of railroad track in Belgium for every one and a half square miles of land.

575/ There is one slot machine in Las Vegas for every eight inhabitants.

576/ A bubble is round because the air within it presses equally against all its parts, thus causing all surfaces to be equidistant from its centre.

577/ A conventional sign of virginity in Tudor England was a high exposed bosom and a sleeve full to the wrists.

578/ A diamond will not dissolve in acid. The only thing that can destroy it is intense heat.

579/ A female pharoah was unknown in Egypt before Hatshepsut, who began her reign in 1502 BC. In order not to shock local convention, she had herself portrayed in male costume, with a beard, and without breasts.

580/ A jet or turbo-jet powered aircraft uses more fuel flying at 25,000 feet than 30,000 feet. The higher it flies, the thinner the atmosphere and the less atmospheric resistance it must buck.

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