How many countries are nuclear powers? There are 9 countries that have nuclear weapons. They are the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. Between them, they have a grand total of 13,000 nuclear weapons. One nuclear weapon can destroy a city. If all 13,000 of those nuclear […]
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Why is there an obelisk in Rome? There is more than one and the Romans took them from Egypt as a show of power. During the Roman Empire, 50 obelisks were taken from Egypt and 13 of those survive today. 8 of those 13 were made in Ancient Egypt and the other 5 were commissioned
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What is impressionism? It was a style of art where the artist was trying to capture an impression of the moment. Claude Monet is probably the most famous impressionist, and he was one of the few artists who was able to make money while he was alive. Impressionism began in Paris in the late 1800s
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Why did the Chinese government move to Taiwan? The Republic of China’s government lost a war with the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 and fled to Taiwan. We have to go back a bit further than 1949 to look at this question. People have lived on the island of Taiwan for thousands of years. Stone
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When does history start? This is a difficult question, but we have prehistory, protohistory, and then history. Protohistory is the point where prehistory becomes history and it is probably in about 3400 BC. This is an impossible question because there is no concrete date. History is said to begin with the development of writing systems
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Geoffrey Chaucer was known as the Father of English Literature. This is obviously a topic that is only important to English speaking countries, but he was a significant force in the revitalization of English after the Norman invasion of England. Chaucer wasn’t the only writer that was operating at that time, but he was even
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What is racketeering? It is a criminal act that usually involves extortion or a scheme to extract illegal profits. Racketeering became a big thing on October 15, 1970, when the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act became law in the United States. You may have heard of it in a movie because it is shorted
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In the 1440s, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and changed the world. It is not very often where you can say that an invention caused such enormous ripples that without it, we wouldn’t be where we are today. The wheel seems an obvious example. The printing press made the spread of information, knowledge, discoveries,
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What is the difference between a slave and a serf? A slave is the property of the person who owns them while a serf is bound to the land they live and work on for generations. Civilizations have taken slaves for as long as one group of people has fought another group of people. It
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Why does the medical symbol have a snake and a staff on it? It is the Rod of Asclepius, an ancient symbol of medicine. If you have the misfortune to require an ambulance in the US, you will notice that it a) costs an awful lot, and b) has a six pointed blue star with
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