Why were Roman roads so straight? Roman roads were so straight because they were built to move soldiers from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible. Rome wasn’t the first civilization to build roads, but they were the first civilization to build a road network that crisscrossed an entire empire. The […]
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What is pirate radio? A pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts a signal in an area controlled by a government without having a license from that government. Pirate radio stations began in the 1940s, but they probably hit their peak in the 1960s. They brought music and attitudes to the multitudes that
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When did we start using lifeboats? Ships usually had small boats on board that they could use, but they were not lifeboats. It was only after the sinking of the Titanic that it became the law to carry enough lifeboats for the number of passengers on board. If we are lucky enough to go on
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Why do Oxford and Cambridge Universities have so many colleges? Mostly for historical reasons, but it also makes it easier for the students to learn, live, and socialize. Oxford University and Cambridge University have 75 colleges between them. 44 at Oxford and 31 at Cambridge. When someone applies to either university, they have to apply
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Who was Typhoid Mary? She was a chef in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who was a carrier of typhoid and responsible for the deaths of several people. Someone who spreads diseases is often referred to as a “Typhoid Mary”, but many people probably don’t realize that Typhoid Mary was actually a real
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Where did the Great Fire of London start? The Great Fire of London started in a baker’s shop in a road called Pudding Lane. It burned for five days. The Great Fire of London started on Sunday, 2nd September 1666 and it was finally extinguished on Thursday, 6th September. It destroyed over 13,000 homes, 87
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Why are there so many camels in Australia? There are so many camels in Australia because they were shipped over to make exploring the interior and laying telegraph lines easier. When you think of camels, you probably think of hot African desert countries, probably around the Sahara Desert. Well, you are not wrong. The country
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What happened to the dodo? The dodo went extinct in 1662 because of hunting and the introduction of invasive species. We all know the saying, “as dead as a dodo,” but where does it come from? Well, interestingly, “dead as a dodo” doesn’t appear until 1904 and is probably an adaption of “dead as a
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How did London Bridge end up in America? London Bridge ended up in Arizona, America because it was bought by an industrialist called Robert McCulloch who bought it and shipped it over the Atlantic. The London Bridges that is in America was built in 1831 and it was sold by the City of London in
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What is the oldest still spoken language? This is a question that can never have a satisfactory answer because written records only go back so far, and a lot of languages were not written down until relatively recently. A reworking of this question could be how many speakers of modern languages would be able to
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