Interesting Facts - Page 28

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136

The U.S. state of Maine was a part of Massachusetts before becoming its own state in 1820.

137

Martin Van Buren was the only U.S. President whose first language was not English. He grew up speaking Dutch.

138

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the city of Arles, in modern-day France, shrank so much that the whole town moved into the city's ampitheatre, with a town square in the middle, houses buil into the stands, and defensive towers on the perimeter.

139

Since the Middle Ages in France, wolf attacks have been a somewhat common occurrence, with nearly 7,600 people fatally killed by wolves between 1362 and 1918.

140

When Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752 they skipped September 3–13. They also changed the New Year from March 24th to January 1st.

23 Comments

Level 57

Mar 12, 2020

Fact 139 reminds me of a Bollywood film called Sanju. It was a biopic of Indian actor Sanjay Dutt. In movie, one newspaper printed something about Sanjay with a question mark. For example, 'Sanjay is not a terrorist?' So, his father went to newspaper office and dared them to write news with a full stop instead of question mark.

Level 70

Sep 11, 2020

Surely you cannot be in trouble for stating that someone is not a terrorist.

Level 20

Sep 30, 2020

@malaby there was also one scene where a paper said: he is carrying bombs? And he lost his friend cuz he was like I’m not friends with a terrorist. Then later in an interview he’s like little did my friend know there was a ?

Level 21

Nov 1, 2024

It's called a period, not a full stop.

Level 57

Jan 24, 2025

Either one is right depends on where you live really

Level 28

May 19, 2025

In America, a full stop is called a period, the world doesn't revolve around the 346 million or so Americans.

Level 59

Dec 4, 2020

Maine was created as a response to Missouri choosing to be a slave state, and was part of the "Missouri Compromise", which promised to solve the issue of slavery once and for all, but didn't even come close to doing. The other part of the compromise was not allowing other slave states above the southern border of Missouri, but during subsequent creations of territories, many were open to choose it, since after this southern politicians mostly controlled the congress and senate. This lead to bleeding Kansas, which was 7 years of people killing each other over whether Kansas would be a slave state.

Level 74

Dec 21, 2020

Van Buren was also the first president of the USA to be born in the USA. Maybe I mentioned that somewhere else...

Level 66

May 31, 2021

Only if you are considering the Independent country. Washington was born in Virginia, but not in an independent USA.

Level 69

Dec 23, 2021

Martin Van Buren's nickname was "Old Kinderhook" (he was from Kinderhook, NY). He often put the initials "O.K." on memos, letters, etc.

Level 70

Oct 4, 2023

In his bid for re-election, his campaign used the "OK" nickname to piggyback off an intentionally misspelled slang phrase at the time, "Oll Korrect" (all correct).

He lost.

Level 32

Apr 25, 2022

I wonder if 138 potentially inspired Fallout 4's Diamond City.

Level 29

May 12, 2022

138 has a mistake.

Built, not buil.

Level 29

May 12, 2022

Buil - bruise

"houses bruised into the stands" makes no sense.

Level 68

Aug 26, 2023

Fix?

Level 78

May 4, 2023

138 has a typo - buil

Level 69

Oct 25, 2023

Wonder how many French have been unfatally killed in that time period?

Level 94

Dec 4, 2023

I think in general that unfatal deaths tend to be severely underreported.

Level 26

Jan 30, 2025

That's for the better

Level 63

Feb 3, 2024

built*

Level 29

Feb 29, 2024

Kill the wolves!

Level 50

May 5, 2024

138 has a typo. It's supposed to be "built", not "buil."

Level 75

Jul 24, 2025

#138 real life Diamond City from Fallout 4.