Gallium is one of the metals (with caesium, rubidium, mercury, and likely francium) that are liquid at, or near, normal room temperature.
For every two orbits of the Sun, Mercury completes three rotations about its axis and up until 1965 it was thought that the same side of Mercury constantly faced the Sun. Thirteen times a century Mercury can be observed from the Earth transiting the Sun. The next transit of Mercury will occur on 09 May 2016.
Fear/superstition of the number thirteen is termed triskaidekaphobia.
In the holiday classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, Lucy, the 5 cent psychoanalyst, asks Charlie Brown about phobias he might have, including *hypengyophobia *(the fear of responsibility), *ailurophasia *(fear of cats, but not really - skip it), climacaphobia. (fear of staircases), *thalassophobia *(fear of the ocean), and *gephyrobia *(fear of crossing bridges). When she gets to pantophobia, the fear of everything, he yells “That’s it!”
The Crédit Lyonnais headquarters is a building in the Haussmann style in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. It contains a famous double helix staircase, designed to allow two populations to use the same stairs without meeting each other. One set of stairs (with dual balustrade) was reserved for the management; the other (with single balustrade) for the employees.
The Crédit Mobilier scandal broke in 1872, during the Grant Administration when it was revealed that congressmen, including Grant’s vice president, were offered stock in the company, which manipulated stock prices for personal gain. 13 members of Congress were investigated, and two of them were censured.
There are seventeen stars on the flag of the Vice President of the United States: thirteen in a constellation over and beside the eagle’s head, representing the thirteen original states, and four more, one in each corner.
The seven capital vices (familarly referred to as “deadly sins”) are listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as superbia, avaritia, invidia, ira, luxuria, gula, pigritia seu acedia (“pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth/acedia”).
The only sloth sanctuary in the world is on the Atlantic coast in Costa Rica
The total costs of salvaging and re-floating the cruise liner Costa Concordia, which was wrecked off the coast of Isola del Giglio in Italy on 13 January 2012, are estimated to have been €1.5 billion.
Isola del Giglio is in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast of Tuscany. The Tyrrhenian Sea is bounded by Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily. It is in the Mediterranean Sea and adjacent to the Ionian Sea to the south and the Ligurian Sea to the north.
The Italian bee, also known as the Ligurian bee, was first introduced to Kangaroo Island in South Australia on Easter Sunday, 13 April 1884.
On land, kangaroos cannot move their hind legs independently, only together. But when they are swimming (and kangaroos are good swimmers) they kick each leg independently.
There are no native French words beginning with the letter “k” or “w.” In French abecedaries, “kangarou” (kangaroo) and “wagon” (railway car) are used.
Abecedarium (Abecedary)—along with Catechismus (Catechism)—is the first printed book in the Slovenian language. It was printed in 1550.
The breakup of Yugoslavia began in 1991 when both Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from the Belgrade government. After some skirmishing with Yugoslav People’s Army units that had been futilely sent into the republic, there was some diplomacy in which Lord Peter Carrington convinced first himself and then President Milosevic that the breakup was irreversible.
The Zastava Koral, better known as the Yugo, is a subcompact car built by the Yugoslav/Serbian Zastava corporation. It was designed in Italy as the Fiat 144, a variant of the Fiat 127. The first Yugo 45 was handmade on 2 October 1978. The Yugo entered the United States by means of Malcolm Bricklin, who wanted to introduce a simple, low-cost car to the US market. In total, 141,651 cars were sold in the United States from 1985 to 1992, with the most American units sold in a year peaking at 48,812 in 1987.
ETA: currently there are apparently ZERO Yugos for sale on Auto Trader anywhere in the USA.
http://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/Yugo/New+York+NY-10019?endYear=2016&makeCode1=YUGO&mmt=[YUGO[][]]&searchRadius=0&showcaseOwnerId=0&startYear=1981&Log=0
Bummer.
NATO bombing attacks destroyed the Zastava factory in 1999, in what was seen by many as a fitting way to establish that there would never be another Yugo.
In the movie, Drowning Mona (2000), Bette Midler’s character Mona Dearly drives a Yugo. Set in Verplanck, New York along the Hudson River, seemingly everyone in town drives a Yugo. The local mechanic named Lucinda, she specializes in wrenching on Yugos.
A traditional wedding ceremony in the US starts with the bride and groom meeting at the altar, and the minister saying “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union of (Groom’s Name) and (Bride’s Name) in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate, that is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently and soberly.”