Chapter 51 - Random Facts 4

In 1882 Edison helped form the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York, which brought electric light to parts of Manhattan. But progress was slow. Most Americans still lit their homes with gas light and candles for another fifty years. Only in 1925 did half of all homes in the U.S. have electric power.

A.d.u.l.t brown recluse spiders often live about one to two years. Each female produces several egg sacs over a period of two to three months, from May to July, with approximately fifty eggs in each sac. The eggs hatch in about one month. The spiderlings take about one year to grow to a.d.u.l.thood.

However, this is a common misconception, as people are born with only two fears – of falling and of loud noises. These two fears are incorporated in the human DNA and have become a mechanism for survival which is passed to new generations.

Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane byproducts, such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels.

A bratwurst (German: [ˈbʁaːtvʊɐ̯st] ( listen)), also known as a brat in American English, is a sausage usually composed of veal, pork or beef. The name is derived from Old High German Brätwurst, from brät-, which is finely chopped meat and Wurst, or sausage.

Most countries which were British colonies still drive on the left hand side of the road including huge land masses such as India, Australia and Southern Africa as well as the Caribbean. Europe generally drives on the right hand side apart from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus.

Chalk /ˈtʃɔːk/ is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3.

Aluminum is the most abundant metallic element on the surface of the earth and moon; it composes more than eight percent of the earth's crust. It is never free in nature, combining with oxygen, sand, iron and titanium; its ores are mainly bauxites (aluminum hydroxide).

Yelling "fore" is simply a shorter way to yell "watch out ahead" (or "watch out before"). It allows golfers to be forewarned, in other words. Any golfer who hits an errant shot that sends their golf ball hurtling toward golfers ahead should yell out "fore" as a warning.

In 1958, the State Department explained that the terms "Near East" and "Middle East" were interchangeable, and defined the region as including only Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.

The average Game of Thrones episode costs $6 million to make. That's two to three times what a typical network or cable show costs per episode (Breaking Bad episodes cost around $3 million, early Big Bang Theory cost $2 million).

It's like Picasso was born an artist: his first word was "piz," short of lápiz the Spanish word for 'pencil.' His father Ruiz, an artist and art professor, gave him a formal education in art starting from the age of 7. By 13, Ruiz vowed to give up painting as he felt that Pablo had surpassed him.