Archives: Useless Facts

Pierre-François Bouchard, was an officer in the French Army of engineers serving under Napoleon. He is most famous for discovering the Rosetta Stone in Egypt in 1799.
The Rosetta Stone is inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Egypt in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The first two sections of text are written in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts respectively. But the bottom is written in ancient Greek. Because there are only very minor differences among the three versions, the Rosetta Stone essentially became a decryption key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphic writings – making a deeper understanding of Egyptian history possible.

For what is Pierre-François Bouchard, an officer in the Napoleonic army, best known?

What we call “paper money” or denominated bills are actually made from 75% cotton and 25% linen fibers.
Although I don’t suggest making sheets or pillow cases out of money, nor do I believe putting money into or under the mattress is a particularly good idea, if you do accidentally leave bills in clothing that you put into a washing machine, just let them dry out – they aren’t going to shred as if they were paper!!

What is “paper” money (e.g., US One Dollar Bill) made from?

Eileen Collins is the first female to pilot a space shuttle mission and to hold the position of Captain and Commander of a space shuttle mission!

Colonel Collins is a veteran of four space shuttle missions and became the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle. Her second space flight was as Pilot for STS-84 Atlantis and she returned to space for a third time as Commander of STS-93 Columbia. She was the first woman to command a space shuttle mission. Her fourth and last space mission was as Commander of STS-114 Discovery, the return to space flight after the Columbia disaster of February 1, 2003. Colonel Collins retired as a NASA astronaut and from the United States Air Force in 2006.

What distinctions do Eileen Collins have the honor of holding?

Google got its name from the world “Googol” (the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros). The actual logo was rumored to be a spelling error, but however it got here it has now gone through several design changes to reach the current version we see today!

Everyone knows the search engine Google . . but do you know how it got its name?

Herring is the most widely consumed fish in the entire world!

What is the most widely consumed fish in the world?