Did you know

THAT the Featherston Swimming Club is celebrating 100 years in December. Anybody who has historic anecdotes to contribute or wishes to be part of the celebrations please contact Julie at; jmcollins@xnet.co.nz

THAT the Ministry of Education has pledged $450,000 towards a new arts facility for Kuranui College.

THAT a good gift for a homeopath is an empty box with the memory of the chocolates it once contained.

THAT Britain passed a law forbidding the use of children climbing up chimneys as sweeps on August 7^th 1840.

THAT a chimpanzee’s DNA is closer to a human’s than to a gorilla’s.

THAT the world’s top earning athlete is the boxer Manny Pacquaio who earned a cool $US 67 million in the last financial year. Bet you thought it would be Phil Mickelson, Roger Federer, Cristaino Ronaldo or Floyd Mayweather.

THAT on August 8^th 1974 Richard Nixon became the first American President to resign his office.

THAT at any given moment only 15% of the molecules in a glass of water are actually touching.

THAT a successful man is one who can earn money faster than his wife can spend it. I successful woman is one who can find such a man.

THAT Singapore separated from Malaysia to become a separate state on August 9^th 1965

THAT with over 800,000 lawyers America has more that the rest of the world combined. There are 300 lawyers for every 100,000 citizens. By comparison Britain has 82 and Japan 11

THAT the amount of solar energy reaching the earth in one hour equals the amount used by the earth’s total population in a year.

THAT on August 19^th 1934 Adolf Hitler gained his peoples’ assent to his combining the rolls of Chancellor and President by a massive 46 million to a 4 million vote against and so gain total power of Germany.

THAT If you are a born worrier it’s in your genes so you may as well stop worrying as you can’t do anything about it.

THAT the JPEG photographic system commonly used to record digital images is the format standard issued by the Joint Photographic Experts Group in 1992. How it works is explained in the book ‘Seeing further’ – available at the library.

THAT 25 year old Mary Langdon joined the East Sussex Fire Brigade on August the 21^st 1976 to become Britain’s first female ‘fireman’.

THAT there is 50 quadrillion tonnes of salt in the earth’s oceans. Enough to cover all the land area of the world to a depth of 166 metres

THAT Thomas Edison showed the first ‘talking pictures’ on August 27^th 1910