Staggering facts
- Genghis Khan’s real name was Tamujin. He was born in 1162 in Mongolia. Under his leader ship the Mongols attack and won many lands in Asia.
- Viking sailors from Scandinavia were the first Europeans to cross the Atlantic Ocean and reach North America.
- Kind Edward II of England banned football in London in 1934.
- Students have been going to the University of Karueein, at fez in morocco since the tear 858.
- The Black Death, we call it plague today, begin in about 1338 and spread from Asia to Europe by rats. It killed at least one of every three people in Asia and Europe.
- The many people of Central American chewed a rubbery gum the called Chicle. They collected if from the sapodilla tree.
- The world’s biggest holy building is the Hindu temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. You could fit 8317 tennis courts inside it.
- Japanese knights were called Samurai. A Samurai always had a bath before going into battle. Then, if he died, he knew he would be clean and ready to go to heaven.
Fact file
*Genghis Khan’s grand son, Kublai Khan, established a grand new capital called Ta-tu (the great capital) – now called Beijing.
*Genghis khan was hailed `Chief of all men’ in 1206.
*Hong Kong was returned to the rule of China in 1997.
*Marina beach in Chennai is the world’s second longest beach.
*Christopher Columbus set sail on august 3, 1492 in three ships- Santa Maria, Nina and Pinta.
*Christopher Columbus died when he began his fourth voyage in 1502. He died off Panama, still thinking it was India.
*Tornadoes are so powerful that they can lift trains and houses and carry them hundreds of meters away!
*In 1897, a tornado in Kansas tore up an iron bridge and dried the river below it by sucking up its water.
*Temperatures drop 0.6 cilices degree every 100 meters you climb. So, mountain peaks are very cold and often covered with snow.
*According to satellite measurements in 1999, the highest of world’s highest peak Mt Everest is 8850 meters, not 8848 meters!