After The 300 Fast Facts Series - What Comes Next?

     Hello everybody and welcome back to another post. Now that I have finished my 300 Fast Facts Series, you might be wondering, "What comes next?" Well, for starters, I am going to begin working on Presidential Biographies after the weekend, meaning I will post the next installment of the series on June 6th. After that, I will take a break for one or two weeks. After that, I will resume my normal posting schedule.

     Signed,

     Mr. Nations

Part 10: 30 Historical Fun Facts (Finale!)

     Hello everybody and welcome back to another edition of my 300 Fast Facts series. Today is the finale for the series, so I thought I'd finish it with a bang and give you guys thirty assorted history fun facts. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get right into it!

1. Augustus Caesar was the wealthiest man in history, with a net worth of $.46 trillion dollars. 
2. Alexander the Great was accidentally buried alive.
3. The most successful pirate in history was a lady named Ching Shih. At her height, she controlled 300 warships. 
4. In ancient times, Olympians performed naked.
5. At one point in time, the Colosseum was entirely covered in marble. It was ripped out by the Goths when they were pillaging Rome.
6. Rasputin was an actual person and he survived being poisoned and being shot.
7. There were female gladiators, not just male participants.
8. The Vikings were the first people to discover the Americas, not Christopher Columbus.
9. The Luftwaffe had a master interrogator whose tactic was being as nice as possible. 
10. In ancient Asia, death by elephant was a popular form of execution. 
11. The UK government collected postcards as intelligence for the D-Day landings.
12. When Marcus Crassus (the richest man in Rome during his lifetime) died, molten gold was poured down his throat.
13. Germany uncovers 2,000 tons of unexploded bombs every year.
14. In ancient Greece, wearing skirts was manly. 
15. A singing birthday card had more computer power in it than the entire Allied Army of WWII.
16. Cleopatra's reign was closer to the moon landing than the construction of the Great Pyramid.
17. During WWI, the French built a "fake Paris" to confuse German pilots.
18. An ancient text called the Voynich Manuscript still baffles scientists. Hundreds have tried to solve the mystery, but none have succeeded.
19. 4% of the Normandy beaches are made up of shrapnel. Upon analysis, scientists discovered that some granules of sand are shrapnel from wartime.
20. The saying "fly off the handle" originates in the 1800s. It refers to cheap axe-heads flying off the axe's handle.
21. Gengis Khan was tolerant of all religions. 
22. Thomas Edison didn't invent most of the stuff he patented. He was actually an intellectual property thief.
23. In 1386, a pig was executed for killing a child.
24. Ever since 1945, all British tanks are equipped with tea-making equipment.
25. The ingredients of Greek Fire are still a mystery. It is considered one of the deadliest weapons of warfare.
26. One in 200 men are direct descendants of Genghis Khan.
27. Shakespeare created the first "yo momma" joke.
28. The Dutch-Scilly war lasted 335 years and had no battles or deaths.
29. During WWII, America called hamburgers "liberty steaks" because the name hamburger sounded German.
30. The ancient Egyptians used slabs of stone as pillows.

     Source(s): https://www.thefactsite.com/100-history-facts/

Part 9: Ten Facts About The Black Plague, Polio, and The Spanish Flu

     Hello everybody and welcome back to another edition of my Fast Facts series. Today, I'll be looking at three pandemics. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get into it!\

     The Black Plague:

1. The Black Death was only the second plague to affect the people of the Middle Ages.
2. The Black Death was thought to be caused by "pockets of bad air".
3. The disease created the foundation for the Renaissance.
4. It still exists in modern life and people can still get it. Thankfully we have a vaccination to cure it.
5. It is believed that it took Europe 150 years to recover from the devastation of the plague.
6. The plague was able to spread so quickly thanks to the help of ships.
7. Cats and rats could become infected but dogs were fine.
8. The first form of biological warfare started during this time when invaders would fling bodies infected with the disease over city walls to infect the healthy residents of the city.
9. The term "quarantine" was created during this time.
10. Fecal matter and urine were prescribed by doctors to treat the disease.

     Source(s): https://facts.net/history/historical-events/black-death-facts

     Polio:

1. Polio is a virus that affects the entire body, including muscles and nerves.
2. There are three different types of polio.
3. Up to 95% of polio cases show no symptoms. A small number of people can have symptoms such as fever, sore throat, headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, or diarrhea.
4. Only 1 in 200 infections lead to irreversible paralysis (usually of the legs).
5. The reason polio was so deadly because it could be transmitted in a plethora of different ways, such as food, water, physical contact, and infected feces. 
6. Polio can infect a person of any age but affects mostly children under the age of five. 
7. Cases have decreased by more than 99% since 1988.
8. As of 2014, three countries remain infected with polio, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
9. Around 2/5 children who contract polio die because it damages breathing muscles.
10. There is no cure for polio, only a vaccine.

     Source(s): https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-polio

     The Spanish Flu:

1. The Spanish Flu struck in three waves, both the first and the third being mild and the second being the deadliest.
2. The origins of the flu are still unknown to this day. 
3. The disease did not come from Spain as the name suggests. It was only given that name because Spain was hit hard by the flu. 
4. There were no drugs or vaccines at the time to treat the flu.
5. This strain of influenza was especially odd, claiming the lives of only young and healthy people. Children and the elderly were relatively safe. 
6. Doctors tried to make the disease seem less severe than it really was. 
7. 25 million people died in the first twenty-five weeks.
8. The disease reached almost every part of the world.
9. The exact death toll is impossible to know. Some estimates are as high as 100 million.
10. It killed more people than all of the battles of WWI combined. 

     Source(s): https://www.historyhit.com/facts-about-the-deadly-1918-flu-epidemic/

Part 8: Ten Facts About the Invention of the Telescope, Radio, and Artificial Heating

     Hello everybody and welcome back to another edition of my 300 Fast Facts series. Today, I'll be taking a look at three different inventions, the telescope, the radio, and artificial heating. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's dive straight into it!

     The Telescope:

1. The telescope is thought to have been invented by a man named Hans Lippershey in 1608.
2. An old legend dictates that the telescope was actually invented by children playing with lenses in a spectacle-making shop.
3. Early telescopes were used by merchants to spot approaching trade ships in hopes of beating out competitors. 
4. Galileo was the first to use the telescope to look at the stars and planets.
5. Almost all observatories have to built on a mountaintop; otherwise, they won't function properly. 
6. This is due to the fact that the Irish built a huge telescope observatory in 1845, but wet weather kept it shut down almost all the time.
7. NASA launched the Hubble Telescope seven years late and $2 billion over budget. 
8. The Hooke Telescope proved that other galaxies existed, making it the most important telescopes of its time.
9. In the 1960s physicist, Raymond Davis Jr. used 100,000 gallons of dry-cleaning fluid to detect invisible neutrino particles as they stream in from the sun, making it one of the most bizarre telescopes.
10. It worked, and he earned a Nobel Prize for his contributions.

     Source(s): https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-telescopes

     The Radio:

1. Early developments in radio were called "wireless telegraphy".
2. Guglielmo Marconi made the first successful transatlantic transmission of radio waves in 1901 and 1902.
3. The word "broadcasting" originally used to mean the scattering of seeds.
4. In 1903, Marconi allowed President Roosevelt to send a message to Edward VII.
5. Other people claimed to have invented radio transmissions, such as Nikola Tesla, Oliver Lodge, and Heinrich Hertz.
6. From 1922 to 1971, you had to have a license to listen to the radio in the UK.
7. Marconi won a Nobel Prize for his invention.
8. 247 million people still listen to the radio every week.
9. Radio is the only form of information broadcast that hasn't declined over the years.
10. The audience for radio is still growing.

     Source(s): https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/472231/Top-10-facts-about-radio

     http://www.radiomatters.org/index.php/2018/09/10/5-facts-and-radio/

     Artificial Heating:

1. The first form of central heating dates back to Roman times, where a system called a hypocaust was maintained. A furnace was located in the ground, and the hot air would waft up to the living levels.
2. Hypocausts were very difficult to maintain, so only the wealthiest Romans could afford one.
3. The Romans also invented heated floors.
4. The modern radiator was invented by Franz San-Gilli in the 1850s, although there is some controversy surrounding the fact if it really was him.
5. The name "radiator" is a misnomer. The machine doesn't radiate heat, it "convects" it, meaning that it moves hot and cold air around the room.
6. Old radiators were made out of cast iron and weighed 490 pounds per square foot.
7. The first water heater wasn't invented for human use, but for chickens!
8. Natural gas is odorless and colorless, but the gas companies add a chemical to make it easy to detect.
9. There are 300,000 miles of natural gas pipelines in the United States alone. 
10. Philadelphia Gas Works was the first government-owned gas company.

     Sources: https://www.designerradiatorsdirect.co.uk/blog/six-interesting-facts-about-radiators-yep-we-did-say-interesting/

     https://3thermo.uk/uncategorized/heating-facts/

     https://www.oliverheatcool.com/about/blog/news-for-homeowners/10-fun-facts-about-heating/

Part 7: Ten Facts About the Lives of Vincent van Gogh, Thomas Edison, and Walt Disney

     Hello and welcome back to another edition of my 300 Fast Facts series! In this edition, we will be looking at the lives of three great people. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get into it!

     Vincent van Gogh:

1. Van Gogh only started painting at the age of twenty-seven and was for the most part self-taught.
2. His life is documented through the many letters he wrote.
3. He attempted many other careers, such as an art dealer, a preacher, and a schoolteacher before picking art as his job.
4. He was an extremely busy artist, creating 2,100 pieces, 860 of which are oil paintings. 
5. His "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" sold for $82.5 million dollars. 
6. Van Gogh was not very successful when he was alive. It is thought he only sold one painting during his lifetime.
7. Van Gogh suffered from a mental illness.
8. Van Gogh cut off his ear and sent it to a woman in a brothel he frequented.
9. He committed suicide in 1890.
10. Translated, his last words were "the sadness will last forever".

     Source(s): https://drawpaintacademy.com/facts-about-vincent-van-gogh/

     Thomas Edison:

1. Edison's favorite holiday was the 4th of July.
2. Edison was a huge fan of the writer Thomas Paine, who authored his books during the American Revolution.
3. Edison was a huge supporter of solar energy.
4. Edison and his son Charles played very important roles in both WWI and WWII. \
5. He had the most recognizable face in the world, in a time where magazines and newspapers were the main ways of communicating information.
6. Edison loved pie.
7. He was a practical joker and liked to make people laugh.
8. His first two children were named "Dot" and "Dash" in honor of his invention, the telegraph.
9. He taught his wife Morse Code and proposed to her by tapping it out on her palm. She tapped back, "Yes".
10. Edison was not a regular bather and often went several days without taking a bath.

     Source(s): https://www.edisonmuckers.org/fun-facts-about-tom/

     Walt Disney: 

1. Disney came from humble beginnings. He was not financially stable and struggled to make money in his early years.
2. He was the voice of Mickey Mouse.
3. Disney produced propaganda films for the U.S. during WWII.
4. Disney was a train enthusiast.
5. Plans for Disneyland were originally small scale.
6. The opening day was not smooth for the budding theme park. Many problems had to be overcome for the now-successful park to be where it is today.
7. During the opening day, a gas leak forced Disneyland to be shut down.
8. Disney won more Academy Awards than any other person.
9. Disney wasn't cryogenically frozen. It's just a legend. 
10. Originally, admission to Disneyland was $1.00 for adults.

     Source(s): https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-might-not-know-about-walt-disney

Part 6: Ten Facts About the Construction of the Great Wall of China, the Panama Canal, and the Burj Khalifa

      Hello everybody and welcome back to the sixth edition of my 300 Fast Facts series! Today, we're going to be taking a look at the construction of three famous structures, buildings, and canals. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get into it!

     The Great Wall of China:

1. The wall took more than 1800 years to build.
2. The structure isn't actually one long wall, but actually a collection of walls. The wall breaks when there are natural barriers, such as lakes or mountains.
3. An ingredient in the wall was sticky rice. It was used for its adhesive properties.
4. Wall construction was often given out as punishment for criminals. 
5. Roosters were often brought to the wall to honor the dead.
6. The wall was not that great at keeping out invaders. 
7. Despite many legends saying so, the wall is not visible from space.
8. Thousands of miles of the original wall have disappeared.
9. Pieces of the wall were recycled to build homes in the 1960s and the 1970s. 
10. Certain portions of the wall might disappear before 2040.

     Source(s): https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67539/15-colossal-facts-about-great-wall-china

     The Panama Canal:

1. The idea for a canal across Panama arose in the 16th century.
2. America originally wanted a canal across Nicaragua, not Panama. 
3. More than 25,000 men died during the construction of the canal.
4. Between 13,000 and 14,000 ships use the canal each year.
5. The United States originally controlled the canal until 1999, where control was transferred to Panama.
6. The canal is being expanded to allow the passage of modern megaships that weight thousands of tons and carry thousands of tons.
7. 2014 marked the 100th year anniversary of the canal.
8. It is considered one of the manmade wonders of the world.
9. Over one million ships have traveled through the canal since its construction.
10. $2 billion in tolls are collected annually.

     Source(s): https://www.history.com/news/7-fascinating-facts-about-the-panama-canal

     https://www.avantiworldtravel.com/blog/8-facts-about-the-panama-canal

     The Burj Khalifa:

1. The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, standing at 2716 feet. 
2. The Burj Khalifa took six years to construct.
3. The building is three times as tall as the Eiffel Tower and twice the size of the Empire State Building.
4. Roughly 12,000 workers worked around the clock to complete the massive tower.
5. Those workers put in roughly twenty-two million hours in total to finish construction.
6. The exterior of the tower is covered in 26,000 sheets of glass, hand-cut to withstand the high heat of Dubai.
7. The total amount of concrete used in the Burj Khalifa exceeds the weight of 100,000 elephants combined.
8. The entire project of building the Burj Khalifa cost $1.5 billion dollars.
9. The tower is 160 stories high.
10. The design of the tower was inspired by the shape of a Hymenocallis Flower also known as the Spider Lilly, a regional desert flower.

     Source(s): https://hoteljules.com/burj-khalifa-facts/

Part 5: Ten Facts About the San Francisco Earthquake, the Great Chicago Fire, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

     Hello everybody and welcome back to another edition of my 300 Fast Facts series! This edition is going to be all about fires, so what are we waiting for? Let's get right into it!

     The San Francisco Earthquake:

1. The San Francisco earthquake is the first natural disaster to be photographed.
2. The earthquake struck with a magnitude of 7.9 at 5:12 AM. 
3. The huge fire originally got started when a woman was preparing breakfast and didn't notice the badly damaged chimney above.
4. $30,000 worth of liquor was destroyed to stop the spread of the fire and to minimize the threat of gang violence.
5. It took a total of nine years to rebuild the city to all its glory. 
6. The resulting fires destroyed about 28,000 buildings.
7. The total property value loss was estimated to be $350 million. 
8. The amount of death is thought to be over 3,000.
9. 250,000 people were left homeless.
10. Survivors ended up camping in Golden Gate Park, simply because they had nowhere else to go.

     Source(s): https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/california/articles/5-facts-about-the-1906-earthquake/

     https://www.britannica.com/event/San-Francisco-earthquake-of-1906

     The Great Chicago Fire:

1. Catherine O' Leary is not the one to blame for the fire. There are many speculations as to what happened, but she did not start the fire.
2. O' Leary was exonerated from her charges in 1997.
3. Many think that the whole city burned down in the fire, but this isn't the case. It did lots of damage, but the majority of the city was perfectly fine.
4. To prevent repeat fires, Chicago banned the construction of wooden buildings, requiring them to all be built out of masonry. 
5. The total cost of the damages is thought to be around $200 million.
6. The immense heat and energy produced by the fire managed to toss houses and rail cars into the air.
7. 17,000 buildings and structures were completely destroyed in the fire.
8. 100,000 people were left homeless.
9. Even though most of the city was destroyed, the transportation system remained relatively unharmed, speeding up the city's recovery.
10. During reconstruction, Chicago experienced a massive population and economic growth.

     Source(s): https://blockclubchicago.org/2018/10/08/5-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-great-chicago-fire/

     https://factslegend.org/20-interesting-great-chicago-fire-facts/

     The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire:

1. The fire was likely started by a discarded cigarette.
2. The fire was fed by cotton and paper waste, both very flammable materials.
3. 129 women and 17 men died during the fire.
4. The majority of those who died were young women who immigrated from Europe.
5. The owners of the factory were charged with manslaughter but were acquitted. 
6. The owners actually profited from the tragedy by submitting inflated claims to their insurance company.
7. Women were seen jumping from windows in an attempt to escape the flames, but were killed on impact.'
8. The deaths were 100% preventable had the owners maintained their building properly.
9. There were four elevators in the building, but only one functioned.
10. There we two stairways down to the street, but one was locked to prevent theft and the other only opened inward.

     Source(s): https://www.britannica.com/event/Triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire

     https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/triangle-shirtwaist-fire

Part 4: Ten Facts About the Gold Rush, the Silver Rush, and the Great Depression

     Hello everybody and welcome back to my 300 Fast Facts series! In this edition, we will be looking at the goldrush, the silver rush, and the Great Depression. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get straight into it!

     The Gold Rush:

1. California did not actually have the first gold rush. That honor goes to North Carolina, where fifty years prior, a seventeen-pound nugget was found, sending the state into a gold rush.
2. For thirty years, all gold coins produced by the U.S. mint were made only from North Carolina gold.
3. The gold rush was the largest mass migration in U.S. history. 300,000 new people had come to the state, not all of them there for the gold rush, but just to live there.
4. The gold rush attracted immigrants from all over the world.
5. The gold rush was a male-dominated event; 92% of all prospectors were men.
6. Early sections of San Francisco were built out of boats long abandoned by their passengers and crew. 
7. Searching for gold was a very, very costly expedition. Replacing a pair of worn-out boots could set you back $2,500.
8. More fortunes were made by merchants than by miners simply.
9. Thousands of prospectors got rich, but not John Sutter. He was a Swiss immigrant who fled his country to escape his debt in the 1830s.
10. Many prospectors arrived by boat and very few had a ticket back home.

     Source(s): https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-california-gold-rush

     The Silver Rush:

1. The actual silver rush began in 1858, shortly after the gold rush.
2. Nevada produces the second-largest amount of gold, after Alaska. 
3. From the years 1912 to 1914, the Rochester District produced 6.4 million troy ounces (200 metric tons) of silver. 
4. They also produced 52,000 ounces of gold.
5. Unlike the gold rush, silver was only formed on the surface, making it very easy to obtain by even the most amateur miners.
6. At some points in the ground, you could take a shovel and literally dig up chunks of silver.
7. A large silver bed could be tens of meters wide and more than a kilometer long.
8. Silver was worth about $27,000 a ton in 1860s dollars. 
9. The surface veins were gone very quickly, leaving barely any time for towns to be established. Oftentimes only a few ramshackle saloons could be put up before the vein dried up.
10. This ultimately created many ghost towns.

     Source(s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_mining_in_Nevada

     https://www.thoughtco.com/nevada-silver-rush-1440699

     The Great Depression:

1. During the Great Depression, miniature golf was wildly popular due to the low operating costs.
2. Nearly 50% of children didn't have enough to eat, proper housing, or adequate healthcare.
3. People who lost their homes often ended up living in Hoovervilles, or shantytowns. As you may have guessed, the name Hooverville was derived from President Hoover.
4. Al Capone opened a soup kitchen during the Great Depression to feed the hungry.
5. After the initial crash, there was a wave of suicides in New York's financial district. It is said that the clerks of one hotel had to ask patrons if they were getting a room for sleeping or for jumping.
6. As news of the crash spread, people rushed to withdraw their money from the bank. This resulted in "bank runs", usually causing the bank to fail.
7. Scholars believe that the Great Depression may not have been as serious if the banks hadn't failed.
8. One sheep farmer discovered that he would not make money off his sheep if he continued to feed them. Rather than watch them all starve to death, he cut all their throats and threw them in a canyon.
9. The board game "Monopoly" became immensely popular because players could become rich, even if it was just their imaginations.
10. During the Great Depression, a record number of Americans attended the movies every week, with between 60-80 million moviegoers. 

     Source(s): https://www.factretriever.com/great-depression-facts

Part 3: Ten Facts About the Halifax Explosion, the Atomic Bombings, and the Tsar Bomba

     Hello everybody and welcome to part three of our 300 fast facts series! For this edition we'll be looking at three famous explosions. I will start linking readers to posts if I have written about this topic before, making it easier to learn more. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get into it!

     The Halifax Explosion:

1. The two boats involved in the explosion were called the Mont Blanc and the Imo.
2. The Mont Blanc was carrying 2,300 tons of picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 35 tons of high-octane gasoline, and ten tons of gun cotton, resulting in the violent explosion.
3. The explosion itself happened twenty-one minutes after the collision. 
4. 2,000 people were killed and over 9,000 injured during the explosion.
5. The Halifax Explosion was the largest manmade explosion prior to the Atomic Bomb.
6. Most of the windows in Halifax were completely shattered by the explosion. 
7. The explosion left 691 people with injuries.
8. To thank Boston for their quick actions after the explosion, Halifax sends Boston a Christmas tree every year. This tradition didn't start until 1971 however.
9. 1,630 homes were completely destroyed and 12,000 were damaged.
10. A total of 6,000 people were left without a home after the explosion.

     Source(s): https://discoverhalifaxns.com/halifax-explosion-facts/

     The Atomic Bombings:

1. The first target was decided an hour before the bomb dropped.
2. The temperature at ground zero at Hiroshima upon detonation was 60,000,000 (sixty million) degrees Fahrenheit.
3. A total of up to 246,000 may have died in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
4. The bombs were armed in mid-air.
5. The second target was originally going to be Kokura, but bad weather forced Nagasaki to get hit instead.
6. The name of the plane that dropped the second bomb was Bockscar.
7. The city of Kyoto had also been considered as a second target instead of Nagasaki, but the Secretary of War asked for it to be removed from the list because he had been there on his honeymoon.
8. The crew that dropped the bombs was called Enola Gay.
9. The members of Enola Gay were equipped with cyanide tablets that they would take if they were captured.
10. A man named Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived both explosions.

Source(s): http://www.realclear.com/history/2015/08/07/21_surprising_facts_about_the_atomic_bomb_attacks_on_japan_12001.html

     Tsar Bomba:

1. The Tsar Bomba is the most powerful nuclear weapon in the world. 
2. The Tsar Bomba could have been more powerful, but there was fear that the pilots dropping the bomb wouldn't survive.
3. The mushroom cloud created by the detonation was forty miles high.
4. The plane that had carried the massive bomb almost came down after experiencing the bomb's air shockwave.
5. Windows hundreds of miles away from the testing sight were shattered as a result of the shockwave too.
6. The bomb was attached to a parachute to slow the fall. This was mildly successful, but as soon as the bomb exploded, the plane instantly fell 3,000 feet.
7. The bomb was created to show the Russian military's strength.
8. The bomb was actually incredibly impractical for wartime simply because it was too difficult to move.
9. The pilots moving the Tsar Bomba were given at best a 50% survival rate.
10. The bomb was made extraordinarily quickly. It was created in a total of between 14-16 weeks. 

     Source(s): https://www.warhistoryonline.com/guns/10-facts-the-tsar-bomba-the-biggest-bomb-the-world-has-ever-seen.html

Part 2: Ten Facts About World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War

     Hello everybody and welcome back to part two of the series! We'll be talking about three major wars, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. Let's dive into it!

     World War I:

1. The Germans were the first to use flamethrowers in war. They could shoot flames up to 130 feet.
2. Sixty-five million men from thirty countries fought in World War I. Nearly ten million of those men died.
3. 2/3 of deaths in World War I were in battle. The main cause of death in other wars was typically disease. 
4. Dogs played a very important part of World War I. They were used to carry messages and lay telegraph wires.
5. Tanks were initially called "landships".
6. When tanks were first invented, they were made to look like water tanks, hence the name "tanks".
7. Spanish flu caused nearly 1/3 of total military deaths.
8. The total cost of the war was over thirty billion dollars.
9. Surprisingly, WWI is only the sixth deadliest conflict in history.
10. Russia mobilized twelve million soldiers during WWI. More than 75% were killed, or went missing in action.

     Source(s): https://www.factretriever.com/world-war-i-facts

     World War II:

1. The country with the largest number of WWII casualties was Russia, with over twenty-one million dead.
2. It is estimated that 1.5 million children died during the Holocaust.
3. 1.2 million of those children were Jews.
4. The longest battle of WWII was the Battle of Amiens, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. 
5. The Nazis murdered approximately twelve million people, with nearly six million of those being Jews.
6. In 1935, engineer Robert Watson-Watt was working on a "death ray" that would soon turn into radar.
7. Dr. Josef Mengele used about 3,000 pairs of twins in his gruesome genetic experiments. 
8. Many historians believe that the battle of Stalingrad is the bloodiest battle in history, with between 800,000 to 1,600,000 casualties.
9. During WWII, the American defense budget rose from $1.9 billion to $59.8 billion.
10. The Air force was a part of the Army and didn't become its own branch until after the war.

     Source(s): https://www.factretriever.com/world-war-ii

     The Vietnam War:

1. The United States didn't get involved in the war until 1954.
2. President Kennedy wanted to get the U.S. out of the war but didn't know how.
3. The U.S. issued M-16 was so terrible that troops began picking up their enemy's AK-47s.
4. A majority of the men who fought in the war weren't drafted, they volunteered.
5. The war wasn't exclusively a jungle war, as many movies make it out to be.
6. Richard Nixon ended the war but invaded Cambodia first.
7. The war had a huge impact on civilians, as many wars often do.
8. The Vietnam War left legions of unexploded bombs that are still being located to this day.
9. There was a lot of guerilla warfare during the Vietnam War.
10. North Vietnam eventually won the war.

     Source(s): https://www.businessinsider.com/17-wild-facts-about-the-vietnam-war-2015-7

     https://www.thefactsite.com/vietnam-war-facts/

Part 1: Ten Facts About the Titanic, the Lusitania, and the USS Arizona

     Hello everybody and welcome to part one of our series! Today we are posting about the sinkings of three major ships, the Titanic, the Lusitania, and the USS Arizona. Let's begin!

     Titanic Facts:

1. The Titanic burned 600 tons of coal a day, hand shoveled by a team of 176 men.
2. As a result of the heavy coal burning, the Titanic dumped 100 tons of ash into the sea every twenty-four hours.
3. There were 20,000 bottles of beer on board, 1,500 bottles of wine, and 8,000 cigars on board at the time of the sinking, all for the first-class passengers.
4. Twenty horses were required to carry the main anchor of the Titanic to the construction site.
5. 22 tons of soap and tallow were used to assist the Titanic's launch into the ocean for the first time.
6. Out of the 885 crew members on board, only 23 were female. 
7. The last supper served to first-class passengers consisted of eleven courses. 
8. First-class passengers were given a music book containing 352 songs. Musicians on board had to know every one of them in case requests were made.
9. Before departure, the Titanic was given six warnings about icebergs.
10. Musicians played for two hours and five minutes as the ship sank.

     Source(s): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/titanic-fascinating-facts/

     Lusitania Facts:

1. The Lusitania was designed to be fast, meaning it could travel the Atlantic in under five days.
2. The Lusitania was built to carry mail, hence the initials before the name, RMS, which stand for "Royal Mail Ship".
3. The highest survival rate of any group of passengers on the ship was the band, three out of five members survived.
4. $735,579 were lost in the sinking, translating to $17,583,397 in the year 2017.
5. The Lusitania sunk in only eighteen minutes, which is remarkably quick.
6. The primary cause of death for the passengers was hypothermia and drowning.
7. Though most of the passengers died, the captain of the Lusitania survived.
8. The Lusitania was traveling from New York to Liverpool at the time of the sinking.
9. The Lusitania rests at a shallow depth of only ninety-three meters.
10. There are no more living survivors of the tragedy. The last survivor died in 2011.

     Source(s): https://www.factinate.com/things/40-catastrophic-facts-lusitania/

     

     USS Arizona Facts:

1. Twenty-three pairs of brothers died while onboard the USS Arizona.
2. The entire military band was lost during the sinking. No other time in history was an entire military band killed in action.
3. Fuel is still leaking from the USS Arizona.
4. Some former crewmembers have chosen the USS Arizona as their final resting place. They are cremated, placed in urns, and deposited by divers into the wreckage.
5. A memorial was built at the site of the USS Arizona, thanks in part to Elvis Presley.
6. 1,102 bodies are still aboard the USS Arizona.
7. Many people call the fuel leaking from the ship "black tears".
8. The USS Arizona sank in about forty feet.
9. The USS Arizona was deleted from the Navy's Register in 1942 but was readmitted in 1950.
10. The memorial building was designed by Austrian architect Alfred Preis.

     Source(s):

     https://www.history.com/news/5-facts-about-pearl-harbor-and-the-uss-arizona

     https://pearlharbor.org/facts-uss-arizona-bb-39/

     https://www.britannica.com/topic/USS-Arizona