The city of Istanbul is located on a strategically important piece of land on the Bosphorus Strait. There has been continuous settlement on the site since before 600BC. The original name for the city was Byzantium. In the year 330 the Roman Emperor Constantine built a new city on the site called Constantinople. This city was the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. It is now the largest city in Turkey, but not the capital. In 1930 the city’s name was officially changed to Istanbul. I wonder what they will call it next.

The Ten Commandments are a part of the foundation of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Ten Commandments were told to Moses by God and lay out some important dos and don’ts. While all versions of the Ten Commandments include the same material they split it up differently. If all possible divisions of the commandments were include there would be a total of 12. Check out this table from wikipedia.org for a breakdown of different versions.

In 1925 a con artist by the name of Victor Lustig posed as an official of the government of France and took bids on the Eiffel Tower. He invited six scrap iron dealers to a meeting where he told them the government could not afford to maintain the tower and they would like to sell it. He said due to potential public outcrythe whole process had to be quite secret until a winning bidder was chosen. A winning bidder was Andre Poisson. Once Mr. Poisson paid Mr. Lustig the latter split town for Vienna. No charges were filed since the buyer was too humiliated to go to the police.

Despite its long history from the Roman empire to the birth of the Renaissance, Italy is quite young. The country that is now Italy definitely has a long long history, but it has only been in existence since 1870 when the last of the separate kingdoms unified. The United States on the other hand has been around since 1776, a full 94 years before Italy.

The necktie can trace its origins to the cravat and the cravat can trace its origins to Croatia. During the 30 years war soldiers from Croatia wore a piece of cloth around their neck. When these troops mixed with French soldiers the fashion accessory caught on. In Paris the look became popular and named the cravat, which is a mix of the French and Croat word for a Croatian (Hrvati + Croates = Cravat). Over the years the cravat became the necktie that we know and love today.

After World War Two the United States public debt stayed relatively stable. Since 1980 the debt has begun to grow steadily. As of the end of 2009 the debt was estimated at almost 13 trillion dollars. Some of the money is owed to US banks and individuals, but a large chunk is owed to other countries. Of the countries owed money, China tops the list. They are currently owed about 800 billion dollars. To put it another way: every man, woman, and child in the US owes China about $2600.

It is weird to think of the English alphabet with less than 26 letters, but it was not always that way. The alphabet English speakers all know today is derived from Latin. Originally Latin had no J. It was not until about 500 years ago that the letter first entered the alphabet, before that time the sound was created by an I. Thankfully we now have what I consider to be one of the most important letters (along with A,M,E, and S).

If you have ever wondered what YKK stands for on your zipper, wonder no more. Like most products, zippers are stamped with a brand name. Since Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha is a little long to fit on a zipper the shorted YKK will have to do. The company was founded in 1934 by Tadao Yoshida and registered the YKK trademark in 1946. YKK group is now the world’s largest manufacturer of zippers.

Mario of the Super Mario Bros/ Mario Kart fame made his video game debut in Donkey Kong. In that game he was simply known as Jumpman. When Jumpman was going to be put in a video game of his own the proposed name for the character was Mr. Video. The name was finally chosen when the Nintendo developers were working on the character in the US their landlord visited them and demanded back rent. A heated argument ensued and the landlords name was Mario Segale. Once the argument was resolved the developers decided to name the character after him.

Construction of the airport began in 1943. It was built on the site of Idlewild golf course and took its name. The airport was quickly renamed Major General Alexander E. Anderson Airport, but the name Idlewild Airport stuck and was still commonly used. The name changed again in 1948 when it was re-dubbed New York International Airport, Anderson Field. This name remained until 1963 when a month after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the name was officially changed to JFK International Airport.