Interesting Facts – Page 2 – Amazing Facts, Random Facts and Funny Facts

What are the biggest cut diamonds on Earth?

The largest cut diamond is known as the ‘Star of Africa’, a pear shaped Cullinan diamond, which is 530.2 carats.

It is set as the main stone in the majestic Sovereign Sceptre with the Cross.

The Cullinan Diamond was the largest rough diamond ever found and weighed in at 3,106.75 carats.

The rough diamond was discovered on 26th January 1905, at the Premier No. 2 mine in Cullinan, South Africa. It was named after Thomas Cullinan, who was the mine’s chairman.

In April 1905, the large gem quality stone was put on sale in London, but it was never sold.

Then in 1907 the Transvaal Colony government bought the Cullinan and gifted it to Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom.

It was then sent to be cut by Asscher Brothers in Amsterdam.

The Cullinan produced 9 stones of various cuts and sizes. The largest, named Cullinan I or the Great Star of Africa, weighs in at an impressive 530.2 carats and is the largest clear cut diamond in the world.

Then you have the second-largest, called Cullinan II or Second Star of Africa, and this is placed at the front and centre of the Imperial State Crown and weighs 317.4 carats.

Seven other major diamonds, weighing a total of 208.29 carats are owned by Queen Elizabeth II, who inherited them from Queen Mary, after her grandmother died in 1953.

They vary in shape and size and make up a necklace, brooches, earrings and even a pear shaped ring.

What is a lyrebird?

The lyrebird can usually be found in areas of the rainforest in Victoria, New South Wales, and south-east Queensland, Australia, and it was also introduced to Tasmania in the 19th century.

The lyrebird’s name derives from the fact that the male bird has an extraordinary tail and has 16 highly varying size feathers.

These consist of two long slender lyrates in the middle of the plume, surrounded by two broader medians on the edges and finished off with twelve filamentaries positioned between them.

It is thought to resemble the shape of the lyre, a Greek musical string instrument.

A lyrebird is most known for its superb ability to imitate natural and artificial sounds from around their environment.

The lyrebirds sings mostly during the winter when it’s breeding season.

Like most songbirds, male lyrebirds learn their songs and even mimic other sounds, from older males rather than directly from their mimicked models.

The lyrebird can accurately mimic the sounds of the surrounding forests. With most lyrebird mimicry of other bird species such as songs, wing beats etc.

It is also known that the Lyrebird can mimic other items, like camera clicks, chain saws and even car horns, to name but a few.

The extremely striking beauty of the male bird’s large tail feathers is spectacularly fanned out during a courtship display.

Lyrebirds have unique plumes of natural coloured feathers and are one of Australia’s best-known native birds.

The female’s tails reaches 75-85 centimetres in length, compared to the impressive males tail which reaches 80-98cm in length.

Also, unlike the Emu, the lyrebird can fly, but it rarely does. Choosing instead to run quickly to avoid most dangerous encounters.

Lyrebirds like living in forests as they feed mainly on ground-dwelling insects, like spiders, frogs, and other small invertebrates.

This is the reason they have powerful legs with long claws, making it perfect for raking through the large amounts of foliage, leaves and soil.

Although Lyrebirds live on the ground they actually spend their nights sleeping high up in trees.

You can also find the Lyrebird’s picture on the side of Australia’s ten cent coin.

What is a Super Snow Moon?

A super snow moon is when the moon is both at its fullest and and its perigee, which means the point in the moon’s orbit when it’s closest to Earth.

The super snow moon tends to occur during the month of February and was given its name thousands of years ago by Native Americans as that is when they had the most snow fall, it has also been known by the name, Hunger Moon and Storm Moon.

Supermoon — A supermoon occurs when the moon’s orbit is closest (perigee) to Earth at the same time it is full. (Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Because of the distance between the moon and Earth at this time, the moon appears 14 percent larger and around 30 percent brighter in the sky.

The moon’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle, it’s more egg-shaped and this is due to forces of gravity from both the sun and the Earth. This means that the moons distance from Earth varies throughout the year.

According to NASA, on the 19th February 2019, the super snow moon’s perigee will be about 362 miles (583 kilometres) closer to Earth than January’s 2019 super blood moon. The moon will be just 356,846 km away from the Earth, whilst the furthest full moon will occur on 14th September 2019 and will be 406,248 km away from our planet.

The best time to photograph or look at a super moon is when it rises in the east or as the sun is setting in the west. This is when the moon will appear to be at its biggest, although this is a kind of optical illusion.

Astronomers say that the illusion is caused by objects such as trees and buildings in our line of vision tricking our brain into thinking the moon is closer to these objects than they actually are, making the moon appear much larger.

On the other end of the scale, the point in its orbit when the moon is furthest away from Earth is known as the apogee,and this makes the moon appear much smaller in the sky.

Who invented the Rubik’s Cube?

The Rubik cube was invented by a professor from Budapest in Hungary named Ernõ Rubik. The invention of the ‘Magic Cube’ was to help his students understand three-dimensional problems.

Ernő Rubik was born in Budapest, Hungary on 13 July 1944, during World War II. His father, Ernő Rubik Sr. worked as a flight engineer at Esztergom aircraft factory and was a highly regarded engineer of gliders, whilst his mother Magdolna Szántó, was a poet.

During the years 1958 to 1962, Rubik specialised in sculpture at the Secondary School of Fine and Applied Arts. Then he went on to attend Budapest University of Technology between 1962 to 1967.

He became a member of the Architecture Faculty and finally finished his education at the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts from 1967 to 1971. Whilst here he became involved in the Faculty of Interior Architecture and Design.

In 1974 Ernõ started working on a prototype of the magic cube, thus showing his architecture students a moveable art piece.

The cube was fairly large and made from wood, with corners that were cut down due to the size of the object. It was very robust yet it twisted and turned without breaking. He then added 54 coloured stickers to the six sides of the cube.

When Rubik first designed his cube it took him over a month to solve it. It was known in Hungary at the ‘Buvos Kocka’ or ‘Magic Cube’ in English.

In 1975 Rubik received a patent in Hungary for his ‘Magic Cube’ as a puzzle. The name Magic Cube was kept for the following 5 years before being renamed Rubik Cube after its inventor Ernõ Rubik.

Following on from this in 1977, the ‘Magic Cube’ was manufactured in small batches as it became popular in Hungary in the late 1970s. Unfortunately due to Hungary being a communist country, the controls on imports and exports were tightly controlled and therefore made it difficult for Rubik sell outside of Hungary, so he started to demonstrate his puzzle at toy fairs.

After a few years of promoting his ‘Magic Cube’ at a variety of international toy fairs, which including London, Paris and New York. His puzzle was finally spotted in September 1979, in Nuremberg by the toy specialist Tom Kremer. Seeing the potential of the puzzle cube, Tom Kremer wanted to commercialise the cube and sell it worldwide.

It took a few years before the cube was released worldwide, due to the “Iron Curtain” communist regime. But in between patent receipt and release the Cube finally started to get distributed across the world.

1980
In 1980, Tom Kremer convinced the Ideal Toy Company to distribute the “Magic Cube”. But they wanted to change the name of the product and so the global launch took place in 1980 with the new puzzle named Rubik Cube. The newer Cubes were designed to be much lighter and therefore it made it much easier to move, which in turn made it faster to solve.

A man named David Singmaster published the first problem solving Rubik Cube book in 1980 and some still use this book today. Following on from this a 12 year old boy, Patrick Bossert, released a book, ‘You Can Do the Cube’ in 1981, this was hugely popular and sold more than 1.5 million copies.

1982
In 1982, the first Rubik’s Cube World Championship was held in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. 20 competitors took part, all of whom were selected from smaller competitions in their home countries and came together to solve the Rubik’s Cube in as fast a time as possible.

The victor was Minh Thai, an American teenager, who solved the cube in 22.95 seconds. He then later published a book entitled “The Winning Solution”, which also taught others how to solve the Rubik’s Cube. The Ortega Corners-First method that is still used by some today was based off of Thai’s book.

During the same year, the Museum of Modern Art in New York added a Rubik’s Cube to its permanent collection.

During the next two decades, as the World began to move on to different toys and inventions (especially with the daily technological advances that hooked the attention of the World), the Rubik’s Cube faded from the public view. It still remained on the shelves and still sold incredibly well, but the hype that originated back in its starting years had pretty much died off.

The cube did make occasional appearances in the news, however, such as the Masterpiece Cube that was created in 1995 by Diamond Cutters Int. Valued at $1.5 million, it is the most expensive Rubik’s Cube in the World.

However, as the Rubik’s Cube became less of a common sight in Christmas wish lists, speed cubing was born and began to thrive

1983
Rubik’s launches a new puzzle called ‘The Snake’, which sells several million units worldwide.

1987
Rubik’s launches another new puzzle called ‘Magic’, which sells over 14 million units worldwide.

1990
Ernố Rubik is named President of the Hungarian Engineering Academy.

1993-1995
The Rubik’s Cube relaunches in major markets.

1995
Diamond Cutters International create the ‘Masterpiece Cube’ for 15th birthday of the cube

In 1997, Jessica Fridrich published her methods for solving the Rubik’s Cube online. The Fridrich method (also known as CFOP, an acronym for the stages of the puzzle) is regarded today as the best speed cubing method, and the world record single and average times have been held by Fridrich solvers for many years, despite Fridrich herself estimating that the method would not be efficient for consistent times under 13 seconds.

In 2003, Ron Van Bruchem and Tyson Mao founded the World Cube Association (WCA). This was the first official organisation that would be responsible for the running of official speed cubing competitions and monitoring of national and international achievements.

The WCA has helped grow speed cubing and has taken the hobby to many new countries. The organisation is recognised as the official speed cubing association and any potential World Records must be set under WCA regulations and delegation before they are recognised.

In this year, the second World Championship took place. Dan Knight was the victor this time, winning with a time of 20.00 seconds.

The cube celebrated its 25th birthday in 2005. A special edition cube packaging was created to celebrate. Also during this year, the third World Championship took place. In this one, Jeans Pons won with a time of 15.10 seconds.

2007
Ernő Rubik awards prizes at the World Championship in Budapest.

2013
A new cube is born featuring a faster mechanism and tough durable tiles.

2014
The Rubik’s Cube celebrated 40 years since its invention back in 1974.

An interactive Rubik’s Cube doodle was released on the front page of Google on the day, and the Beyond Rubik’s Cube Exhibition was opened at the Liberty Science Centre in New Jersey, the same venue as the 2014 US National Rubik’s Cube competition.

The exhibition displayed everything cube related from robots that could solve the puzzle to original wooden prototypes from Rubik himself.

2017
The Rubik’s Speedcube is created!

The World Championships and European Championships are still held every 2 years (each taking place on different years), along with the yearly US Nationals.

These events still consistently bring together hundreds of speedcubers and, whilst many don’t stand much of a chance against the world’s best, friendships are formed and the events are always huge successes.

Who is the longest serving Royal Consort?

Since April 2019, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh has become the longest serving and oldest royal consort, through his marriage to Queen Elizabeth II for over 70 years.

Born on Corfu, on 10th June 1921, Philip was the nephew of King Constantine of Greece but was forced to flee their homeland due to political upheaval which resulted in exile with his parents aged just one.

Prince Philip joined the Royal Navy after leaving school at 18, he was a cadet in 1939 just before World War II broke out. He saw active service over the next six years in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, and was also in Tokyo Bay in 1945 when the Japanese surrendered.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were married in November 1947, when she was still a princess. But on 2nd June 1953, the coronation of Elizabeth II took place at Westminster Abbey, London and Princess Elizabeth II ascended to the throne at the age of just 25 following the death of her father, George VI, on 6 February 1952.

The Duke of Edinburgh, was bestowed on Prince Philip following his marriage to the Queen. During his time as Royal Consort he was offered an opportunity by the Gordonstoun headmaster, Kurt Hahn to extend his positive school experience with others, and consequently founded a youth awards programme.

This was to inspire young people to challenge themselves not just physically but also mentally whilst building their confidence through non-academic activities.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award opened to boys in 1956 followed by the girls two years later. It has grown in popularity over the decades, and now expands to 140 countries, with approximately eight million people having taken part.

The Queen’s Consort has delivered nearly 5,500 speeches, undertaken over 22,000 solo engagements and partaken in 637 official visits to 143 countries and focuses on around 800 patronages.

Although Prince Philip announced his retirement from royal duties around his 96th birthday in June 2017, he still remains the longest serving royal consort in British history along with being the oldest male member of the Royal Family.

« Previous Page