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Sometimes strange things happen and they can't be explained. It is said that Alexander the Great left some of his men in today's Northern Pakistan. He asked his men to remain there until he got back. With this was a caveat that they keep their beliefs and traditions and not adopt those of the region. There is a tribe in the area today called the Kalash. What is so unusual about this tribe is that they claim to be the direct descendents of Alexander's army. They have the same religion, culture and language as Alexander's troops did.

Human sleep habits have changed. Some say that this happened because electricity became so common place and it had an effect on the human body. Most people used to go to sleep at dusk then wake up in the middle of the night, stay awake for about one hour, then go back to sleep until dawn. Thus, most people slept through the night and were mostly only awake during the day. The funny thing is that there are still some people who live in areas without electricity that have the old sleep patterns, but is this caused by electricity or more precisely, by the light bulb?

The Madagascar myth about the origin of death states that God gave man a choice. He could die like a banana or like the moon. God stated that the banana has shoots that replace it and the moon comes back to life. What this meant was that the couple could live forever if they remained childless but they didn't want this miserable life. They had children and like the banana their offspring replaced them. This is said to be why man dies.

During the cold war, from about the early 1960s and for 30 years, at exactly 9:00 am the frequency tone for the standard time service was changed from 900 hz to 2500 hz in Britain. This went unnoticed by almost everyone. It was part of the monitoring process of Britain's telephone Nuclear Early Warning System. In 1992 this system was dismantled.

The U.S. has a huge military budget. In the year 2000 we admitted to having spent 343 billion dollars on our military. This was about 70% more than the next 5 nations who have the largest military budgets. Wow, what a standard of living we could have if it wasn't for this budget.

According to scientists and archeologists, the first tools used now date back 2,600,000 years and were used by Homo Habilis in Africa. This date is tentative since tools keep turning up that predate the ones we have found. I don't know how we could ever be sure of this, but it is claimed that the use of fire dates back to almost 1,500,000 years ago. Interesting enough, some animals may have used tools before us.

Hemp was on of the most popular crops of all time. Up until about 1880 most school books were made from this plant. If you lived in America from 1763 to 1769 and were a farmer, it was against the law to refuse to grow hemp. George Washington, one of the most respected of our fore fathers grew hemp as did Thomas Jefferson. In 1850 Kentucky produced 40,000 tons of the stuff. Henry Ford's first automobile ran on hemp gasoline. Why do I mention this? Because today we have forgotten all the other uses of this crop besides drugs. You see, hemp today is called Marijuana.

There are currently 200,035,318,672 pennies in circulation in the U.S. This is a very hard number to picture so let's put it in perspective. The number is two hundred billion, thirty five million, three hundred eighteen thousand six hundred seventy two. If you laid them out flat, they would take up 17,938 acres. If you stacked them up, they would reach 197,320 miles and if you weighed them, you would get 625,110+ tons.

In some circles it is quietly being said that some funds sent to Iraq have disappeared. Would anyone be surprised if this were true?

What does all that writing mean on the disc of Phaistos? The disk was found in 1903 and is believed to date back to some where around 1700 B.C., and was found in Crete. Even though archeologists and code breakers have worked on deciphering this disk for over one hundred years, it is still a mystery. It is believed that some sort of linear code was used. Could an ancient person from over 5,000 years ago have constructed a code that could defy modern man with all of his computers? It seems so, and it is not alone. The Voynich Manuscript, from the middle ages, also resists translation.

Ancient writing have been discovered using a particle accelerator. The author of these writing is believed to be none other that the famous mathematician Archimedes. There are 174 pages that were erased by a monk so the paper could be reused. Highly focused X-rays are being used. Who knows what new theorems might reveal themselves? The scrolls were written by him in the third century B.C. but erased in the 10 century A.D.

One thing you can be sure of, there is never a lack of interesting facts. I don't know how you feel about it, but I love to read about these things.