Some facts about El Niño

• El Niño is Spanish for "little boy" and refers to the Christ child, because periodic warming in the Pacific near South America is usually noticed around Christmas time.
•  El Niño-Southern Oscillation or ENSO is a quasi-periodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean on average every 5 years, but over a period which varies from 3 to 7 years.
• ENSO is credited with suppressing hurricanes and made the 2009 hurricane season the least active in 12 years.
• La Niña is the name for the cold phase of ENSO.
• During a time of La Niña, drought plagues the coastal regions of Peru and Chile.
• La Niña occurs roughly half as often as El Niño
• An early recorded mention of the term "El Niño" to refer to climate occurs in 1892, when Captain Camilo Carrillo told the Geographical society congress in Lima that Peruvian sailors named the warm northerly current "El Niño" because it was most noticeable around Christmas.
• Major El Niño events were recorded in the years 1790–93, 1828, 1876–78, 1891, 1925–26, 1972–73, 1982–83, and 1997–98.

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General facts about Ellis Island

• The federal immigration station in Ellis Island opened on January 1, 1892.
• Fifteen year old Annie Moore, from Ireland, was the first person admitted to the immigration station on Ellis Island
• The last person to pass through Ellis Island was Arne Peterssen of Norway in 1954.
• Ellis Island's doctors became proficient enough to conduct the health exam in 6 seconds.
• Between 1900-1914 some 5,000 to 10,000 people passed through the station daily.
• The all-time daily high in Ellis Island occurred on April 17, 1907, when 11,747 immigrants arrived.
• The peak year for immigration at Ellis Island was 1907, with 1,004,756 immigrants processed. 
• Over the sixty-two years of it's operation over 12,000,000 immigrants were processed at Ellis Island including Max Factor, Bela Lugosi, Rudolph Valentino, Irving Berlin, Sigmund Freud, Charles Chaplin and Bob Hope.
• After 1924 Ellis Island became primarily a detention and deportation processing center.
• It is estimated nearly one third of current U.S. citizens can trace an ancestor to Ellis Island.

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Some facts about Jennifer Beals

• Jennifer Beals was born on December 19, 1963 in Chicago, Illinois.
• Parents: Jeanne and Alfred Beals.
• In 1996 Jennifer Beals hosted a tribute to Pablo Neruda, on the occasion of the movie "Il Postino".
• Beals came to fame with her starring part in Flashdance.
• Jennifer Beals would love to have an onscreen lesbian romp with Sarah Michell Gellar in The L Word.
• Her film debut was in the 1980 movie, My Bodyguard.
• Beals has 2 brothers, Bobby and Gregory.
• Beals is a close friend of Quentin Tarantino.
• Jennifer made a brief cameo in the final episode of Frasier.
• Jennifer Beals was a model during her teenage years.
• Beals worked at Baskin-Robbins as a teenager.
• Jennifer gave birth to her first child, a girl, in October, 2005.
• Spouses: Alexandre Rockwell (1986 to 1996 - divorced), and Ken Dixon (14 June, 1998 - present).

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Some Facts about El Salvador

• El Salvador is located in Central America, between Guatemala and Honduras and borders the Pacific Ocean.
• República de El Salvador ( "Republic of The Saviour") is the smallest, and also the most densely populated country in Central America.
• El Salvador has a total area of 21,040 km² (8,123 square miles)Population: 5,744,113 people, as of 2009.
• The capital city of San Salvador is the country's largest city.
• El Salvador is the only Central American country that does not have a Caribbean coastline.
• El Salvador first introduced its flag in 1909.
• The first time the el Salvadoran soccer team qualified for the FIFA world championship was in 1982.
• America super model Christy Turlington was originally from El Salvador
• El Salvador is known as the ‘Land of Volcanoes’, and is also called the "Tom Thumb of the Americas" ("Pulgarcito de America").
• El Salvador’s main Religion is Catholic.
• El Salvador is one of the only countries to go to war with Honduras over a soccer game.
• El Salvador experiences a tropical climate.
• The Santa Anna volcano or llamatepec is the highest volcano in the country (2,381 m above sea level).
• The highest point in the country is Cerro El Pital at 2,730 m (8,957 feet), which shares a border with Honduras.

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Electric car facts

• Electric cars enjoyed popularity between the mid-19th century and early 20th century.
• Electric cars currently enjoy relative popularity in countries around the world
• Today the electric car certainly does have its limitations - they are generally more expensive than gasoline cars, the 'efficiency' offered by the existing batteries are fairly low (approximately 125-150 kms before they have to be charged again), and re-charging facilities are not readily available.
• The Tesla Roadster gets 394 kilometers (245 miles) per charge.
• In 2010 the US government estimated that a battery with a 100 miles (160 km) range would cost about US$33,000.
• Conventional gasoline engines effectively use only fifteen percent of the fuel energy content to move the vehicle or to power accessories, and diesel engines can reach on-board efficiencies of twenty percent, while electric drive vehicles have on-board efficiency of around eighty percent.
• On April 21, 2010, Sanyo announced that it performed a 345.2 miles (555.6 kilometers) travel from Tokyo to Osaka on a single charge with an electric Li-Ion batteries powered Daihatsu Mira.
• A vehicle with an internal combustion engine that gets 25 miles per gallon will require $1,800 in gasoline (at $3 per gallon) over a year of driving (24,000 km or 15,000 mi), which works out to $0.12 per mile. At $0.11 per kwh, an electric car costs $0.026 per mile to operate, or $396 for 15,000 miles—a savings of about $1,400 (per year).

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Egypt - interesting facts and trivia

• Official Name: Arab Republic of Egypt
• Climate: Desert; hot, dry summers and moderate winters.
• Capital--Cairo (metro pop. estimated at 19,439,541). Other cities--Alexandria (4.1 million), Asyut, Aswan, Suez, Port Said, Ismailia.
• Population (Sep 2010 est.): 79,089,650.
• Alexandria was founded around a small pharaonic town c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great.
• Agriculture Produce: wheat, cotton, beans, rice, corn, fruits, vegetables; water buffalo, cattle, sheep and goats.
• Major religions: Muslim 90 percent, Coptic Christian 9 percent, other Christian 1 percent.
• Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world.
• Egyptians were among the very first people to invent writing, along with ink and paper.
• Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's most famous monuments, including the Giza pyramid complex and its Great Sphinx.
• The 365 days calendar and the 24-Hour division of the day are Egyptian inventions.
• Ancient egyptians invented the art of painting on plaster.
• Language: Arabic.
• Area: 390,000 sq miles (1,010,000 square km)

Facts about tourism
Facts about airports
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Facts about Anne Baxter

• The actress Anne Baxter was born on May 7, 1923.
• Anne was the granddaughter of famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
• Baxter was known for her performances in films such as The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Razor's Edge (1946), All About Eve (1950) and The Ten Commandments (1956).
• Parents: Kenneth Stuart Baxter and Catherine Wright.
  Baxter was 5' 4" (1.62 m) tall.
• Her first movie role was in 20 Mule Team in 1940.
• Anne Baxter is remembered for her role as the Egyptian princess Nefertiri in the movie The Ten Commandments (1956).
• Anne has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6741 Hollywood Blvd.
• Anne Baxter was chosen by Orson Welles to appear in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942).
• Baxter starred as guest villain "Zelda the Great" in 2 episodes of the TV show Batman.
• Anne Baxter won an Oscar for best actress in a supporting role, for the movie The Razor's Edge in 1946.
• Anne died on December 12, 1985 (age 62).

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Mia Wasikowska facts and trivia

 Alice in Wonderland

• The Australian actress Mia Wasikowska was born on October 14, 1989.
• Wasikowska is 1.68 m (5' 6") tall.
• Mia was born and raised in Canberra, Australia.
• Parents: Marzena Wasikowska and John Reid.
• Mia appeared in the Australian soap opera "All-Saints".
• The actress has an older sister, Jess, and a younger brother, Kai.
• Her last name is pronounced "vash-i-kov-ska".
• Mia Wasikowska is of Polish descent.
• Mia got a role in the HBO television show "In Treatment" which won her critical acclaim.
• In 2008, Wasikowska was named as one of Variety magazine's Top Ten Actors to Watch.
• Mia Wasikowska is the lead actress in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010).
• Mia was recognized by Forbes as one of the highest-grossing actors of 2010 with $1.03 billion, tied for 2nd position with Johnny Depp and behind leader Leonardo DiCaprio, who grossed $1.1 billion for the year.
• Wasikowska takes on the role of Jane Eyre in the movie of the same name, due out in theaters in limited release on March 11, 2011.

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Edwin Hubble facts and trivia

• Edwin Hubble was born on November 20, 1889 in Marshfield, Missouri, United States.
• Parents: John Powell Hubble and Virginia Lee James.
• Edwin Hubble taught Spanish, physics and mathematics at the New Albany high school in Indiana before taking up a staff position in California.
• Edwin Hubble served in the U.S. Army in World War I,
• His major contributions are the Discovery of galaxies beyond the Milky Way; Hubble's Law and expansion of the Universe; Discovery of asteroid 1373 Cincinnati; Hubble's galaxy classification and the tuning fork diagram.
• Edwin Hubble was awarded the Medal of Merit in 1946, for services rendered during World War II.
• Hubble died on September 28, 1953.
• The Space Telescope (HST) is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble.
• On March 6, 2008, the US Postal Service issued a postal stamp with his picture on it.

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Edgar Allan Poe facts and trivia

• Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts.
• Poe had a brother, William, and a sister, Rosalie.
• Edgar Allan Poe married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin, who died at an early age.
• His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian".
• Edgar Allan Poe attended the University of Virginia.
• In January 1845 Allan Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success.
• The Baltimore Ravens football team is named after Poe's poem The Raven, which he wrote in Baltimore.
• Poe attempted suicide in 1848
• Poe served two years in the army.
• On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore.
• Edgar Allan Poe was buried in an unmarked grave.
• The cause of his death has been variously attributed to Brain congestion, alcohol, cholera, heart disease, drugs, tuberculosis, rabies, suicide, and other agents.
• Every year since 1949, an anonymous fan known as the "Poe Toaster" has visited Poe's grave on the night of his birthday and has left a partially filled bottle of cognac and 3 roses.

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Fast facts about epilepsy

• Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures.
• Approximately 1 in 100 teenagers has it.
• About 50,000,000 people worldwide have epilepsy, with almost ninety percent of these people being in developing countries.
• Epilepsy is not contagious.
• Over thirty percent  of people with epilepsy do not have seizure control even with the best available medications.
• Seizures happen when there's a brief glitch in the brain's electrical activity.
• Famous people with epilepsy: Julius Caesar, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Florence Griffith Joyner, Margaux Hemingway, Vladimir Lenin, Adam Horovitz and Prince.
• Up to five percent of the world’s population may have a seizure at some time in their lives.
• Approximately seventy percent of people who have epilepsy surgery become seizure free.
• About 2.7 million of the U.S. population have Epilepsy.
• People with a history of depression are three to seven times more likely to develop epilepsy than the average person.

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Kathy Bates facts and trivia

• Real name: Kathleen Doyle Bates
• Kathy Bates was nominated for Broadway's 1983 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for "'night, Mother."
• Kathy was born on June 28, 1948 in Memphis, Tennessee.
• Kathy Bates donated $1 million to Hurricane Katrina victims.
• Nickname: 'BoBo'.
• Kathy rose to prominence with her performance in Misery (1990), for which she won both the Oscar for Best Actress and a Golden Globe.
• Her role in Misery (1990) was originally offered to the actress Anjelica Huston.
• Kathy is a close friend of Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler, Elizabeth Perkins, Meryl Streep, John Travolta, Oprah Winfrey and Kate Winslet.
• Bates is 1.60 m (5' 3").
• Parents: Langdon Doyle Bates and Bertye Kathleen Talbot.
• The actress married Tony Campisi in April of 1991 (divorced him in 1997).
• Kathy Bates was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2003.
• Bates has been nominated for an Emmy award 7 times.

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Facts about Kim Basinger

• Real Name: Kimila Ann Basinger.
• Kim Basinger was born on December 8, 1953 in Athens, Georgia, United States.
• Kim studied ballet from age of three to mid-teens.
• Kim Basinger was considered to play Jody in Pulp Fiction.
• Parents: Don and Ann Basinger.
• The actress suffers from agoraphobia (fear of open spaces).
• Kim Basinger was born on the same day as the late Sam Kinison.
• Kim Basinger is of Swedish, German and Cherokee Indian ancestry.
• The actress won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in L.A. Confidential (1997).
• Basinger was the first actress to win an Oscar after appearing naked in Playboy magazine.
• Kim Basinger is a vegetarian.
• Kim is an animal rights supporter.
• Kim Basinger turned down the role in the movie Basic Instinct that later went to the actress Sharon Stone.

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Elizabeth Banks quick facts

actress Elizabeth Banks

• Real name: Elizabeth Maresal Mitchell.
• Elizabeth Banks was born on February 10, 1974 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
• Elizabeth Banks created a professional board game called "Unveiled".
• Elizabeth Banks is a Democrat.
• Her favorites horror movies: Alien ans Poltergeist.
• Elizabeth height is 1.65 m (5' 5").
• Banks has blue eyes.
• Banks made her debut in the drama, Surrender Dorothy, in 1998.
• Parents: Mark and Ann Mitchell.
• On July 5, 2003, Elizabeth married sportswriter and producer Max Handelman
• In 2006, Elizabeth Banks appeared in the American football drama film Invincible.

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Some facts about euthanasia

• Euthanasia (from the Greek word εὐθανασία meaning "good death") refers to the practice of ending a life in a manner which relieves pain and suffering.
• In 1984, the Dutch Supreme Court declared euthanasia to be legal.
• The word "euthanasia" was first used in a medical context by Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century.
• In 1990, nine percent of all deaths in the Netherlands were a result of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.
• Voluntary euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. 
• In the United States medical-assisted suicide in legal only in the states of Washington and Oregon.
• In 2002, Belgium legalized euthanasia.
• A study in the United States came to the result that approximately 16 percent of physicians would ever consider halting life-sustaining therapy because the family demands it.

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Europe quick Facts

• Europe is the 2nd smallest continent with roughly 10,180,000 km2 (4 million sq mi).
• The largest country in Europe is Russia.
• Paris is the largest city in Europe with a metro population of about 11,836,970.
• Europe is home to more than 731,000,000 people, but birth rates are stagnant.
• Europe received its name from a princess in Greek mythology - Europa.
• Europe, in particular Ancient Greece, is the birthplace of Western culture.
• The biggest island in Europe is Great Britain.
• No deserts inhabit the continent of Europe.
• Both World Wars were largely focused upon Europe.
• Italy is the country in Europe with the highest number of volcanoes.
• The Danube is Europe's 2nd longest river after the Volga (Rusia).
• The Ural Mountains are a natural boundary that separates Europe from Asia.
• During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east.

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Facts about Anne Bancroft

• Anne Bancroft was born on September 17, 1931 – June 6, 2005)
• Real name: Anna Maria Louisa Italiano.
• Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school.
• Anne Bancroft made her film debut in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) with Marilyn Monroe.
• Bancroft won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in movie The Miracle Worker (1962).
• Shared a birthday with Roddy McDowall, John Ritter, and Cliff Montgomery.
• Anne Bancroft converted to Judaism after marrying Mel Brooks.
• Her best-known role was as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967).
• Anne Bancroft  received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in television.
• Anne Bancroft died of uterine cancer on June 6, 2005.

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Windows Live Hotmail - the Facts

• Hotmail was officially launched on July 4, 1996.
• Hotmail founders: Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith.
• Microsoft bought Hotmail from Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia in December of 1997 for $400 million.
• The Hotmail domain name was chosen because it includes the letters HTML which is the language in which all web pages are written.
• Windows Live Hotmail is the world's largest web-based email service with nearly 364 million users. 2nd and 3rd are Yahoo! Mail (280 million) and Google's Gmail (191 million).
• The Hotmail development and operations groups are based in Mountain View, California.

E-mail facts

• Five percent of Americans have only work e-mail accounts
• Twenty percent of young adults have 3 or more personal e-mail accounts
• 37 percent of American people check their e-mail are at work
• Eighty-one percent of employed Americans have an e-mail account
• 69 percent of American adults still use e-mail for sharing information.
• 109 million Americans received phishing e-mails
• Twenty percent of Americans have not used e-mail yet.
• 50-80 percent of e-mail in Europe is spam
• 56 percent of Internet users send e-mail daily.

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Facts about Yahoo! Inc.

• Yahoo is an acronym which means for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”
• Sometimes, the logo is abbreviated with Y!
• The owners of Yahoo considered buying Google before this company went public.
• Yahoo! Inc. was founded by David Filo and Jerry Yang in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 1, 1995.
• In April 1994, "David and Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web" was renamed "Yahoo!".
• Yahoo’s email service, is still considered to be the most popular email program in the United States.
• As of January, 2010, Yahoo held the world's largest market share in online display advertising.
• Yahoo! Meme is a beta social service, similar to the popular social networking sites Twitter and Jaiku.
• Yahoo Inc. currently owns and operates over 50 different web properties: some examples include Yahoo! Del.icio.us, Games, Flickr, and Upcoming.org.
• Yahoo! is available in over twenty languages, including English.
• In March of 2010 Yahoo celebrated it’s fifteen year anniversary.
• Yahoo! headquarters: Sunnyvale, California.

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Facts about Ethanol fuel

• Ethanol is a clean-burning, renewable fuel.
• In 2009 worldwide ethanol fuel production reached 73.9 billion liters (19.5 billion gallons).
• Ethanol results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline and is fully biodegradable, unlike some fuel additives.
• Ethanol fuel, unlike petroleum, is a form of renewable energy that can be produced from agricultural feedstocks.
• Ethanol fuel produced from corn results in about a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to gasoline.
• One bushel of corn yields about 2.8 gallons (10.5 liters) of ethanol.
• Brazil and in the United States of America were responsible for 86% of the world's ethanol production in 2009.
• It takes 1.5 gallons (5.6 liters) of ethanol fuel (E-85) to drive as many miles as one gallon of gasoline.
• Approximately 50,000,000 gallons (189 million liters) of U.S. ethanol fuel are made into E85.
• In terms of fossil energy, each gallon of ethanol produced from corn today delivers one third or more energy than is used to produce it.
• Archer Daniels Midland controls about 25% of U.S. ethanol production.

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Some facts about Ethiopia

• Ethiopia never lose its independence.
• Ethiopia is as large as Spain and France combined.
• Ethiopia is the 2nd-most populous nation in Africa, with over 85.2 million people,
• Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the fourth century.
• Ethiopia has a population of over 85.2 million and covers an area of almost 1,100,000 km2.
• It is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, and Kenya to the south.
• Official language: Amharic
• Ethiopia has been landlocked since Eritrea, bordering the Red Sea, gained its independence in 1993.
• The capital, Addis Ababa, whose name means "New Flower", was settled in 1886.
• Addis Ababa population is approximately 3,384,569 (2007).
• The 2nd largest city in Ethiopia is Dire Dawa, with an estimated population of 330,000.
• More than 80 percent of the population of Ethiopia live in rural areas.
• There are altogether around eighty different ethnic groups in Ethiopia today.
• The major religions are Islam, Orthodox Christian and Animist.
• The local currency is the Ethiopian Birr.

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