A Ton of Crap (102 page)

ANSWER KEY: d, b, b, c, a, b, a, d, b, b

HISTORY:
Landing
on the Moon
Apollo 1
,
Apollo 7
,
Apollo 8,
Apollo 9
,
Apollo 10
,
Apollo 11

LANGUAGE ARTS:
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s Early Life, His Work, Shakespeare’s Writing Style, The Globe Theatre, Shakespeare’s Sexuality, Authorship Controversy

MATH:
Pascal’s Triangle
About Blaise Pascal, Before Pascal, What Is Pascal’s Triangle, Patterns and Properties, Formula for Pascal’s Triangle, Fibonacci Sequence

SCIENCE:
Early Humans
Lucy,
Homo Habilis
,
Homo Erectus
,
Homo Sapiens
, Neanderthals,
Homo Sapiens Sapiens

FOREIGN LANGUAGE:
Swahili
The Origins, Influence of Other Languages, Spread of Swahili, The Written Language, Swahili Today, Useful Swahili Phrases

LANDING ON THE MOON

Apollo 1
The Cold War led the United States and the Soviet Union toward a new frontier: space. The
Apollo
program was created with the specific intention of having a man land on the moon. On January 27, 1967, the launch and flight crew of
Apollo 1
were conducting a simulation a month before their intended launch. The day was met with problems and delays, and at 6:30 p.m., a spark ignited inside the spacecraft, and the closed compartment was engulfed in flames. The three astronauts in the spacecraft died of asphyxiation. The cause of the spark is still unknown; however, the flammable materials within the spacecraft, combined with an oxygen-rich atmosphere and exposed wiring, were a recipe for disaster. The fire led to several changes in procedures and management for the rest of the program.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare’s Early Life
William Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616 in England. Very little is known of his childhood, including the date of his actual birth. Shakespeare did not attend university when he got older, which was reserved for the wealthy, and by the time he was eighteen years old in 1582, he was married. By 1589, Shakespeare, who was living in London to pursue acting and playwriting, had begun writing his first play,
Henry VI, Part I
. By 1590, Shakespeare had become a popular playwright, and in 1593, his poem
Venus and Adonis
was published and achieved great success. From 1594 until his death, Shakespeare was associated with a theater troupe called the King’s Men.

PASCAL’S TRIANGLE

About Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal was a French scientist, inventor, physicist, and mathematician who lived from 1623 to 1662. Pascal invented many things, including the wristwatch and an early form of the calculator. Pascal was a child prodigy, and at a very early age made important discoveries relating to fluids. When he was only eighteen years old, Pascal invented the Pascaline, a calculator based on a numerical wheel that featured eight dials that could be added up and used a base of ten. Though Pascal did not create Pascal’s triangle, in 1653, Blaise Pascal understood the significance of the patterns of the triangle, and it is named in his honor.

EARLY HUMANS

Lucy
In 1974, a nearly complete skeleton (a total of forty-seven bones) was found in Ethiopia. This skeleton has been named Lucy, and it was an absolutely incredible discovery. Lucy, who was named after the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” lived around 3.18 million years ago, was an
Australopithecus afarensis
. She is the oldest known humanlike hominid that proved to be bipedal, meaning with the ability to stand up. Lucy stood four feet tall and weighed only 50 pounds, and it is believed that she died by falling into a river or lake and drowning.

SWAHILI

The Origins
Swahili is a Bantu language, a branch of languages in the Niger-Congo family. The language developed as a result of Arab and Persian people moving to the East African coast from a.d. 500 to 1000, and the language is a blend of Bantu, Arab, and Persian, along with other influences such as English, Portuguese, and German. While the grammar is associated with Bantu, much of the vocabulary is associated with the other languages. The word
Swahili
actually means “the coast” in Arabic. In Swahili, the word for the language is
Kiswahili
, and speakers of Kiswahili are known as Waswahilis.