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Ten Random Facts

In 2000 in Afghanistan, Leonardo DiCaprio's hair style caused bedlam. Barbers were arrested for copying the style he wore in the hit film Titanic (1997). Taliban militiamen arrested and jailed twenty-eight barbers in Kabul for promoting anti-Islamic styles. While Titanic was banned in the area, copies were widely available on video.
Entertainment

Centuries back, the wealthy English were known for the "surprise" pie. This odd culinary creation was a main dish, and was brought to the banquet table with great fanfare. It was opened ceremoniously, and out of the pie leaped all sorts of live creatures: frogs, squirrels, terriers, foxes, and as the nursery rhyme claims, four-and-twenty blackbirds. At one grand party, a dueling dwarf reportedly popped out and cavorted on top of the banquet table. The serving of "surprise pies" was a gala affair for years, until Oliver Cromwell came into power. He banned the eating of pie in 1644, declaring it a pagan form of pleasure. For 16 years, pie-making and eating went underground. In 1660, the Restoration leaders lifted the ban on pie.
Food and Drink

In the original Grimm brothers' fairy tale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," the wicked Queen was condemned to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she died.
Miscellaneous

More than 100,000 asteroids lie in a belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Space

It took 20,000 men 22 years to build the Taj Mahal.
History

The tuatara of New Zealand differs from other animals in its enormously slow reproduction rate. It takes a female four years, sometimes longer, to produce an egg, longer than in any other reptile. Then the egg takes 12 months to hatch.
Animals

Animals with four pairs of legs, like spiders, belong to the class Arachinida.
Animals » Insects

Group Captain J.M Stagg described as a "dour but canny Scot" gave the most important weather forecast in the 20th century when he predicted a window in foul weather that had battered the English Channel for a couple of days. The date? June 6, 1944, D-Day.
People

Per a Newsweek poll, 49 percent of American fathers described themselves as better parents than their dads.
Statistics

Louisiana is nicknamed the "Pelican State." Its state bird is the pelican.
Geography » US

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