Did You Know ... ? Bukit Timah Nature Reserve has more species of trees than the whole of North America. The name Singapore means lion city in Sanskrit, but lions are not native to Singapore. The Singapore Flyer, an observation wheel standing 541 feet tall, required 1,800 tons of steel.
Did you know ... ? Scotland exports about 85 million gallons of Scotch a year. Scots developed Clydesdale horses, Shetland ponies, Aberdeen-Angus cows and Collies. A kilt is made with up to eight yards of fabric. Scotland’s Parliament once tried to squelch golf; the English twice banned bagpipes. The St.
Did You Know? Siberia’s Baikal, the world’s deepest lake (5,715 feet), holds one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water. It’s a 16-mile walk to visit the more than 360 rooms in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage museum. Life expectancy for Russians is the lowest in the developed world (62 for men, 74
Did You Know? Bucharest’s Palace of the Parliament is Europe’s largest office building and second in the world after the Pentagon. The Danube annually deposits 67 million tons of alluvia at the Danube Delta. Johnny Weissmuller, known for his Tarzan movie role, was born in Timisoara (1904). Gymnast Nadia Comaneci
Did You Know...? Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens but island residents don’t vote for president or pay U.S. taxes. Don Q rum originated in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is the only place in the U.S. where Columbus landed. El Yunque is the only tropical rain forest in the U.S. national
Did You Know...? Portuguese began tiling building exteriors in the 19th century to avoid paint jobs required by law. Portugal is party to the world’s oldest formal alliance between two countries (England, 1386). Bulls are not killed in the ring during Portuguese bullfights, but most die or are butchered anyway.
Did You Know ... ? Poland’s Nicolaus Copernicus was the first person to show that the planets move around the sun. To meet public transport needs during communism, the government paid drivers to pick up hitchhikers. Poland was the first country in Europe to adopt a written constitution (1791) and
Did You Know ... ? Ferdinand Magellan was killed in 1521 in the Philippines while leading the world’s first circumnavigation of the globe. The country was named for Spain’s King Philip II. It is likely the Philippines’ first inhabitants, ancestors of today’s Negritos, arrived more than 30,000 years ago. The
Did You Know ... ? Caral, estimated to be 5,000 years old, is the oldest known city in the New World. About a fifth of all Indians in the Americas live in Peru. The desert that abuts Peru’s Pacific coast is drier than the Sahara. Andean farmers devised the first
Did You Know? Explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa was in Panama when he first saw the Pacific (1513). Writer Richard Halliburton swam the Panama Canal (1928), paying its lowest-ever toll (36 cents, based on his “tonnage”). More bird species — 900-plus — have been recorded in Panama than in the
