10 things to learn this week

10 things to learn this week TheStar.com - Ideas - 10 things to learn this week

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States from 1929 to 1933 boldly predicted that the Great Depression would be over within two months.

September 28, 2008

Toronto Star Staff

• Amount of time President Herbert Hoover told Americans the Great Depression would last: 60 days. (pbs.org)
  
  
• Number of suicides on Wall Street between Black Tuesday (Oct. 29, 1929) and the end of the year: two. (slate.com)
  
  
• Blame/credit Michaelmas, or the feast of St. Michael (which takes place tomorrow) for the tradition of fall elections. "Great market fairs occurred just before the feast day, and the large crowds these attracted made it convenient to hold elections at this time." (almanac.com)
  
  
• Wednesday is the anniversary of Mensa, whose members score in the top 2 per cent of the general population on a standardized intelligence test. It was founded in Oxford, England, on Oct. 1, 1946. Of the more than 100,000 members, about 600 are in Toronto. (us.mensa.org; mensatoronto.com)
  
  
• Men with "more traditional gender-role attitudes" make an average of about $8,500 more per year than men with "less traditional attitudes," according to a 25-year study of 8,000 individuals. (livescience.com)
  
  
• The word "jeans" appears to have come from a cotton, wool and/or silk blend made in Genoa, Italy. (levistrauss.com)
  
  
• The dye that makes jeans blue is indigo, which traditionally came from Indigofera shrubs but is now mostly synthesized from chemicals in coal tar. (Brain Fuel by Joe Schwarcz)
  
  
• Bell-bottom pants, which were formally adopted by the U.S. navy in the early 1800s and then jettisoned about a decade ago, are thought to have been implemented to make scrubbing the ship's deck easier: the pants could easily be folded up above the knee. (history.navy.mil)
  
  
• Candy bars inspired the snap-off metal blade. Impressed by the way rectangles of chocolate snapped off candy bars distributed by U.S. forces occupying Japan after World War II, Yoshio and Saburo Okada made a metal strip on the breakaway principle in 1956 and founded the Olfa blade company. (olfa.com)
  
  
• The oldest free-speech forum in the world could date to 1755 and a London tavern, where the Ancient Society of Cogers, derived from "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) held meetings that began with a 40-minute talk on the events of the week, after which it was "open to all participants in turn..." (www.torontodebate.org)