The History Channel
• On Nov. 28, 1582, playwright William Shakespeare, 18, and Anne Hathaway, 26, pay a 40-pound bond for their marriage license in Stratford-upon-Avon. By 1592, Shakespeare was well-established in London’s theatrical world as an actor and playwright.
• On Nov. 30, 1886, the Folies Bergre in Paris introduces an elaborate revue featuring women in sensational costumes and quickly gains a reputation for its spectacular nude shows. The theater-staged revues featured as many as 40 sets, 1,000 costumes and a crew of some 200 people.
• On Nov. 26, 1922, in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, British archaeologists become the first to enter King Tutankhamen’s tomb in more than 3,000 years. Inside Tutankhamen’s sealed burial chambers was a collection of several thousand priceless objects, including a gold coffin containing the mummy of the teenage king.
• On Nov. 24, 1932, the first FBI crime lab officially opens in Washington, D.C. The lab, which was chosen because it had the necessary sink, operated out of a single room and had only one full-time employee, Agent Charles Appel, who began with a borrowed microscope.
STRANGE BUT TRUE
By Samantha Weaver
• If you’re like the average American, you watch television for 4 hours and 34 minutes every day.
• It was Canadian journalist, editor and poet Mark Abley who made the following observation: “Modern English is the Wal-Mart of languages: convenient, huge, hard to avoid, superficially friendly and devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand.”
• Those who study such things say that an adult right whale requires 400,000 calories a day to survive. They also note that the mainstay of these mammals’ diet is a flea-sized crustacean called a copepod.
• One hurricane can generate up to 200 times the energy of all the world’s power plants combined.
(c) 2008 King Features Synd. Inc.
