People at a Glance
People have lived in the world for millions of years. Today, 6.3 billion people live on the earth.
The world's population grows by 100 million each year. Some 950 million people in the world are malnourished.
There are 106 boys born for every 100 girls.
The average male adult is 5'9'' tall and weighs 155 pounds. The average female adult is 5'3'' tall and weighs 125 pounds.
People in the World
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is a famous saying about customs. But what exactly do the Romans and other people do that is so different? Where do women wear rings in their noses to show they are married, for example? Where do people greet each other with a bow rather than a handshake? Here are some other ways people behave and beautify themselves around the world.
In Rome, Italy, adults drink coffee standing up at a coffee bar.
Throughout Europe, people eat with the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right.
In India, women wear rings in their noses to show they are married.
In New Zealand, chewing gum in public is considered impolite.
In Russia, powerful handshakes among men are often carried to extremes.
In Brazil, kids do not have sleepovers.
In most parts of Asia, it is taboo to touch people's heads, especially those of children.
In Taiwan, belching after a meal is considered a compliment to the cook.
In Australia, pancakes are served at dinner rather than breakfast.
In Thailand, people do not step on their doorsills. It is believed that a spirit lives in the threshold of every home.
In many North African countries, children ride to school on donkeys.
Canadian researchers have found that Einstein's brain was 15% wider than normal. Scientists at a University in Ontario, Canada have discovered that the part of Einstein's brain thought to be related to mathematical reasoning - the inferior parietal region - was 15 percent wider on both sides than a normal brain.
Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts
The queen of England has two birthdays.
Attila the Hun died in 453 on the night of his marriage to Ilidico, he is thought to have been poisoned
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
The shortest British monarch was Charles I, who was 4'9"
Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear. His 'Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear'' shows the right one bandaged because he painted the mirror image
The only married couple to fly together in space were Jan Davis and Mark Lee, who flew aboard the Endeavor space shuttle from September 12-20, 1992.
The average human will eat 8 mosquitoes/spiders while asleep in thier lifetime.
Collecting People
People who collect things are called by many names. Some of their names are as unusual as the items they collect.
Collector - Collection
Archtophilist - Teddy Bears
Bestiarist - Medieval Books on Animals
Bibliophilist - Books
Brandophilist - Cigar Bands
Conchologist - Shells
Copoclephilist - Key Rings
Deltiologist - Postcards
Dologist - Bird's Eggs
Lepidopterist - Butterflies
Numismatist Coins
Philatelist - Stamps
Philographist - Autographs
Phonophile - Phonograph Records
Plangonologist - Dolls
Receptarist - Recipes
Vecturist - Subway Tokens
Vexillologist - Banners or Flags
Bellhop: A hotel employee who escorts guests to their rooms, carries their luggage, and familiarizes them with their surroundings
Best boy: An assistant to a gaffer in TV and movie productions
Cabin boy: A boy who acts as a servant on a ship, especially to the captain
Caddie: A golf course worker who carries clubs and assists golfers
Cowpuncher: A ranch worker who tends cattle and horses
Diva: The principal female singer in an opera
Engineer: A person who uses the principles of math and science to plan structures such as bridges, engines, roads, and canals
Extra: A person with a nonspeaking part in a movie
Gaffer: An electrician in charge of lighting on a movie or TV set
Geisha: A Japanese woman who plays classical Japanese music and performs traditional dances at private parties in Japan
Guru: A Hindu religious teacher and spiritual guide
Hermit: A person who retires from society and lives alone, often for religious reasons
Intellectual: Someone who studies and thinks about ideas
Intelligence agent: Also called a spy
Maître d': The person who shows diners to their tables and supervises the waiters in a restaurant
Medicine man: A healer or sorcerer in a Native American tribe
Page: One who delivers messages and serves as a guide
Patron: A person who uses wealth and influence to help a person or a cause
Pirate: A person who robs ships on the high seas (outside territorial waters). Today's pirates use speedboats and carry guns.
Mary Read and Anne Bonny were female pirates in the early 1700s. Disguised as men, they served as pirates on the same ship.
Spy: One who collects and analyzes secret information about armies and battle plans
Spycatcher: One who tries to discover spies, also called a counterintelligence agent
Stand-up comedian: A person who tells jokes alone on a stage, usually in a nightclub
Stockbroker: A person who acts for others in buying and selling stocks or shares in a business
Undercover agent: Someone, usually a law enforcement agent, who pretends to be someone else in order to gain information
Valet: A personal servant who takes care of one's clothes, or a hotel employee who cares for clothes and does other personal services
Different Groups of People
Army: A collection of men and women trained to fight in battle
Band: A group of people or a group of musicians: a marching band or Robin Hood's band of merry men
Cabal: A small group involved in secret schemes
Caravan: A number of people traveling together, usually in a long line
Cast: A group acting in a play or movie
Choir: A group of singers who perform together
Class: A group of students at the same grade level: a third-grade class
Crowd: A large group of people in one place
Folk: A people, a tribe, an ethnic group, or a nation
Gang: A group of people who congregate together
Guild: An association of persons of the same trade who all have the same job interests
Huddle: In football, players gathered briefly in a circle to plan the next play
Mob: An excited or angry mass of people
Orchestra: A group of musicians who play together, using a variety of instruments that include strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion
Procession: A group of people moving in an orderly manner
Retinue: A body of followers or servants of an important person; e.g., bodyguards, secretaries, or trainers
Staff: A group of people who work together
Team: A group of people who work or play together
Throng: A large number of people
Troop: A group of military people or scouts
Troupe: A group of actors, dancers, or acrobats who travel and perform together
Nobility
The children of nobility are called lords and ladies.
These are the descendants of powerful and wealthy landowners who passed their titles on to their children and grandchildren. From top to bottom, here is the order of British nobility as well as the terms of address. (Note that counts are European but not British.)
Rank Term of Address
King “Your Majesty”
Queen “Your Majesty”
Prince and Princess “Your Royal Highness”
Duke and Duchess “Your Grace”
Marquess “My Lord”
Marchioness “Madam”
Earl “My Lord”
Countess “Madam”
Viscount “My Lord”
Viscountess “Madam”
Baron “My Lord”
Baroness “Madam”
What Was So Great about Catherine the Great?
Catherine II, or Catherine the Great, was the empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. During her reign, she built schools and hospitals, promoted the education of women, and allowed religious tolerance. She extended the borders of Russia by acquiring much of Poland. Many artists, teachers, and scientists moved to Russia because of the freedom of ideas she promoted.
Who was the Victoria of Victorian?
Queen Victoria ruled the British Empire for close to 64 years, longer than any other British monarch. She became queen in 1837, when her uncle King William IV died without an heir. During her reign, the British colonial empire was the richest in the world, owning one-fourth of the world's land and ruling more than one-fourth of the world's people.
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Henry VIII was the sixteenth-century king of England who is remembered for his shocking treatment of his many wives. Here is what happened to his six wives:
Catherine of Aragon Married 1509, annulled 1533; mother of Mary Tudor
Ann Boleyn Married 1533, beheaded 1536; mother of Elizabeth I
Jane Seymour Married 1536, died in childbirth 1537; mother of Edward VI
Anne of Cleves Married and divorced 1540
Catherine Howard Married 1540, beheaded 1542
Catherine Parr Married 1543, survived him
More Royal Titles Around the World
The sultan of Brunei rides in a golden chariot for important events.
Czar/Czarina: The ruler of Russia until 1917.
Emir: The native ruler in parts of Asia and Africa.
Emperor/Empress: The supreme head of an empire. The ancient Romans had emperors; the Japanese still do.
Pharaoh: A ruler of ancient Egypt.
Raja: An Indian prince.
Shah: A sovereign of Iran.
Sultan: A head of a Muslim state.
People in Groups
Aristocracy: A society or group of people ruled by the upper class.
Democracy: A form of government in which the people hold power. People can either exercise the power or elect officials to do so.
Gerontocracy: A society or group of people in which older people are the most powerful.
Matriarchy: A society or group of people in which women are the most powerful.
Oligarchy: A society or group of people in which only a few people hold power.
Patriarchy: A society or group of people in which men are the most powerful.
People in Families
A nuclear family is made up of parents and their children.
An extended family includes parents, children, grandparents, and/or aunts, uncles, and cousins in the same household.
A blended family is formed when one single parent (divorced or widowed) marries another single parent.
Mussolini was the dictator of Italy until 1943.
He was aggressive in trying to expand Italy's world presence. Before the official beginning of WWII in Sept 1939 he had already sent forces to capture Albania and Ethiopia. Lacking the strength of Germany, he decided to tag along with German victories, thus involving Italy in wars with France, Britain and Greece in 1940 and 41.
His various initiatives were without exception, disasters. His armed forces were inadequate for the various tasks put before them. The Italian economy was weak and inefficient from the start. Italy had basically withdrawn from active military involvement when in 1943 there was a popular uprising against Mussolini.
German leaders had wisely predicted such a turn of events and moved quickly, expertly and efficiently to disarm the Italian armed forces before they could be used by the new Italian government to attack Germany. In one of the most brilliant commando attacks of the war German units even raided the complex where Mussolini was being help captive and freed him.
Mussolini thus became a mere figurehead for the remainder of the war, having neither a military nor any political power. Near the end of the war in 1945 he was captured again by Italian partisans who murdered him and his mistress and then strung their mutilated bodies upside down in a north Italian town plaza.
The Mussolini name lives on in Italy and members of his extended family are still active in politics today.
He made Facism and led Italy into the Axis powers He took complete control by initiating state. He con trolled the press and every aspects of peoples' lives.
Mussolini in WW2
Benito Mussolini was the leader of fascist Italy. He played an important role in World War 2.
He paid a little role he had alliance with Germany. The Italy was raging war against Britain in North African and they were not winning and the reason the Germans sent troops to North Africa because Italy was losing. The battle of France was started and Italy attacked southern France after the French army was in retreat. Italy had submarines that helped a little bit to destroy merchant shipping. There nearly was almost gone by the end of 1943. So in conclusion they had a very small effect.
BENITO Mussolini, Italy's Fascist dictator, suffered from an ulcer yet could not resist "shovelfuls" of raw garlic, according to an account of his domestic habits by his daughter-in-law. Maria Scicolone said the accepted view that Mussolini survived on chicken broth and indigestion powders because of his delicate stomach was a myth. In fact, he "munched away on garlic", which he claimed was "the elixir of life" and "good for my heart".
Ms Scicolone, 66, the younger sister of the actor Sophia Loren, married Romano Mussolini, the dictator's youngest son and a noted jazz musician. They were separated in 1970 and divorced five years later, but Ms Scicolone - whose daughter Alessandra Mussolini is a Far-Right politician and women's rights campaigner - has remained close to the family. She recently published a memoir, My House Has Many Mirrors. In her new book, A Tavola con Il Duce (At Table with the Duce), she recalls spending "long hours in the kitchen" with Donna Rachele, Mussolini's widow, who died in 1979. Donna Rachele had described grand state dinners, including a banquet given by King Victor Emmanuel III for Hitler on the Nazi dictator's visit to Rome in May 1938. "Donna Rachele said Hitler, who was a vegetarian, found all the dishes unacceptable, while Mussolini, who was clearly bored to tears, complained that the menu was in French and kept muttering that Italian regional cooking was more appetising than 'all this pretentious and indigestible French stuff'."
Ms Scicolone said Mussolini was not much of a bon viveur. Domestic rituals were important to him, and despite his government duties and assignations with mistresses, he always had lunch and dinner with his wife and children, "like any Italian man". He never drank alcohol, and instead drank "litres of herbal teas and tisanes". He also drank copious amounts of milk until a German doctor finally told him in 1945, near the end, that it was making his ulcer worse. The Duce "ate lots of fruit, but hardly ever ate cheese, salami or sausages".
The Italian newspaper Il Messaggero said the revelations about Mussolini's "human side" were part of a gradual rehabilitation of the dictator, who almost 60 years after his gruesome death is increasingly seen by Italians as having been more benign and less totalitarian than Hitler or Stalin. Last month Romano Mussolini published an affectionate memoir, entitled Il Duce, My Father, in which he said the family had "many Jewish friends" and it was his father's sense of compassion and honour that enabled him to prevent a bloodbath when he was deposed. RAI, the state television channel, is making a TV drama about the marriage of the dictator's favourite daughter, Edda, to his Foreign Minister, Count Ciano.
Benito Mussolini was born on July 29th, 1883 in the town of Varnano dei Costa near the village of Predappio. His mother Rosa Maltoni was married to a blacksmith named Alessandro Mussolini. Alessandro, being an admirer of the Mexican revolutionary Benito Juarez, named his son after the patriot and hero. Benito Mussolini was an avid writer and after he finished his schooling, he became an editor for the Milan socialist paper "Avanti". He became well known among the Italian socialists, but soon started promoting his views for war against Germany in World War I.
This infuriated the Socialists who were against Italy's entry into the war. In 1915 he formed his own paper, Il Popolo d'Italia, and continued his promotion for war. When Italy finally joined the Allies to fight Germany, Mussolini enlisted into the "Esercito" (Army). Mussolini achieved the rank of Corporal, the same rank as Adolf Hitler, but was discharged in 1917 due to shrapnel wounds while in a trench.
He returned to his career in journalism in which he began to develop his ideas that would soon become known as Fascism. After the war, Italy was in turmoil. The economy was shattered and there were strikes and protests everywhere. On March 23, 1919, Mussolini and several other veterans formed the National Fascist Party. This party grew in popularity among the people of Italy, who were disenchanted with the chaos surrounding them. Mussolini seemed to have the answers to bring their country into order. During this time, he adopted the Roman salute and the Black Shirt militia, which Hitler later copied from the him as the Brown Shirts. On March 15th 1921, Mussolini along with 35 other Fascists were elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
In August of 1922, The ruling Leftist party ordered a general strike in the nation. Mussolini was enraged and issued an ultimatum that if they did not end the strike, his Fascist party would. The Leftist claimed he was trying to siege the government, but the armed forces wanted nothing to do with stopping the fascists from preventing the strike. On October 29, 1922, King Vittorio Emmanuele III (1869-1947) phoned Mussolini to come to Rome and form a government. Mussolini insisted on a telegram and it was wired soon afterwards. Mussolini boarded a train to Rome and was greeted by thousands of Fascist Blackshirts awaiting his arrival. His first act was to send the strikers back home to their families and their jobs. Mussolini managed to assume the powers of all the government offices in order to regain control of the economy. In a short period of time, he was successful in stabilizing the economy and taking his country out of economic turmoil. He became known as "Il Duce" (the leader).
His first international crisis as head of Italy made him an Italian hero. The crisis was a border dispute between Greece and Albania. Mussolini sent several men to the area representing Italy as part of an International Commission to dispute the issue. On August 23, 1923, all the Italians were murdered and discovered in Greek territory. In a rage, Mussolini sent the Greek government a list of demands, including a public apology, immediate inquiry into the killings, death sentence to those convicted and payment of 50 million Lira within 5 days. The Greeks refused the demand, since they did not know if it was Greeks who committed the murders.
Mussolini ordered the Italian navy to bombard Corfu (Kerkyra) off the Greek coast. The shelling was then followed by an amphibious landing of Italian marines. After the League of Nations condemned the act, Mussolini threatened to pull Italy out of the League.
He insisted that the Conference of Ambassadors, who formed the original mission in the first place, must arbitrate the dispute. France, wanting Italy's support over the mineral rich Ruhr Valley, sided with Italy. As a result, the Conference of Ambassadors endorsed most of Italy's position. The Greek government gave in and agreed to Il Duce's demands. This victory was immediately followed by Mussolini sending elements of the Italian Esercito into the city of Fiume and annexing it from Yugoslavia. Mussolini was eventually made a British Knight of the Bath, but that was canceled in August of 1940.
Although Mussolini quenched his thirst for power, he was still enraged by the treatment Italy received for their part in defeating the Germans and Austrians in World War I. He had visions of a new Roman Empire and he could see the day when the Mediterranean Sea became the "Mare Nostrum"(Our Sea). The invasion of Ethiopia, commanded by Field Marshal Pietro Badoglio, in many ways a revenge against the Italian defeat at Adwa in 1896, and the Italian military assistance in Spanish Civil War, reflected his dreams coming to life. But Mussolini found his country blacklisted by the League of Nations and it forced his relationship closer to Nazi Germany, which was also isolated for their actions. Mussolini soon realized that the League of Nations did not have the backbone to stop Hitler or himself in gaining new colonies, so he pressed forward. On the April 7, 1939, Mussolini invaded Albania and on May 22,1939, Italy and Germany cemented their alliance with the Pact of Steel.
Italy would find limited success in the war, his conquests in Africa, Greece and Yugoslavia slowly vanished due to poor leadership in the military, and lack of fuel to power their forces. By 1943, Italy was losing the war. In July 1943, Mussolini was deposed by a revolt within his own Fascist Grand Council, and Vittorio Emmanuelle III, the King of Italy, reduced to a figure head by Mussolini, appointed Field Marshal Pietro Badoglio to be the new Prime Minister of Italy. Mussolini was arrested but later rescued by German paratroopers in a mountain top resort where he was imprisoned. After his rescue, he set up the Italian Socialist Republic in German-held northern Italy, with himself as its leader.
On April 28, 1945, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci, were arrested again by Italian partisans by Lake Como. Walter Audisio (1909-1973), who was once pardoned by Mussolini for a jail term in 1934, took custody of Mussolini and Petacci. Mussolini, realizing he was going to killed, opened up his shirt and asked to be shot in the chest. Audisio complied and attempted to shoot the pair with an Italian submachine gun, but it would not fire. He then pulled out an Italian pistol and again it would not fire. In desperation he grabbed a French weapon, a MAS 7.65, from a fellow partisan and killed them both. Their bodies were strung upside down the next day for all to see.
On this day in 1943, Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy, is voted out of power by his own Grand Council and arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who tells Il Duce that the war is lost. Mussolini responded to it all with an uncharacteristic meekness.
During the evening of July 24 and the early hours of the 25th, the Grand Council of the fascist government met to discuss the immediate future of Italy. While all in attendance were jittery about countermanding their leader, Mussolini was sick, tired, and overwhelmed by the military reverses suffered by the Italian military. He seemed to be looking for a way out of power. One of the more reasonable within the Council, Dino Grandi, argued that the dictatorship had brought Italy to the brink of military disaster, elevated incompetents to levels of power, and alienated large portions of the population. He proposed a vote to transfer some of the leader's power to the king. The motion was passed, with Mussolini barely reacting. While some extremists balked, and would later try to convince Mussolini to have those who voted with Grandi arrested, Il Duce was simply paralyzed, unable to choose any course of action.
Shortly after the Grand Council vote, Mussolini, groggy and unshaven, kept his routine 20-minute meeting with the king, during which he normally updated Victor Emanuele on the current state of affairs. This morning, the king informed Mussolini that General Pietro Badoglio would assume the powers of prime minister and that the war was all but lost for the Italians. Mussolini offered no objection. Upon leaving the meeting, he was arrested by the police, who had been secretly planning a pretext to remove the leader for quite some time. They now had the Council vote of "no confidence" as their formal rationale. Assured of his personal safety, Mussolini acquiesced to this too, as he had to everything else leading up to this pitiful denouement. When news of Mussolini's arrest was made public, relief seemed to be the prevailing mood. There was no attempt by fellow fascists to rescue him from the penal settlement on the island of Ponza to which he was committed. The only remaining !
question was whether Italy would continue to fight alongside its German allies or surrender to the Allies.
