TRAPPED!
But no matter how much the East Berliners wanted to leave, the Soviets were determined to stop them. First, the government put up fences and ordered soldiers to shoot anyone who tried to get out. Still, about 2 million people managed to sneak across the border. So in 1961, the Soviets decided to build a concrete wall around the city to keep people in.
Country with the highest percentage of Internet users: Sweden About 75 percent of the population can get online.
The Berlin Wall was under construction for almost 20 years. In the end, it was 10 to 15 feet high, 100 miles long, and topped with barbed wire, mines, guard towers, and electrical booby traps. The Soviets were sure the fortification would keep East Berliners from trying to leave. But between 1961 and 1989, when the wall came down, at least 10,000 people managed to escape to the west…and another 5,000 were arrested or killed trying. Most of the people who outwitted the wall did so during the first two years it was being built. That’s because as time went by, the Berlin Wall got longer, wider, and higher.
THE ESCAPE ARTISTS
•An East Berlin butcher once made his own “bullet-proof vest” out of hams and roasts, and then flung himself over the top of the wall. The meat absorbed the bullets and the cuts from the barbed wire. He lived and escaped to the west.
•For years, college students dug tunnels all over East Berlin that reached to the western side. The first tunnel was dug in a graveyard and was disguised to look like a crypt. “Mourners” arrived with flowers and entered the crypt, but they never came out. The East German government finally caught on to this tunnel when a woman went in with her baby but never returned for the stroller she left up top.
•Berlin’s sewer system was a popular way to try to escape because the eastern sewers still linked up with the ones in the west. But so many people tried to get out this way that the Soviets eventually cemented all of the city’s manhole covers shut and assigned guards to keep watch over the sewers.
•Because the wall went right through the center of the city, there were many buildings that jutted up against it. Parents were known to throw young children out of upper-story windows toward West Berlin, and firemen on the western side would catch them in nets. Other people tossed mattresses over the wall from windows and then jumped to the western side.
•In 1979, eight people flew over the wall in a homemade hot-air balloon. They’d spent months sewing bits of nylon together to make the aircraft. After they succeeded, the East German government kept a close watch on who in the city was buying nylon.
At one time, the word “bra” wasn’t allowed in the New York Times crossword puzzle But now it is.
LE McDONALD’S
McDonald’s has restaurants all over the world, but in order to succeed, they have to cater to local tastes. The result: some pretty unusual items on the menu.
The Netherlands: The McKrocket, condensed beef gravy that’s deep-fried until it’s a thick, crispy patty served on a bun.
Germany: Beer and croissants.
India: Most people are Hindu and don’t eat beef (cows are sacred in the Hindu religion). A popular menu item is the Maharaja Mac—a Big Mac made with lamb or chicken.
Norway: The McLaks, a grilled salmon sandwich.
Costa Rica: Gallo Pinto, which consists of a cup of seasoned rice and beans.
Greece: Gyros—lamb strips, lettuce, tomato, onions, and a tangy yogurt sauce stuffed into pita bread—is a popular Greek dish. The Greek Mac is made the same way, but with ground beef instead of lamb.
Hong Kong: Instead of being served on buns, the burgers and sandwiches come on sticky rice that’s been molded into the shape of a bun.
Singapore: Popular items include the Kampung Burger, a sausage patty topped with sliced chicken and pineapple served on an English muffin; and the McTowkay Burger, a patty of eggs and marinated ground beef mixed together and served on a bun.
Thailand: The Samurai Pork Burger (it’s teriyaki-flavored). And for dessert, Sweet Corn Pie.
Spain: Gazpacho, which is a raw vegetable (mostly tomato) soup, always served ice-cold.
Canada: Poutine, french fries covered in cheese and gravy.
Philippines: McSpaghetti—spaghetti, tomato sauce, and hot-dog chunks.
Italy: The Fiodiriso Salad, made of lettuce, rice, tuna, mushrooms, and ham.
Uruguay: The McHuevo, a hamburger topped with a poached egg.
Japan: You can order the Ebi Filet-O (a shrimp burger), the Koroke Burger (a sandwich of mashed potato, cabbage, and sauce), the Ebi-Chiki (deep-fried shrimp nuggets), or a macaroni-and-cheese sandwich…and wash it down with a green tea–flavored milk shake.
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POP QUIZ
A mother of four hungry children has only three potatoes. Without using fractions, can you figure out how she can feed all of them and still serve each child an equal amount of potatoes? (The answer is on page 242.)
He who tells the truth is never wrong. —Swahili proverb
FIRST DAY ON THE JOB
Want to grow up to be president? It’s a big job…with a big first day.
THE MOMENT ARRIVES
Today, presidential inaugurations take place on January 20, but it wasn’t always that way. George Washington’s first inaugural was on April 30, 1789, and subsequent inaugurations took place in March. It wasn’t until the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1933 that January 20 was chosen as inauguration day. The amendment says that a president’s term “shall end at noon on the 20th day of January.” Congress decided on the date change because it felt that swearing in presidents in March or April, when they were elected in November, made voters wait too long for their new leader. In 1937, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first president to be inaugurated on the new date.
THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT
George Washington gets the award for the shortest inaugural speech. His second address, delivered on March 4, 1793, was just 135 words long.
On the other hand, William Henry Harrison gave the longest in 1841—it ran more than 8,000 words and lasted for two hours. According to many, the speech also contributed to Harrison’s death. Speaking outdoors on that cold March day, Harrison refused to wear a hat, coat, or gloves. A result: he caught pneumonia and died a month later, making his the shortest presidency.
The average American eats 75 bananas per year.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Presidential inaugurations have been going on for more than 200 years, so it makes sense that they’ve incorporated new technology. Here are a few inauguration firsts:
•The first floats in the inaugural parade (Martin Van Buren, 1837)
•The first photograph of the event (James Buchanan, 1857)
•The first motion picture (William McKinley, 1897)
•The first use of an automobile to bring the president to the event (Warren G. Harding, 1921)
•The first radio broadcast (Calvin Coolidge, 1925)
•The first talking film of the event (Herbert Hoover, 1929)
•The first televised inauguration (Harry S. Truman, 1949)
•The first color broadcast (John F. Kennedy, 1961)
•And the first Internet broadcast (Bill Clinton, 1997)
Poet Robert Frost worked as a schoolteacher, reporter, and chicken farmer.
AN UNWELCOME GUEST
John Wilkes Booth attended Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration. At least one person remembered seeing him there, and Booth and several of his conspirators appear in photographs taken on that day in 1865—less than two months before he assassinated Lincoln.
A NEW LEGACY
The first president sworn in while wearing long pants: John Quincy Adams on March 4, 1825. The presidents before him wore knickers and stockings, which were common in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
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DID YOU KNOW?
•The Baby Ruth candy bar was named for President Grover Cleveland’s daughter Ruth.
•President Zachary Taylor
never actually voted in a presidential election.
Komodo dragons have been known to prey on deer, horses, and water buffalo.
RECORD BREAKERS
Some kids might be even weirder than you are.
•Praveen Kumar Sehrawat, 16, can spray a stream of milk a record 12 feet. But he doesn’t do it through his mouth or even his nose. He sucks milk up through his nostrils and then shoots it out of the tear ducts in his eyes! Sehrawat, who lives in India, also holds his country’s record for eating green chilies: 170 in five minutes.
•Students at King Edward’s School in Edgbaston, England, collected more than 28,000 socks and 24,500 clothespins. Then they hung all the socks on a line and set the record for the world’s longest clothesline of socks: 0.8 mile.
•New Zealand teenager Elliot Nicholls set a record for sending text messages while blindfolded. The previous record was a 160-letter message sent in 83 seconds. Nicholls did it in just 45 seconds.
•Eight-year-old Aman Rehman of Dehra Dun, India, is the world’s youngest college lecturer. He is a computer genius who teaches digital animation classes at a local art school.
•Tiana Walton, 9, from Cheshire, England, broke the record for “most snails sitting on a human face.” A grand total of 25 slimed around Walton’s face for 10 seconds, outpacing the previous record of 15 snails.
Longest-running prime-time animated TV series: The Simpsons, which debuted in 1989.
BLOOPER REEL
Film directors work hard on their movies, but they still make mistakes.
•In Star Wars: A New Hope, the storm troopers break into the Death Star’s control room looking for C-3PO, and one of the troopers hits his head on the door frame.
•Look carefully at the scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Harry fights the basilisk. There’s a safety tip on the end of his sword.
•In High School Musical 2, just before the kids start singing “What Time Is It?” Troy’s boxers show above his waistband—but they change from white to a dark color a moment later.
•When Batman interrogates the Joker in The Dark Knight, the camera crew’s reflection appears briefly in the two-way mirror.
•At the beginning of I Am Legend, all the bridges into Manhattan are destroyed, but at the end, two characters leave the city by driving over a bridge.
Worlds End State Park isn’t at the end of the world—it’s in Pennsylvania.
FLYING HIGH
How much of your school day is spent staring out the window, watching the flag wave in the wind? Here’s some history about what you’re looking at.
OLD GLORY
•You may have heard that Betsy Ross designed the American flag—she didn’t. Her grandson spread that rumor in the 1870s. No one knows for sure who came up with the design, but many historians now believe it was a 1770s congressman from New Jersey named Francis Hopkinson.
•Only the president or a state governor may order that the American flag be flown at half-mast. It’s usually done as a way to honor a former president, vice president, Supreme Court justice, member of Congress, or military leader who has died. But sometimes other figures and events are honored this way, too: President George W. Bush ordered that the flag be flown at half-mast in 2002 on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and again in 2005, when civil rights activist Rosa Parks died.
•The flag flies over the White House only if the president is in Washington, D.C. If he’s away, no flag.
STATE FLAGS
•Oregon is the only state whose flag has a different design on the back. The front shows the state seal with the words “State of Oregon,” and the year “1859,” when it became part of the United States. On the back is a beaver, the state animal.
Is your interest flagging? You might look into vexillology, the study of flags.
•Ohio is the only state whose flag isn’t rectangular—it’s a pennant shape.
•In 1927, the Alaska Territory held a contest to design its flag (though it didn’t become a state until 1959). The winner was 13-year-old John Benson. The design: a blue background with one large star in the upper right corner and seven smaller stars forming the Big Dipper in the middle. It’s still the state’s flag today.
•Canada didn’t get an official national flag until 1965.
•Washington’s state flag is the only one with a portrait of a person on it. (That person is, naturally, George Washington.)
•Only one country in the world has a flag that’s a solid block of color—the flag of the African nation of Libya is all green.
•In 1846, artist William Todd took on the task of designing a flag for California. He was supposed to draw a pear in the middle of a banner. (Northern California has lots of pear orchards.) But due to smeared ink on the written request (or bad handwriting), Todd thought it said “bear.” So that’s what he drew, and it’s still on the flag today.
In 2008, Rock Port, Missouri, became the first U.S. city to be powered completely by wind.
X-TREME EATING
If becoming a pro athlete seems beyond your reach, don’t despair. You might be able to train your stomach for victory instead.
BURGERS AND DOGS
In 2006, Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi of Japan won $10,000 for eating 97 hamburgers in eight minutes. He’s also put away 58 bratwursts in 10 minutes to win the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, New York. (He’s won the contest seven times in the last eight years.)
PIZZA AND WINGS
The only man to defeat “Tsunami” at Coney Island: Joey Chestnut, who is also a world-champion pizza eater and holds the record for speed-eating chicken wings, 182 in 30 minutes.
CHILI AND PEPPERS
Rich “Locust” LeFevre, who is in his 60s, holds the world records for devouring chili (1½ gallons in 10 minutes) and pickled jalapeño peppers (247 in 8 minutes).
LOBSTERS AND MORE
In 2005, Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas gobbled up 44 lobsters in 12 minutes to win Maine’s World Lobster-Eating Championship. She also holds the world record for fruitcake, meatballs, cheesecake, eggs, and chili cheese fries. Oh—and she weighs just 105 pounds.
The Pig Olympics is an international sporting contest with pig competitors Its events include pig-racing, pig-swimming, and pigball.
OYSTERS AND PICKLED JALAPEÑOS
In April 2008, when Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti was just 23 years old, he became the world’s oyster-eating champion after downing 34 dozen raw oysters in eight minutes. He also challenged “Locust” LeFevre’s pickled jalapeño record in 2008 (he ate 191 in 6½ minutes), but didn’t beat it. He graduated from college with a degree in—what else—culinary arts!
SADDLE UP!
In movies, cowboys are usually portrayed by white men, but in reality, about 25 percent of them were African American. Here’s the Wild West story of history’s most famous black cowboy.
LEARNING THE ROPES
Bill Pickett was born in Texas in 1870, the son of two former slaves. There were 13 children in the Pickett family, and there wasn’t much time for school. So Bill dropped out when he was 10 and got his first job—as a ranch hand.
The work was hard: Bill cleaned up around the place, fed the animals, and mucked out the stalls. But it brought him close to the horses, and he soon taught himself how to rope and ride.
PAYING HIS DUES
It wasn’t long before Pickett started putting on amateur shows around town, performing rodeo tricks for people on the street and passing around a hat to collect donations. For the next 20 years, he moved all over Texas, working as a cowboy—rounding up cattle and breaking horses—and putting on shows to make extra money. He and his brothers even started their own horse-breaking and ranching company: the Pickett Brothers Bronco Busters and Rough Riders Association.
In Saskatchewan, Canada, a hooded sweatshirt is called a “bunny-hug.”
STEER WRASSLIN’
During these years, Pickett perfected his rodeo techniques. His most
impressive skill: a new trick called “bulldogging.” Today it’s known as steer wrestling, and here’s how it works: A cowboy on horseback races along next to a running steer. At just the right moment, he slides off of his horse, tackles the steer, and wrestles it to the ground.
There are lots of stories about how Bill Pickett came up with the bulldogging technique, but the most common one says that in 1903, while he was working at a ranch in Rockdale, Texas, Pickett came across a steer that just wouldn’t cooperate with him. The animal was running around the ranch, refusing to go into the corral, and antagonizing the entire herd of cattle. Pickett finally got fed up with the beast, raced him on horseback at full speed, and then tackled him. Still, the animal wouldn’t calm down, so Pickett bit him hard on the lower lip and took him to the ground.
RODEO ROYALTY
Today, steer wrestling is a common rodeo event (even though rodeo riders don’t bite steers on the lip). But when Bill Pickett introduced the technique in the early 1900s, no one had seen it before, and people were fascinated. He became so famous that, in 1905, he moved to Oklahoma and signed up with one of America’s most prestigious Wild West shows: the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Show. One of his colleagues in the show was “Buffalo” Bill Cody.
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