What Makes Flamingos Pink?

by Bill McLain

  Some authorities believe that the number seven indicates spiritual perfection. They claim that the Hebrew word shevah, meaning “seven,” is derived from the root savah, “to be full” or “satisfied.”

  The Bible contains 424 references to the number seven, from Genesis to Revelations. Most of us know many of them, such as God resting on the seventh day after creating the world. Here are some lesser-known examples:

  There were seven years of plenty throughout Egypt followed by seven years of famine.

  The priest of Midian had seven daughters.

  For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

  And you shall offer with the bread, seven lambs.

  I will punish you seven times for your sins.

  Build me here seven altars, and prepare me seven oxen and seven rams.

  The Bible is not the only place where the number seven is found. It occurs everywhere. For instance, we have the seven hills of Rome, the seven seas, the seven dwarves, the seven deadly sins, the seven wonders of the ancient world, and seven days in a week. Any gambler knows that rolling a seven with the dice is lucky. There are many, many more examples.

  If you ever decide to sail the ocean and encounter frightening weather, remember that you are sailing on one of the seven seas, and seven is a very lucky number.

  Who was Hannibal and why was he crossing the Alps with elephants? (It’s better than walking.)

  Carthage and Rome were bitter enemies and had been engaged in a series of wars for about 100 years. Hamilcar was the son of a great Carthaginian general, Hamilcar Barca. When Hannibal was nine years old, his father made him swear eternal hatred for the Roman Empire.

  Hannibal eventually became a great general and spent his entire life in a constant struggle against Rome. He knew that war with Rome was inevitable, but he determined to fight at a time that was advantageous to Carthage and to fight the war on his own terms.

  The fact that Hannibal and his army were in Spain did not worry the Romans. They thought that no one could possibly invade their country by land. To do so, an army would first have to fight its way through a Roman army and then cross the imposing Pyrenees mountains. If they managed to do that, they would then have to fight across the south of France, controlled by the Romans, to reach the final barrier, the formidable Alps. All in all, a virtually impossible task.

  Hannibal had approximately 40,000 troops and 40 elephants. He managed to elude the Roman army in Spain and approached the Rhone River. The Romans still did not panic. They sent a second army to secure the bridges at the Rhone. Once again Hannibal fooled them. He sneaked northward, avoided the Roman sentries, and crossed the river on pontoons and by swimming. It was spring and the river was flooding and very treacherous. Many of the elephants drowned. Nevertheless, Hannibal and his army crossed the river, marched back south, caught the Roman army by surprise, and was victorious. His last obstacle now faced him. The Alps.

  Crossing the Alps was a remarkable achievement. Not only were the mountains themselves dangerous but local tribes fought anyone who ventured onto their lands. Plagued by snowstorms and landslides, Hannibal had to fight his way through the mountains. When he arrived in Italy, he had only 26,000 troops left and about two dozen elephants. The other men and elephants had either drowned in the Rhone River or had been killed by marauding tribes.

  By now, the Romans were frightened. They sent troops to meet Hannibal, who was now outnumbered two to one. Yet with great cunning he defeated the superior force. He outfoxed the Roman forces at every turn. Finally, the Romans maneuvered him into a battle in an open field where Hannibal could not surprise them. It didn’t work. Hannibal used a classic strategy to defeat the Romans once more. He first let the Romans penetrate the center of his infantry, then surrounded the Romans with his cavalry and attacked. Of the 70,000 Roman soldiers, only 10,000 survived the battle.

  It took another 12 years before the Romans finally defeated Hannibal. He went down in history as a legendary commander who performed one of the greatest feats in military history. The only picture of him that survives to this day is an image on a Carthaginian coin. It is the picture of a young man with a pleasant face.

  FACTOIDS

  The Alps contain many sites where ancient peoples have engraved pictures into the rocks. At one site, it is estimated there are between 200,000 and 300,000 rock carvings. At another site, scientists have found more than 35,000 of these art carvings.

  The Alps are a playground for millions of visitors in both summer and winter. The impact of so many human visitors has severely degraded this fragile environment. The Alps are now the most threatened mountain system in the world.

  Although elephants can swim, the torrents of the Rhone River would have swept them away and they would have been lost. Hannibal filled bladders with air and put them on the elephants to float them across the river on their “water wings.”

  DID YOU KNOW?

  One of the most famous mountains in the Alps, and a favorite of mountain climbers, is the Matterhorn, the fourth highest mountain in Europe.

  If you look at the mountain from the Swiss side, it appears to be a horn-shaped peak. If you look at it from the Italian side, it resembles a classic pyramid. If you don’t get a chance to visit Europe, there is a faithful replica of the Matterhorn at Disneyland. Although it is a hundredth the size of the real mountain, it is still an impressive 147 feet high, and the use of forced perspective makes it look even higher.

  In 1840 a British mountaineer, Edward Whymper, was the first person to climb the Matterhorn. In a subsequent climb four members of his party were killed when one of them slipped and pulled three others to their deaths. Fortunately the rope broke before it pulled down Whymper and his two guides. This is still one of the best known mountaineering accidents.

  In spite of his name, Whymper was certainly no wimp.

  What is the story of Rome, Romulus, and Remus? (Part of a wolf pack?)

  According to Roman mythology, Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, were the founders of Rome. In the legend, two brothers, Amulius and Numitor (the twins’ grandfather), were heirs to a kingdom. Amulius took the kingdom away from his brother, but because he was afraid that Numitor’s heirs might one day dethrone him, Amulius had all of Numitor’s male children killed. He spared the life of Numitor’s daughter but consecrated her to the temple of Vesta so she would never marry and have children. The god Mars was upset with Amulius’s cruelty and gave Numitor’s daughter two sons, Romulus and Remus. Hearing about the birth of twins, Amulius was infuriated and ordered the babies to be thrown into the river and drowned.

  A servant carried the babies in a basket to the river, where he was frightened by the raging water, and he set the basket on the river’s edge without throwing the twins into the water. The flooding river swept up the basket and carried it to a shallow pool where it became stuck in the roots of a fig tree. A female wolf heard the babies crying, licked the mud off them, and, with the help of a woodpecker, looked after them until they were eventually found by a shepherd who raised them as his own children.

  When Romulus and Remus grew older, they discovered who they were and recruited a band of youths to kill Amulius and restore their grandfather Numitor to the throne. After successfully accomplishing their mission, they decided to build a town on a hill near the fig tree that had saved them. The two brothers waited for a divine sign over the hill to decide which of them should build the town. Remus saw 6 vultures, but Romulus later saw 12 vultures, so he was made king and started building the city.

  After the town was built, Remus became furious because he hadn’t been made king. He fought with his brother and was killed. With Remus dead, Romulus decided to name the town Rome, after himself.

  Romulus ruled for many years until one day he mysteriously disappeared in a storm. Legend says that the day he disappeared the sun became dark, day turned into night, and there were such furious winds and thunder that the people were terrified and fled. They later called that day the Flight of
the People.

  Many Romans believed that Romulus had been transformed into a god that mystic day.

  FACTOIDS

  Romulus once invited his neighbors, the Sabines, to a festival. During the festival, he abducted the Sabine women. The women eventually married their captors and later intervened so that the Sabines wouldn’t attack the city in revenge. A lighthearted modern version of this incident is portrayed in the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

  Because a woodpecker helped the wolf take care of Romulus and Remus, it was considered a sin in ancient Rome to eat a woodpecker.

  Rome was the first city in history to have a population of one million. London, England, achieved that number in 1810 and New York City in 1875.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  There are many stories of children being raised by animals, from Romulus and Remus to Tarzan. Most authorities believe these tales have no basis in truth and are simply legend or fiction. However, they admit that children isolated from all social contact can become “wild” children. One of the most famous is the “Wild Boy of Aveyron.”

  In 1799 an 11-year-old boy was discovered running wild and naked in a forest in France. He survived by begging for food from farmers and stealing from their gardens. After roaming the area for two years, he was caught and put under the care of Dr. Jean Hard.

  Dr. Itard named the boy Victor and taught him how to dress himself and perform simple chores, but he could never teach him to speak. Although Victor could read and understand words to some extent, the only words he ever learned to say were lait (“milk”) and O Dieu (“Oh, God”). The wild boy of Aveyron died at age 40.

  Socially isolated “wild” children have also been discovered in modern times. In 1975, a social worker discovered a 13-year-old girl who had been kept isolated in a small room since about the age or two. Named Genie, she could not speak and had almost inhuman characteristics, including spitting, sniffing, and constant clawing.

  Scientists studied Genie for five years and then put her into a series of foster homes where she was often abused, harassed, and punished. She eventually was placed in an adult foster care home where she received better care.

  Although Genie acted like an animal at times, she was still human. Yet she wasn’t always treated as a human or always as well as some people treat their pet animals.

  Perhaps we still have a lot to learn about dealing with the “wild” children in our society.

  What language is spoken the most in the world? (Hint: It’s not Swahili.)

  Mandarin Chinese, spoken by 885 million people, is the most prevalent language in the world. Spanish, spoken by 332 million people, is the next most popular. English is a close third, being the predominate language of 322 million people.

  However, if all of the Chinese languages are included, such as Cantonese, Wu, Min Nan, Xiang, Jinyu, and so on, then there are over 1.2 billion people in the world whose primary language is some form of Chinese.

  Chinese is spoken not only in China but also by ethnic Chinese in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, and Thailand.

  In Chinese, each character is pronounced as a single syllable, although words are usually two syllables. For instance, the character ming means “clear” and bai means “white.” When the two characters are pronounced as one word, mingbai, it means “understand.” Because there are no parts of speech in Chinese, most words can be nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, depending on their position in the sentence.

  In spoken Chinese, a word may have four different tones. Although the word is phonetically the same, each of the four tones gives the word a different meaning.

  Wouldn’t it be great if English grammar were that simple?

  FACTOIDS

  There are 173 different languages spoken in California, including 23 different Native American languages.

  More than 100 million Chinese have the surname Zhang. Over 40 percent of China’s population has one of the 10 major surnames: Zhang, Wang, Li, Zhao, Chen, Yang, Wu, Liu, Huang, and Zhou.

  In a language that uses an alphabet, the letters are clues to how a word is pronounced. However, Chinese characters are pictorial in form and give few clues to pronunciation. Thus, when reading a text, the reader pronounces the words according to the rules of his own language, or dialect. That is why Chinese speaking different dialects can write to one another and be understood. If they were speaking, they would probably not understand each other.

  In San Francisco, California, the voter’s ballot is printed in the three major languages: Chinese, Spanish, and English.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Languages lead to literature and China has a long literary history, uninterrupted for over 3,000 years and dating back to the 14th century B.C. As in most cultures, China has many stories to illustrate some moral. Here is one of them.

  An old man discovered that his horse had disappeared. Although his neighbors felt sorry for him, he said, “It doesn’t matter. It may not be a bad thing, it might even be a good one.”

  One night the man’s horse returned and had a beautiful companion horse with it. The man’s neighbors were elated but he said, “Although I got a new horse for nothing, it may be good or it may be bad.”

  The old man’s son loved the new horse and rode it often. One day he fell off the horse and hurt his leg so badly that he could never walk quite right again. The old man said, “Perhaps this will be a good thing.”

  A year later, the youth of the village were recruited to fight in a war. Because the old man’s son couldn’t walk quite right, he wasn’t required to fight. All the other young men were killed but the old man’s son was still alive.

  This story tells us that good things can come out of bad. In adversity there are the seeds of new opportunity.

  There is a great deal of wisdom in the ancient Chinese folk tales.

  Where are the Spice Islands? (They’re not on the shelf in your supermarket.)

  The Spice Islands are actually the Indonesian islands called the Moluccas, and they include the famous island of Bali. They are north of Australia and south of Indonesia.

  A source for cloves and nutmeg, the Moluccas became an important area for traders from approximately 300 B.C. Chinese, Indian, and Arab merchants sought the rich profits from spices long before European traders came to the Spice Islands.

  Because so many Arab sultans amassed great wealth by controlling the lucrative spice trade, one of the islands became known as the Land of Many Kings.

  Europeans came to the Moluccas in search of cloves and nutmeg, which were prized as food preservatives. Wealthy women wore lockets filled with spices so they could freshen their breath easily, gentlemen added nutmeg to food and drink, and many spices were used for medicinal purposes to relieve colic, gout, and rheumatism.

  The romantic name of the Spice Islands masked their long and bloody history of being ruled first by Arabs, then by Spain, England, and Holland. By the end of the 18th century, the spice trade had diminished and the Moluccas lost their importance. In 1949 they were incorporated into the Republic of Indonesia.

  The Moluccas are mountainous and have frequent earthquakes and active volcanoes. The tropical climate produces up to 150 inches of rain a year. Because the Moluccas are a transition zone between Asian and Australian plant and animal life, many unique species of plant and animal life occur there. Over 20 percent of the bird species and 40 percent of the mammals are unique to the region surrounding the Moluccas.

  FACTOIDS

  Oregano wasn’t a well-known spice in the United States until 1945, when American soldiers returned from World War II, bringing with them a taste for Italian pizza. In the 10 years following the war, the popularity of Oregano increased by 5,200 percent.

  A former official of the British East India Company, Elihu Yale, made a fortune that he later used to contribute to what was later named Yale University.

  Saffron comes from a purple-flowered crocus. Three stigmas are hand
-picked from the inside of each flower, spread on trays, and then dried over charcoal fires. A single pound of saffron represents 75,000 blossoms. It is the most expensive spice in the world.

  Bay leaves come from the laurel tree. Ancient Greeks and Romans used wreaths of laurel to crown victors. The term “baccalaureate,” which means laurel berry, comes from the ancient practice of honoring scholars and poets with garlands from the bay laurel tree.

  Cinnamon comes from the bark of the cinnamon tree and is probably the most common baking spice. Romans believed it to be sacred, and Nero burned a year’s supply of cinnamon at his wife’s funeral. One of the motives for world exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries was to find new sources of cinnamon.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  The history of spices dates back at least to 3000 B.C. The earliest recorded use of spice is from an Assyrian myth claiming that the gods drank sesame wine the night before they created the world.

  In about 400 B.C., the Greek physician Hippocrates listed over 400 medicines concocted from spices and herbs. About half of these are still used today.

  Until A.D. 1200, the spice trade was controlled by the Roman Empire. Romans valued spices as highly as gold. When the Goths overran Rome, their leader demanded 30,000 pounds of peppercorns, along with gold, jewels, and silk to spare the population from death.

  Later the Europeans explored passages to the East Indies in search of spices. Marco Polo helped establish Venice as an important trade port.

  Christopher Columbus was searching for a direct western route to the Spice Islands, or the Moluccas, when he landed in America.