- If you’ve been reading my blog lately, you know I’ve been delving into the origins of clichés and proverbs and of course I’ve been learning a lot. For example, the phrase “comparing apples and oranges” originated as “apples and oysters.”
2. The Royal Game of Ur is the oldest board game that we currently know of (according to Wikipedia, “One board, held by the British Museum, is dated to c. 2600 – c. 2400 BC”). We got to try out a reproduction at a local library program with an organization called Knights in the Classroom.
3. Alligator boats were a type of tugboat used for logging (they would go over portages!). The Ancaster is one of these boats made by Russel Brothers in Owen Sound, which can be seen outside the Marine & Rail Museum — and it used to appear on the Canadian one dollar bill!
4. In my history reading and listening lately I often come across interesting facts, but then I think I must have known this already… Anyway, one thing that struck me in reading about the War of 1812 was that the New England states threatened to withdraw from the union because they were opposed to the war.
5. There are three time zones in the world that are a 45-minute deviation from UCT (Coordinated Universal Time). (More potentially surprising geography facts here.)