Geography lesson

[Perfection]

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm

Well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome

Estimates of its peak population range from 450,000 to over 3.5 million people with estimates of 1 to 2 million being most popular with historians.

I think that's indicative of a fair amount of controversy among the figure...

 

[Truronian]

Well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome

I think that's indicative of a fair amount of controversy among the figure...

We'll make that one a yellow then...

 

[ybbor]

Never mix coastline figure from different sources as the value is often dependant on the methodology (because of the Richardson effect).

this place (which got its numbers from the US dpeartment of commerece) has similar numbers, and agrees

 

[Perfection]

It would be interesting to see if the results would change with methodology.

 

[ybbor]

it has less than half the "tidal shoreline" if that matters

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in
Alaska.

There is a simple way to prove this. Load the world map in Civ and start counting coast tiles.

 

[Cuivienen]

I couldn't find the article, but I remember Snopes nixing it. Besides, I haven't seen a stretch of interstate a mile long that is straight enough.

I'm fairly certain that the "fact" was originally true; that is, the major and original interstates such as 5, 75, 95, 10, 80, 90, etc. that run the length or width of the country do in fact have such stretches, but later interstates do not.

An obvious exception to the rule would be the very short interstates. I-375 in Michigan, for example, is barely more than a mile long.

 

[Bootstoots]

This is the Snopes link that discredits the Interstate airstrip myth. According to Snopes, it's completely false.

 

[YNCS]

The bit about more Poles in Chicago than Warsaw seems a bit of a stretch. To me, a Pole is someone who has Polish citizenship. I suspect that most of the Chicago Poles were born in the U.S. I can believe that there are more people with Polish names living in Chicago than Warsaw, but I doubt there are more actual Polish nationals living in Chicago than Warsaw.

I could make the same argument about Irish in New York City as well. As for there being more Jews in New York than Tel Aviv, that's true. Wiki gives the population of Tel Aviv as 376,700 and New York City has a population of about one million Jews. But then being Jewish isn't a nationality like being Polish or Irish are.

 

[ybbor]

This is the Snopes link that discredits the Interstate airstrip myth. According to Snopes, it's completely false.

you're 12 posts late

 

[Bootstoots]

you're 12 posts late

Whoops, skipped right over it.

 

[Sashie VII]

Hm..guess most of those amusing facts are untrue after all

 

[woody60707]

Hm..guess most of those amusing facts are untrue after all

Yea it sucks. They sound cool tho.

I will be in class and some guy would say one of these facts he got from an e-mail to make him self sound smart. Or better yet, the one time one of my college professor claimed that Mr. Rogers was a marine sniper. ahh, the things people believe in e-mails.

But I guess this is how we get all these 9/11 nuts. People just believing the first things they read.

 

[Sashie VII]

But I guess this is how we get all these 9/11 nuts. People just believing the first things they read.

And preferring to trust other people were supposed to be a good thing

 

[LLXerxes]

I doubt it took Rome that long to reach the million mark. That sounds about 20 years too late, doesn't it?

 

[GoldEagle]

The bit about more Poles in Chicago than Warsaw seems a bit of a stretch. To me, a Pole is someone who has Polish citizenship. I suspect that most of the Chicago Poles were born in the U.S. I can believe that there are more people with Polish names living in Chicago than Warsaw, but I doubt there are more actual Polish nationals living in Chicago than Warsaw.

I think they're talking about those of Polish descent, not someone who has Polish citizenship.

 

[dutchfire]

The one about St Paul in Minnesota is confirmed by Wiki.

In the early years the settlers lived close to the fort along the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, but as a whisky trade started to flourish the military officers in Fort Snelling banned them from the lands the fort controlled with one retired fur trader turned bootlegger, Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant, particularly irritating the officials. By the early 1820s the area had become important as a trading center and a destination for settlers heading west and was known as Pig's Eye Landing. In 1841 Father Galtier established the St. Paul Church and that same year the name of the settlement was formally changed to Saint Paul in honor of the newly constructed church and Father Galtier's favorite saint.

 

[Truronian]

The one about St Paul in Minnesota is confirmed by Wiki.

It doesn't say he was the first tradesman (I just love pedanticism).

 

[IglooDame]

Color the Big Apple bit in yellow.

 

[GinandTonic]

How has no-one debunked

Detroit
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, carries the designation M-1,
named
so because it was the first paved road anywhere.

Thats just silly, there are paved roads all over the world dating back thousands of years.