The influence of the printed word in every area of public communication was insistent and powerful not merely because of the quantity of printed matter but because of its monopoly. If you wanted to exchange ideas, you did so in a pamphlet, a debate forum, or a lecture.

These were all places where the form of printed language lent itself to a more sophisticated and elegant content. Lectures and debates didn’t sound like idle conversation—they sounded like writing. 

“Know ye, that all space is ordered. Only by order are ye One with the All. Order and Balance are the Law of the Cosmos. Ye shall be One with the All.”

~Thoth the Atlantean

In Turkey, an itchy right-hand means you will come into some money, while an itchy left hand means you’ll lose out big time.

Recessions are really "depressions," but the term "depression" seems too terrifying. After the Great Depression, economists began to use the word "recession" instead.

The 2007-09 recession involved a financial crisis, high unemployment, and falling prices, and was named the Great Recession. Our current recession is still without a name.

In April 1866, the U.S. Congress passed a law prohibiting currency notes to have a portrait or likeness of any living person, due to some members not agreeing with the five-cent note having the portrait of Spencer Clark.

Till now, U.S. law prohibits any portrait of likeness on its notes of people who are still alive, with even commemorative coins honoring past presidents being issued only after two years of the president's death.