AWESOME FACTS ABOUT EVERYTHING LIV

1. In New York on January 25, 1915, Alexander Graham Bell placed the first transcontinental phone call to his former assistant, Thomas Watson, in San Francisco.

2. The three longest European rivers are Ural (1,509 miles), the Danube (1,777 miles) and the Volga (2,294 miles)

3. The Russian space station MIR completed 86,331 orbits of the earth before falling into the South Pacific in 2001.

4. The Japanese word KARAOKE means "empty orchestra". Its etymological cousin KARATE is literally "empty hand". 

5. The eye of a giant squid is about the size of a dinner plate.

6. The name OREO was derived from "RE" for creme, enclosed by two O,s - from chocolate.

7. Dag Hammerskjold succeeded Trygve Lie as U.N. Secretary-General.

8. In the early Middle Ages, secret or clandestine marriages became a problem for the Catholic Church. It was not unheard of for a person to conceal a previous marriage. Hence the Church began to require the publication of the Banns of Marriage. This is an announcement of an intended marriage, naming the persons to be married, which is publicly read or posted three times. Today, marriage banns are largely dispensed of, though they may still be required at the discretion of the officiating authority. But the legacy of marriage banns lives on in today's marriages, when the officiant solemnly declares these or comparable words: "If anyone knows of any reason why this couple should not be married, let him speak now or forever hold his piece."

9. The expression "Less is more" was coined by Robert Browning in a poem about Renaissance painter Andrea del Sarto.

10. It took an estimated 5.5 million tons of limestone to build the Great Pyramid of Giza - the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that is still largely intact. 

11. The Cape of Good Hope is not the southern tip of Africa. The southern-most point of Africa is Cape Agulhas - 90 miles to the southeast. Cape Agulhas is the official dividing point between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.