I DIDN'T KNOW THAT. DID YOU?
Why do we say bless you after a sneeze?
The practice of blessing someone who sneezes dates as far back as at least AD 77, although it is far older than most specific explanations can account for. Some have offered an explanation suggesting that people once held the folk belief that a person's soul could be thrown from their body when they sneezed, that sneezing otherwise opened the body to invasion by the devil or evil spirits, or that sneezing was the body's effort to force out an invading evil presence. In these cases, "God bless you" or "bless you" is used as a sort of shield against evil. The Irish Folk story "Master and Man" by Thomas Crofton Croker, collected by William Butler Yeats, describes this variation. Moreover, in the past some people may have thought that the heart stops beating during a sneeze, and that the phrase "God bless you" encourages the heart to continue beating.
In some cultures, sneezing is seen as a sign of good fortune or God's beneficence. As such, alternative responses to sneezing are the German word Gesundheit (meaning "health") sometimes adopted by English speakers, the Irish word sláinte (meaning "good health"), the Spanish salud (also meaning "health") and the Hebrew laBri'ut (colloquial) or liVriut (classic) (both spelled: "לבריאות") (meaning "to health").
In Persian culture, sneezing sometimes is called "sabr =صبر," meaning "to wait or be patient." And when trying to do something or go somewhere and suddenly sneezing, one should stop or sit for a few minutes and then re-start. By this act the "bad thing" passes and one will be saved. This is observed in Indian culture as well. Source: wikipedia
Martin Luther King, Jr. attempted suicide as a young boy
When King was 12, he attended a parade against his parents' wishes. His maternal grandmother suffered a fatal heart attack that day. King blamed himself for her death, because his six-year old little brother A.D., whom he was supposed to be home watching, accidentally knocked their grandmother unconscious while sliding down a bannister. Young Martin did not know the unconsciousness was unrelated to the heart attack. Associating his absence with the tragic turn of events, Martin attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window in his family home. His father later reported that the boy was distraught for days, unable to sleep. Source: www.alternet.org
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There are only 3 countries in the world that don't offer paid maternity leave: Suriname, Papua New Guinea and the United States.
Norway's maximum prison sentence is 21 years, after it abolished life in prison in 1971.
Pizza Hut was founded by two brothers who borrowed $600 from their mother in 1958 to open a pizza place.
After his presidency, George Washington became a whiskey tycoon and owned the largest distillery in the U.S.
In 2007, a man named Jeremy Harper counted to one million. He did not leave his apartment or shave until he finished, and it was all broadcast live on a webcam. It took him 3 months.
While filming "The Passion of the Christ," 2 people were struck by lightning including the actor who played Jesus.
In the 1970s, Basil Brown, a healthy food advocate from England, drank himself to death by consuming 10 gallons (38 litres) of carrot juice in 10 days, causing him to overdose on vitamin A.
Will Smith doesn't curse in his raps because his grandma once told him not to.
Harvard makes so much money from the interest on its endowment that even if the school gave free tuition to all of its students it would still make a profit.
Snow White is just 14 years old.
22 BLAQUELINE Entertainment Magazine/Winter 2017