More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jordan Moore
The harmonica is the world’s top-selling instrument, with about three million of the free-reed wind instruments sold globally each year.
luthier
the Great Stalacpipe Organ in the Luray Caverns of Virginia to be the largest musical instrument in the world. The organ was first constructed by Leland W. Sprinkle in 1956 and covers 3.5 acres of the caverns.
The Moog synthesizer
Bucket drumming—simply playing the drums on one or more plastic buckets—has become popular in urban landscapes around the world. New Yorker Larry Wright is often credited with starting the modern music trend in 1990 when he was around 13.
Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian in his later years and near the end of his life ate only mashed potatoes and clear broth. The reasons for the dictator’s dietary choices remain a mystery.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was as brutal as they get, and also very paranoid. He was so paranoid that he had his scientists examine people’s feces, believing he could determine their loyalty from it! During a visit by Mao ZeTong, he had his scientists examine Mao’s feces to judge what mood he was in….
Saddam Hussein was never afraid to tell people how he felt. In 1981, just after the Iran-Iraq War began, Hussein ordered a 1940 pamphlet that his uncle wrote, titled “Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews, and Flies,” to be republished and distributed in schools.
Chinese dictator Mao Zedong never wanted his people to be too educated. He once said, “To read too many books is harmful.”
Stalin was said to routinely humiliate his subordinates and advisors. His successor as ruler of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, even claimed that Stalin made him perform a traditional Ukrainian dance for a small gathering.
Idi Amin was no philosopher, but he was known to offer some good advice. He was quoted as saying, “You cannot run faster than a bullet.”
The inventor/developer of Bitcoin is believed to be a Japanese man named Satoshi Nakamoto. Many believe Nakamoto is actually a group of developers. So why has the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto never come forward? Gyorfi believes the Bitcoin founder has remained in the shadows so that the digital currency is never connected to one person, to uphold it as a decentralized system in which no single person or group has control.
Panama, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste all use Uncle Sam’s dollars.
A thaler is one of the large silver coins minted in the states and territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy during the Early Modern period.
In November 2008, Zimbabwe’s economy hit 6.5 sextillion percent inflation. The worst of the inflation occurred in November 2008 with a rate estimated at 79,600,000,000% per month, with the year-over-year inflation rate reaching an astounding 89.7 sextillion percent, leading to the abandonment of the currency.
fiat is a term used to describe money that isn’t backed by gold, silver, or other commodities. Fiat is a Latin term that means “let it be done.”
Coin currency began in Lydia in the late 7th century BCE. The earliest coins were made of the gold-silver alloy, electrum.
According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) 2011 survey results, one in 12 Americans households is “unbanked,” or they have no bank account.
home to 225 million adults without an account, China has the world's largest non-banking population,
Financial analyst and TV personality, Jim Cramer, proclaimed in February 2000 that there were ten stocks everyone should own. By 2009 all of those were either out of business or a fraction of their 2000 value.
“Helicopter money” is a term used when central banks inject money directly into an economy to prevent a recession.
Amsterdam Stock Exchange was the first stock exchange in the world.
The US’s gold bullion depository is held in a vault on a 42-acre complex next to the army base, Fort Knox, Kentucky. It houses more than 147.3 million troy ounces of gold.
autodidacts, or self-taught.
Grammar involves the mechanics of a language, including syntax, morphology, and phonology.
British and American English spelling began diverging before 1776, but the big break came in 1828 when Noah Webster published the first edition of the Webster’s Dictionary.
Although the overwhelming majority of modern European languages are in the Indo-European family, Basque, or Euskara, is not.
Neither is Finnish, Hungarian or Turkish.
Moabite Stone, which is dated to 840 BCE Jordan, was the first text to use punctuation.
The Braille system of writing was invented by Frenchman Louis Braille in 1824. Braille lost his vision when he was a child of 3 years but developed the system of writing while he was a teen.
Israel’s support of Hebrew is the only example of a dead language successfully revived in the modern era.
The Gaelic language has no equivalent words for “yes” or “no.” Instead, Gaelic speakers tend to say, “it is” or “it isn’t.”
The serial comma, the comma before “and” in a series—i.e., Jim, Jill, and Becky - is also known as the Oxford comma. Surprisingly, the University of Oxford Style Guide advises against its use.
English writer William Shakespeare modernized the English language. One way he did that was by adding new words to it, up to 1,700 by some estimates.
Most countries have an official language, and several have more than one. The US, Argentina, Chile, Bosnia, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan are among the few that don’t.
“tattoo” is derived from the Polynesian word tatu.
The popular makeup company Make-Up Art Cosmetics (MAC) began with a more masculine touch. It was founded in Toronto, Ontario in March 1984 by Frank Toskan and Frank Angelo.
French company L’Oréal is the largest cosmetic firm in the world. The company started in 1909 as the Safe Hair Dye Company of France, quickly setting itself apart from the competition by employing chemists.
In the 1700s powdered wigs were the fashion rage for men. People who wore them were among the "elites" in society. The first wigs were made from goat and horsehair, and because they were never properly washed, they smelled quite terrible and tended to attract lice. To combat the unfortunate odor and unwanted parasites, the wig-wearer would "powder" his wig.
The Chanel brand of perfume was started by Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel in France during the 1920s. During World War II, Chanel collaborated with and spied for the Germans.
Coco Chanel has also been credited with popularizing the suntan in the 1920s. Before that time tans were a sign of being working-class, but after Chanel, they became a symbol of leisure.
Professional cheerleader Krazy George Henderson led the first documented “wave” at an Oakland Athletics playoff game on October 15, 1981. It’s since become a fan favorite activity everywhere.
Fan violence is not unique to the modern world. On Tuesday, January 13, 532 CE, chariot racing fan factions in Constantinople, known as the Greens and Blues, nearly brought down the Byzantine Empire in what is known as the Nika Riots.
the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) doesn’t recognize cheerleading as a sport.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a cheerleader at Harvard, George W. Bush was a cheerleader at Yale, and Dwight D. Eisenhower was a cheerleader at West Point.
merocrine
Never feed your dog chocolate because it contains the potentially toxic alkaloid theobromine, which they can’t metabolize. Small dogs can die from as little as 50 grams of chocolate.
Each person’s fingerprints are unique, but for dogs, it's their nose prints. The furless part of a dog’s nose that contains the print is known as the rhinarium.
The border collie often tops most lists for intelligence, while beagles and basset hounds tend to be a bit on the slow side.
An average dog’s hearing is four times better than a human, but the part of their brain devoted to their sense of smell is about 40 times larger than ours!
