The Life of Matt Campos

1. A mathematical wonder: 111,111,111 multiplied by 111,111,111 gives the result 12,345,678,987,654,321.
2. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
3. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.

4. Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down – hence the expression “to get fired.”
5. Canada is an Indian word meaning “Big Village”.
6. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
7. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2nd, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later.
8. “I am.” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
9. The term “the whole 9 yards” came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got “the whole 9 yards.”
10. The most common name in the world is Mohammed
11. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
12. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
13. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
14. Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize that *this* was the day of the changeover.
15. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
16. Dr. Seuss pronounced “Seuss” such that it rhymed with rejoice.”
17. In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never did say “Play it again, Sam.”

Def. expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word “yay”

w00t was named the word of the year in an Online poll done by a very well know dictionary. This year’s winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t (”leet,” or “elite”) speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double “o” in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for “we owned the other team”—again stemming from the gaming community.

Source: Urban Dictionary

History: The current-day use of the word w00t stems from hackers in the early to mid 80’s. While communicating with each other groups of hackers such as Razor1911 would need lingo which nobody else would be able to understand to express milestones in their hacking. One such milestone was gaining root access, but the term rooted or “gained root access” was easily understood so the term was changed to w00t to help disguise. Because of the difficulty of “rooting” many times the term w00t would be much in a celebratory tone. It later evolved to simply be a celebratory remark rather than a hacking milestone.

1997

British Prime Minister Tony Blair apologies to the people of Ireland for British actions during the Potato Famine 150 years earlier.

1994

British jockey Willie Carson wins his fourth Derby at Epsom riding 7-2 favorite Erhaab.

1972

Urban terrorist group leader Andreas Baader is captured after a gun battle with police and troops.

1968

Britain and Iceland sign a formal end to the ‘Cod War’ over fishing rights in the North Sea.

1967

British group The Beatles release their Sergeant Pepper Album.

1958

Britain introduces the Clean Air Act, affects industry as well as domestic uses of energy.

1957

In Britain, the computer ERNIE draws the first Premium Bond prizes – first prize £1,000

1948

In London, the first ever Mr Universe contest.

1946

Britain introduces television licences. The cost: £2 each.

1939

99 sailors are lost with the sinking of British submarine HMS Thetis.

1938

First appearance of Superman in an American comic.

1935

Britain introduces the compulsory wearing of ‘L’ plates for learner drivers.

1929

Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in south eastern Italy, overlooking the Bay of Naples. Lava from the earliest recorded eruption, 79AD, buried several Roman cities including Pompeii.

1915

World War I: the first German Zeppelin airship bombing raid on London.

1911

Britain’s first electric trolley buses begin operating in the Yorkshire cities of Leeds and Bradford

1796

Tennessee becomes the 16th state of the America Union.

1792

Kentucky becomes the 15th state of the United States of America