Obscure facts ya know!

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Humans are the only species which have no place in the balance of nature.

A Woodlouse is a crustacean, not an insect. It's the only crustacean that lives on land, as opposed to being water-based.

A slang term for a woodlouse, in a certain region of the UK, is a "Grandad".

Thanks for that! That sent me on a fascinating Wikipedia voyage concerning one of my favorite bugs as a kid.

I loved reading about all the different names for various types of woodlice:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse
I bolded all the names I've heard them called, just in California alone, where I grew up.

Along the way, I also discovered for myself that there is a genus of spider that is now found almost worldwide, which preys exclusively on woodlice. And based on their range of habitation, appearance and bite characteristics, I think I may have been bitten by one once, when I feared I'd been bit by a Brown Recluse. I was fine, of course.

And I explored some more and read that Horseshoe Crabs are related to spiders, and are considered to be living fossils, having originated 450 million years ago.

The largest regnal number of a monarch is that of Heinrich LXXII, Prince Reuss of Lobenstein and Ebersdorf (1797?1853).

The Asian Forest Scorpion can grow up to five inches long.

LXXII = 72. You're welcome.

Lobenstein and Ebersdorf was around long enough as a territorial division to have 72 consecutive monarchs?? That in itself is astonishing.

Queen Hatshepsut was the only known ruler of Ancient Egypt.

She apparently dressed as a male ruler, or Pharaoh, including a false beard.

The only known female ruler?

Aaaaagh!

Yes! Yes!

Mea Culpa!

As a child the actor Sir Christopher Lee was introduced to one of the Russian noblemen who years later murdered Rasputin.

Christopher Lee is secretly The Most Interesting Man In The World. Or at least he's modeled after Sir Lee.

Chris has seriously led one of the most interesting lives I've yet heard of, of anyone living now.

Not playing it for laughs this time, but there must be some mistake here. Rasputin was murdered in 1916, and Lee was born in 1922.

Lee actually took the role of Rasputin in a Hammer film made in the mid 1960s.

He is definitely not everyone's "cup of tea". He famously ridiculed the makers and scriptwriters of the Dracula films in which he played the part of the Count, and the booming, portentous tone of voice in which he sometimes gives interviews, tends to project an image of self-importance (IMHO). He may very well believe he is The Most Interesting Man In The World.

Sorry.

They had already killed Rasputin.

And he met two of them, not one.

Between the age of six and nine, Lee, his mother and sister lived in Fulham, next-door to actor Eric Maturin. One evening, according to Wikipedia, the boy was introduced to Prince Yusopov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch. This would have been between 1928 and 1931.

He also saw the last public execution in France, at the age of seventeen.

I just gave my initial statement about Christopher Lee casually, going off a few things I've read about him and had not checked on the Rasputin thing... although now that I think about it, it seems like it should have been obvious that their lifetimes could not have overlapped at all. Lee would be over 100, and he clearly isn't.

But anyway, I didn't know all about him comprehensively, or what a so-and-so he evidently is, so I retract my earlier statement.

Maybe not an obscure fact, but it's both historic and a fact... One of my language tutors was from Switzerland and knew and socialised with the Franks (family of Anne Frank). She said Otto Frank was a Mensch.