In Muslim schools around Cape Town, Afrikaans began to replace Malay in 1815, about 100 years before it was made an official language. It was written in Arabic script. The Qur'an and other religious books were frequently translated into Arabic Afrikaans. The Romanized form of Afrikaans that is used now didn't first appear in newspapers until about 1850.

The Sun appears to have existed in perpetuity, unchanged, but this is not the case. The Sun is gradually heating up. Every billion years, it becomes 10% more luminous. In fact, within a billion years, the Sun's heat will be so intense that liquid water will no longer exist on Earth's surface. Life on Earth as we know it will cease to exist. Bacteria may still exist underground, but the planet's surface will be scorched and uninhabitable. It will take another 7 billion years for the Sun to reach its red giant phase, at which point it will engulf the Earth and destroy it entirely.

This was back when the couple was attempting to get the film made in Hollywood with only one puppet.

Every oyster is born male, and they all undergo at least one gender change. Oysters can fertilise their own eggs since they have both sets of reproductive organs at birth.

Bob Kane created Batman, but it was collaborator Bill Finger who added numerous essential elements that helped him become the iconic hero we know today, such as naming Gotham City, naming him Bruce Wayne, and completely revamping the original costume (a red bodystocking with a domino mask) with pointed ears, a black colour scheme, and a scalloped cape. Yet it wasn't until recently that DC Comics began crediting Finger as a co-creator.

The alkaline nature of earthenware or clay pots neutralizes the acidic nature of food, maintains the pH balance, and makes food simple for you to digest. The clay pot not only improves the taste of our food but also adds minerals. Calcium, phosphorous, sulfur, magnesium, and a few other essential minerals are abundant in food cooked in earthen pots.

Blue Mountain coffee, cultivated in Jamaica's nameake area, is highly sought after. This luxury coffee is only cultivated on tiny family-run estates at heights of above 7000 feet, and it has gentle flavours and lacks the bitterness found in other coffees.

Think again if you believe that spicy food is the only type of Indian food. According to food theory, all Indian food contains six primary tastes or rasas: sweet (madhura), salty (lavana), sour (amala), pungent (katu), bitter (tikta), and astringent (tikta) (kasya).

The films remain ambiguous on Natasha Romanov's age, simply implying that she is old enough to have been nurtured by the KGB. In the comics, though, she has been able to survive for decades thanks to different medical operations and pieces of biotechnology. As the KGB fades from memory, it's increasingly likely that the youthful Natasha is considerably older than she appears. She's reported to be 70 years old in the comics!

No, this European adventurer did not discover the continent of America. Columbus arrived 500 years late. In truth, it was the Norse adventurer Leif Erikson who first set foot on American soil in the 10th century. Erikson may have been the first European to discover America.

We are always told that chocolate causes tooth decay, but it actually prevents tooth decay. The antibacterial agents in the cocoa beans inhibit the growth of the cavity-causing bacteria in the mouth and prevent tooth decay. But yes! This doesn't give you the right to eat chocolates daily

The fate of the Afrikaans language was a hot topic during negotiations for South Africa's new government in 1992. The ANC sought to make English the official language of the nation, but Afrikaner nationalists were anxious that it remains on par with English. The ANC concurred, but it was difficult for them to justify simply adopting Afrikaans and leaving out other indigenous languages. Then came South Africa's inclusive linguistic policy.

Fine arts contests were conducted in the Olympic Games from 1912 until 1948. Medals were awarded in the fields of literature, architecture, sculpture, painting, and music. The art that was made had to be Olympic-themed, of course. According to the modern Olympics' creator, Pierre de Frédy, the inclusion of the arts was important since the ancient Greeks had art festivals alongside the games. 151 medals were awarded prior to the removal of the art competitions.

Wales, along with Bhutan and Malta, is one of only three countries in the world with a dragon on its national flag.

Books are an interesting market in part because they offer a 100% return policy. So, if a publisher sells 50 copies of a fresh new book to, say, Target or a local independent bookshop, that company has the option of returning all 50 copies to the publishing house if they don't sell. Isn't that crazy? 50 copies aren't much, but when you get into the hundreds, you can see how this can be a difficult market to predict.

As obvious as it may seem, the wind was blowing from the northwest when Vesuvius erupted, which is why so many people perished and an entire city was buried for hundreds of years. According to research, the wind should have been coming from the southwest. That would have meant that instead of covering the city as it did, the debris was blown away from it. It is incredible to consider how much death and destruction such a small factor actually caused, leaving a well-preserved Roman city in its wake.

Karl Landsteiner identified blood types in the early 1900s, and that some types cannot mix. There are several ideas as to how these classifications came to be, but the subject of why humans have various blood types at all remains unresolved.

Long before renowned Muppeteer Frank Oz used animatronics and puppetry to create Yoda, the goal was to recruit an actual actor... a simian actor, that is. They planned to put up a real monkey in a Yoda suit and mask, according to The Making of Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. There are pictures of the monkey in training as well as a rather awful Yoda mask prototype. Fortunately, a crew member who had previously worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey pointed out that the monkeys used in that film's introduction were a major pain, which convinced Empire's creators to dismiss their Yoda monkey.

Music can improve the way we exercise, according to a 2010 study led by sport psychologist C.I. Karageorghis. This can happen in two ways: it can make you feel less tired or it can increase the amount of time you spend working out. According to this study, music can result in “higher-than-expected levels of endurance, power, productivity, or strength.

Hungary has a plethora of underground hot water sources. It's no surprise that Budapest is regarded as the world's thermal bath capital. There are dozens of spas and baths in Budapest, some of which are housed in magnificent buildings such as the Szechenyi, Gellert, or Kiraly Baths.

More than half of the 5.4 million Americans who have Alzheimer's disease are unaware that they have it. This Alzheimer's fact may seem unlikely, but it is mostly a result of the difficulties in diagnosing early-stage Alzheimer's, which leaves many instances misdiagnosed.

While the rest of the world dreaded eclipses and connected them with all manner of paranormal phenomena, the Vedas already had a very proper and scientific explanation. The next extract demonstrates that they were aware that the moon was not self-illuminated. Rig Veda 5.40.5 "Oh, Sun! When you are blocked by the one to whom you have given your own light (moon), Earth is terrified by abrupt darkness."

The most dramatic stock market meltdown in US history happened on Black Tuesday, October 24th, 1929. It is often assumed that the financial crisis resulted in innumerable suicides, however this was not the case. There were two of them.