A Ton of Crap (85 page)

The
Worms Mahzor
A blessing found in a prayer book from 1272, the
Worms Mahzor
, is the oldest document of Yiddish that was embedded in a Hebrew text. This is significant for a number of reasons, one of which is that it shows that the Yiddish of this time closely resembled Middle High German and had Hebrew words infused into it. From the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, poetry and songs written in Yiddish started appearing. The
Dukus Horant
is the oldest example of an epic poem written entirely in Yiddish.

THE PANAMA CANAL

Americans Take Over the Isthmus
In 1902, Congress gave the authority to purchase the assets of the French canal company, but it required that the United States and Colombia first form a treaty for the control and use of the canal. As negotiations with Colombia failed, the United States supported Panama’s fight for independence. In the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, Panama gave the United States the rights to the area of the canal without having a Spanish translation. President Theodore Roosevelt backed a lock-based model for the canal, and in 1906, the area was cleared of yellow fever.

FANTASY

The Lord of the Rings
In 1937, Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a book called
The Hobbit
, which was set in a fictional Middle Earth where wizards, elves, trolls, and hobbits lived. In 1954, a trilogy, and a sequel to
The Hobbit
, was published. It was known as The Lord of the Rings. The trilogy focuses on the events following those found in
The Hobbit
and a journey to destroy a powerful ring that could destroy the world if in the wrong hands. Frodo Baggins is the main character, and he is joined by his friend and two cousins as they embark on a journey to save the world.

STATISTICS

Basic Counting Principle
The basic counting principle is very simple and is used to determine the number of outcomes. In essence, the principle states that when you have A ways to do something, and B ways to do another thing, then doing both would equal A × B.

For example:

If there are 5 types of ice cream and 2 types of cones, then there are 10 (5 × 2) different combinations you can have. This problem can also be written out with a tree diagram you saw earlier in the book.

An important thing to note about this rule is that it only works if the objects or things are independent from one another.

EARLY MEDICINE

Robert Koch
Building on the work that Louis Pasteur had started, Robert Koch is most known for his involvement in anthrax and tuberculosis. While Pasteur was convinced that the microbes were the causes of disease, he was never successful in proving it. Koch however, was able to prove it. Whereas Pasteur was a research scientist, Koch was a doctor and had a great depth of knowledge relating to the human body. While studying anthrax, Koch realized that microbes from anthrax created spores that lived in the dead animal’s body. These spores then turned into germs, spreading the disease. Koch would then go on to discover the germs that caused tuberculosis, proving that it was not caused by “bad air.”

YIDDISH

World War II
Prior to World War II, there were 11 to 13 million Yiddish speakers. The extensive toll on the Jewish community from the Holocaust, however, led to a dramatic decline. Five million Yiddish speakers died as a result of the Holocaust (around 85 percent of all of the Jews that died). Those Yiddish speakers that did survive the Holocaust either migrated or assimilated into other countries, and with the Zionist movement believing in a monolingual approach, use of Yiddish declined.

THE PANAMA CANAL

Construction of the Panama Canal
Lieutenant Colonel George Washington Goethals was chosen to become the canal’s new chief engineer, and he split the work up into thirds: the Atlantic Division, the Central Division, and the Pacific Division. The Panamanian Railroad was a great help for the Americans, as were rock drills, steam shovels, and dynamite, without which the job would have been impossible. The extreme climate and horrible accidents gave it the name “Hell’s Gorge.” The three-part lock division Goethals created allowed for two-way traffic; the locks are powered by electricity.

FANTASY

A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire is an ongoing series of books written by George R. R. Martin, first published in 1991. The books take place on a continent called Westeros, and a land mass east of Westeros called Essos. The main stories found in each of these books relate to a civil war in Westeros, the threat of a race of creatures known as the Others, and the quest of an exiled daughter of a murdered king to reclaim the throne. The books are told from the points of view of several characters, and all of the books are in the third person. The first book has recently been turned into a television show for HBO,
Game of Thrones
.

STATISTICS

Standard Deviation
Standard deviation, represented by σ, is the measurement of how spread out the data is. To find the standard deviation, you take the square root of the variance. The variance is the average of the squared deviations that came from the mean. To find the variance requires a few steps, but it is actually quite simple. You first must find the mean. From there, subtract the mean from each number and then square those numbers. Then, find the average of those squared numbers.

EARLY MEDICINE