Interesting Facts

The vikings didn't wear horned helmets. (They probably wore headgear in battle, but it was more likely made of leather, perhaps iron, and there were certainly no cow horns sticking out of each side. We can blame Scandinavian artists from the 1800s, and Wagner for this historic innacuracy.   Seemingly, Wagner's costume designer, Professor Carl Emil Doepler created horned helmets for the Viking characters in “Der Ring des Nibelungen” opera cycle in the 1870s. Someone needs to tell Vicky the Viking!) Source

A load of old bones found under a council car park in Leicestershire, belonged to King Richard III. (Archeologists, from the University of Leicester, have confirmed that DNA evidence proves the discovery of the body of Richard, who was slain at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.) Update - The University of Leicester, which led the project to find and exhume Richard, was given permission to reinter the king's remains at the cathedral in Leicester, which is close to Bosworth in central England, but descendants of the monarch, who was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty, are seeking a legal challenge to have his body laid to rest instead in York, the northern English city with which he had close links during his life. They should be grateful Laika didn't find them, or they really would be - history.

In what is probably the most expensive car crash in history, eight Ferraris, three Mercedes-Benzes, a Lamborghini and two other vehicles crashed in the southern prefecture of Yamaguchi, Japan. (Media reports estimate the damaged cars are worth at least 300m yen ($3.85m; £2.46m) in total. The good news is no-one was seriously hurt. As they say in Germany "Es ist nur Blechschaden" (It's only damaged metal).)

In the weirdest car recall in history, Mazda has had to recall 65,000 of its saloon cars in the US, Canada and Mexico after spiders were discovered nesting in their fuel pipes! (The first incident was spotted in October 2009, when a Mazda6 was brought to a dealer with a fuel leak. A spider had spun its web in the fuel tank vent pipe, which created a vacuum in the tank, eventually cracking it. Maybe they thought they were Lotus Spyders.) http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/04032011/36/spiders-prompt-itsy-bitsy-mazda-recall-0.html

The early Church declared that alcohol was an inherently good gift of God to be used and enjoyed. While individuals might choose not to drink, to despise alcohol was heresy. (Well I wouldn't want to be accused of heresy - hic!)

In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage; catching it was acceptance. (An apple a day keeps the marriage counsellor in work!)