Jungle to Jungle

Chicago Facts and Trivia
1. The first Aquarium opened in Chicago, 1893.
2. The world's first Skyscraper was built in Chicago, 1885.
3. The Sears Tower, Chicago is the tallest building on the North American continent.
4. Illinois was the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery.
5. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi and a small band of scientists and engineers demonstrated that a simple construction of graphite bricks and uranium lumps could produce controlled heat. The space chosen for the first nuclear fission reactor was a squash court under the football stadium at the University of Chicago.
6. Chicago is home to the Chicago Water Tower and Pumping Station, the only buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire.
7. The ice cream "sundae" was named in Evanston. The piety of the town resented the dissipating influences of the soda fountain on Sunday and the good town fathers, yielding to this churchly influence, passed an ordinance prohibiting the retailing of ice cream sodas on Sunday. Ingenious confectioners and drug store operators obeying the law, served ice cream with the syrup of your choice without the soda. Objections then was made to christening a dish after the Sabbath. So the spelling of "sunday" was changed. It became an established dish and an established word and finally the "sundae".
8. Illinois has more units of government than any other state (i.e., city, county, township, etc.). Over six thousand. One contributing reason may be the township governments, which are generally six miles square.
9. Illinois boasts the highest number of personalized license plates, more than any other state.
10. The University of Illinois Conservatory is 37 feet high at its apex.
11. Chicago's Mercantile Exchange building was built entirely without an internal steel skeleton, as most skyscrapers; it depends on its thick walls to keep itself up
12. The trains that pass through Chicago's underground freight tunnels daily would extend over ten miles total in length.
13. The first animal purchased for the Lincoln Park Zoo was a bear cub, bought for $10 on June 1st, 1874
14. The University of Chicago opened on October 1, 1892 with an enrollment of 594 and a faculty of 103.
15. New York Sun editor Charles Dana, tired of hearing Chicagoans boast of the world's Columbian Exposition, dubbed Chicago the "Windy City."
16. Comedy showcase "Second City" was founded on North Wells Street in a former Chinese laundry in 1959
17. Chicago's first African American mayor, Harold Washington, took office in 1983
18. The 4 stars on the Chicago flag represent Fort Dearborn, the Chicago Fire, the World's Columbian Exposition, and the Century of Progress Exposition.
19. The Chicago Public Library is the world's largest public library with a collection of more than 2 million books.
20. The Chicago Post Office at 433 West Van Buren is the only postal facility in the world you can drive a car through.
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Suriname Facts and Triva
1. The highest point in the Republic of Suriname is Juliana Top (1,230 m).
2. Eighty percent of Suriname is covered with tropical rainforest.
3. The Central Suriname Nature Reserve is a World Heritage site.
4. Early inhabitants of Suriname included the Arawak and the Carib people.
5. Christopher Columbus, in the service of Spain, sighted the coast of present-day Suriname in 1498.
6. Suriname was claimed by the Spanish in 1593. British colonists settled in Suriname in the first half of the seventeenth century. In 1667, the British exchanged their colony in Suriname for the Dutch possession of New Amsterdam (later named New York).
7. Suriname was formerly known as Dutch Guiana.
8. The Historic Inner City of Paramaribo is a World Heritage site. Paramaribo dates back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
9. Jodensavanne, in the Para district, was a plantation founded by European Jews in the seventeenth century. It was abandoned after a fire in 1832.
10. African slaves were brought to Suriname to work on the coffee and sugar plantations. Slaves who escaped from the plantations formed settlements. These people were known as Maroons.
11. Slavery was abolished in 1863. Indentured labour from China, India, and Indonesia replaced slave labour.
12. Bauxite was discovered in Suriname at the beginning of the century.
13. The Aluminium Company of America started mining operations in Suriname in 1916.
14. Surinamers gained internal government in 1954.
15. Suriname achieved full independence from the Netherlands in 1975.
16. Following Suriname's independence, thousands of workers migrated to the Netherlands.
17. Floods in Suriname left over twenty thousand people homeless in May 2006.
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