Who established January 1 as the start of the New Year?
Hmmm, did you ever think about that?
Answer: Julius Caesar declared January 1 the start of the new year when he established the Julian Calendar. January was named for Janus, the two-faced god who looked both ahead to the new year and back to the previous year.
After wandering the desert for what seems like days, you come to an oasis. At the oasis, you encounter a stone altar, too heavy to move, a ziggurat of pebbles, and a pitcher of water cemented to the top of the altar. You’re incredibly thirsty, but unable to reach the water because the level is too low and you cannot overturn the pitcher because it’s stuck in place. How can you quench your thirst?
Answer: The above scenario is a version of Aesop’s fable The Crow & the Pitcher. This is the Library of Congress’ rendition of the Greek fable:
“In a spell of dry weather, when the Birds could find very little to drink, a thirsty Crow found a pitcher with a little water in it. But the pitcher was high and had a narrow neck, and no matter how he tried, the Crow could not reach the water. The poor thing felt as if he must die of thirst. Then an idea came to him. Picking up some small pebbles, he dropped them into the pitcher one by one. With each pebble, the water rose a little higher until at last, it was near enough so he could drink.”
A man was found on the floor dead with a cassette recorder in one hand and a gun in the other. When the police arrive at the scene they pressed play on the recorder. It was the man’s voice. He said, “I have nothing else to live for. I can’t go on,” followed by the sound of a gunshot. After listening, the police knew that this was a murder, not a suicide. How?
Answer: If the dead man had killed himself, he wouldn’t have been able to press the reverse button on the cassette recorder.
Marissa and Juliana went out for drinks together. They ordered the same drink. Juliana was really thirsty and finished five in the time it took Marissa to finish one. The drinks were poisoned, but only Marissa died. How?
Answer: The poison was in the ice. Since Marissa’s ice had time to melt, she was poisoned but Juliana wasn’t.
In classic mythology, there is the story of the Sphinx, a monster with the body of a lion and the upper part of a woman. The Sphinx lay crouched on the top of a rock along the highroad to the city of Thebes, and stopped all travelers passing by, proposing to them a riddle. Those who failed to answer the riddle correctly were killed. This is the riddle the Sphinx asked the travelers: "What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two legs during the day, and three legs in the evening?"
Answer:
A man: he crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age.
In olden days you are a clever thief charged with treason against the king and sentenced to death. But the king decides to be a little lenient and lets you choose your own way to die. What way should you choose? Remember, you're clever!
You are locked inside a car with nothing but a baseball bat. How do you get out?
A man takes a baseball and throws it as hard as he can. There is nothing in front, behind or to either side of him, and yet the baseball comes back and hits him square in the face. How can this be?
Two baseball teams play a game. The home team ends up winning, but not a single man from either team has touched a base. How can this be?
In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half the lake?
