History Facts

John Newton was born on July 24th, 1725 to parents John and Elizabeth. His mother died when he was 6 years old When he was 11 years old, we went to sea with his father and went on six voyages until 1742. He later became a midshipman in the naval service, but after attempting to desert, he was severely punished and sent on a slave ship to Africa. He was a servant of an abusive slave trader, but in 1784 he was rescued by a sea captain and headed back to England.

On the way back home, his ship encountered a terrible storm. It was on this night, as the ship began to fill with water, his conversion to Christianity began. He prayed throughout the storm, and then the next morning began reading a Bible. By the time he arrived in England, he had accepted the Christian faith.

Newton went on to write the most well-known hymn of all time in “Amazing Grace”. The first line of the hymn is “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me”. Newton had stopped his profanity, gambling, and drinking after his conversion to Christianity and considered himself a “wretch” before God’s grace had saved him. Here is the entire song:

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, Who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He is commonly known around the world as Mahatma and is commemorated in India on a National holiday for his movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. For more information and facts about Ghandi, please keep reading.

Fact #1 - Mohandas Gandhi was born in Porbander, a coastal town in present-day Gujarat, Western India.

Gandhi was raised by his parents and they instilled values into his every day life. These included compassion to sentient beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance between individuals of different creeds. If only parent today took the time to raise their children with these values… the world may be a better place.

Fact #2 - At 13 years old Mohandas was married to 14-year old Kasturba Makhanji in an arranged child marriage, as was the custom in the region.

I can’t imagine having an arranged marriage, but that is the custom in India. Being married at such a young age in America is probably illegal. They had their first child about 2 years later, while his wife was still hardly a teenager. They had four children together.

Fact #3 - In 1888 Mohandas Gandhi traveled to London, England, to study law at University College London and to train as a barrister.

Very few people know that Gandhi was a lawyer. He even tried to establish his own practice in Bombay, but it never picked up.

Fact #4 - He instituted Satyagraha campaign in India to protest the Rowlatt Acts, which deprived all Indians of important civil liberties.

Fact #5 - Gandhi led a march to the sea to collect salt in protest of the British salt tax.

Fact #6 - Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist, an act that prompted riots throughout India.

Why is it that people who try to do good in the word are always assassinated? Gandhi was shot and killed while having his nightly public walk on the grounds of the Birla House in New Delhi. The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was executed for his crime.

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth’s crust that creates seismic waves. They can come without warning and cause destruction beyond imagination. Earthquakes with a magnitude 3 or lower are generally not issues, but a quake with a magnitude 7+ will cause serious damage over large areas. Continue reading to find out some interesting Earthquake Facts.

Fact #1 - An earthquake’s point of initial rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The term epicenter means the point at ground level directly above this.

In most cases, the epicenter is the location of the greatest damage. It’s the place you least want to be.

Fact #2 - The largest recorded earthquake in the United States was a magnitude 9.2 that struck Prince William Sound, Alaska on March 28, 1964. The largest recorded earthquake in the world was a magnitude 9.5 in Chile on May 22, 1960.

These size earthquakes can shift the geography of their regions. They are so massive that they can be felt hundreds of miles away.

Fact #3 - It is estimated that there are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year. 100,000 of those can be felt, and 100 of them cause damage.

That is a hell of a lot of earthquakes. That means there are about 274 earthquakes that can be felt every single day. My guess is most of us just pass it off as something else because the feeling is so small.

Fact #4 - The world’s deadliest recorded earthquake occurred in 1556 in central China. It struck a region where most people lived in caves carved from soft rock. These dwellings collapsed during the earthquake, killing an estimated 830,000 people.

Often times it isn’t the earthquake itself that kills the most people, it is the resulting tsunamis, landslides and fires.

Fact #5 - An aftershock is an earthquake that occurs after a previous earthquake, the mainshock. An aftershock is in the same region of the main shock but always of a smaller magnitude.

The aftershock is formed as the crust around the fault line adjusts itself.

Sir Edmund Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer and explorer. On May 29, 1953 at the age of 33, he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. This feat propelled Hillary into stardom and he instantly became an international hero across the globe. Continue reading for interesting Edmund Hillary facts.

Fact #1 - Sir Edmund Hillary was born on July 20, 1919 in Auckland, New Zealand.

Many people mistakenly think he was from England. Maybe it’s because of the “Sir” in front of his name? New Zealand at the time was a British Commonwealth.

Fact #2 - In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary became the first known climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

The expedition took over 2 months, but when they finally reached the summit on May 29, Hillary said “A few more whacks of the ice axe in the firm snow, and we stood on top.” They spent only 15 minutes on the summit before they had to turn back

Fact #3 - Sir Edmund Hillary was named one of TIME’s 20 most influential heroes of the 20th Century.

Included on the list were Muhammad Ali, Anne Frank, Mother Teresa and Charles Lindberg… not bad company if you ask me.

Fact #4 - Sir Edmund Hillary also reached the North Pole and South Pole on other expeditions, becoming the only man to stand on both poles and the summit of Mount Everest.