In this week’s edition of the Random Facts of the Week: The World’s Smallest Restaurant, A London George Washington, The Nepal Earthquake, Origin of Nintendo’s Mario, and Two Quiet Submarines.
Want a little privacy for a night out for dinner? This particular place may just be the spot for you. There is a restaurant in Italy known as Solo Per Due which is the smallest restaurant in the world, and it has only one table for two people. Solo Per Due is in the Italian village of Vacone and the name translates into “Just For Two”. But to get the one table at the restaurant you’ll need to book well in advance.
The Roman villa where the restaurant resides once belonged to the poet Horace, and guests are greeted by the owner of the restaurant, Remo Di Claudio, when they arrive. After dinner begins, a ring from a silver bell is all it takes when diners need something, and guests can write about their experience in the restaurant’s libro dei pensieri, or “book of thoughts”, when the meal is done. A dinner at Solo Per Due costs a set price of 250 Euros (274 USD). Source, Source
There is a statue of George Washington in a place you wouldn’t think he would be. The statue of the first president and leader of the American Revolution stands in Trafalgar Square in London. It was a gift from the state of Virginia in 1921, and the original marble statue of Washington stands in Richmond, Virginia. The original statue was commissioned in 1790 by Thomas Jefferson. But Washington once vowed to, “never set foot again on English soil,” so to make good on that promise, soil from Virginia was brought in and placed below the pedestal of the statue. Washington is resting his left hand on thirteen rods which represent the original thirteen colonies. Source, Source
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake shock Nepal on April 25, 2015, and researchers were able to use satellite images to understand the magnitude of the disaster. NASA scientists analyzed interferometric synthetic aperture radar images and discovered that the ground north of Kathmandu moved up an astounding 4.6 feet. The fault line which caused the quake slipped by as much as 20 feet. The satellite is operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and can detect deflections of the earth surface to determine how far it moves. Source, Source, Source
When Mario debuted in Nintendo’s Donkey Kong in 1981, he wasn’t known as Mario, he was known as Jumpman. The name Mario came about because as the Nintendo employees in the US office were attempting to come up with a more appropriate name before the game’s release in the US, their landlord, Mario Segale, came into the office. They named the character after him. Mario was originally a carpenter, but this was later changed to the occupation of a plumber. It seems they should have made him a landlord. Source
In 2009, the Royal Navy HMS Vanguard submarine of the United Kingdom, and the French Navy submarine Le Triomphant, collided with each other in the Atlantic Ocean. Neither nuclear submarine could detect the other while on patrol since both were using passive sonar, anechoic tiles on their hulls that allowed them to stay concealed, and both were traveling at a low speed. Luckily, no one was injured and there was no damage to the nuclear reactors on the vessels. This is a good example of when technology works too well. Source
That’s it for another edition of the Random Facts of the Week. You can check out more random facts here.
