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Mistake: Orlando is the capital of Florida
It may be the theme-park capital of the country, but Orlando isn’t the capital of Florida. That would be Tallahassee, up near the Florida-Georgia line. Why such an out-of-the-way location? It was chosen because it was about half-way between St. Augustine and Pensacola, which had been the capitals of the Spanish territories of East Florida and West Florida.
Mistake: Krakatoa is East of Java
Krakatoa, East of Java is the title of an exciting movie about the 1883 eruption that caused the loudest sound ever heard on earth. Trouble is, the volcano is off the west coast of Java.
Mistake: Kashmir may not be part of India
Discussing this will cause arguments and has even caused wars in that part of the world, and has for many years. At this point in time, India, Pakistan, and the People’s Republic of China all claim parts of the region, and there’s no agreed-upon border.
Chad has a youthful population.
The majority of Chad’s population is under the age of 25, highlighting the importance of investing in education, healthcare, and employment opportunities for the youth.
The Chari River is a vital water source for Chad.
Flowing through Chad and neighboring Cameroon, the Chari River supports irrigation, fishing, and transportation, making it a lifeline for many communities.
Chad is known for its unique architectural style.
Mud-brick buildings with distinctive designs can be seen in various regions of Chad, showcasing the ingenuity of local construction techniques adapted to the climate and environment.
The Zakouma Elephant Population Survey marked a conservation milestone.
In 2019, Chad conducted an aerial survey that revealed a significant increase in elephant numbers in Zakouma National Park, a testament to successful conservation efforts.
Chadians have a strong sense of community and hospitality.
Hospitality is highly valued in Chadian culture, with communities often coming together to celebrate special occasions, share meals, and support one another.
WELCOME TO PAGE 440 - THE PAGE OF MORE COMMON MISTAKES !!!
Mistake: The South Pole is in Antarctica
Well, this is right. But it’s also wrong, because there are four different South Poles on the continent: The Geographic South Pole (where the earth’s axis intersects Earth’s crust), the Inaccessible South Pole (where Antarctica is farthest from the shoreline), the Geomagnetic South Pole (where the geomagnetic field intersects the Earth’s surface), and the Magnetic South Pole (where Earth’s magnetic fields intersect the crust). To further confuse you, because of magnetic drift, the magnetic south pole is constantly moving.
Mistake: Canada is the world’s largest country
Not even close. Russia is a massive 6,602,000 square miles, so big that it has 10 time zones. Canada is a distant second with 3,855,000 square miles, but with six time zones of its own, there’s a long gap in time between Vancouver in the west and St. John’s in Newfoundland.
Mistake: The Matterhorn is Europe’s highest mountain
Switzerland’s picturesque peak may be the most visually striking mountain in the world, but it’s not even close to being the tallest in Europe. For that you have to look to Russia’s Mt. Elbrus, which rises to 18,510 feet in the Caucasus Mountains near the border with Georgia.
Mistake: Toronto is the capital of Canada
Toronto is Canada’s financial and media center, and boasts some of the country’s most impressive cultural icons. It even has major league baseball. The only thing it doesn’t have is the capital of the country, which is a four-hour drive away in Ottawa, which in 2016 was rated the best place to live in Canada by MoneySense.
Mistake: Africa is a country
Hardly. Africa is a continent containing an astonishing 54 countries, each with its own languages, cultures, and traditions. More and more the “Dark Continent” is coming into the light.
Mistake: Geneva is the capital of Switzerland
Geneva and Zurich may have reputations as world cultural centers, but the capital is actually Bern, the country’s fifth largest city. It’s worth a visit, if only because every international visitor is given a Toblerone chocolate bar as a welcome gift.
Mistake: Holland is a country
People have always used Holland and the Netherlands interchangeably. But they’re not the same. The Netherlands has 12 provinces, including North-Holland and South-Holland. But since the country’s major cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague are in these provinces, people tend to just skip the details and mistakenly call the low-lying country Holland.
Mistake: Greenland is bigger than Africa
We’re all familiar with Mercator Projections, those world maps from grade school that expand the poles to gigantic proportions. As a result, Greenland looks huge on those maps, while Africa looks fairly modest. In truth, it’s not even close. Africa is 11,730,000 square miles, while Greenland covers only 836,300 square miles.
Mistake: Great Britain and the United Kingdom are the same
We have a special relationship with the United Kingdom, so we should probably learn that these terms are not interchangeable. The United Kingdom is a country that includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Great Britain is only a part of that, specifically the island that consists of England, Scotland, and Wales.
Mistake: Puerto Rico is a country
Maybe it’s the fact that Spanish is the island’s main language that makes picturesque Puerto Rico seem like a foreign country. But in fact it is a U.S. territory. But that could change going forward, as voters turned down the chance for statehood in 2012, and they will vote again on June 11, 2017.
Mistake: Iceland is covered with ice
Despite its name, the small island nation in the North Atlantic is actually fairly mild. Thanks to the warm North Atlantic Current nearby, the coasts of Iceland remain ice-free all winter. Sure there are glaciers, but there are also geysers and lots of volcanic activity, such as the Eyjafjallajökull eruption of 2010, which threw so much ash into the air that it stopped air travel across Europe for days.
Mistake: Sydney is the capital of Australia
When Americans think of Australia, they picture the Sydney Opera House or the Sydney Olympics, so is it any wonder that we think the country’s largest city is also its capital? The capital is actually the city of Canberra, and it was chosen in 1908 as a compromise between Sydney and its rival city of Melbourne.
Mistake: Lagos is the capital of Nigeria
This used to be true, but in 1991 the capital was moved to Abuja. There were at least two advantages to that move: Abuja is near the center of the country, and it’s the location of Wonderland, one of the country’s first amusement parks.
The sun is bigger than you can even imagine
When you look up at the sky and see the sun beaming down at you, it’s hard to tell how truly big it is. So consider this: About a million duplicates of Earth could comfortably fit inside of it, according to NASA. And if the sun didn’t supply our main energy, we’d be shivering in the dark; its core releases energy that is the equivalent of 100 billion nuclear bombs.
Hot ice is a thing
About 33 light-years away is an exoplanet called Gliese 436 b. The planet is composed of different water elements, which form burning ice. In other words, the ice on the planet remains solid due to pressure, while the extreme surface temperature of 570° F (300° C) super-heats the water, causing it to come off as steam. Imagine putting ice in your coffee to heat it up!
There’s a bar in the sky
It may seem like a bartender’s dream (or nightmare), but way up beyond our atmosphere, there’s a gas cloud made from alcohol about 1,000 times the diameter of our entire solar system. There’s enough alcohol there for about 400 septillion pints of beer (that’s 400 followed by 24 zeros!). To put that into perspective, that’s enough alcohol to supply 300,000 pints of beer to everyone on Earth daily for a billion years.
Walking in space might cause you to crave a steak
Astronauts returning from a space walk have noted the aroma of various odors on their space suits ranging from metal to a charcoal-broiled steak. That’s due to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are by-products of dying stars. PAHs are also released from burning coal, wood, gasoline, and—you guessed it—charcoal-broiled meat.
There’s a lot of trash out there
There may be a lot of garbage filling up our landfills on Earth, but there are over a million pieces of trash orbiting the earth, too. Space junk is a real problem and even something as small as a paper clip could wreak havoc on our satellite system—that could mean no Netflix for you, among more serious issues like messing with our national security system. Currently, there’s no great way to clean up space, but scientists are focusing on solutions.
Raspberries and rum in space
OK, you can’t actually go raspberry picking in space—yet. But, as it turns out, the main component that gives raspberries their distinctive flavor, ethyl formate, was discovered in the Milky Way in 2009. Ethyl formate is also a component of rum, but it’s also unlikely you’ll be able to order a rum and coke in the galaxy any time soon—especially since alcohol is one of the foods that are banned from space.
Uranus is quirky
As the only planet that rotates on its side, Uranus has scientists baffled. Some theories include that the planet’s orientation may have been altered at some point by a titanic collision with an asteroid or another planet. Either way, it’s the solar system oddball when it comes to planet rotations. But then, space is weird.
Stargazing is (almost) like looking into the past
Since stars are so far away and their light takes so long to reach Earth, it’s possible the star you’re looking at is already dead. A good example is the Pillars of Creation, which are part of a region called the Eagle Nebula that’s 7000 light-years away from us. These pillar-like clouds of dust and gas were first imaged by the Hubble Telescope in 1995—but they were actually destroyed at least 6000 years ago by a supernova. What we’re seeing in Hubble’s 1995 image is what the Pillars of Creation looked like 7000 years ago.