While Bulgaria is the oldest European country by name, the Republic of San Marino, an autonomous state inside Italy's borders, is Europe's oldest independent state. It was born in the year 301 AD. As other Italian republics fought and collectively became part of Italy, San Marino was able to maintain its independence for centuries, thanks in large part to its steep geography.

We actually have a lot in common with the ancient Egyptians and one of the more fun facts about ancient Egyptians is that they too loved board games. It wasn’t just the wealthy that played board games either, even the commoners enjoyed a good board game.

The most popular board games were Senet and Mehen. Senet was a game that involved throwing sticks and was so popular that even Pharaohs were buried with the game to keep them occupied in the afterlife. These board games date back 5000 years. What is your favorite board game?

 

We wouldn't want our four-legged friends to miss out on the excitement of a birthday cake, and they no longer have to! Special birthday cakes for pets are now available, with options for dogs, cats, and even hamsters.

The Nepalese Himalayas are the confluence of three major Asian river systems: the Ganga, the Brahmaputra, and the Yamuna. The Himalayas also has the world's third-largest ice and snow depository.

Vatican City is most likely the only country on the planet without a prison. The country does have a few pre-trial detention facilities. According to the Lateran Treaty, those convicted and sentenced to jail serve their time in Italian prisons. The Vatican government pays for the costs of incarceration.

In 2017, San Marino was dubbed the "Least Visited Country in Europe," with only 60,000 international tourists.

Pompeii received the designation of World Heritage Site in 1997. It is a very significant location because it offers such a comprehensive illustration of Roman life, architecture, community, and history. The Pompeii excavations have yielded a wealth of knowledge in the fields of history, science, and sociology. If you are in Italy, you must visit it, and a Pompeii tour from Rome is the ideal way to do that.

With this prestigious scholarship, Plath went on to study at Newham College in Cambridge, England. She studied under Dorothea Krook, an Israeli literary scholar that Plath held in high regard. Plath kept writing throughout her time in Cambridge and traveled through Europe over the summer.

We could sit here and argue that a massive asteroid is to blame for this enormous crater, but it isn't. The fact is that when trees are removed from soft, sandy ground, the earth practically collapses and continues to slide away from natural reasons every so often.

The themes are determined by paying tribute to designers’ pasts and the theme of the upcoming exhibition. This year’s theme is Gilded Glamour which is heavily inspired by the Gilded Age that took place in New York from 1870 to the early 1900s.

Mirrors are creepy because research has shown that they can cause hallucinations. Many people have claimed that if you sit in a darkened room about 3ft away from a mirror and stare at your reflection for about 10 minutes, you may begin hallucinating. This is due to the small distortions that are forming within your reflection. Others have reported seeing other human faces as well as animal faces.

No, this European adventurer did not discover the continent of America. Columbus arrived 500 years late. In truth, it was the Norse adventurer Leif Erikson who first set foot on American soil in the 10th century. Erikson may have been the first European to discover America.

The average number of calories in a bag of Halloween candy is 11,000, per CNN's consumer research. I wonder how many points that would be on Weight Watchers.

Rio de Janeiro is no longer Brazil's capital, but it was from 1763 until 1960. The capital designation was shifted to Brasilia, which is located in the country's center, in 1960.

The ability of this plant to eliminate poisons from the air we breathe is one of its most intriguing characteristics. During the night, it also collects carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. For people who sleep with their windows closed, this quality is a great advantage. You can do this to produce clean air for your bedroom. The plant has found the ideal location in the bedroom thanks to its ability to purify the air.

Passport has been around for quite some time! In fact, it is mentioned in the Bible for the first time. It is found in The Book of Nehemiah, an Old Testament tome. Around 450BC, Nehemiah, an official in the service of King Artaxerxes I, the sixth King of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, granted passage to Judea via a royal missive addressed "to the governors of the province beyond the river." The permission to freely circulate, granted in response to the royal request, is the beginning of what will formally become the passport, this laissez-passer that we know today.

Shimla's name is gotten from the Goddess Shyamala Devi, a manifestation of Hindu Goddess Kali.

If you need the toilet you can knock on someone’s door and ask to use their bathroom in Scotland – and by law, they cannot deny you. 
 

There are thousands of distinct species all throughout the world, and Britain has 26 of its own. The most prevalent in the UK are reddish-brown 'surface dwellers,' such as tiger worms (Eisenia fetida), grub around in rotting leaves and other organic materials. Then some worms dig no deeper than 30cm, such as the grey worm.

The title of foggiest place in the world goes to the Grand Banks area of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland. The area is where the cold Labrador Current from the north meets the much warmer Gulf Stream from the south. This mix of currents regularly causes fog to form, with over 200 days of fog per year.

Beavers chew to keep their teeth at an acceptable length because their teeth never stop growing. However, their teeth are also designed to withstand chewing. They feature an enamel composed of iron, which gives them an orange colour but also keeps them sturdy and acid resistant.

There are basically three types of termites: the king or queen, the soldiers, and the workers, while we're talking about the social lives of termites. Every colony of termites contains these various termites, and no colony could survive without all three. Despite their natural rivalry, they are strikingly similar to ants in this respect.

Leonardo da Vinci, the ideal of the Renaissance man, was a talented musician as well as a skilled painter. In addition to playing the lyre and the flute, he sang regularly at noble meetings and at the palaces of his benefactors. Some of his musical creations are also included in his surviving manuscripts.

Until the 1930s, the numbers on London's iconic Baker Street only ran up to 85, and 221B was not a realistic address until the street was expanded in 1930. Abbey National Building Society occupied a building at 219-229 Baker St. in 1932. They soon hired a full-time secretary whose sole responsibility was to respond to fan letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes at 221B Baker St. The City of Westminster assigned the Sherlock Holmes Museum the address 221B Baker Street in 1990, even though it is literally located between 237 and 241 Baker Street.

Although the '90s Disney princesses are thought to be more feminist than the older ones, a surprising study found that this is not entirely true. Despite being bolder, more independent, and less reliant on men, princesses still speak 40% less than their male counterparts. More recent Disney princesses, such as Rapunzel from Tangled and Merida from Brave, are more equal, but even Frozen, a film about two sisters, had 59 percent male dialogue.