* WHY IS IT CALLED SCOTLAND? *

It is all down to an Egyptian Princess!

Around the fourth (4th) century AD, she married the King of Portugal and as her dowery brought the "Stone of Destiny" - (Jacobs Pillow from the Bible) - whi

ch had arrived in Egypt with the Israelites.

The couple had a daughter, SCOTA, who married the King of Ireland's son and took the "Stone of Destiny" there with her. Her decendants took her name and called themselves "The Children of Scota"

Then about 500AD, a group invaded the south west of Scotland and settled there, calling their new kingdom "The Land of Scotas", or Scots.

They brought the Stone of Destiny with them, believing a king crowned on it would eventaully rule the entire British Isles.

Eventually, through marrage and battle, the whole country became known as "SCOTLAND"

Hair Splitting
The greatest reported achievement in hair splitting has been that of Britains's Alfred West. who succeeded in splitting a human hair 17 times into 18 parts on eight occasions. All the divisions were made from the same point.

SCOTLAND'S FLAG

It has been believed by generations of Scotsmen that the national flag, the white saltire on a blue background, the oldest flag in Europe, originated in a battle fought here in Athelstaneford in the Dark Ages between the Picts and Scots on the one side and the Angles of Northumbria on the other.

There are various versions of the tale to be found in the older Scottish historians. They are generally agreed, however, that an army of the Picts under their King Angus (or Hungus) aided by a contingent of the Scots was invading Lothian (then and for long afterwards Northumbrian territory), and found itself surrounded by an overwhelming force of the Angles under their leader Athelstan.

King Angus and his host prayed earnestly for deliverance to God and the saints. Early the next morning St. Andrew ( the Patron Saint of Scotland ) appeared to the king and promised him victory. The sign he gave the king was to show him a clear blue sky with the clouds showing the shape of a cross.

Next day. when battle was joined, the vision of a white saltire (the diagonal cross on which the Apostle had been martyred) was seen by all against the blue sky. This so encouraged the Picts and Scots and affrighted their adversaries that the former won a signal victory.

In the pursuit, so the tradition goes on, the Northumhrian leader Athelstan was slain at the crossing of the Peffer or Cogtail Burn, the site of which is marked by Athelstaneford Mains Farm, about half a mile south-east of the village.

The Saltire is also known as the Saint Andrew' s Cross.

SCOTLAND'S Other FLAG

The symbol of a lion has been used as a heraldic device for many centuries by Scottish Kings.

William I of Scotland ( 1165 - 1214 ) was known as 'The Lion', and after he introduced the lion symbol into his coat of arms. The Scottish lion has always been shown since then, on the royal shield, as being Rampant,

ie: shown standing erect on the hind legs with the head in profile and forelegs extended.

There is a suggestion that perhaps the Kings of Scotland kept a real lion when in residence at the castles of Stirling and Edinburgh. Both castles have a building within the walls known as ' The Lions Den'.

The word clock was first used in the 14th century. It originates from the word for bell in Latin ("clocca").

Florence Nightingale (The lady of the lamp) is the person who invented the PIE CHART

Alpha Centauri is the closest stellar system to the sun

The first of the "modern" computers was invented during World War II. In 1941 by a German engineer named Konrad Zuse. The computer was called the Z3 and was used to help design German airplanes and missles. A couple years later, in 1943, the Allied forces developed a computer called Colossus to help decode German messages.

But since the Z3 was developed by the side that lost the war and Colossus stayed a military secret for many years, these computers didn't contribute much to the ones that came next.

Gerry Thomas was a salesman for Omaha and changed the way Americans (and eventually the western world) eat -- for better or worse -- with his invention of the TV Dinner during the baby boom years,

He worked for Nebraska-based "C.A. Swanson and Sons". In 1954 he got the idea of packaging frozen meals in a disposable aluminum-foil tray, divided into compartments to keep the foods from mixing. He also gave the product its singular name. The first Swanson TV Dinner -- turkey with cornbread dressing and gravy, sweet potatoes and buttered peas -- sold for about $1 and could be cooked in 25 minutes at 425 degrees. Ten million sold in the first year.

Larry G. Roberts created the first functioning long-distance computer networks in 1965 and designed the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), the seed from which the modern Internet grew, in 1966.

The first tea seeds were brought to Japan by the returning Buddhist priest Yeisei, who had seen the value of tea in China in enhancing religious mediation.

As a result, he is known as the "Father of Tea" in Japan.

The word coffee comes from the Arabic word "Kaveh" which means wine. Evry language uses either the word "Coffee" or "Cafe"

Coffee was discovered over 1000 years ago in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) by a Goat Herdsman named Kaldi. It is said that he noticed his goats were frisky after eating the berries from a particular tree.

The first coffee shop in Europe was opened in Constantinople (Istanbul) and the first in UK was in Oxford in 1650.

For every human on the planet Earth there are 1.6 million insects.

The history of TEA began in ancient China over 5,000 years ago and was discovered by Shen Nung, (the Emporer of the time)

One summer day while visiting a distant region of his realm, he and the court stopped to rest. In accordance with his ruling, the servants began to boil water for the court to drink. Dried leaves from the near by bush fell into the boiling water, and a brown liquid was infused into the water. As a scientist, the Emperor was interested in the new liquid, drank some, and found it very refreshing. And so, according to legend, tea was created.

There are many people out there who would say that the first "computer" was the abacus, invented in Asia about 5000 years ago. Some would say that these were only calculators

A few useless bits of information that is sure to put you to sleep. But what the heck not all things are good

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