Harry Potter Facts

• Hagrid is said to be twice the height of a human but in the films he is mentioned to be 8 feet 6 inches.
• Hermione’s cat Crookshanks is no ordinary cat as he is half-kneazle. Kneazles are intelligent cat-like creatures who can sniff out suspicious characters and if a kneazle takes a liking to a witch or wizard, they make for excellent pets.
• Members of the Order of the Pheonix are the only wizards who know how to communicate using their patronuses. A wizard’s patronus is the individual’s unique spirit guardian and is effective in use against the dark arts.
• Dementors don’t breed. They grow where there’s decay, like fungus.
• The tattoos on Sirius Black’s body are borrowed from Russian prison gangs. These are to identify a person as one to be feared and respected.
• The command that makes the Dark Mark (the mark of the Dark Lord) appear is “Morsmorde” which appropriately means ‘take a bite out of death in French.
• Harry’s middle name is James, Hermione’s is Jane and Ron’s is unfortunately, Bilius.
• Garden gnomes are considered to be pests in the wizarding community because they eat the roots of plants and make little piles of earth, very much like moles.
• The ghost Nearly-Headless Nick was beheaded because a botched dentistry job. He was trying to straighten Lady Grieve’s teeth but instead she sprouted a tusk.
• Dumbledore has a scar in the shape of the London Underground above his knee.
• The secret code Arthur Weasley must dial into a telephone keypad to access the Ministry of Magic is 62442. The letters underneath those numbers on a standard phone spell out the word ‘magic’.
• You can only see a thestral when you can appreciate what death really means. This is why Harry could not see them until he witnessed the death of Cedric Diggory.
• The original snitch used in early Quidditch matches was actually a fat bird called a snidget. When some wizards thought this to be too cruel, the wizard Bowman Wright invented the Golden Snitch.
• Hogwarts’ school motto is ‘Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus’ which is Latin for ‘Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon’.
• Harry Potter, JK Rowling and the actor Daniel Radcliffe all share the same birthday – July 31st
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Nostradamus facts

• Nostradamus’ text ‘The Prophecies’ was the first book from France to be digitally preserved by Google
• Nostradamus treated plague victims with pills made of rose petal, which later made him famous
• Nostradamus also wrote books of recipes for perfumes and cosmetics
• He predicted the world would end in 3797
• According to legend, Nostradamus once encountered a young Franciscan monk herding pigs in Italy. To the surprise of onlookers, Nostradamus respectfully addressed the lowly monk as “Your Holiness.” In 1585, years after Nostradamus died, that monk, Felice Peretti, became Pope Sixtus V.
• Legend holds that Nostradamus was buried with a document containing the secrets to his prophecies. In 1700, officials in Salon-de-Provence decided to relocate his coffin to a more optimal location. In the process, they decided to look inside. No document was located; however, a medallion inscribed with “1700″ was reportedly found around Nostradamus’ skeleton, leading people to believe the prophet had correctly predicted the year his coffin would be opened.
• Although Nostradamus died in the middle of 1566, his 1567 almanac was published because he had the foresight to prepare it before his death.
• The house in Salon-de-Provence where Nostradamus lived with his second wife and their children still stands today and is open to the public as a museum. Every summer, the town holds a festival honoring its world-famous former resident.
• According to the New York Times, in the days following the 9/11 attacks, the top search term on Google was “Nostradamus.” (previous facts from www.history.com)

Reality TV facts

• UK show Strictly Come Dancing sold to 38 countries and had a peak audience of 13.3 million vieweds which was almost a 50% audience share
• It costs SGD$750,000 to make one episode of a reality TV show compared to SGD$3 million for a sitcom
• More than 3000 people auditioned for Afghan model in 2009. Only 10 were women
• 1 in 10 UK teenager would abandon their education to be on reality TV
• Susan Boyle’s audition on Britain’s Got Talent in 2009 was watched by over 120 million people on YouTube
• 1 in 4 show on US primetime is a reality show
• Gordon Ramsay said expletives over 80 times in one episode of Kitchen Nightmares
• In 2010, Malaysia casted for Imam Muda where contentents were pitted in tests of Islamic theory, and challenges included counselling teenagers, preparing corpses for burial and Quran reciting. The top prize was a new car, a job as an Imam and a scholarship in Saudi Arabia
• Reality TV actually started on the radio in 1947 with Candid Microphone
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