How Did They Do That?
by Caroline Sutton
On This Page
Description
The totally satisfying answers to more than 100 questions that drive normal people--not to mention infomaniacs and trivia buffs--crazy. Questions about matters great and small, from ancient times to yesterday. Illustrated with illuminating technical drawings and unusual vintage photographs. How did they spend $40 million making Heaven's Gate? How did they decide the length of a mile? How did Beethoven compose when he was deaf? How did they discover the Hope diamond? How did they know the show more size of the Earth over 1,700 years before anyone sailed around it? How did they set the price of the Louisiana Purchase? How did the FBI devise the "Ten Most Wanted" list? How did they decide which horses were Thoroughbreds? How did they pick the Four Hundred? How did they start the Guiness Book of World Records? How did the Indians decide that cows were sacred? How did they discover penicillin? How did they build the Great Pyramid at Giza? How did they decide how tall to make the Empire State Building? How did they know there was an El Dorado? How did they start the Chicago fire of 1871? How did Hannibal cross the Alps? show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Yawn. There were a very few answers that were a) interesting at all (I don't really care how James Joyce supported himself while writing Ulysses, thanks) b) reasonably accurate (or at least presented that appearance - there were a few where I knew answers and hers were wrong to some degree) and c) deep enough to be worth the time it took to read them (some were reasonably accurate but so simplistic that they didn't really convey anything). Overall, I'm not sorry I read it (there were a few interesting bits), but it wasn't really worth the time. I certainly won't seek out her other book.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
7 Works 561 Members
Classifications
- Genres
- Reference, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, History, Science & Nature
- DDC/MDS
- 031.02 — Computer science, information & general works Encyclopedias & books of facts Guiness Records, Ripley's Believe It or Not Miscellanies and Factbooks
- LCC
- AG195 .S87 — General Works Dictionaries and other general reference works Dictionaries and other general reference works
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 170
- Popularity
- 192,046
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.39)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 3
