The largest mountain in the Netherlands is located in the Caribbean!

The Netherlands has its own island in the Caribbean called Mount Scenery, a volcano owned by the Netherlands in the Caribbean.

It is on the north side of the line of islands going from the Dominican Republic down to the north end of South America. Mount Scenery is a lava dome and is considered an active volcano with the potential to still erupt.

Its last eruption, however, was in 1640. Its lava dome forms the summit of the Saba island stratovolcano.

It is the largest mountain in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Netherlands proper with an elevation of 877 meters. Even though it hasn’t erupted since 1640, it included explosions and pyroclastic flow, or lava.

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The Head of King Henry IV of France was found preserved in an attic in 2010.

It might seem a little strange that the head of a king was in the attic of a tax collector, instead of located on his buried body. The explanation is no less strange. 

King Henry IV ruled France from 1589 to his death in 1610. Many attempts had been made on his life as king. One such attempt left him with a gash across his upper lip. 

While in Paris in 1610, his carriage was stopped in the congested streets and he was assassinated. It was expected for him to be buried at the Basilica of St. Denis, north of Paris, where nearly every French king had been buried since 900 AD. 

His body was embalmed and interred with the kings before him, and was left alone for almost two centuries. In 1793, during the French Revolution, a number of unusual decrees were issued (such as changing calendars and clocks). 

One of these ordered the destruction of all royal tombs, including the one Henry IV was in. A mob tore through the crypt and pulled apart the royal corpses. They were carried outside and had quicklime poured over them to make them decompose faster. 

As a result, most of the bones at St. Denis were lost. For a while, it was thought that no royal remains survived the French Revolution, but rumors continued to creep up. In 1919, the head of Henry IV was found and sold at an auction. Joseph-Emile Bourdais, the photographer who purchased it, could not convince any museums it was authentic. 

When Joseph-Emile died, his widow then sold the head in 1955 to a tax collector named Jacques Bellanger. There the head remained until a journalist looked at it in 2010, and it was confirmed to be that of Henry IV. 

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Hedy Lamarr, once voted the most beautiful woman, invented a torpedo navigation system!

Hedy was born in Austria and began her acting career as a teenager after dropping out of school. She was in over 30 films. She chose her stage surname in homage to Barbara La Marr, a beautiful silent film actress who died of tuberculosis in 1926. 

She played Delilah in the 1949 film Samson and Delilah. The film was the highest grossing film of the year. Lamarr went to her composer neighbor, George Antheil, with her idea and together they submitted the idea of a secret communication system. 

Lamarr and Antheil patented the idea in 1942. It was the early version of frequency hopping and used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies. It was intended to make radio guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect and jam. It wasn’t used in the military until 1962, though. 

Their idea is the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology such as Bluetooth. 

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Korea has a law against teens under 16 playing video games after midnight!

South Korea has one of the largest and richest online gaming cultures in the world. They say that 8% of 9-39 year olds are addicted to the Internet. 

In South Korea, Internet cafes are popular with gamers, and estimates put the addiction rate for kids between the ages of 9-12 is 14%.

The government has become increasingly worried and is trying to find ways to curb the addiction problem. They are heavily involved in giving workshops and treatment for those with gaming addictions.

A law called the “shutdown law” or the “Cinderella law” was created by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. The law blocks online gaming sites at midnight for kids 16 and under, and it's caused many people to get angry.

First of all, kids can easily create gaming accounts with their parents’ information to continue playing past midnight. Secondly, not all gaming sites are blocked. Thirdly, parents feel they should have the ability to monitor their children’s gaming and that it is not the place of the government to restrict it.

The law is being questioned and the courts will end up deciding its validity.

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The first diamond found in South Africa was 21.25 carats and given away by a farmer!

South Africa became famous in the 19th and 20th centuries for its copious amounts of diamonds, yet the first one found has an interesting history. 

It is called the Eureka Diamond, and a boy named Erasmus Jacobs first discovered it in 1867 near Hopetown on the Orange River. Jacobs was only 15 at the time and had no idea what he had found on his farm. 

He took the diamond and used it in a game called “5 Stones”, when it caught the attention of his neighbor. Erasmus’ mother, believing the stone to be worthless, gave it away to their neighbor who presented it to the Civil Commissioner who in turn declared, “I believe it to be a diamond.” 

The diamond was so amazing it was presented to Queen Victoria and displayed at the 1867 Paris Exhibition. 100 years after its initial discovery, the diamond was purchased and donated back to the South African people and is currently on display at the Kimberley Mine Museum.

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