Though we think of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as a single list today, there were actually a number of lists compiled by different Greek writers. Antipater of Sidon, and Philon of Byzantium, drew up two of the most well-known lists. Many of the lists agreed on six of the seven items . The final place on some lists was awarded to the Walls of the City of Babylon. On others, the Palace of Cyrus, king of Persia took the seventh position. Finally, toward the 6th century A.D., the final item became the Lighthouse at Alexandria.
Take the Seven Wonders tour at: http://www.unmuseum.org/wonders.htm

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia is one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World that was listed by Herodotus in his famous list. The statue was 12 meters (39 feet) tall. Herodotus said that statue occupied a whole room at western of the temple o Zeus in Olympia (about 150 Km west of Athens), the city where Greeks celebrated the original Olympics games. The statue was made by the Greek sculptor Phidias (who made also the statue of Athena in the Parthenon) in honor to the king of the Greek gods and it was the most famous master piece of art of all Greece. The statue was an ideal representation of the best classical style. It was made of ivory with gold plating. Because of the climate in Olympia, which was so damp, the statue required care so that the humidity would not crack the ivory. Therefore Phidias had the responsibility of the maintenance of the statue which was treated with oil constantly. In the first century Caligula ordered to transport the statue to Rome, but this attempt failed because the scaffolding constructed to do this work collapsed. The statue of Zeus presided the Olympics games until 393 AD, when the Roman emperor Theodosisus I decided to abolish the games and close the temple, because Rome became Christian and both temple and games were considered pagan manifestations. The reasons and circumstances of the destruction of the statue are not clear. A tradition compiled by the Byzantine historian Georgios Kedrenos says that the statue was carried to Constantinople and was destroyed in the great fire in 475. Another version says that it was burned with the temple in 425 AD. http://www.7wonders.org/wonders/europe/greece/olympia/zeus-at-olympia.aspx
List of statues by height: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statues_by_height

The Pale or the English Pale was the part of Ireland that was directly under the control of the English government in the late Middle Ages. By the late 15th century the Pale became the only part of Ireland that remained subject to the English king, with most of the island paying only token recognition of the overlordship of the English crown. The tax base shrank to a fraction of what it had been in 1300. The word pale derives ultimately from the Latin word palus, meaning stake, specifically a stake used to support a fence. From this came the figurative meaning of boundary and eventually the phrase beyond the pale, as something outside the boundary. Also derived from the "boundary" concept was the idea of a pale as an area within which local laws were valid. The Pale boundary essentially consisted of a fortified ditch and rampart built around parts of the medieval counties of Louth, Meath, Dublin and Kildare, actually leaving half of Meath, most of Kildare, and south west Dublin on the other side. The northern frontier of the Pale was marked by the De Verdon fortress of Castle Roche, while the southern border roughly corresponds to the present day M50 motorway in Dublin, which crosses the site of what was Carrickmines Castle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pale

Fiat money refers to money that is not backed by reserves of another commodity. The money itself is given value by government fiat (Latin for "let it be done") or decree, enforcing legal tender laws, previously known as "forced tender", whereby debtors are legally relieved of the debt if they (offer to) pay it off in the government's money. By law the refusal of "legal tender" money in favor of some other form of payment is illegal, and has at times in history (Rome under Diocletian, and post-revolutionary France during the collapse of the assignats) invoked the death penalty. Governments through history have often switched to forms of fiat money in times of need such as war, sometimes by suspending the service they provided of exchanging their money for gold, and other times by simply printing the money that they needed. When governments produce money more rapidly than economic growth, the money supply overtakes economic value. Therefore, the excess money eventually dilutes the market value of all money issued. This is called inflation. In 1971 the US finally switched to fiat money indefinitely. At this point in time many of the economically developed countries' currencies were fixed to the US dollar, and so this single step meant that much of the western world's currencies became fiat money based. Read about the general history of money at:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ufhatch/pages/03-sci-rev/sci-rev-home/genhist_money.html

“Just My Type” is a smart, funny, accessible book that does for typography what Lynne Truss’s best-selling “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” did for punctuation: made it noticeable for people who had no idea they were interested in such things. Personal computers are the main reason that font fandom and do-it-yourself design have snowballed in the last two decades. Mr. Garfield’s book overlaps with Gary Hustwit’s 2007 documentary “Helvetica,” which concentrated entirely on a single, unstoppably popular typeface. One typically buoyant chapter is called “We Don’t Serve Your Type” and devoted to Comic Sans. Mr. Garfield moves on to the modernists, talking to many of the renowned designers who appeared in “Helvetica.” In a chapter called “What Is It About the Swiss?” he plumbs the 1957 creations of both Helvetica and Univers and the Swiss modernism that spawned them. He also cites the remarkable experiment conducted by Cyrus Highsmith, who tried to get through a day in New York without encountering Helvetica but found it on his clothing (washing labels), yogurt, computer, newspaper, money and even on a menu in Chinatown. And it makes the interesting point that it has proved difficult to protect fonts in court, since an alphabet can be regarded as being in the public domain. But for anyone with the patience and wherewithal to do so, each letter, number and glyph can be individually copyrighted. Among the many other matters of interest in this bright little book: how the @ sign is named in different languages (it’s a rollmop herring to the Czechs, an escargot to the French); the rock ’n’ roll secrets of Rolling Stone magazine’s big, shaded “R” and the Beatles’ lowered “T”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/books/just-my-type-a-book-about-fonts-by-simon-garfield-review.html

Bell, book and candle is the phrase that denoted excommunication from the Catholic church. In the excommunication ceremony officials close the book, quench the candle and toll a bell, as for someone who had died. The phrase is old and first appears, in Old English, circa 1300: "Curced in kirc an sal ai be wid candil, boke, and bell." http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/61000.html See cultural references to bell, book and candle at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell,_book,_and_candle

Anonymous, the hacker group, has jostled with the Iranian government and the Church of Scientology and has briefly shut down the Web sites of Visa, MasterCard and other global corporations. When members appear in public to protest censorship and what they view as corruption, they don a plastic mask of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century Englishman who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Stark white, with blushed pink cheeks, a wide grin and a thin black mustache and goatee, the mask resonates with the hackers because it was worn by a rogue anarchist challenging an authoritarian government in “V for Vendetta,” the movie produced in 2006 by Warner Brothers. What few people seem to know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask. The hackers wear the mask when they protest outside of Scientology buildings. And they wore it during a short-lived protest this month in San Francisco of the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s decision to cut off cell service to thwart an earlier protest inside train stations. See more of the story plus picture of the mask at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/technology/masked-anonymous-protesters-aid-time-warners-profits.html