Know it All

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The world’s largest pizza measured 129 feet by 92 feet. It took 200 people to put together the 50,000-slice pizza in June of this year. The pizza was made and served in the parking lot of the local high school in Iowa Falls, Iowa.

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Focaccia bread is oven baked bread similar to pizza dough. The word focaccia is a Latin word meaning hearth.

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Hestia is the Greek goddess of hearth and home. She represented security and happiness in the household and among the family. In ancient Greece, every home had a symbol of Hestia. To be protected by Hestia, newborn babies were walked in a circle around the symbol and prayers were said to the goddess.

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There is an asteroid named after the Greek goddess Hestia. British astronomer N.R. Pogson (1829-1891) discovered the asteroid in 1857 and named it 46 Hestia.

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The average orbital distance of an asteroid is about 2.9 astronomical units. One astronomical unit is 93 million miles, which is the mean distance from the Earth to the sun.

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The spacecraft Deep Space 1 was launched in 1998 as part of NASA’s New Millennium program. The spacecraft had the closest flyby of an asteroid, coming within 16 miles of the asteroid Braille.

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Louis Braille (1809-1852) was a French educator who lost his sight in an accident at age 3. He invented the Braille system of writing and printing for the blind, which consists of six raised dots used in 63 different combinations to represent letters, numbers and symbols.

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Helen Keller (1880-1968), born in Alabama, suffered a fever when she was 19 months old that left her blind and deaf. Keller’s tutor and lifelong companion Anne Sullivan (1866-1936) also lost her sight as a child, but her vision was restored by surgery in 1880.

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The Alabama state quarter pictures Helen Keller. The quarter began circulating in 2003.

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Baseball greats Willie Mays (born 1931) and Hank Aaron (born 1934) are both from Alabama.

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Willie Mays’ nickname was the "Say Hey Kid.” Hank Aaron was "Hammerin’” Hank Aaron. Do you know the name of the baseball players with the following nicknames? "The Big Unit,” "The Yankee Clipper,” "Big Mac,” "The Sultan of Swat” and "Three Fingers.” See answer at end.

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Willie Mays is Barry Bonds’ (born 1964) godfather.

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In the movie "The Godfather” (1972), based on Mario Puzo’s (1920-1999) 1969 novel, Mafia leader Don Vito Corleone has three sons and one daughter. The eldest son is Sonny, Fredo is the middle son, Michael is the youngest son and the daughter is Connie.

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Answer: "The Big Unit” is Randy Johnson (born 1963). "The Yankee Clipper” was Joe DiMaggio (1914- 1999). "Big Mac” is Mark McGwire (born 1963). "The Sultan of Swat” was Babe Ruth (1895-1948). "Three Fingers” was Mordecai Brown (1876- 1948). Brown really had just three fingers on his right hand. At age 7 he caught his hand in a corn shredder on his uncle’s farm.

Know It All is by Kerry McArdle. It runs in the weekend and Wednesday editions of the Daily Journal. Questions? Comments? Email knowitall@smdailyjournal.com or call 344- 5200 ext. 114.