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Fast Facts
- In the early 1980s, 45 of the world's 164 nations were involved in wars. Estimates of the number of people killed range from one million to five million.
- Before the term conscientious objectors (COs) came into use during World War I, people who peacefully opposed war were called nonresistants.
- Terrorism is not new to the United States. After the Civil War, an underground army of white terrorists called the Ku Klux Klan began an attack on democracy in the south. The Klan was founded in 1865 and, by 1867, there were hundreds of local units.
- While the word terrorism always brings thoughts of underground secret groups, it can also come in the shape of formal governments. The most famous heads of a terrorist state are Hitler, Stalin and Gorbachev.
- As a result of the Salem Witch Trials, twenty innocent people died at the gallows or in prison. Some members of the Salem community fled the colony in order to avoid unjust persecution. Years later, one of the accusers came forward and declared that those she and her friends had accused were innocent.
- In recent years, scientists have come up with the theory that the "afflicted children" of Salem that started the witch trials may have eaten contaminated bread. A fungus called ergot sometimes infects the rye grain in bread making. This fungus can cause dizziness, headaches and hallucinations. So far, however, this theory has not achieved wide acceptance.
- Even though Martin Luther King, Jr. was small for his age, he was so smart that his mother let him go to school a year early. There were no kindergartens in the Atlanta public schools, so King went directly to the first grade. Even though he was a year younger than the rest of the children, he became the best reader in class.
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