Things I learned lately 18 Aug

• The Alberta / NWT wildfires have now burned an area almost 4 times the size of the province of PEI.
• In the 14th century, “hound” was used to refer to almost all domestic canines and “dog” was reserved for breeds like the precursors to modern bulldogs and mastiffs. By the 16th century, the meaning had shifted and dog was the general term and hound was used for hunting breeds.
• Tug of war used to be an Olympic event.
• In the Game of Thrones series, over 174,000 people met their end.
• Scottsdale Arizona no longer allows grass lawns on new home builds, to conserve water.
• There are 119 legal land-based border crossing points between the US and Canada. All of them are two-way except for the points at Churubusco, New York (travelers may only enter the US) and Four Falls, New Brunswick (travelers may only enter Canada).
• Folks from the southern part of Oregon and the northern part of California have long wanted to separate from their respective states and form a 51st state of Jefferson. The separatists feel underrepresented by their state governments.
• If you unloaded all the containers from a typical Triple-E class container ship and formed them into a train, the train would be 70 miles (112 km) long.