Harsh Justice

taken from the book of facts - Reader's Digest

Frederick the Grate of Prussia was so badly treated at home that he tried to run away to France at the age of 18. But his father, Friedrich Wilhelm I, caught him and threw him into prison.
During his imprisonment in 1730, a friend named Lieutenant Katte, who had helped him in his attempt to escape, was executed in front of him.
Frederick fainted at the sight.
Frederick was kept under arrest for 15 months before being grudgingly set free.
As King, though, he far outshone his harsh father.
He stayed on the throne for 46 years from 1740 - nearly twice as long as his father - made his army the finest in Europe and doubled his country's territory.

The First Fire

Humans and their ancestors, the hominids have known how to use fire for at least 500,000 years, and humans have probably been capable of making fire since about 12,000 years ago.
The earliest fire was undoubtedly started naturally by lightning, so that the old and widespread religious custom of a sacred flame which was never allowed to go out is likely to be a folk-memory of the days when fire had to be kept alight, because people could not make it for themselves.
Peking man, who lived about 500,000 years ago, seems to have been the first species to make regular use of fire.
Charred embers were found with the remains of Peking Man in a cave near the Chinese capital in 1929.

Our Relative, the starfish

Humans and other mammals are vertebrates, animals with backbones. And all vertebrates belong to the scientific family called the chordata, animals with a rod-like structure that supports the body.
the chordates and the echinoderms - creatures such as starfish and sea urchins - diverged into separate evolutionary paths at least 500 million years ago.
But scientist believe that both groups descended from a common ancestor - making the starfish one of the oldest living relatives of humans.