Fast Facts: Art & Literature

I found these cool facts over at Did You Know.

In 1961, Matisse’s Le Bateau (The Boat) hung upside-down for 2 months in the Museum of Modern Art, New York – none of the 116,000 visitors had noticed.

Picasso could draw before he could walk and his first word was the Spanish word for pencil.

Sumerians invented writing in the 4th century BC.

The first book published is thought to be the Epic of Gilgamesh, written at about 3000 BC in cuneiform, an alphabet based on symbols.

The first history book, the Great Universal History, was published by Rashid-Eddin of Persia in 1311.

The first novel, called The story of Genji, was written in 1007 by Japanese noble woman, Murasaki Shikibu.

William Shakespeare wrote his first play The Taming of the Shrew in 1593.

The German PJ Reuter started a foreign news agency in 1858. Today Reuters is one of the biggest news agencies in the world.

The oldest surviving daily newspaper is the Wiener Zeitung of Austria. It was first printed in 1703.

The Bible still is the world’s best selling book.

In 1097, Trotula, a midwife of Salerno, wrote The Diseases of Women – it was used in medical schools for 600 years.

The world’s longest nonfiction work is The Yongle Dadian, a 10,000-volume encyclopaedia produced by 5,000 scholars during the Ming Dynasty in China 500 years ago.

Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote Meteorologica in 350 BC – it remained the standard textbook on weather for 2,000 years.

The first illustrated book for children was published in Germany in 1658.

Barbara Cartland completed a novel every two weeks, publishing 723 novels.

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