24 (Karat) Fun Golden Facts

September 5, 2009 | Filed under: Miscellaneous,The List | Posted by: List Guy

Fun Golden Facts

Just for fun here are some random facts about gold you may not have known:

1.   Gold has been discovered on every continent including both the Arctic and Antarctic;
2.   The world produces more steel in one hour than it has produced gold since man began collecting it;
3.   Over three-quarters of the gold extracted has been produced since 1910 – the California gold rush helped colonize the West but did little to contribute to the amount of gold reserves in the world;
4.   Gold topped $1,000 an ounce for the first time in history in March 2008;
5.   A stock-market analyst questioned whether Google or Gold was the better investment in 2005 when both traded at the same levels – in December 2008 Google traded at $307.65 but gold was over $866 an ounce;
6.   An ounce of gold can be turned into a thread 50 miles long;
7.   An ounce of gold can be hammered into a sheet 15 meters square;
8.   The Al-Aqsa Mosque or Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Israel is entirely covered by gold leaf;
9.   Gold can be eaten! Some countries in the Far East actually use gold as a dietary supplement in jellies, coffee and tea while in the US it is added to liquor such as Goldwasser and Goldschlager;
10.   American Indians believed that eating gold could make you fly;
11.   The name “gold” is thought to come from the earliest European/Indo-Asian languages – “ghol” or “ghel” can mean yellow, green or bright;
12.   Gold is one form of treatment for rheumatoid arthritis;
13.   Gold melts at 1064.43 degrees Centigrade;
14.   Gold does not rust;
15.   80% of the world’s total amount of gold has yet to be mined – it is still in the ground!;
16.   In a productive mine it requires 30 tons of ore to extract one ounce of gold;
17.   In a productive mine it takes 400 tons of earth to extract 30 tons of ore to get that one ounce of gold!;
18.   4,000 gallons of water are required to produce one ounce of gold;
19.   Pirates broke gold coins down into 8 pieces to pay their bar tabs – this is the origin of the phrase, “Pieces of Eight”;
20.   The first gold rush in America did not take place in California but North Carolina in 1803;
21.   The first recorded gold mine was in Nubia, or modern day Egypt some 4,500 years ago;
22.   Some scholars have wryly noted that while Moses was on the Mount receiving the Commandments, the jews had sufficient gold to make a false idol in the shape of a calf which they worshiped – it did not occur to them to buy their freedom with that gold but perhaps this was because gold was not then associated with money;
23.   Gold is one of the gifts made to the baby Jesus by the Three Wise Men (along with frankincense and myrhh); and
24.   The chemical symbol for gold is Au, this stems from the Latin word, Aurum from the Greek Goddess of the darn, Aurora.

Bonus fact: you can sell your gold online. Try Refinity.com.

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Posted by List Guy on September 5, 2009. Filed under Miscellaneous, The List. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry