1. ln 1979lack of rain reduced India’s rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.

2. Hurricanes at first begin traveling from east to west, because that direction is the way the prevailing winds in the tropics blow, but they then veer off toward higher latitudes, in many cases changing direction toward the east before dissipating over the colder, more northerly waters or over land.

3. Unlike the virginal, whose single set of strings runs parallel to the front edge of the instrument, the harpsichord’s several sets of strings are placed at right angles to its front edge.

4. Although Alice Walker published a number of essays, poetry collections, and stories during the 1970s, her third novel, The Color Purple, which was published in 1982, brought her the widest acclaim in that it won both the National Book Award as well as the Pulitzer Prize.

5. Many experts regarded the large increase in credit card borrowing in March not as a sign that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow, rather a sign of confidence by households that they could safely handle new debt.

6. A pioneer journalist, Nellie Blv’s exploits included circling the globe faster than Jules Verne’s fictional Phileas Fogg.

7. ln 1913, the largely self-taught Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan mailed 120 of his theorems to three different British mathematicians; only one, G. H. Hardy, recognized the brilliance of these theorems, but thanks to Hardy’s recognition, Ramanujan was eventually elected to the Royal Society of London.

8. Cost cutting and restructuring has allowed the manufacturing company to lower its projected losses for the second quarter, and they are forecasting a profit before the end of the year.

9. The Life and Casualty Company hopes that by increasing its environmental fund reserves to S1.2 billion, that it has set aside enough to pay for environmental claims and no longer has to use its profits and capital to pay those claims bit by bit, year by year.

10. Like ancient Egyptian architectural materials that were recycled in the construction of ancient Greek Alexandria, so ancient Greek materials from the construction of that city were reused in subsequent centuries by Roman, Muslim, and modern builders.