A Piece of Trivia

I forgot this in the last post. I was talking with Milan and a girl whose name I'm not going to attempt to spell, and the girl was saying she was going to run in a marathon. Milan asked me if I knew where the term marathon came from and, instead of the obvious answer of "the gas station - it's because cars can run for a long time," I went for the more obscure answer of "the Greek dude who ran to Athens from Marathon to announce that - even though their army was vastly outnumbered - they prevailed. The runner then died after delivering the message. Milan was genuinely surprised I knew that. Apparently, Americans aren't supposed to know little things like that. Honestly, I have no idea where I learned that but for some reason it was one of those stories that stuck. And honestly, I wouldn't expect too many people in America to know that, either (personal friends not included in that characterization).

So here I am, trying to reconcile my country's image to the rest of the world one piece of trivia at a time. Too bad the image is pretty accurate.

A semi-related note: Milan was the guy who told me that the Mississippi was the biggest river in the world. At best, it's third but I think it's fourth. The top two are, of course, the Nile and the Amazon, depending on which aspect you're measuring.