Factastic Millennium Facts [Paperback]

Russell Ash (Author)

Book Description

Series: DK Millennium

From DK's famed "factmaster" himself, Russell Ash comes the perfect memento to mark the millennium. Packed with intriguing information and entertaining anecdotes, Factastic: Millennium Facts charts the key worldwide political, social, and cultural events of the last 1,000 years in Ash's lighthearted yet informative style.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Russell Ash is the uncontested king of lists. Not simply a career, listmaking is his legend, facts his friends, statistics his sanctuary, trivia his triumph.

He was descended from a family of craftsmen who were London goldsmiths and silversmiths for several generations since the 17th century -- the most notable being Claudius Ash (1792-1854), one of the principal inventors of false teeth. His father was a bookbinder at the British Museum. Born in 1946, educated at Bedford Modern School, Mr. Ash attended Durham University where he earned a Joint Honours BA in Anthropology and Geology.

Russell Ash began his career in publishing as a picture researcher in 1967; he moved on in 1973 to establish his own publishing company, Ash & Grant, and was a director of Weidenfeld & Nicholson and Pavilion Books. Mr. Ash has spent most of the past 30 years as a freelance writer and contributor to almost 100 non-fiction titles on such subjects as art (particularly the Impressionists and other late nineteenth-century painters), animals real and fictitious (he is the official "biographer" of Paddington Bear), and humor.

He has compiled various award-winning popular reference titles, including the perennial bestselling Top Ten of Everything, which has also inspired a weekly network children's television series in the UK (in which he appears). He has also written Incredible Comparisons, which features a variety of fascinating objects side by side with accompanying statistics. The World in One Day is his 1997 bestseller for children, chronicling all the facts about daily life. His latest children's book, Factastic Millennium Facts, is packed with intriguing information and entertaining anecdotes covering the key worldwide political, social , and cultural events of the last 1,000 years.

Russell Ash is currently an author, occasional journalist, and packager of books in the UK and US. He lives in a large Victorian house (which he is restoring) in Sussex, England with his wife, daughter, and two sons. He has recently returned to the family tradition by learning the craft of silversmithing. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: DK CHILDREN (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078944948X
• ISBN-13: 978-0789449481
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,340,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great History Book!, May 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Factastic Millennium Facts (DK Millennium) (Hardcover)

I liked this book because it starts in year 1000 and ends with year 2000 celebrations. For each year, this book tells you at least one important thing that happened in that year. For example, here's what it lists in 1985 (I picked this very important year because that's when I was born!): The unseeded West German tennis player, 17-year-old Boris Becker, makes history whe he becomes the youngest Wimbeldon Men's Singles Champion.

and... Holland's Phillips and Japan's Sony introduce the CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read-Only Memory.

and... A 48-game chess match betweent world champion Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov, both of the USSR, ends after 5 months due to Karpov's exhaustion. Karpov eventually loses his title to the 22-year-old Kasparov.

and... One person is killed when the GREENPEACE ship Rainbow Warrior, in the South Pacific to disrupt French nuclear tests, is sunk by an explosion in Auckland, New Zealand, two French service agents are later found guilty of manslaughter and sabotage. AND..... The Nevada del Ruiz VOLCANO erupts in Colombia, killing some 25,000 people.

I also liked how this book was divided into age periods, The Age of Religion, The Age of Conquest, The Age of Expansion, The Age of Revelation, The Age of Commerce, The Age of Revolution, The Age of Industry, The Age of Technology, adn Celebration. A very cool book!