Interesting Facts About Left-Handed People

I recently discovered a new website called randomhistory.com. As you know, I am a wealth of useless information, and with this new website I'll have many more useless facts to store in my brain and give to you. All of the information I will give here is from randomhistory.com, from the article called 56 interesting facts about left-handedness and left-handed people. References for the article are from well respected books and journals. Only 10-12% of the world's population are lefties, with women a little more likely to be left handed. Throughout history, left-handedness has been seen as many things, most commonly a mark of the devil or witchcraft, or someone with magical powers. Among Eskimos, every left-handed person is viewed as a potential sorcerer. In Morocco, lefties are considered to be the devil or a cursed person. In witchcraft texts in medieval Europe, it was the left hand that was used to harm or curse another person. The Incas thought left-handers were capable of healing and that they possessed magical powers. Many artistic representations of the devil show him to be left-handed. Tests conducted by St. Lawrence University in New York found that there were more left-handed people with IQ's over 140 than right-handed people. Many of our greatest intellectuals have been left-handed: Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Benjamin Franklin were all left-handed. Left-handers are more likely to become alcoholics, schizophrenic, delinquent and dyslexic. They're more likely to have Crohn's disease, colitis and mental illness. Left-handedness runs in families. In the British royal family Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth 11, Prince Charles, and Prince William are all left handed. The gene LRRTM1 is a strong contributing factor for left-handedness. Scientists discovered the gene while doing research on dyslexia, and believe it is inherited from the father. Finally, there are many references to left-handedness in religion. Maimonides (1135-1204), the Medieval Jewish philosopher, listed 100 blemishes a Jewish priest could not have, and being left-handed was one of them. The right hand is mentioned positively 100 times in the Bible, while the left hand is mentioned only 25 times, all negatively. Both the Jewish and Christian traditions are strongly right-handed in their practices. For Catholics and other Christian denominations, the priest must present the communion wafer with the right hand and the communicant must receive it with the right hand. In many Islamic countries, it is considered "unclean" to eat with the left hand and. Eating with the left hand is forbidden in Saudi Arabia. Even the word "dexterity" shows a right-handed bias. In the animal world, cats, rats and mice show an equal amount of right and left-pawedness. Interesting facts I thought. Oh, one final fact. The connections between the right and left sides of the brain are faster in left-handed people, which means that information is transferred faster to them, and they may be more efficient in dealing with multiple stimuli. Here's a short list of some of the famous artists, writers, leaders, scientists and philosophers who were left-handed: Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Alexander the Great, Thomas Jefferson, Aristotle, Hans Christian Anderson, Bill Gates, Helen Keller, Julius Caesar, Mozart, Beethoven, Nietzsche, John D. Rockefeller, Babe Ruth, Mark Twain, Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer. I noticed that list include just one woman, Helen Keller, yet there are more women lefties in the world. Why is that? It's because historically men have been the world leaders, the recognized writers, composers, philosophers and scientists.