I am starting a new series of compiled information. I always find something new or fascinating whether it is through reading books, doing research or just browsing on the web.

A lot of them may not be new to other people, but for others it won't or a time to say the excuse, "I knew, I heard that somewhere, but I forgot " or when you tend to say "Oh really? I never knew that".

The alphabet starts with QWERTY on a typewriter or keyboard where Q-W-E-R-T-Y is the order of the first keys.

The first typewriter was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes and was marketed by the company named Remington Arms in 1873. The action of the type bars in early typewritters was very sluggish and tended to jam frequently.

To solve this problem, Sholes obtained a list of the most common letters used in the English language and changed his keyboard from an alphabetic arrangement to one in which the most common pairs of letters were spread failry widerly apart on the keyboard.

Because the typist at the time used what was known as the "hunt-and-peck" method, Sholes's arrangement increased the time it took for the typist to hit the keys for common two letter combinations long enough to ensure that each type bar had time to fall back sufficiently far to be back in place before the next one came up.

The Pony Express was a fast mail service, you would have to caught the Pony Express between Saint Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California. It was a horseback mail service which began on 3 April, 1860. At that time regular mail delivery took up to three weeks to cross America.

The Pony express was founded by William H. Russell, William Bradford Waddell and Alexander Majors who were already in the freighting business with 4,000 men, 3,500 wagons and 40,000 oxen in 1858. It was an enormous undertaking, assembling 156 stations, 120 riders, 400 horses and hundreds of employees, all during January and February of 1860 .

The Pony Express carried mail rapidly overland on horseback nearly 2,000 miles between St Joseph and Sacramento. The schedule allowed ten days for the trip. The mail was then carried by boat to San Francisco. Each rider was expected to cover 120 km (75 miles) a day. Pony Express riders were usually lightweighted, young men often teenagers who used special saddle bags that culd be moved to a fresh horse very quickly at a change station.

The Pony Express route was extremely hazardous but only one mail delivery was ever lost. The regular Pony Express service was discontinued in October 1861.

You would find a Sherpa people in Nepal high up in the Himalayas. They are renowned for their mountian climbing abilities. Many Sherpas earn their living by guiding tourist, trekkers and mountaineers up the steep and rocky paths.

Sherpas were of immeasurable value to early explorers of the Himalayan region, serving as guides and porters at the extreme altitudes of the peaks in the region.The Sherpas originally migrated to Tibet from Mongolia and then left Tibet to settle in the Solo Khumbu district of Nepal

Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986) a Sherpa guide was one of the first two people to reach the top of the Mount Everest and return. On May 29, 1953, Tenzing and Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand reach the summit. Their expedition has spent more than two months moving supplies and equipment up the mountain. Tenzing became internationally famous and is a hero to the Sherpa and Nepalese people.