Two Things Unknown To Me Until I Read Them This Week
Why Dice Use Dots
According to Roll the Bones by David Schwartz, dice have dots instead of numbers because dice 
were in use long before number systems with symbols (e.g., Roman numerals and Arabic numerals) were developed.
The first dice were made from the ankle bones (AKA knucklebones, AKA hucklebones, AKA talus, AKA astragalus) of hooved animals such as oxen or sheep. (Click graphic on right for larger view)
The knucklebone-dice are also the origin of “bones” as a colloquialism for dice. (It could have been worse; had an anatomist been in charge of colloquialism creation, gamblers might be shouting “Roll those astragali,” which just doesn’t seem the same.)
The cube shape and dot pattern in use today were developed around 1300 B.C.
The Composition Of The Jury Selected For The Jefferson Davis Trial
After the Confederacy fell and Jefferson Davis was captured by Federal troops, he was held in prison pending his trial for treason. Sean Wilentz, in The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, provides evidence that Davis looked forward to a trial as a chance to publicly justify secession in general and his role in secession in particular..
Wilentz goes on to point out that this would have been no easy task. Although the trial would have taken place in Virginia and thus the jury would be selected from a population one might expect to be largely sympathetic to Davis’s perspective, the jury actually empanelled for the trial consisted of seven blacks and five whites.
Davis was indicted but not brought to trial. He was released on bond in 1867, and the government entered a nolle prosequi in his case in December 1868. He was also included in the general amnesty issued that month. After traveling to Canada and England, Davis became president of a life insurance company in Memphis, Tenn.
