Talk:Number of the beast/Trivia

Speculation and trivia
Former U.S. president Ronald Wilson Reagan had six letters in his first, middle, and last name. He also lived in Bel-Air California, in house number 666 on his block, until wife Nancy Reagan had it changed to 668. Another interesting numerological oddity regarding Reagan, is that the sum of the enumerated phrase "Ronald Reagan President and Chief Executive of the United States of America" equals 666. Some Rastafarians and others believed he was the Beast. Other Christian groups led by Herb Peters and Constance E. Cumbey point the finger at Javier Solana. Coincidentally, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran referred to Reagan, and the U.S. in general, as "the Great Satan."

Nelson Mandela's Robben Island prisoner number was 46664.

Javier Solana was appointed High Representative of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy, by joint action number 666 by the European Council.

The first Apple Computer, the Apple I was sold for $666.66.

The numbers on a roulette table (1 to 36) sum to 666.

Stanley Kubrick (director of 2001: A Space Odyssey) died 666 days before January 1 2001.

0.666 is approximately two-thirds of one whole, one short of all three thirds. Because three is the number of the trinity, it may be that the number is meant to represent being in communion with God only in the mind and spirit (but not the body). A recurring theme in most Christian Bible versions of the latter chapters of Revelation is Satan's attacks upon the human body. Then again, it must also be considered that two out of three is not bad.

A widespread conspiracy theory concerns the EAN or UPC bar codes, instituted in 1974, and found on most consumer products. The "control codes" in the left, middle, and right of the code appear on initial inspection to represent the number "6". Because of this, all EAN/UPC codes (so the theory goes) contain the number 666. One interpretation of the Book of Revelation indicates that the Number of the Beast is required for all business transactions &mdash; a role that the EAN/UPC code certainly fits. Also the inventor of the UPC code, George J. Laurer, has six letters in his first, middle, and last name, and, as of 2004, exactly 666 prefixes (out of possible 1000) are assigned in the EAN-13 namespace. (Unfortunately, the control codes only appear to represent the number six if one is unaware that both the black bars and the spaces in between them are used to encode information.)

The Australian Bankcard symbol has been said to represent three sixes, superimposed (yellow over orange over red).

The anti-impotence drug Viagra has a molecular weight of 666.7 g/mol.

All Garda (police) station phone numbers in Dublin, Ireland start with 666. 

The A666 is a main road from Pendlebury to Langho in England. In the 1980's that prompted CB radio users to codename it "The Devil's Highway".

In the Dutch translation of Dan Brown's best-selling novel Angels and Demons (translated title Het Bernini Mysterie), the discussion of 666 is on page 333. 333 is 666 divided by 2. The numbers 2 and 5 have special significance to the Illuminati, a group that is pivotal to the novel's plot.

In Marvel Comics, parallel universes are represented by numbers. The main Marvel Universe (which is also supposed to be the same universe as ours) is known as Universe 616.

The bassist of the animated band Gorillaz, Murdoc Niccals, was born June 6th, 1966 (jokingly referring to his membership in the Church of Satan).

In Japan, the yen comes in coins of 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 500. If you have one of each coin, you have 666 yen.

The code for the mysterious briefcase in Pulp Fiction is 666.

Many phone numbers in Hsinchu, Taiwan and Houston, Texas begin with "666."

In Canada, dialing the seven digit number "666-6666" with the area code of "604" will give you a non-working branch of the Canadian government.

In Mexico, local phone numbers were updated from an 8-digit format with variable-length area code/number combinations to a standard 12-digit fixed combination (3-digit area codes, 7-digit phone numbers except for Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.) The City of Tijuana ended up with area code 666, but after various protests from the local townspeople it was changed to 664. Ironically, because of high drug-related crime rate, the city is known as the Mexican Sin City.

One of the ZIP Codes for Topeka, KS is 66606. The ZIP Codes in the Topeka area starts with 666.

The popular Japanese manga and anime Galaxy Express 999, created by Leiji Matsumoto, which is rife with symbolism and has some obvious parallels to The Divine Comedy, involves a space-fairing train with the numbers 999 emblazoned on its front. In an early chapter, a passenger hysterically proclaims it to be "the Devil's train"—the 999 may be interpreted as being the number 666 turned upside down. In the story, the hero, Tetsuro Hoshino, travels on the space train to the planet Andromeda, which is manmade, so that he may obtain a mechanical body to get vengance upon the cyborg who murdered his mother.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mgreenbe (talk • contribs) 00:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)