OK, most of the persons in the list lived in 20th century, when there had been some statistics going on. But how did they manage to estimate Basil II's and Marcus Licinius Crassus's wealth?

Even though the invitations were cofiscated, they had already been handed, meaning all the guests had been invited. The school could not and did not (as far as I get it) cancel the birthday party, so what's the big deal? The farther just overreacted.

I never tok the risk of driving for too long after the gas light comes on, but I did drive 10-15 miles on my Ford Focus. And the car manual says it possible to drive around 60 miles before the car runs out of gas completely.