August 13 is International Left-Handers Day, a BGNES reporter reported. The holiday began in 1984 at the initiative of the International Left-Handers Confederation. Left-handers use their left hand for most things - for example, cooking. The hand with which a person writes is not the only and most accurate indicator - some left-handers write with their right hand, but use their left for most other activities. About 10% of the world's population is left-handed. It is believed that there are more left-handed men than left-handed women. About 1/3 of twins have a chance of being left-handed.

Statistically, the twin of a left-hander has a 76% chance of being left-handed. Left-handers have an advantage in the boxing ring mainly because of the position of their leading hand, which becomes the right. This changes the standard angle at which the most used boxing punch comes - the straight front hand (jab). The angle of the cross, which is typically with the back hand, which is the left hand for left-handed players, also changes. While 95% of right-handed players use the right hemisphere of their brain for speaking, this is more variable for left-handed players. Some do indeed use the right hemisphere for speaking, others the left, and still others both. Brain scans confirm a difference between the brains of left-handed and right-handed players. The brain of a right-handed player is more specialized, with a precise portion of the brain dedicated to a specific action. There is much less specialization in the brains of left-handed players. Left-handed players recover from blows faster than right-handed players because the left-handed brain does not divide as much and does not specialize its abilities. Scientists previously believed that the choice for dominant hand is inherited. A 1998 study from James McDeveitt University, Oklahoma, found that if both parents are left-handed, there is only a 26% chance that the child will be left-handed (only 10% of the population is left-handed). This suggests that genes may not play a big role in choosing a dominant hand.

Since most languages are written from left to right, writing is much easier for right-handed people, but it is more difficult for left-handed people, since it would be easier for them to write from right to left. Among the most famous left-handed people are: Louis XVI, Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Ramses II, Tiberius, Mahatma Gandhi, Queen Victoria, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr., Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, Aristotle and Nietzsche, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Nikola Tesla, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Lewis Carroll and Hans Christian Andersen, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie and Robert De Niro. | BGNES