sandy
A cat does not need vitamin C because its body produces it.

This is true for most mammals. Humans and the great apes all lost the ability to synthesize their own vitamin C somewhere along the evolutionary journey.

sandy
The human brain has more memory capacity than a micro chip. *if only we knew how to access it.*

Are you saying that you somehow can't access your memory capacity? How do you know how to type? How do you remember English?

ozoneocean
You can starve to death by eating rabbits. They're a shitty food source...
Too much protein, not enough fat or amino acid. You waste your body's reserves simply digesting the little buggers.

I saw that on Survivorman!

I've heard about that show.... heh, I read it once in my old SAS survivor book, that thing is great ^^

An actual name of a place:

Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit


Translation:

The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn.

Don't forget good old Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

(St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave)

EDIT: It's in Wales by the way

racecar is the same spelled forward and backward. roaches have two brains, the average human loses an inch of their height in 54 years and sheds an avg of 3 pounds of skin in a lifetime. the largest recorded star is VY canis majoris and has a diameter 1900 to 2100 times that of the sun. and finally, the longest word in the dictionary is: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsillicovulcanoconiosis.

Battleship facts...

Vanguard was the last Battleship ever built. After WW2 as a matter of pride, because by that stage it was tactically useless. British.

The Iowa class battleships were the longest serving, all the way up to the first Gulf War. American.

The United States is the only country to retain its post-dreadnought battleships.

The first country to field an 18 inch gun at sea was Britain, on the HMS Furious.

The most powerful battleships ever were the Yamato class. With nine 18 inch guns and armour up to 650mm thick (over 2 feet of solid steel), on the turret facings. Japanese

The Warspite was the longest serving British battleship, and it took more hits than any other as well as surviving a couple of collisions, and yet it stayed floating to the end. -it even spectacularly beached itself on the way to its scrapping which gave it a bit of extra time.

Battleships were the nuclear weapons of their time (amazingly expensive, high tech and able to take war anywhere).

Tests off Hawaii proved that they were the only class of vessel able to withstand a close nuclear blast and survive, needing only minor repairs, and would also allow the crew to survive.

Puff_Of_Smoke
Some of the vains in a blue whale are so big you could swim down them.

How could I have missed that? I forgot to put in the 'whale'

Christopher Colombus (the guy who 'discovered' America) thought the world was pear shaped, not just round. At the time people already though the world was round. Only in the 20th century did someone introduce the myth that it was believed that the world is flat.

If you take any Swiss Franc note and expose it to microwaves, it will curl up and ignite. Once it's cooled down, you'll find a fine powder that, when ingested, will kill you painlessly. A 10 franc note has enough poison to kill a family of four.

Hopefully this one hasn't already been said...

The idea of using electronic ankle bracelets to keep track of criminals, people awaiting trials, etc., was taken from Spider-Man (a device the Kingpin used, not Spidey's spider-tracers):
http://goodcomics.blogspot.com/2006/02/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-38.html

That website is great for a lot of comic book urban legends.

ozoneocean

simonitro
- When referring to an Asian country, most of the time people think of China, Japan, etc... but India and the Middle East are part of Asia.

Russia as well. :Biggest country on the continent. And all those "stan" countries as well...

Russia to the Urals is part of Europe, after the Urals it is part of Asia.

The largest empire in land mass in human history was the Mongol Empire in the 13th Century. It was also among the shortest lived.

Imperial Russia at its peak stretched from Poland to Alaska.

The Sumerians, the first civilization, used base 6 for their number system which is why there are 12 months(each orignally had 30 days with the last five as a seperate festival), 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute.

Easter Island was once forested. Almost all the trees were cut down to make rollers to move the statues.

The Native Americans were nearly wiped out by a massive famine due to global cooling as well as disease brought by the Europeans.

The Mongols killed the largest percentage of people in an existing global human population.

Native Americans bathed regularly and complained of the stink of early European colonists and explorers who did not bathe regularly.

Fun facts about the world of the Black Death!

The Black Death refers to three types of infection: Pneumonic, which would kill in 5-24 hours, Bubonic, the most famous and responsible for the pustules... "bubos" from which it's name is derived, and septicemic: the pooling and drying of large amounts of toxic blood in the skin.

The bacterium responsible for the Black Death originated in Burma. The activity of the Mongolian empire brought it (or enticed the burrowing rodents it's naturally inhabits) to civil centers.

One of the suggested regimens to avoid being infected with the Black Death (as contemporary physicians gave up on finding a cure within the first year.) was to consume an "Armenian Bole": a clay ball from certain geological locations. The ingestion of dirt is called geophagy, and is fairly common in Africa and the American south.

The same global cooling event causing famine in North American (mentioned by Bravo in the previous post) also devesated Europe in the same manner. The situation escalated because of other issues (sporatic plague and the Thirty Years War) which reduced large protions of the population to turn toward cannibalism. ...In a few locations, opting not to eat human flesh, starving individuals picked off of animals killed by plague.

Famine (and plague) during the 14th and 17th centuries lead the population of Europe to participate in incredibly ruthless witch-hunts, targetting females most often.

I know some little things about that too :)
It's known that it was the fleas that spread the plague and not really the rodents.
Rat fleas live on humans just fine so humans and rats really spread it to each other wherever they went. The two were in quite close quarters on sailing ships which facilitated the spread to much of Western Europe.

People who tended horses were usually free of plague. This was do to the fact that the particular flea species didn't care much for horsey things; horses having their own specialised fleas. And this meant that people stuck with the job of collecting the dead and dying on horse carts were curiously free of the disease.
So the story goes.

The Witch Craze is a classic case of mass hysteria. Just like the recent ritual sexual abuse craze.

There was the Reformation and the war against the Heretics. It started and then got out of hand with the persecution of people who were outside the prevailing culture. Midwives and village wise women, even any aged widows were targeted, then any and all females. There were villages where nearly the entire female population was wiped out in the witch hysteria. People latched on to a common fear and it rose to a fever pitch. The famine and disease was also exacerbated by endless warfare culminating with the Thirty Years War.

Persecute the heretics, get carried away and persecute imaginary witches.

Louis XIV was afraid of water.

Many Royal mistresses were more respected as witty conversationists and providing a friendly ear to the king than sexual conquests. Though there were a lot of those, if they were just very pretty empty heads they didn't last long.

Madame Du Barry won over Louis XV because as a former prostitute she was an expert in oral sex (and she bathed daily.)

The Seven Years War saw three of the main combatant nations led by women. Louis XV's mistress Madame De Pompadour was the de facto leader of the French, Marie Therese of Austria and Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia. Frederick the Great the king of Prussia was a misogynist and named his two female dogs after Tsarina Elizabeth and Empress Therese and referred to them as his two bitches.

ozoneocean
I know some little things about that too :)
It's known that it was the fleas that spread the plague and not really the rodents.
Rat fleas live on humans just fine so humans and rats really spread it to each other wherever they went. The two were in quite close quarters on sailing ships which facilitated the spread to much of Western Europe.

True, the fleas were the critters which were biting people spreading Pasteurella pestis (unless provoked, I can't imagine rats to be running around biting folks), but when it comes to the pneumonic version of the plague I'm pretty sure it must have been an infection in the lungs. Since rats can't spew that much blood into the air and fleas definitely can't make their way to that part of the body I can only assume humans were transmitting the pestilence to one another. Coughing up blood was a common symptom of the death.

Nevermind the bloodletting which was ever-so-popular at this time period.

---- Non-Bubonic facts:

- The oldest human remains found in the Western Hemisphere forensically resemble Ainu more than any other ethnic group. (The Ainu, sometimes called 'Amishi' are the caucazoidal native people of Japan.) The exisitance of these remains, however, are somewhat of a conundrum as they were deposited before the opening of the commonly accepted theory of the Bering "Ice Bridge". Even more confusing is the fact that the oldest found human remains of the West are those of Mount Verdi in South America.

- Chewing "American Holly" (Ilex opaca) berries is an alternative medicinal suppliment to soothing/curing cholic and indigestion.

- The 'file' in 'file gumbo" comes from the leaves of the sassafras (Sassafras alridin) plant. Other commercial uses for sassafras include using the roots for Rootbeer and medicinally, the roots and bark can be used to make a tea to cure stomach aches, arthritus, colds, fever, and skin eruptions.

- In Latin, "in" could mean 'in', 'on', or 'into'. In Old English, "on" could mean 'in' or 'on'.

- John Hart work the first English-English dictionary because of the sharp increase of words to the language during the Inkhorn Controversy (these include many Greco/Latinate words such as "describe" and "appropriate" ).

Here's hoping none of these have been said yet - I read through the whole thread and didn't see 'em but I might've missed one or two:

+ Dolphins jump out of the water to conserve energy. It is easier to move through the air than through the water.

+ George W. Bush has been nominated for A Nobel Prize.

+ The first book focused solely on dentistry was the Artzney Buchlein in 1530.

A better way of looking at family trees is to look up from an individual and back towards their ancestors than from some old dead people and down to their descendants. That's because if you do it using the latter method, you miss out most of the descendents' real family.

If you go back just ten generations (and without interbreeding), your family consists of exactly 1024 people in that generation alone, and in total consists of 2046 people. That's how many it took to make just you...

...and you buy sticks of ram in the same sizes as the number of progenitors people have per generation... Just because of the binary system I suppose and the thing about doubling... Eh whatever :)

That's kinda creepy, in terms of how similar the intricacies and such are within our culture. It seems like everything has some sort of tie to everything else, be it indirect or otherwise, which leads me to wonder if it was be explained scientifically, or it's just, well, THERE.

Geneology, the hobby that keeps growing over time.

My wife is into it. She has the books, haunts libraries and goes to meetings and conventions. For me it's an excuse to do historical tours of various cities.

My family history back to the Norman Conquest was done by someone as a doctorial thesis. huh!? My branch has been in the USA since 1610 and one branch in Britain has a seat in the House of Lords.

But it won't buy me a cup of coffee. ;)

- If Africa received 1% more income through business ventures, it would generate more money than is annually donated to aid Africans.

- Insects, in regions where they are consumed, are almost always cooked.

- "Ye" as in "Ye Olde" is a translation mistake. To start, the "Th" sound in 'the' was originally written as a 'thorn' (looks like a mix between a 'p' and a 'l' ) which morphed into what looked like a "y". To shorten the entire word even more, scholars moved the "e" on top of the whole thing. Hence, "Ye olde confusion" lol!

- Ahkenhaten and Nefertiti's reign in Egypt was a very stressful one. Not only did the pharaoh order that the capital be moved further north, but he demanded his subjects convert to a monothesitic religion celebrating Aten. Also, he ordered that all artwork of him and Nefertiti be made more realistic, which is why images of him display a belly, and the famous bust of Nefertiti has an eye which is uncolored (it is widely believed this means she was blind in said eye.) Tutankhaten, his successor, renamed himself Tutankhamun, and restored the original religion and artistic customs.

valesse
- Ahkenhaten and Nefertiti's reign in Egypt was a very stressful one. Not only did the pharaoh order that the capital be moved further north, but he demanded his subjects convert to a monothesitic religion celebrating Aten. Also, he ordered that all artwork of him and Nefertiti be made more realistic, which is why images of him display a belly, and the famous bust of Nefertiti has an eye which is uncolored (it is widely believed this means she was blind in said eye.) Tutankhaten, his successor, renamed himself Tutankhamun, and restored the original religion and artistic customs.

How can the reign of a monarch be considered successful if it alienates nearly the entire population?

It is possible that Nefertiti reigned for a short time after Ahkenhaten's death.

One of the most common forms of regentcy in history is the Queen Mother (wife of the deceased king, mother of the minor king, going back to Egypt, common in China, France among other places) This means there were a lot more ruling women in history than is commonly assumed.

A child was considered an adult at the age of 13 under the Ancien Regime in France.

Louis XV of France was forced by his mother to consummate his marriage at the age of 8.

St. Olaf of Norway was convinced to convert Norway to Christianity by being promised to be made a saint after death... it it believed he thought this would guarantee his entry to Valhalla. Hail Odin All-Father!

Many Norse displayed their conversion to Christianity by turning their Thor's Hammer pendant upside down so it became a cross.

bravo1102
How can the reign of a monarch be considered successful if it alienates nearly the entire population?

"Successor" in the sense of following Ahkenhaten in the line of Pharoah. I don't believe anything else implies either reign being successful, unless, of course, the reader is of a certain theological view point. : )

valesse

bravo1102
How can the reign of a monarch be considered successful if it alienates nearly the entire population?

"Successor" in the sense of following Ahkenhaten in the line of Pharoah. I don't believe anything else implies either reign being successful, unless, of course, the reader is of a certain theological view point. : )

My mistake. My reading glasses and that grey thing in my head were misaligned.

As for that certain POV: it has been theorized that Ahkenhaten's monotheism influenced the beliefs of the Hebrews living in Egypt at the time.

This was the theme behind the book and movie The Egyptian where a dying Ahkhenaten says that he confused the sun as god with the light of a single god and of course the people building his new capitol were Hebrews.

In the same vein: Yehweh, the god of the ancient Hebrews originally had a goddess consort. When the Old Testament speaks of trying to wipe out worship of a female deity that is who many scholars agree they were referring to.

Crystal skulls were regularly made by craftsmen in Germany during the 18th-19th Centuries using foot pedal run drills. When one that is known to have been produced then is compared to one of "mysterious" crystal skulls, they are found to be annoyingly similar even almost identical in workmenship.

The term "little green men" comes from one of first sightings of flying saucer occupants in the late 1940s.

bravo1102
The term "little green men" comes from one of first sightings of flying saucer occupants in the late 1940s.

I'm pretty sure I've seen them on pulp covers from the 30's, and they were certainly enough of them in the stories themselves from then, and the 20's.

Pretty sure.

ozoneocean

bravo1102
The term "little green men" comes from one of first sightings of flying saucer occupants in the late 1940s.

I'm pretty sure I've seen them on pulp covers from the 30's, and they were certainly enough of them in the stories themselves from then, and the 20's.

Pretty sure.

I'm pretty sure bravo1102 was referring to using the phrase "little green men" in talking about aliens, not necessarily that aliens weren't actually depicted that way. Though the phrase did become very popular in the 1950's, it had been used previously. Wikipedia has an article talking about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men [en.wikipedia.org]

I was referring to the reference in Behind the Flying Saucers and the 1955 sighting when the phrase passed into common usage for "real "aliens as opposed to SF stories. According to UFO lore the rancher who found the Roswell crash is reputed to have said "You know how they say 'little green men'? Well they ain't green"

Interesting that they found the first specific reference in 1899 during the Great Airship Craze.

Immediately before the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill there was both a movie and episode of the Outer Limits featuring almond eyed bald aliens (both were black and white) Their description of the aliens matched that of the aliens in the movie and TV series.

The first man to fly over Australia was Harry Houdini. (According to Paul Harvey anyway)

Possibly Apocrphyal: The New Zealand army started scrunching the crown of their wide brimmed slouch hats into the familar lemon-squeezer shape so they wouldn't be mistaken for Australians.

The British tank uniform in World War One included a chain mail facemask.

The bodkin arrow head used at Agincourt against plate armored knights and the long rod penetrator of a modern anti-tank (APFSDS) round work on the same principle and are nearly identical in shape, even to both having stabilizing fins. (APFSDS=Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot)

The first German Bundeswehr vehicle to roll into Croatia with NATO for peacekeeping had the legend "We're Back" scrawled across the front. This was a reference to the German occupation of Yugoslavia in WWII and that Croatia was allied to Germany.

- There is evidence that prehistoric man, like the ever famous "Ice Man" of the Alps, used moss as toilet paper.

- There are three different kinds of Yeti according to the beliefs of the Nepalesse: Yeh-Teh (the smallest), Meh-Teh, and Dzu-Teh.

- The suffix "-chester" commonly found in British village names is derived from the Latin "castra" which means military camp which was the settlements' original function.

- In Middle English there were two forms of pronouns which could be used to refer to others, one being the 'polite' form ("you/ye" ), the other 'intimate' (thou/thee). There are other modern languages (such as French) which still have this construction.

Middle English being a extremely Germanic language still had the Formal and informal pronouns. English: you/thee/thou German: du/sie/ihr

Modern German has retained the informal/formal but for how long? An increasing number of young German people today do not use the formal pronouns.

I found having a background in German when reading Chaucer made things so much easier.

As much as one third of the words in Modern English may have roots in Old Norse rather than Anglo-Saxon (Old English) with Middle English being the bastard child of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse. J.R.R. Tolkien was fluent in both of the latter languages and could conduct long conversations in either language.

The "Lord of the Rings" originally referred to Anglo-Saxon kings who bound their vassals to them by giving them rings.

During the Middle Ages, most kings of England couldn't and didn't speak English. Being of Norman ancestry they spoke French.

Ah, that's an interesting topic.

England has been dominated by a the Germanic/scandinavian peoples for an extremely long time.

The original populace of most of the isles all the way to Ireland came from the Basque region of Spain. Later on successive waves of peoples from the European "continent" colonised, the Celts being a very notable early group of disparate peoples who came from Asia somewhere originally. The funny thing about that is that each group, though fairly small compared to those already there, would tend to dominate the rest and replace the culture. The Celts did it, then the Romans...

Then the Germanic peoples; Angles, Saxons, Jutes... Vikings. But the Vikings did it in reverse, they'd dominate and then assimilate with the culture already there. And so Vikings did that in France and became known as "Normans". But as Normans they were like the rest again: replacing the culture. The funny thing there though is that although they brought French ways, they were essentially Norse immigrants; yet more Germanic peoples dominating the British Isles.

And then the French ways they brought with them had much the same origins as early British culture anyway- Celts with culture Latinised by the Romans...

And much later on England returned to having quite a Germanic royal family, very true to its origins. :)

Which means that nationality and origin of people means very little. What seems to be more important is the place people are at any given time and where they identify with most.

ozoneocean
Which means that nationality and origin of people means very little. What seems to be more important is the place people are at any given time and where they identify with most.

Except the French. Where ever they go they remain annoyingly French and make everyone who comes into contact with them French. ;) They were even imported to help people become French. huh!?

Though there is nothing wrong with the French. They're just so annoyingly French (especially Parisians) :)