I bet you didnt know that

Capt'n Midnight

Candie wrote: »

Hunger kills more people worldwide than the 'Big Three' diseases - HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis - combined.

UNICEF said that in 2010 22,000 children under 5 die each day. This is mostly due to poverty

in other news

8 men have accumulated as much wealth as half the world's population.

New Home

I definitely didn't know this one... I'm not sure I'd have wanted to know, but it's too late now.

maudgonner

readytosnap wrote: »

That explains why the muppets were being fisted during their performance.

Those particular muppets also look quite a lot like blow up sex dolls :eek:

fiachr_a

Anders Shy Aircraft wrote: »

It was actually sandy brown, or mousy, rather than blonde.

Couldn't be blonde anyway because that's for a woman.

steddyeddy

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

UNICEF said that in 2010 22,000 children under 5 die each day. This is mostly due to poverty

in other news

8 men have accumulated as much wealth as half the world's population.

All a bit sickening really

Wanderer78

steddyeddy wrote: »

All a bit sickening really

ah dont worry, it ll all 'trickle down':rolleyes:

steddyeddy

Wanderer78 wrote: »

ah dont worry, it ll all 'trickle down':rolleyes:

And I'm sure it's all hard earned and the poor are lazy ect ect.

Wanderer78

steddyeddy wrote: »

And I'm sure it's all hard earned and the poor are lazy ect ect.

they should be all killed off, lazy bastards:D

Yet another Irish-Russian connection, this time highlighted in The Irish Times today:

The Limerick nurse who was nanny to children of the last tsar

She even wrote a memoir about her time serving the Romanovs:

Margaretta Eagar, Six Years at the Russian Court (1906)

Margaretta Eagar (1863-1936)

Another Irish-Russian connection: Limerick's Peter Lacy (1678-1751), one of the most successful of the Wild Geese (his son, too, became extremely successful in Austria as Field Marshal Franz Moritz von Lacy (1725-1801))

He is barely known of in Ireland, but was fascinatingly successful in expanding the 18th-century post-Peter the Great state and making Russia into a major European power (Sweden had been the major northern European power prior to Peter the Great westernising the Russian court, military technology and tactics).

His career had shades of Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon about it. He fought against the Williamite forces in Ireland in the 1690s, fled Ireland and fought in an Irish regiment in France. Lacy then went on and fought in Poland for years, before being recommended to the Tsar. He went to Russia, where he became spectacularly successful as a general.

Peter Lacy, ‘the Prince Eugene of Muscovy'

IvyTheTerrible

If you were ever wondering why A4 paper is smaller than A3 or where the size comes from, here it is!
The standard base size of a sheet of paper is the A0 size, which has an area of 1m squared, and a ratio of 1 x sqrt of 2 (so 841 by 1,189 millimetres). Then to get the next size down, you divide the page in half on the longest side. The numbers after the A correspond to how many times the base page has been divided in half.

Red Kev

The standard Euro pallet is 1200mm X 800mm, or almost 1 sq Metre. The size was chosen so it can fit through a standard door opening (DIN size is 850mm) and it will fit easily into a truck or shipping container lengthways or longways.

A typical truck is 2500mm wide, the side walls are typicall 2.5 cm thick, giving 2.45m interior space and leaving 5 cm room for manouvering the pallets and making them easier to position or remove. There are about 500,000,000 Euro pallets in circulation worldwide at any given time.

Red Kev

The first car to use what is considered to be the standardised layout of a car as we use it today was the Cadillac Type 53 of 1916.

By standardised layout it is meant that the handbrake and gear lever are between the seats, clutch pedal on the left, brake in the middle and accelerator on the right and the vehicle is started by an ignition key or start button on the dashboard.

Very few were built. The first mass produced car to use this layout was the Austin 7 ("Baby 7") of 1922. The 7 remains one of the smallest cars ever built and BNW built a licenced copy of it, the Dixi as it's first ever car in 1928.

Red Kev

King Charles XII of Sweden was the last European head of state to die in battle. He was killed at the Siege of Friedriksen in 1718. It is still unsure as to how he was actually killed; theories range from, being killed by a direct shot from the enemy, or also possibly by friendly fire, or also by one of his own soldiers having a breakdown and killing him. His body has been exhumed three times to study his injuries, in 1746, 1859 and 1917. He was in a remarkably well preserved condition.

Here he is in 1917, 200 years after his death (NSFW) and another one: (more NSFW than the last).

The last acting European head of state to fight in battle was Josef Pilsudski of Poland during the Russo-Polish War in 1920.

Napoleon III was captured at the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. He knew the battle was lost and tried to get himself killed, but failed, was captured and went into exile, thus giving rise to the Third French Republic.

George II was the last English monarch to fight in battle in 1743.

Edward Heath was the last UK PM to see active service, he fought in WWII.

Harold Wilson attempted to join the army at the outbreak of WWII, but was deemed to be far too valuable as a statistician to be sent to the front and was ordered to join the civil service instead.

Buford T. Justice XIX

British astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus on March 13th, 236 years ago today.

http://www.businessinsider.com/when-uranus-discovered-william-herschel-2017-3?amp

Boom_Bap

The word Australia has 3 letters 'a'.


Each one is pronounced differently.

Lady Haywire

Boom_Bap wrote: »

The word Australia has 3 letters 'a'.


Each one is pronounced differently.

And now everyone has just said the word Australia really weirdly, either out loud or in their head

sharpey85

Barcelona were once managed by an Irishman.

Patrick Joseph O'Connell was his name.

Bassfish

Captain_Crash wrote: »

In keeping with WWII, the Saturn V rocket that launched man to the moon was just a beefed up V2 rocket, and a large number of the scientists involved in NASA were former nazi scientists.

The V2 apparently hit the ground at over three miles per second. The explosive ordinance on-board was actually redundant as the destruction was caused by the kinetic energy when it hit the ground.

Esel

Bassfish wrote: »

The V2 apparently hit the ground at over three miles per second. The explosive ordinance on-board was actually redundant as the destruction was caused by the kinetic energy when it hit the ground.

10,800 mph - really?

Wikipedia says:

Speed

maximum:5,760 km/h (3,580 mph)

at impact: 2,880 km/h (1,790 mph)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket

Omackeral

Boom_Bap wrote: »

The word Australia has 3 letters 'a'.


Each one is pronounced differently.

50% of Canada is just the letter 'a'

GrumpyMe

Omackeral wrote: »

50% of Canada is just the letter 'a'

And allegedly half of what they say also...
But like the gent in the Green Mile - spelled different - "eh"
https://tinyurl.com/gqyckq2

jimgoose

Esel wrote: »

10,800 mph - really?...

The vehicle would have suffered severe damage, possibly even been destroyed, by heat from atmospheric friction at 10,000 mph+, which is around Mach 14.

Riddle101

Ireland once had the Russian crown jewels in it's possession. The first Dáil Éireann made a loan deal with Russia. They were given a selection of the Russian crown jewels as collateral. Harry Boland was the one who brought them to Ireland and his mother kept them at her house for safe keeping. They remained at Catherine Boland's house all through the civil war. The jewels were eventually returned to the Russians years later.

Here's a little bit on it.

Sir, – I read with interest the article on Bram Stoker (Property, January 26th). However, I would like to correct the matter referred to in the last two paragraphs.
My grandmother, Catherine Boland, resided in the same house and my uncle Harry also stayed there occasionally. A part of the Russian crown jewels were left with my grandmother for safe keeping when Uncle Harry brought them with him on a return trip from the US where he was special representative of the first Dáil Éireann. The jewels were given as security for a loan of $20,000 given by the Irish delegation to Ludwig Martens, the new Russian government representative. Michael Collins did not want the responsibility of looking after these jewels and he asked Harry to ask his mother to hold them, which she did, hiding them at 15 Marino Crescent. They remained safely there during the Civil War when Harry was assassinated and Michael Collins killed. When the Free State party was defeated by De Valera and Fianna Fáil, my uncle, Senator Seán O’Donovan, who was married to my aunt Kathleen, handed these jewels over to the government and received an official acknowledgment from the Department of Foreign Affairs. The jewels were eventually reclaimed by the Russian government and the $20,000 loan was repaid. – Yours, etc,

FallSilently

"My cocaine" sounds like "Michael Caine" if you pronounce it like Michael Caine would.

Boom_Bap

FallSilently wrote: »

"My cocaine" sounds like "Michael Caine" if you pronounce it like Michael Caine would.

Say "Beer can". Now say "Beer Can" again.

Now you know how to say "Bacon" in a Jamaican accent.

Big Nasty

FallSilently wrote: »

"My cocaine" sounds like "Michael Caine" if you pronounce it like Michael Caine would.

Michael Caine is 84 today.

Not a lot of people know that.

readytosnap

Rap is 75% Crap

MyStubbleItches

readytosnap wrote: »

Rap is 75% Crap

Incorrect.

Omackeral

readytosnap wrote: »

Rap is 75% Crap

MyStubbleItches wrote: »

Incorrect.

Nope, he's absolutely right. Check again.