I bet you didnt know that

Skylinehead

Wibbs wrote: »

Neither I'm afraid. Realist. Show me one shred of evidence that Irish nuns stuffed living infants into septic tanks as you hysterically claimed. Just one will do. Actually never mind, no doubt you'll respond with more waffle. Christ knows what the hell it had to do with an otherwise cool little thread. I suppose there's always one. =>:rolleyes:<=

Yes, never mind indeed. This is the best thread in AH and the crap stops here.

Autochange

Skylinehead wrote: »

Yes, never mind indeed. This is the best thread in AH and the crap stops here.

Hm I didnt mean to totally derail the thread. i will cease and desist immediately.
Peace

Ipso

Inbreeding and the fall of the Habsburgs.

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/14/how-inbreeding-killed-off-a-line-of-kings/

Greybottle

The mechanism for holding and releasing the 'Fat Man' atomic bomb, which was dropped on Nagasaki, was designed and built by Zeppo Marx of the Marx brothers.

Whispered

Autochange wrote: »

I felt that you needed to know what happened.

I know as well as most within my generation. With a family member who is a survivor of such a place and who lost a sibling in one. It isn't relevant to what I said, in any way.

Professor Moriarty

Omackeral wrote: »

You're right.

Did you know the little plastic bits at the end of your shoelaces are called aglets?

Did you know that the dots on the letters 'i' and 'j' are called a tittles? That's tittles.

Did you know that the words bookkeeping/bookkeeper are among the only words to have 3 double letters in a row?

Did you know that Mr Owl ate my metal worm spelled backwards is the exact same as it is frontwards?

Did you know that there is a word for that? Palindrome.

Wibbs

You know when you hear someone joke they're having a drink "for medicinal purposes"?. In the case of gin and tonic that's precisely how it became popular. In the Far East in the 19th century people, particularly European imperial people were dropping like flies from malaria and we couldn't be having that, what what. Someone "discovered" that a powder made from a particular tree helped protect and reduce symptoms of said disease. Well the "natives" had discovered it long before, but you know how that goes... It was called quinine. Now it tasted like crap, so they started adding sugar and limes to it, but it still tasted nasty. The British army types who already had a daily gin ration added that to the sugar and quinine water mixture and that tasted much better and no doubt tasted better and better the more one drank and the gin and tonic was invented.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Omackeral wrote: »

Did you know that the dots on the letters 'i' and 'j' are called a tittles? That's tittles.?

Yes, post #1593 told even those who didn't know so 6 weeks ago.


Thomas Jefferson invented Macaroni and Cheese.

There has been some reference to Doctor McCarthy from Castletownbere.

How about this character who is buried in Cork. He served in the Boer War, WWI and WWI, was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip and ear (shot at BOTH Passchendaele and the Somme, survived both...and later said he rather enjoyed the War!), tunnelled out of a POW Camp, amputated his own fingers, and served as Winston Churchill's personal assistant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart

Grayson

Wibbs wrote: »

You know when you hear someone joke they're having a drink "for medicinal purposes"?. In the case of gin and tonic that's precisely how it became popular. In the Far East in the 19th century people, particularly European imperial people were dropping like flies from malaria and we couldn't be having that, what what. Someone "discovered" that a powder made from a particular tree helped protect and reduce symptoms of said disease. Well the "natives" had discovered it long before, but you know how that goes... It was called quinine. Now it tasted like crap, so they started adding sugar and limes to it, but it still tasted nasty. The British army types who already had a daily gin ration added that to the sugar and quinine water mixture and that tasted much better and no doubt tasted better and better the more one drank and the gin and tonic was invented.

Also on a gin related note.

Dutch courage (see also: potvaliancy)[1] refers to courage gained from intoxication with alcohol.
The popular story dates the etymology of the term to English soldiers fighting in the Thirty Years' War. One version states that Dutch gin was used by English soldiers for its believed warming properties on the body in cold weather and its calming effects before battle; another version states that English soldiers noted the bravery-inducing effects of jenever's liquor on Dutch soldiers and dubbed it "Dutch Courage". Gin would go on to become popular in England thanks to King William III, who was also Stadtholder of the Netherlands, better known as William of Orange (1689-1702).

phill106

Django99 wrote: »

If you can name me a country that hasn't committed human rights atrocities in its history

San marino

Wibbs

phill106 wrote: »

San marino

To be fair the place is the size of a postage stamp and not a very large one and not around for very long. More a village state than a nation. IIRC it's the second smallest state in Europe(the world?) after the Vatican.

The Vatican's fortunes rose and fell. Before the unifatcion of Italy in the 19th century it controlled a fair chunk of the country(and wasn't that often the seat of the various popes). Then when Italy became Italy they took all the church lands leaving them with the Vatican. This did not go down well with the Church. There was little it could do however as it was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and nearly went over it. They were saved by none other than Mussolini who threw a big wad of cash at them. They invested that and through the Vatican bank made squillions and some have suggested, with good reasons, that much of it was dubious money to say the least.

cdeb

Not around for very long?

San Marino is the oldest sovereign state in the world.

Sounds like you didn't know that.

New Home

Up to a few years ago, the IOR (the Vatican bank) was a majority shareholder in Beretta (the gun company). Talk about conflict of interests...!

Wibbs

The world's first successful "tinned goods" were actually stored in champagne bottles. The chap who came up with the idea was a French lad, somewhat versed in champagne and wine production. He cottoned onto the idea and process at exactly the right time. Napoleon was on his first European Tour, taking in such sights as any land grab he could make. Problem was and always was feeding his armies. Army marches on its stomach etc. His men couldn't even buy food locally as their French money was well worthless. It was pretty worthless in France but useless in Italy or Spain or wherever.

So said French lad comes along with preserved food in champagne bottles and the military jumped at it. They could now bring food with them. So did ordinary people. These preserves were dead fashionable at the time. A wonder of science. And why champagne bottles? Unlike other wines Champagne is under considerable pressure, so the glass is thicker and more robust and with his background in that area this bloke knew this. Tins came later and from the British and Dutch. Pity we never stuck with glass "tins". They don't need inner liner coatings and can be more easily recycled even repurposed.

Champagne itself was a mistake of sorts. The first sparkling wines over fermented and caused corks to pop and bottles to explode. Hence the thicker glass.

Glass is an interesting material and had a wider effect on world history than at first glance. One reason why Europe got an advantage over China was originally thought as a negative. China had fine porcelain. So they didn't really need glass, so rarely made it. Europe had earthenware which is OK but not as fine as porcelain. So Europe got into glass making from early on. This led to things like optics, which wouldn't have happened if Europe had relied on porcelain. It's often the little things that make the big differences.

We see this in printing. The east had it for ages before Europe. As did the Islamic world. However both had mad complex written languages whereas the Latin alphabet had 20 odd. Makes things much easier when dealing with movable type. Again porcelain makes an appearance here. Chinese movable type was made from porcelain, European type was made from metal(lead alloys). A lad by the name of Johnny Gutenberg who learnt his trade as a silversmith came up with the first workable process(based off the punches used for hallmarking precious metals). The upshot being that within a generation of it coming on the scene over twenty million books had been printed in Europe. In contrast in the Islamic world the first Quran was printed in Russia and didn't get a printing within the Islamic world until the late 19th century.

Capt'n Midnight

Wibbs wrote: »

IIRC it's the second smallest state in Europe(the world?) after the Vatican..

It works out at over 11 Popes per square mile.

Wibbs

cdeb wrote: »

Not around for very long?

San Marino is the oldest sovereign state in the world.

Sounds like you didn't know that.

I don't think people believe me when I say I don't google. Maybe I should. :-)

phill106

Wibbs wrote: »

To be fair the place is the size of a postage stamp and not a very large one and not around for very long. More a village state than a nation. IIRC it's the second smallest state in Europe(the world?) after the Vatican.

The Vatican's fortunes rose and fell. Before the unifatcion of Italy in the 19th century it controlled a fair chunk of the country(and wasn't that often the seat of the various popes). Then when Italy became Italy they took all the church lands leaving them with the Vatican. This did not go down well with the Church. There was little it could do however as it was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and nearly went over it. They were saved by none other than Mussolini who threw a big wad of cash at them. They invested that and through the Vatican bank made squillions and some have suggested, with good reasons, that much of it was dubious money to say the least.

stop changing the subject, just say it , phill you are right
besides its around for a while..

Independence from the Roman Empire
3 September 301 AD
Constitution 8 October 1600

Capt'n Midnight

Wibbs wrote: »

More a village state than a nation. IIRC it's the second smallest state in Europe(the world?) after the Vatican.

Ignoring makey-up stuff like Sealand there's number 68 Via dei Condotti , Rome.

A history going back to 1048, issuing their own stamp, biometric passports, diplomatic relations with 106 nations and permanent observer status with the UN, and their diplomats having diplomatic immunity in some countries, it ticks most of the "state" boxes.

cdeb

Monaco, Nauru and Tuvalu are all smaller too.

Nauru's economy was based on mining guano - bird **** - from its hill. When that ran out, they built a jail to hold aspiring immigrants to Australia, and that's now the main basis for its evening.

Omackeral

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Did you know that there is a word for that? Palindrome.

Yes I did and I'm disgusted it's not a palindromic word itself.

Omackeral

Anders Shy Aircraft wrote: »

Yes, post #1593 told even those who didn't know so 6 weeks ago.


Thomas Jefferson invented Macaroni and Cheese.

Both of them? Wow.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Omackeral wrote: »

Both of them? Wow.

You're hilarious :rolleyes:

But he did invent a macaroni extruding device.

New Home

New Home wrote: »

Up to a few years ago, the IOR (the Vatican bank) was a majority shareholder in Beretta (the gun company). Talk about conflict of interests...!

Interesting so I checked it out. It seems it's an unsubstantiated online story from 2012,
denied entirely by Beretta, it seems.

New Home

I heard it a few years before that, maybe 2008 or 2009, and frankly I'm not be overly surprised that Beretta denied it. I'll see if I can dig out more about it.

Speedsie

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Ignoring makey-up stuff like Sealand there's number 68 Via dei Condotti , Rome.

A history going back to 1048, issuing their own stamp, biometric passports, diplomatic relations with 106 nations and permanent observer status with the UN, and their diplomats having diplomatic immunity in some countries, it ticks most of the "state" boxes.

The Order of Malta? And we got our first Knight of Malta in 5 centuries only a few years ago!

Wibbs

Speaking of malaria and gin and tonics... The name of the disease is an interesting one and survives as an echo of what was once accepted medical thought. Malaria, "bad air" in Italian. The theory went - and it had a long history, all the way back to the greeks - that illnesses and especially epidemics were caused by "miasmas", the smells, the bad air given off by rotting matter. Within such miasmas the theory went that there were tiny particles of infection that when breathed in would cause disease(they were kinda on the right track to be fair). The theory led to some very welcome changes in city planning and water treatment. And again did so from way back. The Romans threw lots of cash and time at clearing and drain swamps near major towns.

Adyx

Tonic water glows under a UV light.

Conchir

There's a pizzeria in Nome, Alaska, which will deliver for free to extremely remote locations hundreds of miles away from it (such as islands in the Bering Sea which use ice runways in Winter, or isolated coast guard stations).

How? It just puts them on Bering Air flights departing Nome Airport.

begbysback

I'd send it back, would be freezing