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Fact of the Day - PANDAS

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Did you know.... When we think of giant pandas, we think of lovely black and white bears. They are cute and have many fans all over the world. But do you really know pandas? The following are 15 interesting giant panda facts to help you know more about them.

 

1. A panda year is equivalent to three human years.

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A panda year is equivalent to about three human years in terms of life expectancy. Giant pandas live 18–20 years in the wild and 25 to 30 years in captivity. The world's oldest giant panda was Xinxing (‘New Star') in Chongqing Zoo at 38 years old and four months (1982–2020). That's the equivalent of 115 human years.

 

2. Pandas have 6 "fingers"!
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A panda's 6th "finger" is like a human thumb. It has the same function as a thumb, but it is actually an unusual wrist bone or opposable paw heel with strong muscles but no movable joints, which allows it to grasp food.  They can press the bamboo into fat cigar shapes with their 6th digits for efficient eating.

 

3. Pandas will abandon a child if she has twins.

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Wild pandas usually have just one cub, while pandas in captivity are more likely to have twins. In the wild, if the mother panda has two cubs, she will only feed the one she thinks is stronger. The other one is left to fend for itself.  The reason for this is that a newborn cub is very weak. Cubs start eating bamboo at around 12 months of age, but until then they are completely dependent on their mother. So, in the wild, female pandas don't have sufficient milk or energy to care for two cubs. A cub stays with its mother until she is pregnant again, when the cub is about a year and a half old. If the mother does not become pregnant, the cub will stay with its mother until it is two and a half years old. 

 

4. Pandas like climbing trees and can swim.

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Giant pandas are good tree climbers. They can climb trees from 7 months old. In the wild, giant pandas (particularly cubs) climb trees to avoid their enemies and survey their surroundings. As it is safer in a tree, many giant pandas like to sleep in trees.  Sometimes, they just climb to look at the scenery.  Giant pandas are bears, and like other bears, they can swim.

 

5. Eating and sleeping make up pandas' daily life.

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A typical 45-kilo (100-pound) adult spends as long as 12 hours eating 12 to 38 kilos (26–84 lb) of bamboo a day. Pandas can reach 150 kg (330 lb) in captivity and eat even more! When not eating and looking for food, pandas sleep most of the rest of the time. In the wild, giant pandas sleep for two to four hours between feeds.

 

6. Pandas are loners.

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Giant pandas are solitary animals. In the wild, they have their own territory, and they do not allow it to be invaded by other pandas. That's because giant pandas feed on bamboo and do not need to hunt cooperatively. They need to eat a lot of bamboo to meet their nutritional needs.  If giant pandas lived in groups, there would be conflict over getting enough bamboo, which would negatively affect the survival of all. A panda usually needs its own 3–8 square kilometers (1–3 square miles) of bamboo forest to survive.

 

Click the link below ⏬to know about Pandas.

 

 

Source: Fun Pandas Facts You Didn't Know

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Fact of the Day - ACRONYM

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Did you know... At its most basic, an acronym is a word formed from the letters of the words it represents, generally the first letter of each word, but sometimes syllables or other parts of the word. Some acronyms have become so ubiquitous that they are no longer thought of as acronyms, but are more commonly used as words in and of themselves. These acronyms in particular primarily grew out of World War II and the mid-20th century generation.

 

1. RADAR

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While the term started out as an acronym — standing for “RAdio Detection And Ranging,” “radar” is a technology used for many things, defined as “a system for detecting the presence, direction, distance and speed of aircraft, ships and other objects, by sending out pulses of high-frequency electromagnetic waves that are reflected off the object back to the source.” While the technology was developed over years by many scientists, Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt discovered its use for detecting enemy aircraft during WWII. While it’s still used in these sorts of military and detection contexts, it’s also now used more casually and metaphorically, as in, “Hey, I want to put this project on your radar.”

 

2. UFO

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“UFO” stands for “Unidentified Flying Object,” and first emerged in 1953 amid the era’s space craze. The interest in potential alien visitors began a few years earlier, when, in the summer of 1947, a private pilot named Kenneth Arnold described seeing nine objects flying in close formation at a seemingly supernatural speed in Washington state. He described them as “flat like a pie and somewhat bat-shaped,” and that they “flew like a saucer would if you skipped across water.” From there, journalists began referring to them as flying saucers, which eventually became “UFO.” One important distinction: technically, “UFO” is an initialism rather than a strict acronym, since the letters themselves are pronounced rather than a whole new word.

 

3. CARE (Package)

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Lucky summer campers and college students might receive a care package from mom when they are away from home for the first time. Colloquially, this is “a parcel of food, money, or luxury items sent to a loved one who is away.” However, the acronym comes from a program known as the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe. The first CARE package arrived in Le Havre, France, in May 1946, beginning a wave of responses to millions in need of food and other supplies at the end of WWII. The CARE packages usually contained staples such as butter, dried milk, canned meat, and even chocolate or chewing gum.

 

4. SCUBA

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You can’t get your SCUBA certification without learning what this acronym stands for. It means "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus," which is a pretty straightforward description of the equipment and the activity. The term originated in 1952, and “scuba-diving” came around by 1956.

 

5. SWAK

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SWAK” is still defined as an acronym in the dictionary, meaning “sealed with a kiss.” During the war, soldiers and their sweethearts might write SWAK on the back of an envelope, perhaps even with a lipstick imprint. But as the war continued, soldiers and civilians came up with even more acronyms to express their love. Some were romantic (“OOLAAKOEW” meant “Oceans Of Love And A Kiss On Every Wave”), and some were more risqué (“CHINA” meant “Come Home, I’m Naked Already”).

 

6. SONAR

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Similar to "radar," "SONAR" refers to a different type of ranging. Instead of radio detection, this one’s all about using sound to navigate — it stands for "Sound Navigation Ranging." It entered the language in 1946.

 

 

Source: Words You Might Not Know Are Acronyms

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Fact of the Day - FAMOUS TEACHERS

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Did you know.... Most of us can recall at least one teacher who made the classroom fun, inspired a love for learning, and provided sincere encouragement. While these wonderful educators are remembered by those who benefited from their lessons, they are often unheralded in the bigger picture. After all, the best teachers tend to keep the focus on their students, rather than themselves. Nevertheless, the legacies of some teachers have endured through time thanks to their groundbreaking contributions to the classroom — and beyond. Here are nine who truly deserved every apple placed on their desks.

 

1. Socrates

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Cutting a distinct figure in fifth century BCE Athens with his unkempt clothing and long hair, Socrates conducted his “classes” in the marketplace and other public areas by engaging passersby in discussions designed to winnow out the truths of existence from popular wisdom and ingrained assumptions. Ironically, he claimed he wasn't a teacher during his trial for corrupting the minds of Athenian youth, though that may have been part of what was ultimately a failed attempt to stave off execution. Socrates is remembered today as a towering figure in the formation of Western philosophy, while his “Socratic method” survives as a proven tool for fostering debate in the classroom. His method also lived on in his most famous student: Plato.

 

2. Anne Sullivan

Rendered partially blind by disease and orphaned at an early age, Anne Sullivan had already faced numerous challenges by the time she agreed to teach a 6-year-old deaf and blind girl named Helen Keller. Sullivan famously penetrated her student's shell by holding one of Keller's hands under running water and tracing the word "water" on the other, commencing a series of accomplishments that remain awe-inspiring more than a century later. With Sullivan — who is often referred to as the “Miracle Worker” — at her side, Keller went on to publish an autobiography in 1903, graduate from Radcliffe College in 1904, and embark on a career as a world-famous humanitarian. As Bishop James E. Freeman eulogized at Sullivan's funeral in 1936, "The touch of her hand did more than illuminate the pathway of a clouded mind; it literally emancipated a soul."

 

3. William Holmes McGuffey

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William Holmes McGuffey served as a professor and college president at several schools from the late 1820s into the early 1870s. But his greatest contribution to academia came with McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers, the first textbooks to enjoy widespread use as the common school system found its footing in a rapidly developing nation. Expanding to a series of six books after the first two volumes appeared in 1836, the Readers progressed from the basics of the alphabet to advanced lessons in literacy, science, and history, eventually selling more than 100 million copies by 1900. McGuffey's Bible-based works largely disappeared from classrooms within a few decades, though they remain in print for those with a homeschool curriculum in mind.

 

4. Emma Willard

Born in Connecticut in 1787, Emma Willard saw her intellectual curiosity fostered by the progressive men in her life. Her father enrolled her at a local girls' school, and a nephew later provided instruction from his college geometry and philosophy courses. Willard sought to pass along similar educational opportunities to other girls, starting with the launch of the Middlebury Female Seminary from her Vermont home in 1814. Seven years later, she opened the Troy Female Seminary, the nation's first higher-education institution for women, in upstate New York. Willard stepped away from its day-to-day management in 1838, but the school, which opened with 61 boarding and 29 day students, continued its steady growth. By 1872, more than 12,000 students had passed through its doors. Now known as the Emma Willard School, it retains the lofty goals of its founder as one of the elite girls' college preparatory schools in the country.

 

5. Savitribai Phule

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Like Willard, India's Savitribai Phule was fortunate to find others willing to nurture what was a gifted, ambitious mind. Married at age 9, she learned to read and write from her husband, Jyotirao Phule, before pursuing a formal education that made her India’s first female teacher. Phule teamed with her husband to open a rare school for girls in 1848 — a move that ignited controversy in a country with strict societal codes but also garnered accolades from the British government. Although she eventually opened 18 schools, Phule's accomplishments as an educator form just one component of her outsized legacy. She also famously set up support systems for India's "untouchables," child brides, widows, and abused women as part of efforts to spark widespread social reform.

 

6. Maria Montessori

Already a distinct figure as one of Italy's first female physicians, Maria Montessori channeled her interest in childhood development into the launch of a daycare center in Rome in early 1907. She subsequently fine-tuned the "Montessori method," in which kids essentially learn subjects for themselves through immersion in preferred activities and adult guidance. Her schools spread to Europe and then the United States in 1911, before falling out of favor across the Atlantic by the 1920s. Montessori nevertheless continued writing and lecturing until she died in 1952, shortly before American educators began rediscovering the benefits of her methodology. Today, there are approximately 20,000 Montessori schools worldwide, with Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and former Amazon chief Jeff Bezos among the accomplished alumni.

 

7. Toru Kumon

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Amid a steady career as a high school math teacher in Osaka, Japan, Toru Kumon discovered that his young son was struggling to keep pace in his own math class. Kumon subsequently designed a series of worksheets for his son and, upon seeing notable improvement, began instructing other children around the city. In 1968, he retired from teaching to focus on his burgeoning educational service, which hit American shores in 1974. Unlike some of the other educators on this list, Kumon left little room for improvisation in a system that stressed the importance of rote memorization for his carefully detailed worksheets. But his Kumon Centers topped a total of 2 million enrolled students around the world before his death in 1995.

 

8. James Naismith

The first full-time athletics instructor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, James Naismith went on to spend four decades as a professor, coach, and athletic director at the University of Kansas. Of course, he's best known for his stint at the Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA International Training College in the early 1890s, during which time he was asked to develop a winter activity for the students. Naismith devised a game in which two teams of players scored points by lofting a ball into peach baskets fastened at opposite ends of the gym. His “basket ball” quickly caught on to the point where college teams were competing against one another by the mid-1890s, en route to expanding into a global sport with an estimated 450 million participants by the early 21st century.

 

9. Jaime Escalante

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A Bolivian immigrant who had to rebuild his educational credentials from scratch, Jaime Escalante wound up teaching remedial math at Garfield High in East Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. Unwilling to accept the low expectations the school placed on their students, Escalante launched an advanced placement (AP) calculus course in 1979, and alternately pushed, cajoled, and charmed his troubled students into becoming college-ready scholars. In an incident dramatized in the 1988 movie Stand and Deliver, all 18 of Escalante's students passed the AP calculus exam in 1982. However, many of the students made similar errors, which the Educational Testing Services assumed was them cheating. Eventually, the students were allowed to retake the difficult exam and again passed. By the time the famed teacher left Garfield High in 1991, a whopping 600 students at the once-underperforming school had accepted the challenge to take AP courses across a wide range of subjects.

 

 

Source: History’s Most Famous Teachers

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Fact of the Day - CRUISE SHIPS

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Did you know... For certain travelers, the idea of stepping aboard a ship and sailing to far-flung locales is vacation heaven. Some cruises have even taken amenities to the next level, with celebrity chefs, roller coasters, and zip lines. But have you ever wondered about the first cruise ships, or how big they can really get? Here are five fascinating facts you probably never knew about these behemoths of the sea.

 

1. The First Cruise Ship Set Sail in the 1900s

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While the cruise ships we’re familiar with today are imposing vessels that often resemble floating cities, the first officially recognized cruise was somewhat different. The Prinzessin Victoria Luise set sail on her maiden voyage in January 1901 and traveled from Hamburg, Germany, to New York. A converted ocean liner, the ship was designed to encourage affluent tourists to experience pleasure cruising, which was a new concept at the time. It was a modest 52 feet wide and 407 feet long, and could host up to 180 passengers. The man behind it all, Albert Ballin, is regarded as the father of modern cruise ship travel.

 

2. The World’s Largest Cruise Ship Is Almost Four Football Fields Long

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Today’s cruise ships have come a long way from their humble beginnings — they have turned into colossal ships that welcome thousands of passengers on board at a time. As of early 2022, the largest in the world is Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas. It stretches 1,188 feet long, which is equivalent to about four football fields, or twice the height of the Washington Monument. That’s not the only impressive fact, either: The 18-deck ship has a capacity for 6,988 guests, more than 30 dining venues, amenities like a zip line and rock climbing wall, and seven distinct themed neighborhoods. Yes, neighborhoods on a boat — it really is a floating city.

 

3. Crew Members Often Communicate Via Secret Code Words

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Anyone who's ever been on a cruise might have heard crew members speaking in what seems like riddles. That’s because, just like medical staff and soldiers, they use special code words to communicate situations and emergencies. For example, “alpha” or “sierra” means a medical emergency, and “bravo” means that there’s a fire onboard. In the event of someone going overboard, the word “oscar” is used on Royal Caribbean ships in particular. Other commonly heard codes are “30-30,” which is a call for maintenance to clean up a mess, and “PVI,” which is an abbreviation to indicate a public vomiting incident.

 

4. Cruise Ship Anchors Weigh the Equivalent of a Few Elephants

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In order to protect the seabed and ecosystem, cruise ships drop anchor only when completely necessary. When the need does arise, ships drop their huge corrosion-resistant metal anchors with the help of extra-long chains. The anchors themselves can be anywhere from 10 to 20 feet long and weigh between 10 and 20 tons. To put the weight in perspective, male African elephants weigh two to seven tons. With advancements in technology, the anchor could one day be a thing of the past. Some modern ships are already using a computer-controlled system called dynamic positioning (DP) to maintain their positions.

 

5. It’s Possible to Live Full Time on a Cruise Ship

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A life at sea isn’t for everyone, but some passengers hop on a cruise and make it their home — from anywhere from a few months at a time to buying a permanent residence. Long-term cruising is particularly popular among budget-savvy retirees. Many compare it to the cost of living in a retirement home and find it more economical. Aside from the obvious fact that one of these options is at sea, the two have notable similarities such as meals, organized activities, and room cleaning. Some cruisers jump from one ship to another, and others stay on the same ship constantly. For an upscale option, The World is the world’s largest private residential ship, with 165 permanent residences onboard.

 

 

Source: Facts You Might Not Know About Cruise Ships

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Fact of the Day - ROYAL LOVERS

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King Charles II's mistress, Barbara Palmer.

Did you know.... Wallis Simpson is one of the most famous women in British royal history: Her romance with Edward VIII led to the abdication of 1936 and changed the line of succession. Not only was Britain spared the reign of a very questionable king, but it led to the accession of his niece, Elizabeth II, who is Britain’s longest reigning monarch. And yet, despite her immense influence, Wallis was never queen. And like her, some of the most influential people in British history have been the monarch’s lover rather than their spouse. Here are 11 royal lovers who left their mark.

 

1. Piers Gaveston and Edward II

Piers Gaveston first met Edward in 1300 when he joined the Prince’s household. Both were about 16, and it was said that Edward “immediately felt such love for him that he entered into a covenant of constancy, and bound himself with him before all other mortals with a bond of indissoluble love, firmly drawn up and fastened with a knot.” There is no firm evidence that their relationship was sexual, but Edward was certainly devoted to Piers—to the detriment of others. Gaveston was low-born, arrogant, prone to insulting the nobility, and was hoovering up titles and wealth at the expense of those who thought themselves more entitled. The writer of the Vita Edwardi Secundi, a 14th-century chronicle of the king’s reign, declared that “I do not remember to have heard that one man so loved another … our king was incapable of moderate favour.” Edward created the title of Earl of Cornwall for him and gave him extensive lands. Edward also arranged for his niece, Margaret de Clare, to marry Piers. The one person who Gaveston seemed to show respect to was Edward’s wife, Isabella of France. Against Edward’s wishes, Gaveston was forced to leave England three times between 1307 and 1311, though he always came back. But by 1312 the nobility had had enough: Despite guarantees for his safety by the Earl of Pembroke, he was seized, subjected to a mock trial, and then executed on the orders of the Earl of Warwick. Edward’s bond with his barons never recovered; he spent the next 10 years plotting his revenge. He soon found another favorite in Hugh Despenser, and the same pattern began to repeat itself. But Despenser overstepped the mark when he appropriated Isabella’s lands and took control of her four children. In retaliation, she led a rebellion that resulted in Edward’s death in 1327 and the succession of their son, Edward III.

 

2. Alice Perrers and Edward III

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Edward III, King of England

Alice Perrers was the widow of the king’s jeweler, Janyn Perrers, and one of the queen’s damsels when she met Edward III. The most likely date for the beginning of their relationship is 1364, when she would have been no older than 18 and the king 55. The birth of the first of their three children sometime occurred between 1364 and 1366. There’s no record of Edward having a mistress before Perrers, and out of respect for his ailing wife, Phillippa of Hainault, the affair was initially kept low-key. Perrers became more prominent at court after Phillippa’s death in 1369. Over the next eight years, as the king’s health deteriorated, he showered her with gifts, gave her jewelry once belonging to the queen, made her his “Lady of the Sun” at a public tournament, and allowed her to accumulate enough land and wardships to make her the richest and most powerful woman in England. She was also an independent businesswoman, moneylender, and property owner, and although she remarried in 1375 (without the king’s knowledge), she retained her image as a self-reliant woman (a femme sole). Perrers was not the only person seeking to use the aging king’s failing mental health for their own end, but her gender made her a target for the chroniclers of the time. The most famous was Thomas of Walsingham’s unreliable description of her as “a shameless, impudent harlot … [who] was not attractive or beautiful, but knew how to compensate for these defects with the seductiveness of her voice.” Her business acumen only served to antagonize the patriarchal hierarchy further, and the Good Parliament of 1376 resulted in her temporary banishment. She soon returned and remained with the king until his death a year later in June 1377. Although Perrers was not responsible for many of the failings of Edward’s government at the end of his reign, the king’s reputation fell from one of respect and authority to someone whose mistress had “such a hold over him that he allowed important and weighty affairs of the realm to be decided on her advice.”

 

3. Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt
Katherine Swynford met John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and King Edward III’s third son, while she was a damoiselle in his wife Blanche’s household.  In September 1371, John married his second wife, Constance of Castille, following Blanche’s death. It was a purely dynastic union that gave the duke a claim to the Castilian throne. Swynford’s husband died two months later, leaving her a widow with three children. Though their relationship seems to have remained platonic prior to her husband’s passing, by spring 1372, Swynford was openly acknowledged as John’s mistress. Between 1373 and 1379, Swynford and John had four children, all given the surname Beaufort. By 1381, the duke’s reputation was at an all time low, and Swynford was targeted as “an abominable temptress.” John was forced to make a public denouncement of her and end the relationship, but this was a ruse. The two continued to meet in private. Constance died in 1394, and two years later, amid a public scandal, John and Swynford were married at Lincoln Cathedral. Their children were legitimized by the Pope and, despite being barred from the line of succession by John’s eldest son from his first marriage, Henry IV, they would in fact go on to change history. Every English monarch since Edward IV (1461) and Scottish monarch since James II (1437) has been descended from Swynford. She is also the ancestor of numerous American Presidents, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and George W. Bush.

 

4. Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII

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The coronation of Anne Boleyn.

For the four years after her return from the French court in 1522, Anne Boleyn lived a dazzling if inconspicuous life as a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon. If she had married Henry Percy, the future Earl of Northumberland, as she had hoped, she would have been just a footnote in history. But in 1526, she caught the attention of Henry VIII. Henry may never have set out to replace his wife with Boleyn. He had a history of infidelity and illegitimate children—including one with Anne’s sister, Mary. To further complicate matters, his Catholic faith prevented him from seeking a divorce. But Henry had only a daughter to succeed him and no male heir, and it was Boleyn’s good fortune that she was the woman who piqued his interest just when he came to the conclusion that he needed a new wife. Henry’s pursuit of Boleyn had repercussions that would irrevocably change England’s religious identity. The Reformation did not happen because of Anne Boleyn—it was already a growing force—but her continual assertion that she would not be just another mistress fueled Henry’s desire for the annulment from Katherine, no matter the cost. Boleyn’s own support for the reformers also significantly advanced Protestantism's progress in England. But their marriage only lasted a little over three years. At Henry’s connivance, Boleyn was charged with treason and executed on May 19, 1536.

 

5. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell and Mary I of Scotland
James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell—commonly known as Lord Bothwell and described by the English Ambassador as a “[vain] glorious, rash, and hazardous young man”—first met Mary in 1560 when she was still Queen of France. Although he was a Protestant, he was a supporter of the Scotland’s Catholic regent, and in 1561 he was appointed to the privy council by the newly widowed Mary on her return to Scotland. Despite being described as having a “near sybbe [close friendship] unto her grace,” there is no evidence that they were lovers at this time—in fact, Mary was said to be besotted by Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who she married in July 1565. There does seem to have been a change, however, by June 1566. The English diplomat Henry Killigrew wrote that, “Bothwell's credit with the Queen is greater than all the rest together.” Mary’s son, James, had been born five days before, and although there is no question that he was Darnley’s son, her relationship with her husband had now completely broken down thanks to his involvement in the murder of her secretary David Riccio the previous March. Mary’s relationship with Bothwell grew. When Darnley was found half-naked and smothered in the garden of his bombed house in 1567, both she and the earl were accused of arranging his murder. Abandoned by the Protestant nobles who had also been complicit, Mary continued to support her lover and sat on the sidelines as he was prosecuted and acquitted for Darnley’s murder. It seems likely that she knew of his plan to abduct her on April 24, 1567, although perhaps not of the violent assault that followed. With her position compromised, and no one left to support her, she married Bothwell on May 15, 1567. After being forced to abdicate because of the scandal, Mary fled to England where she was executed on February 8, 1587, for plotting to murder Elizabeth I.

 

6. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and Elizabeth I

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Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester.

Although Elizabeth may have known Robert Dudley as a child, and may have even had contact with him during her imprisonment in the Tower of London, any relationship that existed between them probably didn’t start until sometime shortly before her accession in 1558. By then he was already firmly entrenched as one of her most intimate advisors, and within a year she had become so emotionally reliant on him that the Spanish Ambassador noted that “they say she is in love with Lord Robert and never lets him leave her.” Dudley already had a wife, who now prevented him from marrying the queen. He had wed Amy Robsart for love as a teenager in 1550. If Elizabeth ever intended to marry Dudley, Amy’s death under suspicious circumstances in 1560 ended any chance of that. Elizabeth was too savvy a politician to risk her throne as Mary I of Scotland had, and although Dudley would spend the next 18 years trying to get her to change her mind, Elizabeth never married him. There is no evidence that they were ever physically lovers—the Spanish Ambassador recorded that Elizabeth herself swore that “as God was her witness nothing improper had ever passed between them,” and Robert had numerous sexual relationships with other women, including Lettice Devereux, who he married in 1578. But despite this, they were inseparable until Dudley’s death in 1588 and it’s said he remained her great love. Elizabeth was reportedly never happy when he was absent, and politician Sir Thomas Shirley told Dudley in 1586 that “you knowe the queen and her nature best of anny man.” She kept the last letter Dudley ever sent her in a casket by her bedside until she died in 1603.

 

Click the link below ⏬ to read more about Royal Lovers in British History.

 

 

Source: Most Influential Royal Lovers in British History

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Fact of the Day - DEATH-RELATED IDIOMS

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Did you know..... In 2016, Chapman University conducted a survey of 1511 Americans to gauge their concern over common fears, including crime, natural disasters, and clowns. Predictably, the notion of death was on the minds of many. Roughly 38 percent of respondents said that the idea of a loved one dying made them afraid or very afraid. Approximately 19 percent feared their own death. That last statistic may speak less to fear of dying than our preference to simply not think about it. We often obscure or obfuscate our own mortality by ignoring it, joking about it, or cloaking it in a way that allows us to avoid confronting the reality that our bodies have expiration dates. For centuries, idioms have allowed us to dance around the topic, trading euphemisms for blunt language. Take a look at some of the more common expressions for death and their possible origins.

 

1. BUYING THE FARM

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A person who has ceased to be is sometimes said to have "bought the farm." This agricultural expression may have roots in the plight of military pilots in the 20th century. If a fighter jet crashed on a farm, the farm owner could theoretically sue the government for damages. In a roundabout way, the settlement might pay for the farmland, with the expired pilot having "bought" the property. Alternatively, the pilot's family might receive an insurance payment sufficient to pay off their farm mortgage. Another theory? The phrase stemmed from the idea of "the farm" as slang for a burial plot; "bought it" is also an older slang term for died.

 

2. DEAD AS A DOORNAIL

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Why would anyone associate someone's health—or lack thereof—with carpentry? The earliest usage of someone being "dead as a doornail" dates to a 1350 translation of the anonymous 12th-century French poem Guillaume de Palerne. William Shakespeare used it in Henry VI, Part 2, written around 1591, and Charles Dickens in 1843's A Christmas Carol, writing that "Old Marley was as dead as a door nail," then going on to explain (via the narrator) that he wasn't quite sure why it wouldn't be "coffin nail" thanks to its status as "the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade." One possible explanation is that wooden doors were often secured with nails that were hammered through and then bent on the protruding side for added strength. Once this process, called "clenching," was performed, the nail was basically useless for any other purpose. The idiom may also refer to the effort involved in driving the nail through the door. Struck with blunt force by a hammer, the nail was effectively "dead" from the trauma.

 

3. CROSSING THE RAINBOW BRIDGE

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A forlorn announcement of a pet's passing sometimes includes mention of the beloved animal "crossing the rainbow bridge." While the phrase is common on social media, its origins date to the pre-Facebook 1980s. Three authors have all claimed to have written a poem using the language, which refers to a mythical connection between heaven and Earth. On the crossing, pet and owner are said to be reunited. The idea of a rainbow-colored crossing may have stemmed from Norse mythology and the Bifröst bridge, which connected Midgard and Asgard.

 

4. SIX FEET UNDER

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As idioms go, this one is rather pointed. To die is to often be buried six feet underground. But why six feet? Blame the plague. In 1665, when the illness swept England, London's Lord Mayor ordered that corpses be buried no less than six feet deep in an effort to help limit the spread of the pestilence that eventually took more than an estimated 100,000 lives. There is no such regulation today, and graves can be as shallow as four feet.

 

5. PUSHING UP THE DAISIES

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This gardening-related euphemism takes a pleasant visual (daisies) to soften the subject (the rotting corpse residing underneath). The earliest incarnation of the phrase may have been to "turn one's toes to the daisies." A version appears in the story "The Babes in the Wood," in Richard Harris Barham's Ingoldsby Legends folklore collection of the 1840s, which used the expression "be kind to those dear little folks/When our toes are turned up to the daisies." Another variation, "I shall very soon hide my name under some daisies," was used by Scottish author George MacDonald in 1866.

 

Click below ⏬ to read more of theses idioms.

 

 

Source: The Macabre Origins of 10 Death-Related Idioms

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Fact of the Day - CONTRIBUTIONS FROM INDIGENOUS NATIONS

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Did you know.... The human history of the United States begins with Native Americans. After stewarding the land for generations, Indigenous peoples introduced Europeans to “new food plants, new drugs, new dyes, tobacco, unheard-of languages, novel modes of life,” and much more, as the historian A. Irving Hallowell wrote back in 1957. This Thanksgiving, here’s a look at just a few of the ways Indigenous peoples impacted American culture.

 

1. Powhatan and Patuxet: Aided in the Survival of Early Settlers

The survival of America’s first white settlements hinged on the knowledge of the native population. The settlers at Jamestown would have likely perished during the brutal winter of 1609-1610 were it not for the help of Powhatan captives, who managed 40 acres of maize. The same was true of the Mayflower pilgrims in Massachusetts, who learned how to plant corn thanks to the teachings of the famed Patuxent interpreter, Squanto. The settlers, however, did not return the favor, and continued to take more and more of the natives’ land.

 

2. Iroquois: Influenced Federal Power

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Today, students are often taught that American democracy has its roots in ancient Rome or Greece. But the American republic also took cues from the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Philosophers like John Locke, whose writings influenced the creation of the United States, wrote with amazement about how the Iroquois Confederacy vested power in people, not a monarch. Meanwhile, Benjamin Franklin wrote letters to the Iroqouis, seemingly calling out how people incorrectly viewed them as “ignorant savages,” and spent significant time learning about their federal-style government. In 1751, Franklin wrote, “It would be a strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such an union, and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies.” The idea that the American republic was influenced by the Iroquois can be polarizing, and is often over- or understated. Some argue that American democracy was copy-and-pasted from the Six Nations. Others argue that the Iroqouis had no influence at all. Most historians, however, occupy a middle ground. "It is a fairly important idea that a great many societies and networks influenced American constitutional thought, the Iroquois among them," historian Gautham Rao tells Politifact.

 

3. Pima: Developed Farm Irrigation

Without water, there can be no agriculture — and no civilization, for that matter. The Pima understood this challenge intimately. Around 1,500 to 2,000 years ago, the nation developed sophisticated irrigation systems across the arid deserts of Arizona, making the region habitable. (And establishing life in what is now Phoenix.) Those technologies paid off. Today, agriculture first cultivated by Native Americans makes up 60% of the world’s food supply, including pumpkins, cranberries, squash, pineapple, avocados, peanuts, and, of course, corn.

 

4. Plains Indians: Initiated Early Sign Language

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Native Americans communicated through sign language centuries before the development of ASL. First recorded in the 1520s, the system — now called Plains Indian Sign Language — was used as a lingua franca by dozens of native nations across the American continent, including the Navajo, Cree, and Crow. The system allowed disparate tribes — many of which spoke completely foreign languages — to communicate and trade. While American Sign Language would later take inspiration from multiple language systems, the sign language developed by Native Americans remains one the world’s oldest and most widespread.

 

5. Algonquin: Created Lacrosse

First played in southern Canada more than 200 years ago, early lacrosse games were a chaotic ballsport consisting of hundreds — and sometimes thousands — of participants at one time. When Europeans began settling on North America, some tribes used the game to win the newcomers’ trust. In 1763, the Ojibwa people of Michigan used lacrosse as a Trojan Horse. With the British troops watching in the audience, the native athletes slowly worked their way to Fort Michilimackinac, and once they got close enough, they took the fort.

 

6. Native Nations: Promoting Conservation

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Writers often attribute the rise of the American conservation and environmental movement to Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring. However, Native Americans have been promoting conservation since the beginning of time. In fact, some tribes, like the Anishinaabe, don’t have a word for “conservation” because, to them, it’s much more than a political philosophy — it’s simply a fact of life. A 2019 U.N. report found that land managed by Indigenous populations had stronger biodiversity than land managed through modern agricultural methods.

 

7. Native Nations: Shaped Modern-Day Words

You cannot drive around the United States or speak English without bumping into a Native American contribution. At least 26 state names have native origins, including Arkansas (“downstream people”), Mississippi (“great water”), and Ohio (“beautiful river”). English words that have native origins include "chipmunk," "hammock," "chocolate," "tequila," "canoe," and "opossum."
 

 

Source: Contributions From Indigenous Nations That Changed America

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Fact of the Day - MIGRATION

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Did you know.... After billions of years of evolution, the animal kingdom has developed a few tactics for dealing with the Earth’s fluctuating seasons. Some species prefer the homebody method of hunkering down through the winter months and entering an almost death-like state of hibernation. Other animals take a more travel-centric approach and head for warmer climates as the mercury falls. Some of these migrations go mostly unseen by human eyes, while others fill the skies with dazzling feathers or shake the ground with thunderous hooves. These seven facts about the world’s most amazing migrations showcase how some of Earth’s most incredible creatures swim, fly, and stampede throughout the world.

 

1. Arctic Terns Are the World’s Most Impressive Migratory Fliers

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The name “Arctic tern” is a bit of a misnomer. Although this well-traveled bird does spend the summer months in the Arctic, it also spends equal time in the Antarctic. That’s because twice a year, the Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) flies from one freezing landscape to the other, making the longest migration — more than 19,000 miles — of any known animal. The tern undertakes this incredible journey, which lasts several months, because it relies on summer sunlight to illuminate fish in the sea and insects on land. That means the dark, dayless winters in these cold climates are a big no-go. Fortunately, the Arctic tern can eat and sleep while gliding on the ocean breeze, and if it didn’t need to hunt for food, it could probably fly upwards of 1,000 miles a day.

 

2. For the Monarch Butterfly, Migrations Are Multigenerational

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In the early days of spring, the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus plexippus) leaves its overwintering location among the branches of oyamel firs in central Mexico and begins a 3,000-mile migration to the northern U.S. and Canada. Part of what makes this journey so spectacular is that it’s a multigenerational one. Because the butterfly only lives for about four weeks, it takes four generations for the creature to get from point A to point B. (There’s one exception: Thesuper generationthat lives eight times longer during the laborious return trip south.) The monarch is the only species of butterfly known to undergo such an extensive migration.

 

3. The Wildebeest’s Annual Journey Is Known as the “Great Migration”

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Every year, 1.5 million wildebeest, also known as gnu, along with some 400,000 zebras and nearly as many gazelles, travel in a roughly 500-mile loop in the Serengeti plains in search of seasonal rains and grazing grounds. At the beginning of the year, the wildebeest gather at the edge of the Serengeti and all give birth in the same month. Within two days, calves are able to keep up with their parents, and soon the massive pack begins a journey scientists call the “Great Migration.” The pack travels north and eventually arrives in the well-watered Kenya savannah known as Masai Mara, where they stay from July until October. The smell of November’s rains then signals to this mass of animal life that it’s time to head southward and return to the Serengeti.

 

4. Every Fall, Some 10 Million Fruit Bats Migrate in Southern Africa
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Although millions of stampeding zebras and wildebeest are an impressive sight, in nearby Zambia, the straw-colored fruit bat (Eidolon helvum), part of a genus of bats known as flying foxes, takes the idea of strength in numbers to a whole new level. Between October and December, upwards of 10 million of these bats descend on Kasanka National Park to feast on the area’s plentiful fruit trees, and in turn spread seeds throughout the plains and savannahs of southern Africa as the bats return home to the Congo rainforest. This vital and mysterious migration — considered the largest migration of any mammal in the world —  is under threat from deforestation and poaching, but conservation groups are hard at work protecting this bat species.

 

5. Salmon Migration Is the Animal Kingdom’s Most Grueling

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The salmon run, one of nature’s most wondrous migrations, takes place in the fall months as the persistent family of fish attempts to return to its spawning grounds. Nearly all salmon (Atlantic, Pacific, et al.) are anadromous, meaning they migrate from saltwater oceans to freshwater streams to spawn; their eggs can only survive in these freshwater locations. Salmon must not only swim upstream against the current, but also jump over obstacles, like falls, by launching their bodies through the air. Although structures such as dams or weirs often have fish ladders to aid salmon in their journey, human-made obstacles have negatively impacted salmon numbers. This is an especially big problem in the Pacific Northwest, where salmon are a keystone species, meaning their ecological impact outpaces their overall size. In 2022, Oregon underwent the world’s largest dam removal to protect this vulnerable species.

 

6. The Gray Whale Undergoes the Longest Migration of Any Mammal

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In late spring, the gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) returns to the Bering and Chukchi seas off Alaska after completing a monumental 12,000-mile round-trip journey, the longest of any mammal on Earth. Although not as gargantuan as a blue whale, the gray whale stretches some 45 feet long (and can weigh more than 72,000 pounds), and every year migrates that massive bulk southward to the warm lagoons of Southern California and Baja, Mexico. The trip takes about two or three months each way, and the first to arrive in these warm waters are pregnant mothers looking to use the lagoons as protection for their young calves. Around late March to late April, the gray whale makes the journey back toward Alaska — late enough to make sure the newborn whales can make the trip. The U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that some 24,000 gray whales make this journey every year.

 

7. One of the World’s Most Amazing Migrations Happens Every Day
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Most people think of migrations as a natural rhythm dictated by the seasons, but the largest migration in the world actually happens every single day. At night, trillions of sea creatures known as zooplankton — krill, salps, fish larvae, and microscopic organisms — travel to the ocean’s surface to feed on phytoplankton. Although this journey might be only 1,000 feet in some cases, for a quarter-inch fish larva, the speed of the trip is roughly equivalent to a human swimming 50 miles in an hour. These animals go deeper into the waters during the daytime to avoid predators, though the nightly journey to the surface isn’t exactly safe either. Although the trek was first documented in the 1800s, scientists are still trying to piece together the inner workings of this daily migration that happens almost completely out of sight.

 

 

Source: Facts About Amazing Animal Migrations

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Fact of the Day - RIVERS

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Did you know.... Few things are more central to human civilization than water. That’s why most ancient civilizations (Egypt, Indus, Sumer, etc.) flourished along rivers, and why many major cities today have followed suit. Around the world, 165 rivers are considered “major rivers” whose length and width tower over the competition. But there’s more to rivers than just size. While some of the world’s most important rivers are long, winding natural wonders, others have outsized historical impact, represent an amazing moment of human engineering, or are simply beautiful to look at. These six facts concern some of the six most amazing rivers in the world, from the backwoods of Colombia to major metropolises around the globe.

 

1. The Search Is Still On for the Source of the Nile

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Finding the source of the Nile, arguably the most famous and important river in human history, was one of the great adventures of the 19th century. Explorers including David Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley, and Richard Francis Burton searched the White Nile, the river’s longest tributary (the other major tributary being the Blue Nile), to no avail. Today, scientists still aren’t sure where the furthest headwaters of the White Nile are, although one leading contender is the Ruvyironza River in Burundi.

 

2. The Yangtze River Watershed Takes Up 20% of China’s Total Landmass

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The Yangtze is central to Chinese culture and civilization, and is the longest river to be contained inside only one country. Rising on the Tibetan plateau, the river travels east as it eventually empties into the East China Sea. The river ranks among the longest in the world, but its drainage basin is truly gargantuan. At 700,000 square miles, it takes up 20% of China’s total landmass. Some 250 million people live on or near the river, and the Yangtze provides the country with 35% of its fresh water. There is no China without the Yangtze.

 

3. The Danube Flows Through 10 Countries, More Than Any Other River in the World

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While the Yangtze flows in only one country, the Danube passes through more countries than any other river. Those countries are Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. In those countries, the Danube also passes through four capital cities, including Vienna, Austria; Bratislava, Slovakia; Budapest, Hungary; and Belgrade, Serbia (an additional five capitals lie in the river basin). The Danube’s central location in Europe, along with its proximity to so many cities, easily makes it one of the most important rivers in the world.

 

4. Caño Cristales Has the Nickname “Rainbow River” Because of Its Multi-Hued Waters

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Caño Cristales isn’t one of the world’s longest or deepest rivers, and it doesn’t really feature prominently in Colombia’s history, but it does have one dazzling attribute that’s hard to ignore — it’s as colorful as a rainbow. Caño Cristales gets the nickname “Rainbow River” because it’s colored yellow, green, blue, black, and most especially red, hues that can be seen from May until November. This panoply of colors is derived from the reproductive process of aquatic plants (Macarenia clavigera) living on the riverbed. Because the river’s depth fluctuates between the wet and dry seasons, it’s only dazzlingly brilliant a few months out of the year.

 

5. No Bridge Spans the 4,300-Mile-Long Amazon River

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Although the Amazon is the second-longest river in the world and a vital artery of the Amazon rainforest, not a single bridge crosses its expanse. That’s surprising considering there are more than a hundred bridges crossing the similarly-sized Yangtze, and nine bridges crossing the Nile in Cairo. The simple answer for the Amazon’s lack of bridges is the lack of need for them. The cities and towns bordering the Amazon have ferries and boats; the river basin’s extensive marshes also make building a bridge a costly affair. Floating bridges, or pontoons, are also impractical as the width of the river can vary between 2 miles and 30 miles between the dry and wet seasons.

 

6. The Chicago River Is the Only River That Flows Backward

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As Chicago changed from a Great Lakes-adjacent village to a booming metropolis toward the end of the 19th century, city planners were faced with a conundrum. The Chicago River, which carried much of the city’s waste, emptied directly into Lake Michigan, which was also the source of the city’s drinking water. To fix the problem, engineer Ellis S. Chesbrough put forward an idea to reverse the river’s flow by building a ditch lower than both Lake Michigan and the river itself. When the project was finally completed in 1900, the Chicago River became the only river in the world that had reversed its flow.

 

 

Source: Facts About Amazing Rivers

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Fact of the Day - WINE

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Did you know... Wine has conquered the world. In 2021, global wine consumption topped 23.6 billion liters, or roughly 9,440 Olympic-size swimming pools' worth of vino. Here are some more surprising facts about reds, whites, and rosés, from their long and illustrious history to the reasons you might want to avoid drinking wine left over from shipwrecks.

 

1. People Have Been Making Wine for Thousands of Years

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Between 2007 and 2010, archaeologists excavated a cave near Areni, Armenia, which contained the remnants of an ancient winemaking operation. They unearthed a press for crushing grapes, jars for fermentation and storage, ceramic cups, and the remains of grape vines, skins, and seeds. (The organic material had been preserved by a hardened layer of sheep dung, which protected it from decay.) By analyzing a compound called malvidin, which makes grapes reddish-purple, the researchers estimated that the site was active around 4000 BCE, during the Copper Age, making it the oldest known winery. Even earlier biomolecular evidence of viniculture dates from about 6000 BCE. The oldest type of wine still made today is Commandaria, a sweet red-white dessert blend from Cyprus that dates back to 2000 BCE.

 

2. Almost All Wines Are Grown From a Single Species of Grape

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The mother vine of almost all wines today is Vitis vinifera, a grape likely native to Western Asia. Over millennia, winemakers have domesticated and cross-bred the vines to create subspecies with distinct colors, flavors, and suitability to different climates. About 8,000 cultivars exist today, including well-known varieties like pinot noir, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and merlot. V. vinifera vines have long been cultivated in regions with hot, dry summers and mild winters, such as Italy, Spain, and France, but the U.S., Chile, Australia, and South Africa are also major producers, among other countries.

 

3. In the 19th Century, an Insect Nearly Wiped Out France’s Wine Industry

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One downside of basing a global wine industry on a single grape species is that it can be decimated by a particular disease or pest. A grape-attacking aphid called phylloxera, native to North America, was accidentally imported to France in the 1860s. Whereas indigenous American grape species had built up resistance to the pest, French winemakers had guarded the purity of their vines to ensure their wines’ high quality, which made the plants susceptible to assault from the foreign bug. As a result, phylloxera tore through French vineyards in the late 19th century and forced French winemakers to graft phylloxera-resistant American vines onto the French vines to save them.

 

4. A Wine’s Terroir Can Be Legally Protected

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The 19th-century French vintners initially resisted the plan to graft American rootstocks onto their precious vines over fears that their wines’ special flavor profile, or terroir, would suffer. “Terroir” refers to the whole environment in which the grapes are grown — soil and water characteristics, temperature, altitude, and so on — as well as the flavor and aroma that these factors impart. A wine’s terroir can be a legally protected entity in France, where the AOC system (an acronym for Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) classifies wines according to their region of production and quality. It’s this system that says Champagne can come only from the Champagne region to protect its unique terroir.

 

5. California Wines Beat French Rivals in a Blind Taste Test

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In a legendary event dubbed “The Judgment of Paris,” held on May 24, 1976, French wine experts preferred upstart California wines to the finest French ones in a taste test. An English wine shop owner staged the event to drum up business, and everyone assumed a French victory was a foregone conclusion. The nine experts swirled, sniffed, and sipped a variety of reds and whites, then tallied the number of points they awarded to each sample; shockingly, a cabernet sauvignon and a chardonnay from Napa Valley won out, proving that countries besides France could produce the world’s finest wines. A bottle of each winning wine is now in the Smithsonian collection.

 

6. Wine Is Often Found in Shipwrecks

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Wine has been traded around the world for centuries, and the vessels transporting it have occasionally run into trouble. Today, intact bottles of wine can sometimes be located among the wreckage of sunken ships. Experts advise against drinking their contents, but some curious gastronauts can’t be dissuaded. In 2009, a hurricane disturbed the seafloor around Bermuda and revealed still-corked bottles in the wreck of a Civil War-era ship; a panel of tasters said it was “awful.” Champagne recovered from a 170-year-old shipwreck in the frigid Baltic Sea gave tasters hints of cheese and “wet hair.” Among the recent finds yet to be sampled are unopened bottles of wine from the wreck of the HMS Gloucester, which sank while carrying the future king James II of England, and bottles that went down with a British steamship after a German torpedo attack during World War I.

 

 

Source: Amazing Facts About Wine

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Fact of the Day - MOUNT KILIMANJARO

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Did you know.... Towering 19,340 feet above sea level, Mount Kilimanjaro is not only the highest mountain in Africa, but also the highest freestanding mountain in the world (meaning it is not part of a larger mountain range). This mighty, snow-capped landform — rising dramatically from the plains of Tanzania in East Africa — was declared a national park in 1973 and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Given these stats, it’s no surprise that Kilimanjaro is popular with climbers — around 30,000 people attempt to reach the summit each year. Mount Kilimanjaro may be one of the planet’s most famous peaks, but here are eight facts you might not know.

 

1. Mount Kilimanjaro Is Formed of Three Volcanoes

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Mount Kilimanjaro actually consists of three stratovolcanoes running from northwest to southeast, and its three peaks are volcanic cones. Kilimanjaro’s highest peak, Uhuru, is found on one of these cones, named Kibo. Though the other two cones, Mawenzi and Shira, are extinct, Kibo is technically dormant. Volcanologists believe the last major eruption of Kilimanjaro took place several thousands of years ago in the Pleistocene era, but fumarolic activity within some of Kibo’s summit craters proves that there’s still a slim chance of a future eruption.

 

2. Mount Kilimanjaro Is Where You’ll Find Africa’s Tallest Tree

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In 2016, New Scientist reported that a 267-foot-tall Entandrophragma excelsum tree was discovered in a remote valley on Kilimanjaro, making it the tallest known tree in Africa. Fertile volcanic soils coupled with warm temperatures and ample rainfall have allowed the specimen, and others near it, to thrive. Though it’s dwarfed by the tallest trees in North America and Australia, such heights aren’t the norm in Africa. Scientists are now advocating that territory covered by nearby Kilimanjaro National Park be expanded to include the valley, to better protect the extraordinary trees from threats such as logging.

 

3. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro Is Part of the Seven Summits Challenge

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Mount Kilimanjaro is one of the Seven Summits — the highest peaks on each continent, which form the basis of one of the world’s most prestigious mountaineering challenges. American businessman Richard D. Bass became the first person to summit all seven on April 30, 1985, when he conquered his seventh peak, Mount Everest. Climbers have been trying to reach the top of Mount Kilimanjaro since the late 19th century, and a German man named Hans Meyer and his Austrian climbing partner Ludwig Purtscheller made the first documented successful climb to the summit by a European. It was Meyer’s second attempt — two years before that record-breaking climb, a wall of ice prevented him from reaching the top. Together with local guide Yohani Kinyala Lauwo, the two climbers made history at Kilimanjaro’s summit on  October 6, 1889.

 

4. Summiting Mount Kilimanjaro Is Arduous, but Not as Technical as You Might Think

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There’s no question that reaching the top of Mount Kilimanjaro is difficult, but the level of difficulty depends on the path you choose. There are seven routes to the top: Marangu, Machame, Lemosho, Shira, Rongai, Northern Circuit, and Umbwe. Marangu’s popularity stems from its relatively gentle gradient and the availability of accommodations on the trail. Lemosho is considered a much tougher climb, but many say that the scenery is better along the way. Umbwe is short at just 23 miles, but steep. On the other hand, the Northern Circuit covers 56 miles. If you are reasonably fit, Kilimanjaro is not as technical a climb as some of the world’s taller mountains, though you’ll still need to tackle a diverse range of environments — including forest, moorland, scree slopes, and rock faces — as you ascend.

 

5. The Fastest Climb to the Top Was Just Under Seven Hours

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Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro typically takes between five and 10 days, though it’s often much quicker for elite athletes. In fact, the current record holder is Swiss-Ecuadorian climber Karl Egloff, who managed the round-trip journey to the summit in an incredible 6 hours and 42 minutes. However, racing to the top is not recommended — the risk of debilitating altitude sickness is significantly reduced for those who trek more carefully. And for most people, it’s no walk in the park. Many have failed in their attempts to reach the top, among them former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and tennis legend Martina Navratilova.

 

6. Ernest Hemingway Never Actually Climbed Kilimanjaro

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In The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Ernest Hemingway opens with the words: “Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.” But Hemingway only viewed Kilimanjaro from its base. His inspiration for this short story came from a photograph taken by a prolific climber named Richard Reusch. In 1926, Reusch stumbled across the animal Hemingway describes at about 18,500 feet above sea level on the crater rim, and captured the moment in a famous photograph. Today, the part of the crater where the creature was spotted is nicknamed Leopard Point.

 

Click the link below ⏬ to read more about Mount Kilimanjaro.

 

Source: Things You Might Not Know About Mount Kilimanjaro

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Fact of the Day - HIDDEN MESSAGES

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Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a massive source of information, and there’s a reason the site’s puzzling logo isn’t totally complete. The unfinished globe, made of puzzle pieces with characters from various languages, represents the “incomplete nature” of the company’s mission to be the go-to information portal—and the fact that a site built on user submissions can never be complete.

 

Did you know.... Get ready to have your mind blown.

Things aren’t always what they seem at first glance, and these logos prove it. Check out these 13 famous logos that you may not have realized actually have a hidden double meaning.

 

1. FedEx

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The shipping company’s logo is probably one of the best-known in the world of “hidden image” logos. For those who are unaware, take a look between the “E” and the “X,” where the negative space forms an arrow. In an interview with Fast Company, the logo’s designer, Lindon Leader, said, “The arrow could connote forward direction, speed and precision, and if it remained hidden, there might be an element of surprise, that aha moment.” The design has won over 40 awards and was ranked as one of the eight best logos in the last 35 years by Rolling Stone magazine.

 

2. Wendy's

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Famously founded by Dave Thomas, the Wendy’s brand identity highlights a personal and “home-cooked” feeling. Take a closer look at Wendy’s collar and you might just see the word “mom.” Wendy’s, named after Thomas’ daughter, now has more than 6,500 restaurants worldwide. “This is something you may not notice consciously for years, but unconsciously it will leave an imprint on your brain and you will associate it with the brand,” stocklogos.com wrote.

 

3. Baskin-Robbins

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Baskin-Robbins, owned by Dunkin’ Brands, is the world’s largest chain of ice cream specialty shops, best known for its 31 flavors. The company’s pink and blue logo depicts a large “BR” that doubles as the number “31.” Carol Austin, VP of marketing for Baskin-Robbins, told CNBC that the logo is “meant to convey the fun and energy of the Baskin-Robbins brand” as well as the iconic 31. “The 31 stands for our belief that our guests should have the opportunity to explore a fun, new ice cream flavor every day of the month,” Austin explained. The logo was introduced in 2005 as part of an entire brand refresh.

 

4. LG

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At first glance, the dark pink logo for LG Electronics looks like a winking face. But if you look a little closer, you’ll see the face’s “nose” is an “L” and the outline of the “face” is a “G.” Some fans have even noted a similarity between LG’s logo and a modified Pacman.

 

5. Tostitos

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The logo for tortilla chips and dips manufacturer Tostitos, owned by PepsiCo, is a prime example of “once you’ve seen it, you can’t un-see it.” Initially, the logo appears to be the Tostitos name in front of a vibrantly colored background. However, the two “T’s” of this logo make up people, as they dip a tortilla chip into the bowl of salsa on top of the letter ‘I’.

 

6. Hershey’s Kisses

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Famous for their chocolate and appropriately themed amusement park, Hersheypark, the logo on The Hershey Company’s Hershey’s Kisses product has a hidden logo: an extra Kiss. Turn your head to the left and you’ll see that between the ‘K’ and the ‘I’ there is a Hershey’s Kiss baked into the logo.

 

Click the link below ⏬ to read more about Hidden Messages in famous logos

 

 

Source: Famous Logos With Hidden Messages

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Fact of the Day - KETCHUP

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Did you know... Ketchup was once sold as medicine.
The ketchup we slather onto hot dogs, burgers, and fries today once had a different purpose: Doctors believed it was best consumed as a health tonic. Ketchup has come a long way from its roots in China as far back as the third century BCE, when cooks fermented seafood to create a salty, amber-colored sauce that resembles modern fish sauce (an anchovy-based condiment that adds umami flavor to many Asian dishes). By around the 16th century, British sailors had taken word of ketchup back to their home country, and British cooks tried to replicate it with their own versions made from walnuts and mushrooms. It’s not clear exactly when tomatoes came on the scene, though the first known tomato ketchup recipe appeared around 1812, published by Philadelphia horticulturist James Mease. (Interesting Facts)

 

1. The American staple was actually inspired by a Chinese condiment.

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The Hokkien Chinese word kê-kê refers to a sauce made from fermented fish. It’s believed that the British found the condiment while in Southeast Asia and when they returned home, attempted to replicate the flavor. Initially, recipes included everything from mushrooms to oysters, anchovies and walnuts. Feeling inspired to create your own ketchup? Start with this Spicy Ketchup Recipe for a sauce that packs some heat.

 

2. The one thing missing from early recipes? Tomatoes.

In the 1700s, tomatoes were believed to be poisonous, and in fact were nicknamed “the poison apple.” The theory was eventually debunked when it was discovered that the pewter plates upper-class Europeans were eating tomatoes on were leaching lead. It wasn’t until 1812 that a scientist in Philadelphia published the first-known recipe for ketchup that incorporated tomatoes. Browse through our favorite recipes for fresh tomatoes, here.

 

3. Ketchup wasn’t always a condiment.

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Initially, ketchup was strictly used as a flavoring agent for soups, meats, sauces and more. Thanks to the addition of tomatoes and the popularization of hamburgers and hot dogs, its primary purpose shifted. Now we’re just as likely to squirt it on a bun as we are to add flavor to a stovetop dinner. Take this Sweet Barbecued Pork Chop recipe, for example.

 

4. In the early days, you would have wanted to think twice before buying ketchup.

Since the tomato-growing season was so short, early ketchup producers had to overcompensate with preservatives to keep their stock fresh. This came at a highly unhealthy price. Unsafe levels of coal tar (among other things) were found in ketchup bottles. It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that companies decided it was time for a change. H.J. Heinz was one of the biggest proponents of quality. The American company began developing seeds for higher-quality tomatoes and made it mandatory for produce to be processed the same day it was harvested.

 

5. There’s a secret to Heinz’s “57” slogan.

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Speaking of Heinz, have you ever noticed the slogan “57 varieties” printed on each bottle? That’s actually a marketing myth. When Heinz invented the slogan, the company was producing over 60 flavors of ketchup. The marketing master simply thought the number was catchy, so it stuck. Today, the company sells more than 5,700 products.

 

6. There’s an easy way to get your ketchup out of the bottle.

The trick to getting stuck-on sauce flowing from Heinz’s iconic glass bottle is hidden in plain sight. Tap the number “57” on the bottleneck a few times as you shake the ketchup out. Amazingly enough, the ketchup will start to pour out smoothly. We’ll definitely test this method during the upcoming grilling season.

 

7. Heinz invented the individual ketchup packets.

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H.J. Heinz introduced individual ketchup packets to consumers in 1968. The foil wrapper is actually safer to use than its glass counterpart. Today, the packets are a staple at most fast-food restaurants—and in your refrigerator door. Here’s how to open a ketchup packet the right way.

 

8. Ketchup is found in nearly 97 percent of American households.

With 125 million households in the U.S., that’s a lot of ketchup. In fact, if every household had a 14 oz. bottle of the stuff, the ketchup’s combined weight would measure up to a resounding 54,000 tons. That’s heavier than the Titanic.

 

9. The average American eats 71 pounds of ketchup each year.

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Slathered on hot dogs, smashed between a sandwich, or drizzled on potato chips-we sure do love our sauce. But if that statistic makes your stomach churn, you’re not alone. For ketchup producers, it means big bucks. They produce about 12 million tons of ketchup every year, valued at more than $900 million. I’d call that a ketchup ka-ching!

 

10. The condiment could help you live longer.

OK, so that might be a slight overstatement. Ketchup contains the phytochemical lycopene, which has been linked to reducing the risk of cancer. There are other things you can consume, like tomato juice and tomato sauce, that will give you more lycopene with far less salt and sugar. But I say: Whatever floats your boat! Well, there you have it, folks. Go forth and bestow all this tomatoe-y knowledge on your friends and family. Dish these ketchup facts out with one of our favorite grilled burger recipes at your next backyard barbecue or holiday cookout this summer.

 

 

Source: What You Don’t Know About Ketchup (It’s Not Just America’s Favorite Condiment)

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Fact of the Day - EYES

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Did you know.... They've been described as the windows to the soul by William Shakespeare and the jewel of the body by Henry David Thoreau, and featured in song titles by musicians ranging from Van Morrison and The Who to Billy Idol and Billie Eilish. Needless to say, eyes hold a prominent place in our lives, both for our dependence on their functionality as well as the aesthetic qualities that have inspired so many artists. Here are six eye-opening facts about these amazing organs.

 

1. The First Eyes Appeared at Least 540 Million Years Ago

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The first known organism to demonstrate the leap from light-sensitive receptors to complex eyes was the trilobite, which left records of its evolutionary impact from approximately 540 million years ago. The orbs of these early arthropods more closely resembled the compound eyes of modern insects, with multiple lenses, as opposed to the single lens-to-retina camera-style eye built into humans. Because they offered trilobites a clear advantage in hunting prey (and thus encouraged their predators to evolve in response), the emergence of working eyes in these and subsequent life forms may have helped drive the so-called "Cambrian Explosion," which gave rise to most of the creatures that now populate the animal kingdom.

 

2. The Human Eye Can See Objects Millions of Miles Away

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While the majority of us wouldn't consider our vision to be extraordinary, the human eye can see much farther than most of us realize. That's because our ability to perceive an object is based not only on its size and proximity, but also on the brightness of the source. Practically speaking, our sight is hindered by factors such as the Earth's curvature, which creates the dropoff point of the horizon just 3 miles away, and atmospheric conditions. However, a trip outside on a clear night reveals the true power of our vision, as most of us are able to make out the faint haze of the Andromeda Galaxy some 2.6 million light-years into space.

 

3. Some People Can Distinguish Between 100 Million Colors

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Most people are trichromatic, meaning they possess three types of cone cells in their retinas to detect variations of red, green, and blue light. Dichromatic or colorblind people are those with missing or defective cone cells; normally this means they have trouble differentiating between two colors, with red and green being the most common combination. On the extreme ends of the spectrum, those suffering from achromatopsia lack the ability to see any colors, while those born with an extra set of cone cells, tetrachromats, are said to be extraordinarily sensitive to light wavelengths and capable of distinguishing between 100 million colors.

 

4. We Blink Around 7.8 Million Times Per Year

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There are a few established reasons for why we blink: This rapid closure triggers secretions that flush away foreign particles, while also providing a lubrication that keeps our precious eyes functioning smoothly. However, this action, which can be voluntary or involuntary, is also affected by a raft of psychological reasons. We blink less when concentrating, for example, and more when we're nervous. Recent studies also indicate that blinking may be a way of providing the brain a brief moment of rest. Regardless of the reasons, we all blink a lot. Most people average at least 15 per minute, which translates to 14,400 for each waking 16-hour period, and a whopping 7.8 million blinks per year.

 

5. The Colossal Squid Boasts the Largest Animal Eyes

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The human eye measures about two-thirds of an inch across at birth, before growing to its full size of 1 inch by adulthood. By comparison, the eye of the 45-foot-long colossal squid has been measured at 11 inches in diameter, making it the largest such organ in the animal kingdom and possibly the largest in the history of recorded life. Among land-dwelling creatures, the ostrich tops the pack with an eye that measures around 2 inches from the cornea to the retina — dimensions that also happen to be bigger than its walnut-sized brain.

 

6. All Humans Had Brown Eyes at One Point

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Eye color (along with skin and hair color) is determined by the amount of melanin our bodies produce; those with blue or green eyes simply possess a lower density of this pigmentation in the iris than those with dark brown peepers. According to research published by a University of Copenhagen team in 2012, all humans had brown eyes until sometime between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, when a genetic mutation created the first blue-eyed individual. Nowadays, 70% to 79% of the world's population has brown eyes, with 8% to 10% sporting baby blues, approximately 5% featuring hazel or amber, and just 2% showing green. Less than 1% of people possess two completely different colored eyes — a condition known as heterochromia.

 

 

Source: Look Here! 6 Fun Facts About Eyes

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Fact of the Day - MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

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Did you know.... Few figures in American history are as well regarded as Martin Luther King Jr. is today. A civil rights leader who worked tirelessly in the fight for justice and equality, even as he was threatened and attacked for doing so, King organized and participated in countless marches and protests to combat racial discrimination, laying the groundwork for important victories such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. His name is synonymous with the movement, and his message — most famously expressed in his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 — continues to resonate and inspire today. But for all we know about his trailblazing activism, there are still a few details about his life that may surprise you. Here are six lesser-known facts about MLK.

 

1. His Birth Name Was Michael

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When Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, his name wasn’t what we know it to be today. According to MLK’s original birth certificate, filed on April 12, 1934, his given name was Michael King Jr. His switch to a new name had to do with his father, who served as senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. In 1934, King Sr. traveled to Germany, where he witnessed the budding rise of hate-fueled Nazism throughout the country. Germany was also where, in 1517, theologian and monk Martin Luther wrote his Ninety-Five Theses, which in turn inspired the Protestant Reformation. That movement held great significance to King Sr., who, upon returning to the states, chose the name “Martin Luther” for both himself and his son. MLK Jr. would rise to prominence under this new name, though he didn’t officially amend his birth certificate until July 23, 1957, when the name “Michael” was crossed out and the words “Martin Luther Jr.” were printed next to it.

 

2. He Received a “C” at School for Public Speaking

Although he’s known now for being a prolific public speaker, MLK Jr. wasn’t always appreciated for his eloquence. In fact, while attending Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania, King received a “Pass,” a “C+,” and a “C” in his public speaking course during the 1948-49 school year. This proved to be an anomaly, though; by the end of King’s time at the seminary, he was a straight-A student, class valedictorian, and student body president. He later attended Boston University, where he got his Ph.D. in systematic theology at the age of 25 in 1955, thus earning the title of doctor.

 

3. He Was a Three-Time Grammy Nominee

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King was not a musician, but the spoken-word recordings of his most famous speeches earned him several Grammy nominations. The first came in 1964 at the 6th Annual Grammy Awards, where “We Shall Overcome (The March On Washington… August 28, 1963)” was nominated for Best Documentary, Spoken Word, Or Drama Recording (Other Than Comedy). Two other nominations were bestowed upon him posthumously, at the 11th Grammy Awards in 1969 for his recording of “I Have A Dream” (in the Best Spoken Word Recording category), and in that same category for “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam” at the 13th Grammys in 1971. The latter was his first and only win, but his “I Have A Dream” speech was later voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012.

 

4. London’s Westminster Abbey Features a Statue of MLK

In 1998, a statue honoring Dr. King was unveiled at Westminster Abbey in London, a city where he famously spoke in 1964 while visiting Europe to accept his Nobel Peace Prize. The statue was among a group of 10 of the 20th century’s most celebrated Christian martyrs, which were installed above the Great West Door in niches that had stood vacant for 35 years. Queen Elizabeth II presided over the unveiling, which also honored notable religious figures such as El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero and Franciscan friar Maximilian Kolbe of Poland. Designed by Tim Crawley, the statues are made of French Richemont limestone and weigh almost a ton each. Of course, Westminster Abbey is far from the only place to honor King artistically. There are several statues and memorials in the U.S., too, though perhaps none is more prominent than the Stone of Hope, a 30-foot-tall granite statue of King unveiled on D.C.’s National Mall in 2011.

 

5. He Was a Huge Fan of "Star Trek"

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MLK was not only a huge fan of Star Trek but a pivotal figure in the career trajectory of one of the show’s most beloved actors. Star Trek was the only program King allowed his children to stay up late to watch, in large part because of the character Uhura, played by African American actress Nichelle Nichols. King viewed Nichols’ role as one of the few examples of equality on television — a belief that he expressed to Nichols upon meeting her at a fundraiser for the NAACP. After the show’s first season ended in 1967, Nichols had been leaning toward departing Star Trek for a role on Broadway. In the end, however, she was swayed by King’s passionate words about her power and influence as a role model for Black women, and decided to remain a member of the cast.

 

6. King and His Wife Spent Their Honeymoon at a Funeral Parlor

MLK met the woman who would become his wife, Coretta Scott, in Boston in January 1952. They married the next year on June 18, 1953, on Scott’s parents’ lawn in Alabama, though their ensuing honeymoon took an unusual turn. After being denied at several whites-only hotels throughout Marion, a town that held many segregationist beliefs, MLK and his wife were invited by a friend to spend their wedding night in the back room of a funeral parlor. It wasn’t until five years into their marriage that the pair took a more traditional honeymoon trip to Mexico.

 

 

Source: Lesser-Known Facts About Martin Luther King Jr.

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Fact of the Day - MEMORABLE SPEECHES

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Did you know... Many famous moments in history — whether they involve inspiring troops before a battle or inspiring a nation against injustice — involve equally inspiring speeches. Spoken by Presidents, activists, wartime leaders, and abolitionists, these famous speeches live on decades after they were delivered. Here are seven amazing facts about them that will make them seem even more remarkable.

 

1. The Gettysburg Address Is Only Two Minutes Long

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Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address looms large in American history, but the speech itself is very short. On November 19, 1863, only four and a half months removed from the bloody Battle of Gettysburg, a crowd gathered to hear the President’s remarks at the official dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery (now Gettysburg National Cemetery). The speaker before Lincoln, a famous orator named Edward Everett, had delivered a two-hour-long speech, which means the crowd might have been ready for something shorter. At only 272 words (about two minutes long when spoken), Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address masterfully encapsulates the unimaginable anguish of a nation at war with itself, but also that same nation’s hope to persevere through the bloodshed. After the speech, Everett admitted to Lincoln, “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself, that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

 

2. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Refrain Was Improvised

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Around 4 a.m. on August 28, 1963, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. finished the final draft of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. There’s just one problem with that title: Those words appeared nowhere in his prepared remarks. Hours later, King stood before the Lincoln Memorial — a century removed from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation — and addressed a crowd of more than 200,000 people. In previous speeches from Birmingham, Alabama, to Detroit, Michigan, King had evoked the imagery of a dream of racial equality, but had no intention of revisiting that dream on that hot day in August. That is, until Mahalia Jackson, one of the world’s greatest gospel singers, who had performed earlier in the day, urged him on, yelling from offstage: “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin.” Then, according to one MLK speechwriter, King pushed aside his prepared text, grabbed the podium, and launched into those famous words that echo through history.

 

3. FDR’s “Fear Itself” Line Was Likely Inspired by Henry David Thoreau

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On March 4, 1933, with the country in the grips of the Great Depression, newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address, uttering the famous phrase that served as a bulwark against the dark days ahead: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Although the words perfectly fit the times, they were likely first written more than 80 years before by transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. In a journal entry dated September 7, 1851, Thoreau wrote: “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.” Historians haven’t made a direct connection between Thoreau and Roosevelt’s famous line, but when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was asked about the phrase’s possible origin, she guessed he had discovered it in a collection of Thoreau’s writings that he had with him in Washington.

 

4. Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” Speech Was Not Broadcast

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The dramatic conclusion to the 2017 Oscar-winning war drama Darkest Hour, a film that follows Winston Churchill as Britain descends into World War II, places the prime minister’s famous “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech front and center. Although it was a rallying cry for members of the U.K. Parliament to continue the fight, the British public didn’t hear Churchill’s stirring words, originally delivered on June 4, 1940, until years after the war. Despite not being broadcast at the time, the speech was well-received, with one member of Parliament writing in a letter that it was “the finest speech that I have ever heard.” Today Churchill’s words encapsulate Britain's dogged determination in the face of overwhelming odds as well as Churchill’s firm belief that the U.S. needed to join the Allied cause.

 

5. Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” Line Was Almost Cut From the Speech

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Arguably the most famous words uttered during the four decades of the Cold War came on June 12, 1987. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin — a city still divided by the 27-mile-long Berlin Wall — President Ronald Reagan posed a challenge to the leader of the Soviet Union: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” However, those words were almost never said. Weeks earlier, Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson flew to Berlin to interview locals about the Berlin Wall. With strong support for its removal, Robinson was determined to mention the wall’s destruction in the speech. Many officials and aides fought against the line, however, thinking it “unpresidential.” The line remained — the wall, of course, did not.

 

6. JFK Prefaced His “We Choose to Go to the Moon” Line With a Football Jok

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One of John F. Kennedy’s most famous speeches arrived on September 12, 1962, at Rice University Stadium in Houston, Texas. With the famous phrase “we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” Kennedy’s words committed the U.S. to besting the Soviet Union in the ongoing space race. But an often overlooked legacy of Kennedy’s speech comes directly before that famous line. Comparing the moon mission to other human feats, Kennedy questioned why we climb Everest, fly across the Atlantic, and “why does Rice play Texas?” The joke, added by the President himself, got a rise out of the audience at the time, but according to ESPN, those five words added some serious fuel to the long-standing football rivalry.

 

7. Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” Speech Likely Didn’t Contain That Phras

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On May 29, 1851, Sojourner Truth — a former enslaved woman, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist — delivered her famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. In the speech, Truth powerfully advocated for the right of Black women to be involved in the fight of American women for equality. Although history knows Truth delivered a powerful oration at the convention, the only surviving versions of the speech come from secondhand accounts. The oldest account of the speech, transcribed weeks later by a journalist who attended the convention, makes no mention of the famous “Ain’t I a Woman” line, whereas a later 1863 version repeats the phrase frequently. Whether Truth uttered the words or not, the message is one that still resonates today.

 

 

Source: Amazing Facts About 7 of the Most Memorable Speeches in History

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Fact of the Day - LIGHTHOUSES

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Did you know.... For millennia, lighthouses have guided wayward ships away from hazardous waters, providing safety during powerful storms. Lighthouses still help seafarers today, though modern sailors have many more navigational tools at their disposal, from GPS to detailed nautical charts, buoys, and radar beacons. These days, many lighthouses have become romantic relics of another era, one in which people set sail with only the power of the wind and looked toward lighthouses to guide them back home. These seven illuminating facts about lighthouses include just a few reasons why these structures continue to fascinate us and remain popular tourist destinations today.

 

1. Antiquity’s Most Famous Lighthouse Is One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

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The Lighthouse of Alexandria, also known as the Pharos of Alexandria, was built during the reign of Ptolemy II of Egypt, around 280 BCE. For centuries, it was one of the tallest structures in the world, with reports estimating that it reached about 350 feet high. The lighthouse stood on the island of Pharos in the harbor of Alexandria, named after Alexander the Great and the capital of the Ptolemaic Kingdom (which lasted from 305 BCE to 30 BCE). Sadly, frequent earthquakes in the Mediterranean region badly damaged the lighthouse, and it was completely destroyed by the 14th century. However, the lighthouse served as an archetype from which all other lighthouses derived, and its importance is embedded in many Romance languages — for instance, the word “pharos” is sometimes used in English to mean “lighthouse.” In 1994 French archaeologists discovered remains of the famous lighthouse on the seabed, and UNESCO is working to declare the area a submerged World Heritage Site.

 

2. The U.S. Has More Lighthouses Than Any Other Country

The United States’ first lighthouse was built in 1716 on Little Brewster Island near Boston, Massachusetts. Lighthouses were so important to early America that in 1789 the first U.S. Congress passed the Lighthouse Act, which created the United States Lighthouse Establishment under the Department of the Treasury. Today, the U.S. is home to over 700 lighthouses — more than any other country in the world. However, the state with the most lighthouses isn’t located on the coast of the continental U.S. Michigan — surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes — is home to 130 lighthouses, including the remote lighthouse on Stannard Rock, nicknamed “the loneliest place in North America.”

 

3. The Romans Built the Oldest Surviving Lighthouse

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In the first century CE, the ancient Romans built the Farum Brigantium, known today as the Tower of Hercules — the world’s oldest lighthouse that is still functional. The lighthouse continues to guide and signal sailors from La Coruña harbor in northwestern Spain. An 18th-century restoration of the tower thankfully preserved the original core of the structure while improving its functionality. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Tower of Hercules is the only Greco-Roman lighthouse from antiquity that has retained such a high level of structural integrity, and it continues to shine its light across the Atlantic to this day.

 

4. “Lightships” Once Sailed the Seas

Although lighthouses were originally designed as immovable land structures, in 1731 English inventor Robert Hamblin designed the first modern lightship and moored it at the Nore sandbank at the mouth of the Thames River. As its name suggests, the ship had a lighted beacon and was used to provide safe navigation in areas where building a land-based lighthouse was impractical. The U.S. had its own lightship service, which began in 1820 and lasted 165 years. The country’s last lightship, the Nantucket, retired in 1985 after being replaced by more modern technology such as automated buoys. Today, the United States lightship Nantucket (LV-112) is registered as a National Historic Landmark.

 

5. An 1819 Invention Gave Lighthouses a Major Upgrade That Still Exists Today

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In the early 19th century, lighthouses weren’t particularly good at steering ships away from land, as the most common lenses used in lighthouses at the time, known as Lewis lamps, were not nearly powerful enough. Enter French inventor Augustin-Jean Fresnel, who in 1821 introduced his eponymous lens. The Fresnel lens used a series of prisms to focus all the light from a lamp in one direction and magnify it into a much more powerful beam. Soon, Fresnel lenses were installed in lighthouses all over the world. Not only did they offer vastly improved functionality, they were also stunningly beautiful. The Fresnel lens was so revolutionary that the technique is still used today in flood lights and professional lighting equipment.

 

6. The U.S. and Soviet Union Experimented With Nuclear-Powered Lighthouses

In 1964, the Baltimore Harbor Light, which sits at the mouth of the Magothy River, became the first — and last — nuclear-powered lighthouse ever built by the United States. Originally constructed in 1908, the Baltimore Harbor Light operated as a far more typical lighthouse for 56 years, until it became the subject of a Coast Guard experiment. The U.S government installed a 4,600-pound atomic fuel cell generator,  and the lighthouse ran on nuclear power for a year before the project was dismantled (thankfully with no signs of nuclear contamination). Although the U.S.’s experiment with nuclear lighthouses was short-lived, the Soviet Union embraced them more enthusiastically, building 132 nuclear-powered lighthouses along the notoriously inhospitable Northeast Passage, a shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans along Russia’s Arctic coast. After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Russia abandoned the upkeep of these lighthouses. But, being nuclear-powered, they kept shining their light for years afterward.

 

7. A Remote Scottish Lighthouse Was the Sight of an Enduring Mystery

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The Flannan Isles Lighthouse is located on the remote, uninhabited island of Eilean Mòr in northern Scotland. From the outside, the lighthouse is remarkably similar to many other lighthouse structures built around the turn of the 20th century — so you might not guess that it was the setting of a notorious unsolved disappearance that inspired the 2018 film The Vanishing starring Gerard Butler. On December 15, 1900, the transatlantic steamer Archtor noticed the lighthouse wasn’t lit while traveling to the port town of Leith. A team from the local lighthouse board visited the island a few days later and discovered no sign of the three lighthouse keepers who were supposed to be on duty. The table was set for dinner, and an oilskin (a type of raincoat) was still on its hook. A preliminary investigation concluded that two of the lighthouse keepers likely traveled to the west platform to secure a supply box during a storm and accidentally tumbled into the sea. When the last keeper went to investigate (without his oilskin), he likely met a similar fate. Rumors on the mainland posited more fanciful explanations, including mythical sea serpents or even murder. While those explanations have been largely dismissed, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know for sure what happened at Flannan Isles Lighthouse.

 

 

Source: Illuminating Facts About Lighthouses

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Fact of the Day - SLEEP

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Did you know.... “That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep,” the British writer Aldous Huxley once observed. Huxley, who died in 1963, had no idea what temptations would get in the way of our sleep in the digital age. About 35% of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep a night, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which isn’t enough. Often we either can’t get to sleep, or we think of sleep as wasted time. What actually goes on while we’re lying there? Why are we designed to do nothing for a third of our lifetimes? The answer is that our bodies are doing necessary work to keep us going when we’re awake. But scientists still have plenty to learn about how.

 

1. What Is REM Sleep, Really?

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In 1951, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Eugene Aserinsky, hooked up his 8-year-old son, Armond, to a device that tracked eye movements and brain waves. After Armond fell asleep, Aserinsky noticed from another room that the eye-tracking “pens” were swinging back and forth. Thinking Armond must be awake and looking around, Aserinsky went to investigate and found the boy sleeping deeply, his eyes closed. Aserinsky’s paper, published in 1953, was the first time REM sleep had been described; before that, scientists had believed that the sleeping brain was more or less turned off. We now know that not just humans but all land mammals and many birds undergo spells of REM, or Rapid Eye Movement, sleep. In those spells, the heart rate speeds up, breathing becomes irregular, and brain waves are more variable. Major muscles that we normally control can’t move. REM sleep first occurs about an hour to 90 minutes after falling asleep. As we age, we get less REM sleep, and its function is still not entirely clear. It’s thought to be key to memory formation, but people who take antidepressants spend far less time in REM sleep, and that doesn’t seem to consistently affect their memory. Also, it’s a myth that we only dream during REM sleep. Our most vivid dreams occur during REM sleep, but dreaming can occur at any stage of sleep.

 

 

2. What Is Sleep Paralysis?

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Sleep paralysis is an inability to move that happens sometimes for a short period as you’re falling asleep or waking up. The mind is awake, but the body lags behind for a minute or two.  Although the feeling is bizarre and can be scary, sleep paralysis isn’t rare or dangerous. It occurs most often in young people, beginning in the teens, and in people with other sleep issues, including narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and nighttime leg cramps. It is also more common in people with post-traumatic stress or panic disorder. In those moments of paralysis, some people feel that they are falling, floating, or having an “out-of-body experience.” Others hallucinate a presence in the room, hovering nearby, and may conclude they have been abducted by aliens or visited by ghosts. According to one theory, people who feel outside of their own bodies or sense ghostly presences might be experiencing a glitch in their mirror neurons, the part of the brain that fires when we observe activity in other people.

 

3. It’s a Myth That Many Adults Only Need Five Hours of Sleep or Less

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We’ve all heard people boasting that they’re perfectly functional on five hours of sleep or less. Adults do vary in their sleep needs, but the number who are at their best with such little sleep is vanishingly small. Long-term sleep deprivation is linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and traffic accidents. So why do people say they’re fine on a sleep-deprived schedule? A rush of cortisol, the hormone that revs us up to manage stress, can create the sensation of alertness. It’s an illusion; the sleep-deprived still do poorly on objective tests of their short-term memory and motor skills. For optimal functioning, seniors usually need seven to eight hours, and other adults need seven to nine. Teens need eight to 10 hours and younger children need even more. People who are getting enough sleep take at least 15 minutes to fall asleep when they get into bed.

 

4. But an All-Nighter Might Be Good for Your Mental Health

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Although losing an entire night’s sleep zombifies most of us, there are exceptions: Some people feel much happier or calmer after an all-nighter. That’s probably because the jolt is a reset for their body clocks, which were out of whack, an idea first described in an 1818 German psychiatric textbook. Depression or bipolar disorder almost always involves a disruption in sleep, which may be a symptom or a trigger. According to British psychiatrist David Veale, staying up for 36 hours relieves mood symptoms in about half of these patients. To maintain this state, he prescribes a sleep schedule that requires waking up in the wee hours for the next several days. After that, they may be able to stay in a more standard sleep schedule, supported by light therapy. Our body clocks are set by light: Veale prescribes exposure to intense white light in the morning for six months to a year.

 

5. Medieval Peasants Slept Better Than We Do

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Artificial light has made sleep far less pleasant. We get too little sunlight and too much light when we need darkness. In medieval Europe, there were no glowing smartphones or bedside lamps. At sundown, families blew out a candle and retreated to soft heaps of rags in one room. After about four hours of sleep, at midnight, adults awoke for a blissful hour or two of prayer, sex, reading, writing, or chatting, before they dozed off and awoke at dawn. That’s apparently the natural rhythm. In an experiment in the 1990s, in which participants lived away from artificial light, after three weeks they gradually drifted into the pre-artificial light pattern of waking in the middle of the night. Tests of their blood in the interlude showed that even without sex, they were awash in prolactin, a hormone released after orgasm that gives us the “afterglow.” Eight hours seems to be the key, but ideally, we’d all have a sweet interlude. Just don’t turn on your lights or use your laptop or phone.  

 

 

Source: Fascinating Facts (And Myths) About Sleep

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Fact of the Day - POOR INVENTORS

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Did you know... In the grand mythology of America, one of the surest paths to wealth is through invention. Build a better mousetrap, as the saying goes, and you'll be able to sell mouse corpses for a profit. And there have been inventors who have amassed enormous personal fortunes on their ingenuity. But not all of them do. In fact, some inventors end up with squat from their hard work and have to watch as other people rake in the big bucks. For numerous reasons, making a profit off your bright idea can be hard to do. Some didn't have the capital to manufacture, others had their concept swiped and produced before they could take action. Come with us as we meet 10 men and women who had the spark of genius but weren't able to translate it into a fat wallet.

 

1. Catherine Hettinger

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If you're reading this from some distant time in the future—like, say, 2019—you might not have any idea what a "fidget spinner" is. For a hot minute, they were the most unavoidable fad of 2017. Consisting of a ball bearing around which a piece of plastic or metal rotates, they burst into the public consciousness like thunder, and it seems like every person under the age of 18 owns at least one. That would normally be good news for the inventor, but Catherine Hettinger—who had a patent on the design—was forced to let it lapse in 2005 because she couldn't afford the $400 it cost to renew it. That decision came back to haunt her in a big way, because she might be a millionaire by now—or maybe not, as the vast majority of spinners are made in fly-by-night Chinese factories who don't give a rat's ass about your patent.

 

2. John Walker

Your perception of the world around you changes when you realize that every single man-made object in your life was deliberately thought up by another human being. Case in point: matches. The idea of scraping a little stick to make fire seems like it's been around forever, but they were actually invented in 1824 by a British chemist named John Walker. Walker was unusual among his peers for his willingness to experiment with various man-made substances, and when he came up with a sulfur paste that sparked when it was scraped on a rough surface, it wasn't long before he was selling the world's first friction matches. Walker refused to patent his invention because he was concerned with the safety of the flame, so billions of dollars in profit was made off of it without him seeing a dime.

 

3. Daisuke Inoue

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It's hard to think of a cultural phenomenon that has had the reach or staying power of karaoke. That kind of invention comes along once a generation at most. That's why it's painful to hear that the man who came up with the concept and built the first karaoke machines never saw a dime from it. Daisuke Inoue was the drummer in a Japanese bar band that would let salarymen hop up on stage and croon along to their favorite hits. One day, a guy asked him to record backing tracks so he could sing without the band, and karaoke was born. In 1971, Inoue produced eleven units of the Juke 8, a standalone machine with an 8-track tape player, a microphone, and a coin slot. He never patented the idea, and it wasn't long before more technologically sophisticated karaoke machines were all over Tokyo.

 

4. Tim Berners-Lee

Without the invention of Tim Berners-Lee, you wouldn't be reading this article. No, he didn't come up with the bathroom break. While working at CERN in the late 1980s, he wrote a proposal for a method to share hypertext documents over the Internet, creating what we know as the World Wide Web. That nefarious network of websites has come to reshape the way we live in the modern world, but Berners-Lee didn't patent his concept. Instead, he released the protocol out into practice, and it wasn't long before everybody was using it. He's done pretty well for himself even without that payout, though, and was knighted a member of the Order of the British Empire in 2004.

 

5. Ron Klein

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There are hundreds of millions of copies of Ron Klein's invention in the United States alone, one of the most important developments modern capitalism has ever seen. You see, he invented the magnetic stripe on the back of your credit or debit card that lets stores scan and connect to your account to pull money out. Back in the day, stores had to check numbers against a huge list of bad cards manually, and it was a royal pain. Klein took the same technology used in reel-to-reel tape recorders and affixed it to the back of a card, then encoded the number on it and created a scanner to compare that data with a regularly updated database of bad cards. He never patented the magnetic stripe idea, so it was quickly adopted by pretty much every company under the sun. Don't cry for Klein, though, as he did just fine from a bunch of other inventions.

 

6. Nick Holonyak, Jr.

Here's a great example of an inventor who was way too ahead of the game. Nick Holonyak was an engineer at General Electric, working with a group that was trying to find a way to get diodes to produce visible light. Holonyak suggested mixing gallium arsenide and gallium phosphide, which was mocked by the chemists until it worked. The era of the LED was born, and in 1963 he did an interview with Reader's Digest where he predicted that they would replace incandescent bulbs someday. That did happen, but Holonyak didn't stop, working at the University of Indiana to develop multiple other colored LEDs as well as the first quantum well laser (the kind used in CD players). And he was right— incandescents are finally on the way out, although he's not getting a royalty for every LED bulb you buy.

 

7. Laszlo Biro

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To be fair, László Bíró did sell the patent for his invention fair and square to the Bic corporation for $2 million, so we can't say he made "nothing" from it. But considering that over a trillion ball-point pens have been sold in the interim, Biro certainly could have done better for himself. The Budapest-born inventor was frustrated by the ink in fountain pens taking too long to dry, so he developed a rolling ball tip that could work with thinner, faster-drying pigment. The end result was the ball-point pen, which he debuted in 1938. Unfortunately, financial struggles dogged his company and he was forced to sell the patent to Italian businessman Marcel Bich, who used it to found a multi-billion dollar company.

 

8. Shane Chen

There's only so much time to cash in on a fad, and if you don't strike while the iron is hot, you can miss out. The inventor of the "hoverboard"— the deceptively named two-wheeled motorized vehicles that were all the rage a few years ago— missed his chance, but he's pretty chill about it. Shane Chen patented the idea in 2011 and started a company, Hovertrax, to sell them at around a thousand dollars a pop. The problem, though, was that Chinese companies could manufacture them in bulk of inferior materials and retail them for a fraction of that. Sure, they caught fire sometimes, but what doesn't in this fast-paced modern world? Chen is a relentless inventor, though, and already has a handful of ideas for what he thinks will be the next big thing.

 

9. Douglas Engelbart

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A lot of these tales involve inventions that are simply too far ahead of their time to be profitable. In 1961, Doug Engelbart came up with a device that would let computer users select a coordinate on the screen. It involved a pair of wheels at the bottom of a wooden block that would record movement and translate it to the machine. The patent was granted to his employer in 1970, but shortly after, a Xerox scientist took Engelbart's concept and modified it to use a ball instead, which was enough to file for a separate patent and cut him out of compensation entirely. Just being the first person to have an idea isn't enough if someone else can implement it more effectively.

 

10. Jonas Salk

When Salk came up with the vaccine to eradicate polio and released it to the world in 1955, newsman Edward R. Murrow asked him who the patent belonged to. "The people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" Common wisdom says that Salk refused the patent because he wanted the global health crisis of polio to be abated, but actually the Salk Institute had explored the possibility only to conclude that an application would likely be denied due to the "prior art" clause. Whatever the reason, the fact that such a nightmarish disease has been mostly swept from the earth is a testament to how an invention can change the world without making its creator a ton of money.

 

 

Source: Inventors Who Made No Money on Their Inventions

Edited by DarkRavie
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Fact of the Day - AUSTRALIA

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Did you know.... Nestled between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean, Australia is the largest country in Oceania and the sixth-largest country in the world by land area. But that’s just the beginning when it comes to the many amazing things about this ancient land. From its one-of-a-kind wildlife species to the planet’s oldest civilization, here are seven fascinating facts that you might not know about the Land Down Under.

 

1. Australia Is Home to the World’s Oldest Civilization

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When Dutch explorer WIllem Janszoon landed in Australia in 1606, the first known European to do so, the continent had already been inhabited for tens of thousands of years by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In 2016, an extensive DNA study by Cambridge University deduced that Aboriginal Australians are the world’s oldest civilization. Indigenous Australian and Papuan ancestral groups migrated to Sahul (a prehistoric subcontinent made up of present-day Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania) about 50,000 years ago. Eventually, rising sea levels caused the separation of the islands, and forced the Aboriginal peoples into genetic isolation that developed unique communities.

 

2. Around 80% of Australia’s Fauna and Flora Is Unique to the Country

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Australia has some of the cutest, most interesting, and most venomous animals on the planet. In fact, thanks to its isolated island geography, over 80% of the country’s plants and animals can only be found here. That includes the cuddly koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, and wombats that often feature high on tourists’ bucket lists. Many tourists also hope to spot the notoriously feisty Tasmanian devil, the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial, and the rainforest-dwelling, sound-mimicking lyrebird. Meanwhile, other national animals strike fear into tourists — Australia has approximately 100 venomous snakes, 12 of which can cause fatalities.  

 

3. Uluru, the World’s Largest Monolith, Extends for Over 1.5 Miles Underground

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The most sacred site in Aboriginal culture is the huge red sandstone monolith known as Uluru (or Ayers Rock). This landmark — the largest monolith in the world — is emblematic of the Australian Outback and rises 1,142 feet above its desolate desert surroundings. But what’s perhaps more impressive is that it’s estimated to extend for more than 1.5 miles beneath the Earth’s surface, almost like an iceberg on land. The Anangu people are the traditional owners of this 500-billion-year-old rock, and consider it to be a resting place of ancient spirits.

 

4. Australia Has 19 UNESCO World Heritage Sites

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From natural wonders to architectural masterpieces, Australia has an impressive 19 properties on UNESCO’s World Heritage List — more than either Greece or Turkey. You may already be familiar with some of them, as several rank among the country’s most popular tourist attractions, including the Sydney Opera House. Visitors can also get a taste of Australia’s natural beauty at places such as the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, and Fraser Island. They can also catch a glimpse into the nation’s past as a penal colony at the Australia Convict Sites.

 

5. Highway 1 Is One of the Longest Highways on the Planet

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With wide open roads running along meandering coastlines, cutting through vast deserts, and crossing mountainous terrain, Australia is a dream destination for a road trip. Highway 1 (nicknamed the Big Lap) is a 9,010-mile-long road that follows the coastline in one enormous loop. It connects almost all of Australia’s major cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, and Brisbane. It’s also the second-longest highway in the world, after the Pan-American Highway. One of the many fascinating sections of the highway is the “90 Mile Straight.” This perfectly straight stretch passes through the flat, tree-less landscapes of the Nullarbor Plain between Balladonia and Caiguna, in Western Australia.

 

6. The First Australian Police Force Was Assembled of Convicts

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When the colonization of Australia began in the late 1700s, there was no recognized formal police force. As a penal colony of Great Britain, there were more convicts than people with non-criminal backgrounds. Upon arrival in New South Wales in 1788, the Royal Navy Marines were given the task of policing, although it wasn’t a role that they wanted. Soon after, Governor Arthur Phillip selected 12 of the most upstanding convicts and created a civilian law enforcement department called the Night Watch. They continued as the Sydney Police until 1862, when they merged with other New South Wales colonial forces.

 

7. Australia Boasts the World’s Longest Golf Course

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Golfers with time to spare can play an 18-hole, par-72 course that spans two Australian states. Starting in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, the Nullarbor Links feature one hole at each participating town or roadhouse along the Eyre Highway, before finishing 848 miles away in Ceduna, South Australia. The course incorporates the rugged outback terrain of the Nullarbor Plain, and play can often be interrupted by kangaroos and wombats. Golfers should set aside four days to complete the entire course, and clubs are available for rent at each course (for those who don’t wish to carry them for the multi-day journey).

 

 

Source: Mind-Blowing Facts About Australia

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