Quirky History facts!

[Turtle]

Naturalist David Douglas, namesake of the Douglas Fir, died at the age of 35 when, while botanizing in Hawaii, he fell into a wild-cattle pit-trap where a captured bull gored him to death. :xparty: Crikey!

[Qfwfq]

Yes the Brits could have done it but they didn't

This only means they didn't decide to, presumably not deeming it necessary, and it doesn't lend support to your claims. BTW in my hurry I left out "if the Yanks could" because it still strikes me slightly anachronistic, although not quite as much as:

We developed shells with a micro radar in the tip so they would explode from a near hit instead of actually having to hit the attacking fighter planes.

Are you sure of this, back in WW2? How small were the thermoionic valves and the power cell? Perhaps you're right about your memory playing games with you. :xparty:

 

Actually they didn't intend to invade, they planned to blockade our harbors and attck us on the high seas if we started to supply Germany with materials.

Now this is more plausible, as a strategist's reckoning.

 

Something I saw in a documentary is that Britain had a just-in-case plan to land in Eire before the Nazi, if it had come to that. They had tried to reach an agreement, but Dublin kept insisting they would be able to defend themselves. There was however a serious risk of a nutcracker strategy and printed material was even prepared for the troops, a kind of tourist guide with details of how to get along with the Irish folk, and other stuff ready to help the hypothetical occupation go smoothly.

[jab2]

If I read the latest couple of posts in this thread, I get the impression that there are a little lack of knowledge with regards to the development of radar and who was responsible for the various branches and applications. I can point to a very informative book on the subject: The invention that changed the world. The story of Radar from war to peace by Robert Buderi.

 

Are you sure of this, back in WW2? How small were the thermoionic valves and the power cell? Perhaps you're right about your memory playing games with you. :phones:

 

To answer to the above is found on page 221 of above book and I quote:

 

The key to the proximity fuze was a miniature radio transmitter incorporated into the nose of the projectile. As with the cavity magnetron at the heart of the SCR-584, the basic design had arrived in the US as part of the Tizard Mission in September 1940, with the Americans picking up developement at a laboratory paid for by Vannevar Bush's National Defense Research Commitee.

 

The guiding light behind the proximity fuse, which also went by the name of Pozit and VT fuze, was Carnegie Institute physicist Merle Tuve(1), whose earlier ionosphere experiments with Gregory Breit had led to pulse radar.

(1) An account of the development and initial introduction of proximity fuzes is given in The Deadly Fuze by Ralph B Baldwin (UK Edition published by Janes, 1980. ISBN 0-354-01243-6. Dr Baldwin was a member of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) team headed by Merle A Tuve that did most of the work.

 

Hope this help.

[Qfwfq]

Reasonable if they were big enough shells but I've never thought AA of rounds being very big. I don't find any sizes in there.

 

Those wikis certainly suggest there wasn't much intent of US vs. UK hostility in 1940, it was the Brits that gave the Yanks a good deal of the ideas and assistance, so Michael would have to say why the Brits did this while contemplating attacking them. The Yanks certainly had a lot of steel mines and it simply made sense to cooperate with them for the hardware. Sweden was in a far more delicate situation to have been a good choice.

[jab2]

Reasonable if they were big enough shells but I've never thought AA of rounds being very big. I don't find any sizes in there.

 

5in shells and 4.5in rockets. Also see http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq96-1.htm

 

Those wikis certainly suggest there wasn't much intent of US vs. UK hostility in 1940, it was the Brits that gave the Yanks a good deal of the ideas and assistance, so Michael would have to say why the Brits did this while contemplating attacking them. The Yanks certainly had a lot of steel mines and it simply made sense to cooperate with them for the hardware. Sweden was in a far more delicate situation to have been a good choice.

 

I am very interested in the history of nuclear fission and has read many books on the subject by people accross the spectrum from scientists like Robert Serber and also non scientists like Gen Lesley Groves. This has led my onto the Tizard Mission and the exchange of technology (not only the cavity magnetron, but also nuclear and other knowledge) from the British to the Americans in 1940. The Tizard Mission was initiated from the British side and they first had to play most of their hand before the USA started letting them in on some of the developments they have been up too. Some technology like the Norden bomb sight was never shared by the USA. I have also never read anything about possible hostile intend towards USA by the UK, nor any subtle tones that there might have been something like this. We in SA was also for and against helping the British during WWII, depending on who you ask, so it might be that there was a faction of British that held this view, but I would also like to see any positive references to this.

 

It is interesting that one of the leading figures in the development of Radar, Tuffy Bowen, was not given the recognition he deserved by his home country , the UK, as he was part of the Tizard Mission, and stayed on in the States to direct Radar development after the end of the Mission. Due to his disagreement with Robert Watson-Watt's view of Watson-Watt's and his own contributions in Radar development, he elected to move to an academic post in Australia in 1943 in steed of returning home from the States. There he was instrumental in creating the science of Radio Astronomy and construction of the 210ft Radio Telescope at Parkes in New South Wales. After the release of a lot of the classified documents from WWII, it is now clear that Robert Watson-Watt's contribution in the development of Radar was a bit over inflated, partly due to self promotion on his own part and downplaying other's contributions.

[Boerseun]

You've heard of the famed idea of British Sportsmanship? Check this:

An exerpt from TIME's PARTISANS AND GUERILLAS IN WORLD WAR II:

(ISBN 7054 0538 9)

 

Meanwhile, to buy time for their evacuation, the British prepared for one last stand along the approaches to Athens and Southern Greece. For their delaying action, they selected a site near Thermopylae, the pass made famous in 480 B.C. by a Greek army's suicidal stand against the Persians.

Before reaching the site, however, some of the soldiers halted by the roadside, and the engineers smoothed a nearby field with their combat shovels. Then, while Lieutenant Stephanos Zotos, a young Greek temporarily attached to a unit of Royal Engineers, watched in astonishment, "twenty two men came on the field, wearing white shorts and their colourful shirts. A referee appeared, holding the prescribed whistle." And a soccer match that had been scheduled for the day went on as planned.

 

"The game was reaching the end of the first half-time," Lieutentant Zotos wrote, "when a dozen Stukas appeared over our heads and started strafing a convoy moving along the road, only a few yards away from the field. Nobody moved and the game continued as the players dribbled, passed and kicked the ball with unrelenting zest. Lieutenant Smith looked at the sky where the enemy planes might reappear at any moment , and I heard him whisper, "I don't understand why the umpire does not stop the match."

 

"There was nothing else that could interrupt the game. Only the whistle of the referee could halt what British tradition dictated."

 

After the game was over, the players joined the rest of the retreating column while the rear guard of of Australians and New Zealanders hastily occupied defensive positions at Thermopylae.

 

---- End of Exerpt ---

 

Now that's what I call the love of the game!

[Michaelangelica]

I recently read about the origin of the term "Freezing the Balls off a Brass Monkey" in a detective story I read.( now returned to library - sorry -no details stuck).

 

It surprised me, as I had quite the wrong image in my head.

BUT

There seems to be some contention about the origin of the saying on the web.

Anyone know for sure?

Subject: brass monkey

 

In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters

carried iron cannons. Those cannon fired round iron cannon balls. It was

necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. But how to prevent them

from rolling about the deck?

 

The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one

ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen.

Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area

right next to the cannon.

 

There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from

sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate

called a "Monkey" with sixteen round indentations. But, if this plate

was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution

to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys."

 

Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much

faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped

too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon

balls would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally,

"Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"

 

(And all this time, you thought that was a dirty expression, didn't you?)

You must send this fabulous bit of historical knowledge to at least

ten unsuspecting friends (or enemies) within thirteen and one half

seconds. If you don't, your floppy is going to fall off your hard drive and

kill your mouse. Don't send it back to me. I've already seen it.

"Freezing the balls off the brass monkey," a Navy phrase about cannon balls-Fiction!

[Boerseun]

On the eve of January 23rd, 1900, the British prepared to take a small, rocky hill outside the town of Ladysmith in Natal province, South Africa. This was to relieve the siege the Boers laid on the town in the 2nd Boer War, a small, non-descript town basically in the middle of nowhere.

 

Be that as it may, through a series of miscalculations the Brits lost the battle against a ragtag band of Boers, and the results of this battle reverberated around the world.

 

Nothing peculiar or even remotely quirky about that, but to commemorate their fallen, upon returning home the surviviors named stands at their local football grounds 'the Kop', the most famous of these being 'the Kop' at Anfield (Liverpool FC).

 

Okay, nothing really quirky about that, either. Football stands have to get their names from somewhere, right?

 

So why is this in "Quirky History Facts?"

 

In the battle, three very prominent 20th century leaders featured:

 

• A battle-weary Boer general led the fight from the Boer's side. General Jan Smuts would go on to be one of Britain's strongest allies during WW2, and would be one of the key writers of the United Nations Charter.

 

• A shortish non-descript Indian fellow was a stretcher-bearer in the Spioenkop battle, and ran through crossfire to pick up the wounded and get them to the field hospital. Quite a few soldiers owe their lives to him, although at the time they surely wouldn't have thought that Mohandas Gandhi would become on of the key players in 20th century politics, leading the Indian independence movement against the British Empire.

 

• An akward-looking British War Reporter ran around the battle, getting copy for his sponsoring newspaper in London. Having escaped from Boer custody in Pretoria just a few scant months prior to the battle of Spioenkop, Winston Churchill had no idea at the time that he was to lead Britain through the darkest days of its history against the Germans a few decades later.

 

These three men all featured heavily in 20th century affairs, and it would be fair to say that if a single stray bullet at the battle of Spioenkop found its mark with any one of these three, the world as we know it today would be much, much different...

 

Quirky, indeed!

[Michaelangelica]

I knew about Churchill ; not the rest

Quirky!

[Turtle]

Not being yet aware of such a thing as a whipping machine, and thinking such a thing slipped by in leau of Old Sparky, I intended to pronounce it a quirky history fact. No less quirky is the rest of the story. :)

 

... Violence Transformed

 

It must be apparent from our analysis of acute and chronic pains and the variety of punishments that produce these effects that some punishments are neat mixtures of both the abstract and concrete elements of punishment. Acute corporal punishments are clearly in this category since they inflict an element of violence' date=' yet they are highly abstract in that they can be turned into numbers both in terms of duration and intensity.

 

It is also apparent that acute corporal punishments may be arranged according to whether they are more or less violent. For example, the use of the lash requires a great deal of physical exertion and may clearly be said to be a violent process. In contrast, the administration of electric shock requires no more physical exertion than the pressing of a button. Even though the effects of the electric shock may be just as violent as those of the lash, the process itself is less violent and therefore preferable. This is not to say that we could not invent a way of administering the lash that was less violent. In fact, [b']Jeremy Bentham designed a whipping machine that would have made the process essentially similar to the administration of electric shock.[/b]

Chapter 4: The Limits of Pain

[Michaelangelica]

Just read a new History of the OSS during WW2.

One operative got a guided tour of all nazi germany's synthetic oil plants on some ingenious pretext; later they were bombed.

But it got me thinking

How did the Germans make synthetic oil in WW2 and how come we can't do the same now?

[Boerseun]

But it got me thinking

How did the Germans make synthetic oil in WW2 and how come we can't do the same now?

We are! The Germans made oil out of coal, using the Fischer-Tropsch process in hydrating coal dust with high-pressure steam. The resulting 'sludge' gets cracked in a pretty much run-of-the-mill petrol cracking tower into all the products normally associated with crude oil.

 

It's a very expensive process, though, and the only company able to make it profitable is SASOL of South Africa! [/patriot moment] They've been doing it since the '50s, and South Africa is basically running on petrol from coal. We've got about 300 years of coal left, though - so you suckers will be getting your fuel from us after Peak Oil!

 

Mwhuahahahahaaa...

[jab2]

Boerseun, it's just a pity we have to pay for that fuel at Brent Crude prices. I would love to see the real cost of producing of SASOL's production and how our tax money fits into the equation. :confused:

 

BTW, read last week (cannot remember source) that some people believe that the Fuel Peak has past already.

[DougF]

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more

than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

 

 

 

* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse

 

* 7 have been arrested for fraud

 

* 19 have been accused of writing bad checks

 

* 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses

 

* 3 have done time for assault

 

* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

 

* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

 

* 8 have been arrested for shoplifting

 

* 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits

 

* 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you guess which organization this is?

 

 

 

 

 

Give up yet? :phones:

 

 

 

 

It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.

 

 

The same group that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to

keep the rest of us in line. :doh:

 

[Michaelangelica]

This is quirky,

but I am not sure why yet.

WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier

[Michaelangelica]

How old is Grandad???

(Personally I would go with 69 or 79)

 

 

 

Stay with this -- the answer is at the end. It will blow you away.

 

One evening a grandson was talking to his grandfather about current events.

The grandson asked his grandfather what he thought about the shootings at schools, the computer age, and just things in general.

 

The Grandfather replied, 'Well, let me think a minute, I was born before:

 

• ' television
   
  
• ' penicillin
   
  
• ' polio shots
   
  
• ' frozen foods
   
  
• ' Xerox
   
  
• ' contact lenses
   
  
• ' Frisbees and
   
  
• ' the pill
  

 

There were no:

 

'

• credit cards
   
  
• ' laser beams or
   
  
• ' ball-point pens
  

Man had not invented:

 

• ' pantyhose
   
  
• ' air conditioners
   
  
• ' dishwashers
   
  
• ' clothes dryers
   
  
• ' and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air and
   
  
• ' man hadn't yet walked on the moon
  

Your Grandmother and I got married first, and then lived together.

 

Every family had a father and a mother.

 

Until I was 25, I called every man older than me, 'Sir'.

 

And after I turned 25, I still called policemen and every man with a title, 'Sir.'

 

We were before gay-rights, computer- dating, dual careers, day-care centres, and group therapy.

 

Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments, good judgment, and common sense.

 

We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions.

 

Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger privilege.

 

We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent.

 

Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins.

 

Draft dodgers were people who closed their front doors when the evening breeze started.

 

Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends-not purchasing condominiums.

 

We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters, yoghurt, or guys wearing earrings.

 

We listened to the Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the Prime Minister's speeches on our radios.

 

And I don't ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey.

 

If you saw anything with 'Made in Japan ' on it, it was junk

 

The term 'making out' referred to how you did on your school exam.

 

Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and instant coffee were unheard of.

 

We had 5 &10-cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents.

 

Ice-cream cones, phone calls, and a Pepsi or Coke were all 2 Cents *(A Copper coin).

 

And if you didn't want to splurge, you could spend your Threepence on enough stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards.

 

You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600, but who could afford one?

Too bad, because petrol was 11cents a gallon (That’s now 4.5 litres).

 

In my day:

• 'grass' was mowed,
   
  
• 'coke' was a cold drink,
   
  
• 'pot' was something your mother cooked in and
   
  
• 'rock music' was your grandmother's lullaby.
   
  
• 'Aids' were helpers in the Principal's office,
   
  
• ' chip' meant a piece of wood,
   
  
• 'hardware' was found in a hardware store and
   
  
• 'software' wasn't even a word.
  

And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a husband to have a baby. No wonder people call us 'old and confused' and say there is a generation gap... and how old do you think I am?

 

I bet you have this old man in mind...you are in for a shock!

 

Read on to see -- pretty scary if you think about it and pretty sad at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

Are you ready?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This man would be only 59 years old

[Turtle]

In 1908, the Phoenix Gazette reported the finds of Egyptian artifacts in the Grand Canyon by one G.E. Kinkaid of the Smithsonian Institute. :) :doh:

Phoenix Gazette Grand Canyon article text, April 5, 1909

According to the story related to the Gazette by Mr. Kinkaid, the archeologists of the Smithsonian Institute [1], which is financing the expeditions, have made discoveries which almost conclusively prove that the race which inhabited this mysterious cavern, hewn in solid rock by human hands, was of oriental origin, possibly from Egypt, tracing back to Ramses. If their theories are borne out by the translation of the tablets engraved with hieroglyphics, the mystery of the prehistoric peoples of North America, their ancient arts, who they were and whence they came, will be solved. Egypt and the Nile, and Arizona and the Colorado will be linked by a historical chain running back to ages which staggers the wildest fancy of the fictionist. ...