Quirky History facts!

[Racoon]

The reason that Friday the 13th is such a bad luck day is,...

 

Becuz on Friday the 13th of October, 1307, the arrests of The Knights Templars. :)

 

The day of Friday the Thirteenth, 1307, which began so uneventfully, was the beginning of one of the world's most enduring mysteries, and one of its greatest tragedies. On that morning, Philippe le Bel, the King of France, in collusion with the Pope, gave orders for the arrest of over one hundred knights of the Order of the Temple, on charges of heresy.

 

Fortunately, most Knights of the Templar escaped, but it they never regained their previous position on global politics and economics.

 

Some say they went to Switzerland. Where they then set up shop...??? :doh:

[Michaelangelica]

This has always amazed me.

Who had the idea in the first place?

I am sure it made a very major contribution to Allied victory in WW2.

 

Does anyone know any books on what, and how, it all happened?

Code Talkers: The Secret Heroes of World War II

2/18/2008

 

When the 29 young Navajo men first stepped into the Marine recruiter's office one morning in 1942, none of them were sure what their futures would hold.

 

"All I thought when I went in the Marine Corps was going to give me a belt of ammunition, and a rifle, a steel helmet, and a uniform," recalled Chester Nez, in a 2004 interview with the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).

 

Nez wasn't altogether wrong: He and his tribesmen would go on to fight in battles across the Pacific and European fronts, much like millions of other soldiers. But these courageous young men were destined for something different.

 

Though they've received little acknowledgment for their work, the hundreds of Navajos and other Native American tribesmen in the U.S. Military's Code Talkers program helped pave the way for an Allied victory in World War II, using the tools of their own native languages and culture to keep America safe.

. . .

Well, when they first got us in there for Code Talkers, we had to work that out among our own selves so, we didn't have a word for tank," Charles Chibbity, a Comanche Code Talker, told the NMIA. "And the one said it's like a [Comanche words] he said, it's just like a turtle, you know. It has a hard shell and it moves and so we called it a wakaree´e, a turtle."

. . .

 

"The Japanese pulled all of their hair out trying to decipher the code," Nez told CNN. But it's one of the hardest languages to learn, that's why it was never decoded or deciphered."

.....

.

..

.

NMAI Codetalkers

Code Talkers: The Secret Heroes of World War II,good,news,good news,positive,positive-news,good news media, inspiring stories,green news,health news,family news,heroes,pets,celebrities,Inspirational Story, Good News, Inspirational Message, Daily Insp

[Freddy]

From the Wikipedia article, Codetalkers:

Bibliography

 

* Aaseng, Nathan. Navajo Code Talkers: America’s Secret Weapon in World War II. New York: Walker & Company, 1992.

* Durrett, Deanne. Unsung Heroes of World War II: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers. Library of American Indian History, Facts on File, Inc., 1998.

* McClain, Salley. Navajo Weapon: The Navajo Code Talkers. Tucson, Arizona: Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2001.

* Meadows, William C. The Comanche Code Talkers of World War II. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.

* David Kahn, "The Codebreakers - The Story of Secret Writing", 1967. ISBN 0-684-83130-9

[Boerseun]

Soon to pass into historical oblivion, I present you with the following:

 

 

Nobutaka Machimura, the number two in government, said in December that he personally believed aliens existed, in an unusual rebuttal to a government statement that Japan had no knowledge of UFOs. Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba went as far as to say that he was studying the legal ramifications of responding to an alien attack in light of Japan's post-World War II pacifist constitution.

 

Do you think ET will respect our jurisdiction?

 

Imagine:

 

"VE HAV TRAVELED THROUGH ZOUSANDS OF LAAIT-YEARS OF ZPAAACE TO INVAAADE ZIS TAAINY PLAAANET. BUT VE MUST ABAAAANDON AAAALL PLAAAAANS TO ZAT EFFECT."

 

"BUT VHY?"

 

"ZE FUUUCKERS HAAAVE SUED US."

[Michaelangelica]

 

In my case, sadly, true.

[DougF]

Doritos Makes History With World's First Extra Terrestrial Advertisement

 

ScienceDaily (June 12, 2008) — Today Doritos makes history, taking the UK’s first step in communicating with aliens as they broadcast the first ever advert directed towards potential extra terrestrial life. The University of Leicester has played a key part in the success of the project.

 

 

The transmission is being undertaken as part of the Doritos Broadcast Project, which invited the UK public to create a 30 second video clip that could be beamed out to the universe offering a snap shot of life on earth to anyone ‘out there’. Some 61% of the UK public believe this is just the start of communication with ET life and that we will enter into regular communication with an alien species at some stage in the future.

 

Doritos Makes History With World's First Extra Terrestrial Advertisement

[Michaelangelica]

Perhaps the second?

Haven't we already sent a CD out of the solar system? (Voyager)

Aren't most of our radio broadcasts still going out too?

[Boerseun]

Coming to think of it, with all the mindless advertising we've been sending into space since the invention of the radio, it might very well be that the very first UFO to pull up to planet Earth's first communication will be:

 

"Two quarterpounders with cheese, and fries - oh yes, supersize it, please."

 

They will throw a few intergalactic coins at us, and be gone again.

[freeztar]

Haven't we already sent a CD out of the solar system? (Voyager)

 

Actually it was an 8-track cartridge. :naughty:

 

Seriously though, it is known as the "Golden Record". :naughty:

[Michaelangelica]

What do you think?

true or false?

I know the Poms imported tonnes and tonnes of Egyptian mummies as fertiliser in the 19? 20? C

 

 

Manure: In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship and it was also before commercial fertilizer's invention, so large shipments of manure were common..

 

It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by product is methane gas. As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen.

 

Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM!

 

Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening

 

After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.

Thus evolved the term " S.H.I.T " , (Ship High In Transit) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.

 

You probably did not know the true history of this word.

 

Neither did I.

 

I had always thought it was a golf term ...

[Michaelangelica]

Conspiracy theories

Create A Conspiracy

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oliver Cromwell would not take Quinine Bark when he had Malaria because it was commonly called "Jesuits' Bark/powder"- and he hated the Catholic Jesuits. So he died of malaria.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bush goes-Hair removal advert goes ballistic

http://mumbrella.com.au/2009/01/22/exclusive-aussie-veet-ad-that-went-viral-to-run-in-nz-and-canada/

 

............................................................

[Moontanman]

What do you think?

true or false?

I know the Poms imported tonnes and tonnes of Egyptian mummies as fertiliser in the 19? 20? C

 

I think I call BS on that one (it does sound good though) but did you know that Egyptian mummies were once used as fuel in steam locomotives? They are at one time a significant export of Egypt and the burial cloth was used to make paper that was used to wrap meat in butcher shops. That why butcher paper was light brown and continued to be light brown for years even after the practice of using mummy cloth was discontinued. I've often wondered how we kept from spreading some dire disease via this brown paper.

[Moontanman]

Did you know..... The first government study of UFOs concluded they were interplanetary space craft? Oh yes it's true, but the government refused to accept that! And so the many decades of trying to dispute that conclusion came about! :)

[Michaelangelica]

On 19 September 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world to give women the right to vote

 

In 1913 International Women's Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Wommen's Day ever since.

 

During International Women's Year in 1975, IWD was given official recognition by the United Nations and was taken up by many governments. International Women's Day is marked by a national holiday in China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

International Women's Day 2009

[Michaelangelica]

Goggle today

 

Samuel Morse's Birthday :coffee_n_pc: clever, good, fun

 

I just caught up with Independence Day last night. The aliens would have won without Morse and his code.

[lemit]

Manure: In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship and it was also before commercial fertilizer's invention, so large shipments of manure were common..

 

It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by product is methane gas. As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen.

 

Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM!

 

Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening

 

After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.

Thus evolved the term " S.H.I.T " , (Ship High In Transit) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.

What do you think?

true or false?

I know the Poms imported tonnes and tonnes of Egyptian mummies as fertiliser in the 19? 20? [/b]C

 

I think, if you check a dictionary, you might just be able to disabuse yourself of that folk etymology.

 

I happen to love folk etymologies, like I love pseudoscience. In a way, I'm tempted to continue my co-dependency with those two phantasms, those linguistic and scientific gossamers, but I really really think that spider webs should be called spider webs. I know (as people are always ready to explain to me) that I'm choosing a mundane, unromantic interpretation of the natural world and its beauty. I don't care.

 

--lemit

[Michaelangelica]

**** Eh

C

I think, if you check a dictionary, you might just be able to disabuse yourself of that folk etymology.

PE?

 

I came across something that really amused me in The Australian Newspaper. A Dr. Adam Taor writes a column on Body Parts you've never heard of.

Last week it was the "Rectouterine Pouch". It is a membrane stretched over the lowest part of a woman's peritoneum. It fits in front of the rectum and behind the uterus hence the name rectouterine

 

So far so good, but what tickled me was where the word came from

"Your rectum was named after the Latin word 'rectus', which means straight; its also the origin of the words rectangle and erection. But your rectum isn't straight; this part of your bowel was named by ancient anatomists who'd dissected only animals whose rectum really was straight"

 

Of course the Christian church forbade cutting and examining dead human bodies (Till the 15/16Cs?). I think Islamic doctors too were not able to examine human bodies.