Topic: Interesting Facts

[Ken]

Some of those school supply details I knew already, but not so much on thee bridges. Hearing about the rainy and dry seasons it makes sense that bridges would not work on the Amazon.

[Skhilled (OP)]

The original patent for the fire hydrant was destroyed in a fire.

For early Americans, fire was a feared necessity; it warmed homes, provided hot meals, and offered late-night reading light. But fire could also destroy entire communities, which was probably the inspiration behind the invention of the fire hydrant — though we may never really know the full story, thanks to a fire in 1836.

At the time, Americans had been eagerly filing patents for nearly five decades thanks to the Patent Act of 1790, recommended to Congress by President George Washington himself. By the 1830s, the Patent Office housed nearly 10,000 patents — an impressive but risky collection considering they were all original documents with no copies.

On December 15, 1836, a fire in the basement of Blodgett’s Hotel (which then housed the Patent Office, U.S. Post Office, and a branch of the local fire department) smoldered from the embers of ashes that had been stored alongside firewood in a wooden box. Firefighters stationed in the building responded to the growing blaze, but couldn’t do much with the department’s dilapidated hoses. The former hotel — and every document inside — was gone in under 20 minutes. Assigned the impossible task of reconstructing its records, the Patent Office put out a call to inventors to mail in any documentation they had of their awarded patents, but only around 2,800 patents were restored. Those that couldn’t be reproduced were voided. In the years since, some scholars have pointed to Frederick Graff Sr., an early 19th-century Philadelphia engineer, as the possible inventor of the fire hydrant. However, another innovator by the name of Birdsill Holly Jr. was awarded a patent in 1869 for his “modern” fire hydrant, which was soon adopted in cities around the U.S. and Europe. Today, the United States Patent and Trademark Office takes up five buildings in Alexandria, Virginia, and many patents are applied for and stored digitally — making them much less likely, thankfully, to be destroyed by fire.

[Skhilled (OP)]

Catnip actually repels mosquitos from cats.

https://www.interestingfacts.com/fact/63179495f8d2780008b1c148?liu=bfb99dadf51e2d85f3443cda78c57e07#6317932072f086000875d453

[Ken]

Fire has always played an important role in human history, with evidence of fires use and misuse going back to the stone age.

A brief history of fire

    Fire: A Brief History (2nd edition)
    By Stephen J Pyne,
    Sydney, New South, 2019. 201 pp.

“All humans manipulate fire, and only humans do, we are truly a species touched by fire,” writes Stephen J Pyne, environmental historian and author, in Fire: A Brief History.

See also
Ecosocialism 2020: From rebellion to revolution
United States: In California, we need to fight fire with fire
Support urgently needed for rebuilding after Black Summer fires

First written in 2001 and republished in 2019, Fire examines the history of fire and the way it has affected the environment and the way this has been affected by humanity’s attempts to shape and use fire.

Pyne argues that fire’s history occurred in three stages. The first was Natural fire, which didn’t need the intervention of any species. These fires occurred regularly and nature adapted to this cycle.

The second was Anthropogenic fire. Anthropogenic fire begins with the earliest human societies, when humans first discovered fire and learnt to use its power for agricultural development. From this point, Humans would use fire to shape the environment around them with varying degrees of success.

Indigenous peoples around the world used various methods of fire control as a means of land management. For example, Indigenous Australians used firestick farming as well as creating lines of fire, as well as fire and fuel breaks, where they could maintain rather than create fire-driven landscapes.

For most of history, European societies tried to use fire for agricultural purposes, but tried to control fire rather accept its use in creating a fire-driven landscape. However, until the rise of Industrial capitalism, their success in controlling fire was limited, especially in urban areas where fires were common because of the abundance of flammable materials.

This brings us to the third period known as Industrial fire which relies on the burning of fossil fuels, releasing biomass and carbon dioxide. During this period, effective fireproof materials were developed, so that fire could be more effectively contained and therefore removed fire from human view.

This coincided with both the rise of industrial capitalism and the height of European colonialism. This means that humans were alienated from the effects of fire and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, leading to the disappearance of Indigenous fire regimes that had previously dominated their landscapes.

The effect of this was noted in Sydney in 1848 by the NSW Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell who wrote: “Kangaroos are no longer to be seen there, the grass is choked by underwood; neither are there natives to burn the grass”.

Without the fires, the fuels contained within them were eliminated and woody species overran the landscape.

[Ken]

Catnip actually repels mosquitos from cats.

https://www.interestingfacts.com/fact/63179495f8d2780008b1c148?liu=bfb99dadf51e2d85f3443cda78c57e07#6317932072f086000875d453

That's an interesting fact that I didn't know. 

[Skhilled (OP)]

I remember reading some of this years ago...about the fires.

[Skhilled (OP)]

Google Maps once listed a town that never existed.

I actually remember this. LMAO

There’s off the map, and then there’s Argleton. The English town was visible on Google Maps until 2009, which is notable for one major reason: No such place exists. So how did it get listed? Though never confirmed by Google, it’s been speculated that Argleton may have been akin to a trap street — a fictitious road used by cartographers to catch anyone copying their work. The reasoning is as simple as it is clever: If a street (or, in this case, town) that you made up ends up on another map, you’ll have caught its creator red-handed in copyright infringement.

Though little more than an empty field in West Lancashire, Argleton once had its own (presumably auto-generated) job listings and weather forecasts. Once its (non-)existence became known on the internet, humorous T-shirts with slogans such as “New York, London, Paris, Argleton” and “I visited Argleton and all I got was this T-shirt” appeared online, too. Google itself was tight-lipped on the subject, releasing a brief statement noting that “Google Maps data comes from a variety of data sources. While the vast majority of this information is correct there are occasional errors.” The good people of Argleton likely would have been highly offended by that characterization — if they actually existed.

[Ken]

 

[Skhilled (OP)]

Lord Byron’s daughter Ada Lovelace is often considered the world’s first computer programmer.

The famous poet Lord Byron once wrote of his daughter Ada that he hoped “the gods have made her anything save poetical — it is enough to have one such fool in the family.” He got his wish. Instead, Ada Lovelace followed a path many considered impossible for a woman in the early 19th century. Encouraged by her mother, Lady Byron, Lovelace developed a passion for mathematics at a young age. In 1833, a 17-year-old Lovelace met British mathematician Charles Babbage at a party, and he told her about a calculating machine he’d created called the Difference Engine. Fascinated, Lovelace eventually began a regular correspondence with Babbage.

About a decade later, while translating a French text regarding Babbage’s proposed Analytical Engine — often considered the first mechanical computer — Lovelace added a few notes of her own. “Note G” detailed a method through which Babbage’s creation could calculate complex numbers called Bernoulli numbers. This is often considered the world’s first computer program, making Lovelace the first computer programmer. While Babbage was the brains behind the machine, Lovelace was the one who truly grasped its wider importance, foreseeing a future where engines could use the “abstract science of operations” to do things beyond mere computation — like composing complex music, for example. It took the world nearly a century to catch up to her vision.

[Ken]

It's interesting how much little known historical facts can influence our 'modern' day life's tools and technologies. 

[Skhilled (OP)]

Killer whales are actually dolphins.

There are a few common misconceptions about killer whales, such as how they’re often seen as bloodthirsty creatures that hunt humans (they don’t — killer whale attacks are incredibly rare). But the biggest confusion about these black-and-white ocean dwellers is right in their name: They aren’t really whales. The Orcinus orca is actually the largest species in the Delphinidae (aka dolphin) family, weighing as much as 350 pounds at birth and growing up to 32 feet long during its 30- to 50-year life span. But in comparison to most whales — like the 100-foot blue whale, the largest animal on our planet — orcas are relatively small. Biologists also group killer whales with dolphins because of their aerodynamic body shape, which helps them reach speeds of up to 34 miles per hour, and their use of echolocation for hunting and navigation.

So why do we call them killer “whales”? The name stems from sailors of old, who witnessed the massive dolphins hunting whales (and other large marine mammals) together, and originally called them “whale killers.” Over time, the name was reordered, giving orcas a reputation as fierce and dangerous predators. These oceanic dolphins are clever hunters, known for beaching themselves to feast on seals and sea birds, and for working in pods to take down larger prey like great white sharks. But they’re also extremely social marine animals that spend their lives in matriarchal groups with as many as 40 members. Killer whales are so focused on community building that pods often host “greeting ceremonies” to meet members of other groups or welcome new babies, and hold aquatic funerals to mourn podmates. And the most reputation-busting research shows they might just like belly rubs.

[Ken]

Kay and me took some of the grand-kids to Sea World in Orlando back in the 90s and saw the Killer Whale show... it was rather impressive.

[Skhilled (OP)]

I remember seeing a rather small show long ago and liked it.

But when you think about it, they do look like large dolphins...just different colors.

[Skhilled (OP)]

Vlad the Impaler: The real Dracula

https://www.livescience.com/40843-real-dracula-vlad-the-impaler.html#section-who-was-the-real-dracula

[Ken]

It's strange how this one person has been the subject of so much interest throughout the centuries with many books/novels/stories about him, with many claiming to be factual history.