Cultural and historical facts that amaze you

Donkey Oaty · 06-10-2015 12:26pm

Kev W wrote: »

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

Sorry, thought it was more common knowledge!

I don't know by what metric Gulliver's Travels could be called Science Fiction.

Gulliver's Travels most certainly is sci-fi by many definitions.

And what do you make of Voltaire's Micromegas?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microm%C3%A9gas

steddyeddy · 06-10-2015 12:29pm

Our word panic is derived from the Greek god pan. Pan was a wild forest Demi god that used to hide out in forests making travellers uneasy. Eventually he would jump out of a bush causing a "panic".

harry Bailey esq · 06-10-2015 12:39pm

kneemos wrote: »

What else breaks when it falls?

Glass

Kev W · 06-10-2015 12:54pm

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

Gulliver's Travels most certainly is sci-fi by many definitions.

Nope. Fantasy. Because there's giants and magic.

And what do you make of Voltaire's Micromegas?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microm%C3%A9gas

Point taken.

The_Minister · 06-10-2015 12:54pm

Kev W wrote: »

The genre of Science Fiction was invented by a teenage girl in the early 19th century.

Emmmm......no.

Frankenstein was significant, but people had been writing science fiction for centuries - Moore's Utopia for one.

Pretty sure some of the Ancient Greek stuff about Atlantis might count too.

Earthhorse · 06-10-2015 1:29pm

Kev W wrote: »

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

Sorry, thought it was more common knowledge!

I don't know by what metric Gulliver's Travels could be called Science Fiction.

It was your description of her as a teenage girl that threw me. I even saw her name mentioned in the wiki entry and breezed by it looking for the girl.

To be honest defining genre's is a mug's game at the best of time, I was just curious to see who you were talking about.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer · 06-10-2015 2:01pm

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Dueling in Paraguay is legal as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

Sadly, this ones not true, although I wish it was.

garrixfan · 07-10-2015 12:45am

LordSutch wrote: »

I find it amazing that the oldest traces of human habitation on the island of Ireland only stretch back 10,000 years (approx), while the oldest traces in Britain stretch back nearly 100,000 years!

So it took 90,000 years until some smart geezers (heritage unknown) to sail west and check out this green and pleasant land. Amazing to think this neighboiring island lay uninhabited for so long after Britain was settled (Just twelve miles between the two islands at the nearest point).

I guess the end of the last ice age played a part, but still fascinating to think that we were 'human free' till relatively recently vis a vis next door!

Do we even know for certain that the first inhabitants sailed from what is now Britain to here? It wans't really a neighboring Ireland back then either was it? Wasn't the east of the south UK joined to what is now Holland 6,000 years ago?
Also when was the last time Ireland was part of continental Europe?

But holy hell I didn't realize the first humans came to Europe so long ago, its pretty crazy that ourselves and Iceland weren't only inhabited in the last 10,000 years ago.

podgemonster · 07-10-2015 1:00am

Ohio is the only state in the United States whose letters are not used in the word "Mackerel"

07-10-2015 6:15am

podgemonster wrote: »

Ohio is the only state in the United States whose letters are not used in the word "Mackerel"

Think Swindon Town is the only English football club with that mackerel claim too.

WesternZulu · 07-10-2015 7:29am

That Connacht became a republic for little over a week in 1798.

I always thought that was pretty cool.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-10-2015 7:34am

Deleted User wrote: »

Think Swindon Town is the only English football club with that mackerel claim too.

And they've a magic roundabout.

Real culture shock stuff for some tourists.

I can remember when the Walkinstown Roundabout used to terrorise visitors from the country.

mattP · 07-10-2015 7:42am

kneemos wrote:

What else breaks when it falls?

Maybe Humpty was just a guy with brittle bones :P

melissak · 07-10-2015 8:38am

WesternZulu wrote: »

That Connacht became a republic for little over a week in 1798.

I always thought that was pretty cool.

Really. Cool. How did that come about.? Presumably to do with the Wexford rebellion because of the year?

Peregrinus · 07-10-2015 9:01am

melissak wrote: »

Really. Cool. How did that come about.? Presumably to do with the Wexford rebellion because of the year?

The French landed a force of about 1,000 soldiers at Kilcummin, Co Mayo in August 1798. This was about two months after the rebellion in Wexford had been crushed, and at the other end of the country, so it wasn't a terribly well-thought-out strategy. They joined up with local rebels and marched to Castlebar, where they decisively beat a small British force. This inspired them to declare a republic on 31 August 1789, often referred to as the "Republic of Connacht", though in fact the proclamation spoke of an "Irish Republic".

The republic, whatever its name, never controlled more than a small area between Ballina and Castlebar. It only ever appointed one official, John Moore, who was to be President of the Government of the Province of Connacht (and this is probably why it gets called the "Connacht Republic"). His job was to raise an army in support of the French, but he never got very far with it.

The British started to assemble a large force to counter-attach against the French. Knowing that he was hopelessly outnumbered until reinforcements could arrive from France, which was not expected for some weeks, the French general moved north, in the hope of connecting up with United Irish elements in Ulster and attracting support from them. The British cut him off at Ballinamuck, Co. Longford on 9 September where, after a brief battle, the French surrendered. Moore was captured, tried and sentenced to be transported, but died before actually taking ship.

whisky_galore · 07-10-2015 9:07am

Colonel Thomas Blood attempted to steal the Crown Jewels, mashed a crown flat to make it easier to carry. Another accomplice filed the Sceptre in two to fit in a bag.

Got caught red handed, but was pardoned and not only that, was given land in Ireland and made regular appearances in King Charles' Court!

LordSutch · 07-10-2015 10:22am

garrixfan wrote: »

Do we even know for certain that the first inhabitants sailed from what is now Britain to here? It wans't really a neighboring Ireland back then either was it? Wasn't the east of the south UK joined to what is now Holland 6,000 years ago?
Also when was the last time Ireland was part of continental Europe?

But holy hell I didn't realize the first humans came to Europe so long ago, its pretty crazy that ourselves and Iceland weren't only inhabited in the last 10,000 years ago.

Well firstly lets park any talk of "the UK", and lets stick with geographical terms. What I find amazing is the fact that for 90.000 years Great Britain was inhabited by modern day humans, while Ireland was "human free".

As regards the geography of the the islands, as far as I know they were in the same location as today.

Just wondering about those people on the west coast of Britain looking across the sea and wondering, for 90.000 years... till fill finally one day, somebody thought, "go on then" lets set sail and head over there to that island on the horizon

It's the discrepancy of 90.000 years that amazes me.

Peregrinus · 07-10-2015 10:55am

LordSutch wrote: »

Well firstly lets park any talk of "the UK", and lets stick with geographical terms. What I find amazing is the fact that for 90.000 years Great Britain was inhabited by modern day humans, while Ireland was "human free".

As regards the geography of the the islands, as far as I know they were in the same location as today.

Just wondering about those people on the west coast of Britain looking across the sea and wondering, for 90.000 years... till fill finally one day, somebody thought, "go on then" lets set sail and head over there to that island on the horizon

It's the discrepancy of 90.000 years that amazes me.

Basically, they walked from (what is now) the Low Countries to (what is now) Britain at a time when sea levels were lower. But the Irish sea is wider and deeper; they couldn't get from Britain to Ireland until they were technologically sufficiently advanced to construct and operate vessels capable of making the journey.

As already pointed out in this thread, it is possible that they came earlier than we know them to have come, but that all archaeological traces of this were destroyed by glacial action at the last ice age.

Wibbs · 07-10-2015 1:11pm

Peregrinus wrote: »

Basically, they walked from (what is now) the Low Countries to (what is now) Britain at a time when sea levels were lower. But the Irish sea is wider and deeper; they couldn't get from Britain to Ireland until they were technologically sufficiently advanced to construct and operate vessels capable of making the journey.

Far earlier pre modern humans(Neandertals) made it to Crete which is a sea journey well over the horizon. The "Hobbits" of Flores in Indonesia, who would have originally been Homo Erectus made it many hundreds of thousands of years ago across one of the most treacherous straits on earth. It seems some sort of seafaring sufficient to migrate a viable breeding population of individuals started early enough, which considering the size of the Erectus brain is bloody amazing. Modern humans were doing the oul seafaring lark early enough in our time too. They got to Australia 60,000 years back and when they marched through promptly went over to Tasmania while they were at it.

Ireland was a difficult one. For a start with every ice age it was fully icebound, whereas Britain was not. So folks could move back and forth with the edge of the Ice sheets. In warm intervals in the last 50,000 years I have little doubt modern peoples came here, but quickly retreated when the ice started to move again. As indeed they did in Britain. Indeed the "current" human populations of these islands last arrived at not far off the same time. Oh and by the by best current evidence has modern humans in Britain for the last 40 odd 1000 years not 90.

Ireland and the UK were joined by land up to 20,000 years ago(sea levels dropped with ice ages). It seems it was too harsh for much to travel it mind you. Our original native Irish flora and fauna is less diverse than the UK's. Even there it gets odd. Our extinct cave bears are related to Spanish ones, not British ones.

Other human migratory oddities are out there. New Zealand was only colonised by the Maori in the 10/11th century. Madagascar can be seen from the African mainland but ancient Africans for some reason didn't bother with it, yet they were large scale explorers otherwise.

Tzardine · 07-10-2015 1:19pm

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Strange cultural fact - Most Rwandan women are squirters. Not just by some sexy accident of genetics or whatever but through the carefull teaching of certain techiques from mother to daughter down through the generations:eek:

That's so messed up.

Squirting lessons with your ma after dinner.

/shudder

fleet_admiral · 07-10-2015 1:56pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

And they've a magic roundabout.

Real culture shock stuff for some tourists.

I can remember when the Walkinstown Roundabout used to terrorise visitors from the country.

It terrorises me and im a local!

UpCork · 07-10-2015 2:19pm

Excellent thread. I really love all this kind of stuff.

LordSutch · 07-10-2015 2:47pm

So far The UK has gone through three incarnations!

One/ The United Kingdom of England/Wales & Scotland (1707).
Two/ The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland (1800).
Three/ The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland (1922).
Four/ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

We'll have to wait and see. Maybe Scotland will leave? Maybe NI will leave? Maybe both will leave? Maybe the whole concept of a 'UK' will be resigned to the political history books?

DarkyHughes · 07-10-2015 3:45pm

The Jesus - Titus Flavius typology is pretty amazing.

DarkyHughes · 07-10-2015 4:24pm

WesternZulu wrote: »

That Connacht became a republic for little over a week in 1798.

I always thought that was pretty cool.

Also Limerick became a Soviet for a few weeks in 1919 as well. Had the their own type of currency & all.

DarkyHughes · 07-10-2015 4:27pm

Peregrinus wrote: »

The French landed a force of about 1,000 soldiers at Kilcummin, Co Mayo in August 1798. This was about two months after the rebellion in Wexford had been crushed, and at the other end of the country, so it wasn't a terribly well-thought-out strategy. They joined up with local rebels and marched to Castlebar, where they decisively beat a small British force. This inspired them to declare a republic on 31 August 1789, often referred to as the "Republic of Connacht", though in fact the proclamation spoke of an "Irish Republic".

The republic, whatever its name, never controlled more than a small area between Ballina and Castlebar. It only ever appointed one official, John Moore, who was to be President of the Government of the Province of Connacht (and this is probably why it gets called the "Connacht Republic"). His job was to raise an army in support of the French, but he never got very far with it.

The British started to assemble a large force to counter-attach against the French. Knowing that he was hopelessly outnumbered until reinforcements could arrive from France, which was not expected for some weeks, the French general moved north, in the hope of connecting up with United Irish elements in Ulster and attracting support from them. The British cut him off at Ballinamuck, Co. Longford on 9 September where, after a brief battle, the French surrendered. Moore was captured, tried and sentenced to be transported, but died before actually taking ship.

So an Irish Republic has be proclaimed or declared in Ireland 5 different times in the space of about 150 years.

Donkey Oaty · 07-10-2015 4:29pm

Just to add to the interesting stuff Wibbs and Peregrinus have been saying about land masses, check out Doggerland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

Good colour map here from National Geographic:

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/maps/doggerland/

DarkyHughes · 07-10-2015 4:32pm

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

Just to add to the interesting stuff Wibbs and Peregrinus have been saying about land masses, check out Doggerland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

Good colour map here from National Geographic:

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/maps/doggerland/

Ah so that's were Atlantis went to.

I also didn't know the Russian Empire use to extend to Alaska or that Russia used to connected to North America via the Bering land bridge about 11,000 years ago.

podgemonster · 07-10-2015 4:59pm

The coastal West Cork village of Baltimore in West Cork was sacked by Algerian pirates (captained by a Dutchman) in June, 1631. It is the largest attack by Barbary pirates on the British Isles.

As it was post the Battle of Kinsale, the town at the time consisted of English settlers. When a local Catholic fisherman was captured he directed to the pirates to the town in exchange for his life also knowing that no-one outside the community would help.

They captured 108 English settlers who were then taken in chains to be sold into slavery in North Africa. The Fisherman was hanged for conspiracy. The remaining English settlers deserted the town and moved inland, the village remained uninhabited for generations.

There is a pub in the village named after the event and in 2015 while the Band The Darkness were on Valentia Island they heard of the story and wrote the song "Roaring Water" that featured on their latest album.

DarkyHughes · 07-10-2015 5:04pm

Ireland was a fully independent state for about 6 or 7 years during the Catholic Confederacy until the arrival or Cromwell, that was the last time Ireland was a fully united independent state.

Badly Drunk Boy · 07-10-2015 5:08pm

DarkyHughes wrote: »

I also didn't know the Russian Empire use to extend to Alaska or that Russia used to connected to North America via the Bering land bridge about 11,000 years ago.

The US only bought Alaska from the Russians in 1867.

melissak · 07-10-2015 5:17pm

[Maybe there were people but they left no traces. Maybe they lived in in treehouses or were nomadic and had biodegradable camps
quote="LordSutch;97290899"]Well firstly lets park any talk of "the UK", and lets stick with geographical terms. What I find amazing is the fact that for 90.000 years Great Britain was inhabited by modern day humans, while Ireland was "human free".

As regards the geography of the the islands, as far as I know they were in the same location as today.

Just wondering about those people on the west coast of Britain looking across the sea and wondering, for 90.000 years... till fill finally one day, somebody thought, "go on then" lets set sail and head over there to that island on the horizon

It's the discrepancy of 90.000 years that amazes me.[/quote]

melissak · 07-10-2015 5:19pm

[Maybe there were people but they left no traces. Maybe they lived in in treehouses or were nomadic and had biodegradable camps
quote="LordSutch;97290899"]Well firstly lets park any talk of "the UK", and lets stick with geographical terms. What I find amazing is the fact that for 90.000 years Great Britain was inhabited by modern day humans, while Ireland was "human free".

As regards the geography of the the islands, as far as I know they were in the same location as today.

Just wondering about those people on the west coast of Britain looking across the sea and wondering, for 90.000 years... till fill finally one day, somebody thought, "go on then" lets set sail and head over there to that island on the horizon

It's the discrepancy of 90.000 years that amazes me.[/quote]

check_six · 07-10-2015 5:25pm

We all know that the Incas never developed their use of the wheel. They had wheeled toys for children, but never bothered trying to use it to transport anything. This was probably due to it mountainous terrain in the Andes making them not practical to use.

However, did you know that Aboriginal tribes in Tasmania never bothered developing a way of making fire? They had been isolated for so long that a lot of developments just passed them by. These were mainly hunting tools and weapons like boomerangs and fish hooks. Apparently, the amount of food available to them locally was so plentiful that they never had to bother making anything too complicated to catch it. Any fires they had were just kept going the whole time as they had no way of restarting them.

These guys had been isolated from the rest of the world for the guts of 10,000 years and they were happy enough just doing their thing. Then the Europeans landed and they were all gone within a century.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-10-2015 5:28pm

DarkyHughes wrote: »

Ah so that's were Atlantis went to.

I also didn't know the Russian Empire use to extend to Alaska or that Russia used to connected to North America via the Bering land bridge about 11,000 years ago.

Russia sold Alaska to the USA back in 1867.

If they hadn't it would have made the Cold War interesting.

justchecked · 07-10-2015 5:33pm

the lives lost in separate marches on Moscow by hitler and napolean.

Many of whom froze/died on route.

And the millions who died as a result of mao or stalin.

cant remember the exact numbers for all these events but remember them being absolutely staggering.

Whitewinged · 07-10-2015 5:41pm

Stonehenge is really interesting. It dates back to 3000 - 2000bc. How did they move those massives stones for miles and construct and allign it!

I watched a documentary on it and i can barely remember the details but they were coming up with theories on how the stone was moved. One was by boat on a canal but i remember watching at the time and thinking it was too far fetched and seemed impossible.

AnLonDubh · 07-10-2015 6:04pm

Wibbs wrote: »

One female ruler(whose name escapes) who reigned after her pharaoh husband died young took to wearing a false beard a few years later. Her name became masculinised in writing too. Seems she was very well liked by her people so they saw no reason to stick a bloke on the thrown.

That was Hatshepsut. Rather than masculinising her name, she took traditionally masculine titles and femininised them grammatically (i.e. added the feminine -t- found in Afro-Asiatic languages).

Capt'n Midnight · 07-10-2015 11:04pm

justchecked wrote: »

the lives lost in separate marches on Moscow by hitler and napolean.

Many of whom froze/died on route.

And the millions who died as a result of mao or stalin.

cant remember the exact numbers for all these events but remember them being absolutely staggering.

Try Stalingrad. Roughly 300,000 German surrounded.

90,000 survived to surrender. Many died soon afterwards from disease and starvation others perished in the gulags.
Less than 6,000 made it back to Germany

The Hiwi's had it worse. They were the non-German volunteers.
Typically Russian POWs were lined up and asked to volunteer into the Germany Army one by one. Anyone who said no was shot.

For mass killing the rate at which the three million Russian POW's died during the first few months of the German invasion by mistreatment and neglect by the regular Germany Army was not seen during the Holocaust. Probably only the genocide in Rwanda came close.

Cambodia was unreal. Pretty much every person on boards.ie would have been killed. Stuff like wearing glasses or understanding a bit of French. IIRC there were THREE doctors left in the country.

Roll back to the 19th century and the War of the Triple Alliance where pretty much every able bodied male in Paraguay was killed and WWII could have been so much worse.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-10-2015 11:06pm

We've found traces of flowers in Neanderthal graves.

Bassfish · 07-10-2015 11:44pm

In the Middle Ages it was thought that all women's emotional ups and downs were controlled by their reproductive bits rather than their brains. The word they used for it was 'hystericus' meaning 'of the womb'. This is where we get the words hysteria!

Rippington · 08-10-2015 12:00am

Always amazes me when I read that the majority of allied soldiers who fought their way from Normandy through France up until the fall of Berlin never fired a shot in anger .

kneemos · 08-10-2015 12:09am

Rippington wrote: »

Always amazes me when I read that the majority of allied soldiers who fought their way from Normandy through France up until the fall of Berlin never fired a shot in anger .

Think it was either ten or twenty per cent of WWII soldiers that actually saw combat . Apparently they tended to stick with battle experienced troops.

Rippington · 08-10-2015 12:25am

kneemos wrote: »

Think it was either ten or twenty per cent of WWII soldiers that actually saw combat . Apparently they tended to stick with battle experienced troops.

The Band of Brother tv series covers this very well to . Its estimated that one of the major reasons why the Allies let the Russians take Berlin is because the remains of those battle experienced troops at the final hurdle had been physically and mentally worn out and they weren't going to throw hundreds of thousand's of rookie soldiers into battle against Russia who had 10 times as many battle hardened / fresh troops

Capt'n Midnight · 08-10-2015 12:50am

Rippington wrote: »

Always amazes me when I read that the majority of allied soldiers who fought their way from Normandy through France up until the fall of Berlin never fired a shot in anger .

There were lots of people involved in logistics.

For infantry actually on the front line the casualty rate was the about the same as in WWI.

D-Day was a cakewalk for most people two British and a Canadian beach were much easier than you see in the films.

Saving Private Ryan / The Longest Day focus on the US beaches, cliffs didn't help. Lack of Hobarts Funnies didn't help. They lost a lot of swimming tanks near the beach due to not trying to ferry glide across a strong current.

If you take into account Norway and Western Europe and North Africa that's where 10% of German Army casualties were. The other 90% were on the Eastern Front.

A lot of people forget what happened to China during WWII.
And of course that Iceland , Madagascar and Iran were invaded too.

languagenerd · 08-10-2015 1:52am

I read somewhere that one of the reasons that the Moors who ruled Spain never got further into Europe was that they didn't know how to fight on mountains. They sent the Berbers to the mountainous regions because they couldn't handle them themselves...

I also find it crazy that the whole history of Europe hinged on the Battle of Tours - if it had gone the other way, most of the continent might have been Islamic from 732AD on.

A more recent one, that's more shocking than amazing, is the way the British government treated the population of Diego Garcia in the 1960s-1970s. They pretty much forced them off the island so they could rent it to the US military - the worst is that islanders who went on trips to Mauritius just weren't allowed on the boat going back, and their families weren't told what happened, so they left to look for them and were banned from returning too. And it was only 40 years ago!

Ciderswigger · 08-10-2015 2:24am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

And of course that Iceland , Madagascar and Iran were invaded too.

Really? I never knew that. Interesting.

Cookie_Monster · 08-10-2015 2:28am

The Famine always seems to be the major devastating event in The Irish past but the below is far less well known:

From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade.

Cookie_Monster · 08-10-2015 2:30am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

We had TB sanatoriums too. Wasn't until the 1950's that we first started to get it under control. Part of Dr. Noel Browne's legacy.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/health/the-silent-terror-that-consumed-so-many-128709.html

If you want a NZ Visa you still have to provide a chest xray if you are Irish due to the TB legacy.

Peregrinus · 08-10-2015 2:50am

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

If you want a NZ Visa you still have to provide a chest xray if you are Irish due to the TB legacy.

This has nothing to do with being Irish.

Here are the current NZ visa health-check requirements. Mostly, whether you need an x-ray or not depends on the class of visa you are applying for, not on where you come from. There are a few visa classes (e.g. student visas) where you may or may not require an x-ray, depending on where you have been living, but for those visa classes Ireland is on the list of places for which an x-ray is not required.

Cultural and historical facts that amaze you

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