A “Bug” is an insect that has sucking mouth parts.
The oldest active synagogue in Europe is in Prague. It is called the Old New Synagogue.
Humans and elephants are the only animals with chins.
The Lord Ponsonby of Shulbede and Baron Soulsby of Swaffham Prior are actual titles in the English Peerage.
Australia was discovered by the Chinese. The Dutch were the first Europeans to discover it. William Dampier was the first Englishman to discover it.
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Helena
Consider the Holocaust: centuries before the mid 20th century, Christian Europeans had viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the faithful. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, while the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominately secular way, its roots were religious, and the explicitly religious demonization of the Jews of Europe continued. The anti-Semitism that built the Nazi death camps was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity.
Sappho
Examples aplenty, the Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel in its newspapers as late as 1914. And both Catholic and Protestant churches have a shameful record of complicity with the Nazi genocide.
Galene
Hang on, what is this so-called blood libel? Continue reading
Throughout the ages, the leap day, or the 29th of February, has driven people from all over the world to rather odd behaviour – for one reason or another. Here is a selection of curious or special leap day related facts:
Frasier: Yeah dad, you should go.
Martin: Ah, Montana’s too far away.
Frasier: Well dad, his birthday only comes around once every four years. As a matter of fact, this day only comes around every four years. You know, it’s like a free day, a gift. We should do something special, be bold! It’s leap year, take a leap!
Martin: You know, I was just about to say the same thing to you.
[…]
Frasier: Dad, Jimmy’s already sixteen. How many more birthdays is he going to have?
Martin: [smiles] You know, I would kind of hate not being there when Jimmy brings out the big ham.
– Frasier Season 3, Episode 16; “Look Before You Leap” [No. 66]
The Gympie-Gympie (pronounced gimpey-gimpey) is one of four species of stinging tree of the family Urticaceae in Queensland, Australia. It is said to have the most painful sting of any plant, not only in Australia, but the World.
“I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It’s so fuckin’ heroic.” – George Carlin
Although called a tree, the Gympie-Gympie is a soft-wooded shrub that can reach 4-5m, but is often found as a smaller shrub around 0.1-1m tall. It has broad, oval or heart-shaped leaves (which appear furry due to a dense covering of tiny stinging hairs) with saw-tooth edges, and white or purple-red fruit. The stems and fruit are also covered in the stinging hairs.
When touched, the tip of the hairs break off which turn the hairs into a self-injecting hypodermic needles. It is reported that brushing against it is like being burnt with hot acid and electrocuted at the same time.
The actual chemicals contained in the toxin are not completely understood; however, it is probably a peptide (organic chemical molecules made from linking amino acids together in a certain order) called moroidin, hence the plant’s taxonomic name Dendrocnide moroides.
After a person has been stung, the small hairs can become embedded in the skin, which can lead to long-term pain and sensitivity – there are many accounts of people suffering heavily for months from a sting.
Worse still, the Gympie-Gympie is just as capable of stinging when its leaves are dead. The toxin in the hairs seems unaffected by age.
One account a soldier in the bush during World War II was caught short of toilet paper, used the wrong leaf, and was in so much pain that he shot himself in an attempt ease the pain. In 1866 a surveyor reported that his pack horse was stung by the plant, went mad and died in two hours.
“…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?” – Vincent van Gogh
A human being has about the same number of genes as a cabbage.
Pumpkin Island, Australia, has been renamed XXXX Island.
Lipstick can still contain lead, but no more than 20 parts per million; arsenic, but no more than 3 parts per million; and mercury, but no more than one part per million.
The Dutch for ‘piglet’ is big.
According to the Quran, the testimony of two women is needed to contradict that of a man.
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The opening theme to the American 1970’s television show M*A*S*H was called Suicide Is Painless.
The Latin palmo means ‘I print the palm of the hand’ or ‘I tie up a vine’.
In 1994, there were only ten lawyers in Cambodia.
The Great Barrier Reef is the greatest organism-made structure on the planet. It covers 350,000 square kilometres (135,000 square miles), an expanse greater than Poland.
According to Deuteronomy 22:24, if a woman did not scream loud enough while being raped, she was deemed to be part of the evil that must be purged; it was therefore ruled she must be stoned together with the rapist.
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Henry IV of France promoted green parks in Paris. He is responsible for a street called the Street of the Bridge of Cabbages.
10,113 Americans insured themselves against giving birth to the messiah at the millennium.
The 10th President of Nigeria (that is, the 3rd President of the Fourth Nigerian Republic), was called Goodluck Jonathan.
Scorpions navigate by starlight.
More than 50% of the world’s languages are located in just eight countries: India, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, and Cameroon.
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Quail pipe was Victorian slang for ‘woman’s tongue’.
The newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst once wanted an answer to the question ‘Is there life on Mars?’ he asked an astronomer via telegram ‘Please cable 1000 words.’ The scientist’s reply was ‘Nobody knows’ – written 500 times.
Main-belt asteroid 9007 is called James Bond.
In Fort Worth, Texas, the Museum of Science and History is adjacent to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.
Dame Nellie Melba, the legendary Australian operatic soprano after who Escoffier named Melba Toast, believed oral sex was good for the voice.
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