Cows, Kaiser Wilhelm and Daylight Saving Time


Billions of people around the world experience general fatigue all day after losing an hour of sleep to daylight saving time. For years, conventional wisdom has been that it benefits one particular group: farmers, but that’s not actually true. There are no farming activities that benefit from daylight saving.

‘Of course daylight saving doesn’t benefit farmers, cows don’t care what time it is, because they’re cows, and cows are idiots.[1] So if it’s not for them, who is it for?

The modern daylight saving was introduced during the first world war as a fuel saving measure by the Germans. – That’s right, you lost an hour of sleep this morning thanks to Kaiser Wilhelm!

And while back then, daylight saving may indeed have saved fuel, in the modern era, energy consumption is a little more complicated. In fact, when Indiana adopted daylight saving in 2006, guess what happened: the data shows that daylight saving actually led to a 1% overall rise in residential electricity.

Of course it did, because switching on a lamp an hour later in the summer doesn’t really matter when you’re blasting an air conditioner and staying up all night psychotically scrolling through instagrams of your ex’s honeymoon to Morocco.

But that’s not to say daylight saving doesn’t have any effects at all. Studies show there is an increase of car accidents and work-related injuries the week after the time change. – That’s right, what you lose in sleep, you gain in mortal danger.

Despite all this, 70 countries around the world still observe daylight saving and yet by going by local news reports, none of them could tell you why. […]

So if it doesn’t benefit our energy bill, our health or our stupid, stupid cows, it has to make you wonder: daylight saving time, how is this still a thing?’

– Oliver. J. et. al. (2015, March 8) Daylight Saving Time – How Is This Still A Thing?: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)


[1] The authors would like to underline they do not endorse the view that all cows are idiots. A 2004 study by Cambridge University researchers revealed cows have “eureka” moments, taking pleasure in their own learning achievements. When the cows made improvements in learning, they showed emotional and behavioral reactions that indicated excitement.

Dazzle Ships


Dazzle camouflage was a military camouflage paint scheme used on ships, extensively during World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II.

After the Allied Navies failed to develop effective means to disguise ships in all weathers, the dazzle technique was employed. At first glance, this was an unlikely form of camouflage, as ships were painted with zebra-like black, grey and white stripes.

This type of camouflage was used, not to conceal the ship, but rather to make it difficult for the enemy to estimate its type, size, speed and direction of travel. Also, each ship’s dazzle pattern was unique to avoid making classes of ships instantly recognisable to the enemy.

After seeing a canon painted in dazzle camouflage trundling through the streets of Paris, Pablo Picasso is reported to have taken credit for the innovation which seemed to him a quintessentially Cubist technique.

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The symbol of the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada is the forget-me-not.

Turritopsis Nutricula is a sea-creature that reverts back to polyp stage after breeding, earning the nickname ‘The Immortal Jellyfish’.

Michael Sata, the president of Zambia, previously worked as a cleaner at London Victoria railway station.

The Dutch iet means ‘not nothing’ or ‘an entity of some importance’.

Roland Garros was a French fighter pilot during World War I. He also became the first person to cross the Mediterranean Sea by air in 1913.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Ideal Female Bodies (iii)


Roaring Twenties (c. 1920s)

Women in the United States were given the right to vote in 1920, and it set the tone for the decade.  Women who had held down jobs during World War I wanted to continue working. Prohibition caused speakeasies to spring up, which, along with the rise of “talkies” and the Charleston, created a flapper-friendly culture. Women favoured an androgynous look, downplaying their waists and wearing bras that flattened their breasts. Beauty in the 1920s was a curveless, boyish body.

“Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.” ― Oscar Wilde

Golden Age Of Hollywood (c. 1930s – 1950s)

The Golden Age of Hollywood lasted from the 1930s through 1950s. During that time, the Hays Code was in effect, establishing moral parameters regarding what could or could not be said, shown, or implied in film. The code limited the types of roles available to women, creating an idealized version of women that, for the first time, was spread around the world. Movie stars at the time, like Marilyn Monroe, flaunted curvier bodies with slim waists.

“Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.” ― Marilyn Monroe

See other: Ideal Female Body Types Throughout History

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The charango, a unique musical instrument found only in Bolivia, is made from the shell of an armadillo.

Every year about 98% of the atoms in your body are replaced.

For every American killed by terrorism in or outside the U.S., more than 1,000 died from firearms inside the U.S. during the recent decade.

One in four Dutch smokers does not reach their pension-age.

The 1919 Treaty of Versailles explicitly forbade Germans form calling their sparkling wine ‘champagne’, so they called it by another, informal name: ‘sekt’ (from the Latin siccus, ‘dry’).

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

The Soldier


‘If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.’

– Rupert Brooke

Dreadnought [Noun.]


  1. A battleship, especially of the World War I era, in which most of the firepower is concentrated in large guns that are of the same caliber.
  2. A type of warship heavier in armour or armament than a typical battleship
  3. One that is the largest or the most powerful of its kind.
  4. A garment made of thick woollen cloth that can defend against storm and cold.
  5. In cryptic language-comedy; a fear of sexual intimacy.

Uncle Sam


Uncle Sam, nickname and cartoon image, is used to personify the U.S. government. It is derived from the initials U.S. and was first popularized on supply containers during the War of 1812.

Uncle Sam Poster

Samuel Wilson, a businessman from New York also known as Uncle Sam, stamped his shipments during the War of 1812 with the initials of the United States, U.S. The coincidence led to the use of the nickname Uncle Sam for the United States government.

The first visual representation or caricature of an Uncle Sam figure, attired in stars and stripes, appeared in political cartoons in 1832. The character came to be seen as a shrewd Yankee. In the 20th century Uncle Sam has usually been depicted with a short beard, high hat, and tailed coat. In 1961 the U.S. Congress adopted the figure as a national symbol.

James Montgomery Flagg’s recruiting poster for World War I (1914–1918), with the beckoning words ― I WANT YOU, has become one of the best-known portrayals of the character known as Uncle Sam.