Groucho's Fact Hunt

[Black Belt Jones]

enfeebles?

 

[ToffeeDoug]

The 1909/10 FA Cup Final replay between Newcastle (winners) and Barnsley was played at Goodison Park!

 

[Groucho]

Tutankhamun's parents were brother and sister.

 

[ToffeeDoug]

Tutankhamun's parents were brother and sister.

I'd be surprised if they weren't.

 

[Jamo Martinez]

I read somewhere that cats in the wild used to never meow unless for mating/territorial aggression, but when they were domesticated they learned that they can get our attention that way and started doing it, and now it's so far down their "line", so to say, that it's more or less passed on.

I can't really prove that in any scientific way as I saw it god knows how long though.

Also I know it kind of makes no sense, but then again, neither do cats.

I heard that they only purr with human interaction.

 

[DualityNSNO]

I heard that they only purr with human interaction.

They purr when they suckle from their mums as well. Apparently the whole purring thing comes from there - a place of comfort basically, so they associate it with that, hence they purr when we pet them etc.

 

[Tramps_mate]

Not a fact, but thought this may be appreciated by the fact hunt cognoscenti - a clue from the guardian cryptic last month:

Wears out wingers from Everton — Bill with disheartened Blues (9)

A lot of subtext in that clue - reckon the setter (tramp) has to be a blue.

Good one that..

 

[SailorBlue]

In the 1931/32 season Celtic keeper John Thomson sustained a fractured skull in the match against Rangers at Ibrox. He died 5 days later. 30,000 saw his coffin off at Queen Street station & 3,000 attended his funeral.

 

[SailorBlue]

In 1949 Italian champions Torino were
Involved in a air crash. 18 players died, 31 altogether. Torino had won 4 consecutive titles and were 4 points clear on the day of the crash. The remaining 4 games were completed and won by the youth team against their opponents youth teams.

 

[Bilko]

China has only one timezone,making it the largest country in the world with just one, even though it is of similar size to the USA,which has four,

it was decided to be made one zone by the communist party so as to unite the country.

 

[The Cowboy]

China has only one timezone,making it the largest country in the world with just one, even though it is of similar size to the USA,which has four,

it was decided to be made one zone by the communist party so as to unite the country.

And why not, eh? Time is just a social construct, it doesn't really stop anyone doing anything. That's what makes me laugh about daylight savings - pushing the clock forward an hour doesn't create extra daylight. The farmers would've got up at dawn anyway, whether dawn be 5am or 6am, so I just don't get the point of it.

 

[Bluesaint]

They purr when they suckle from their mums as well. Apparently the whole purring thing comes from there - a place of comfort basically, so they associate it with that, hence they purr when we pet them etc.

Apparently wild dogs ( not cayotes) don't bark. Only when domesticated do they bark. Scientists think they're trying to mimic human speech.

 

[Jacko93]

And why not, eh? Time is just a social construct, it doesn't really stop anyone doing anything. That's what makes me laugh about daylight savings - pushing the clock forward an hour doesn't create extra daylight. The farmers would've got up at dawn anyway, whether dawn be 5am or 6am, so I just don't get the point of it.

It was to do with the war, and the best way to save energy resources.

 

[COYBL25]

The original Alder Hey children's hospital was built using a design for hospitals pioneered by Florence Nightingale .

 

[The Cowboy]

It was to do with the war, and the best way to save energy resources.

According to our good friend wiki, the concept was well before the war but appeared to be implemented around WW1 (though not exactly because of the war):

Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whoseshift-work job gave him leisure time to collect insects, and led him to value after-hours daylight.[2] In 1895 he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society proposing a two-hour daylight-saving shift,[13] and after considerable interest was expressed inChristchurch, he followed up in an 1898 paper.[30] Many publications credit DST's proposal to the prominent English builder and outdoorsman William Willett,[31] who independently conceived DST in 1905 during a pre-breakfast ride, when he observed with dismay how manyLondoners slept through a large part of a summer's day.[18] An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk.[32] His solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later.[33] The proposal was taken up by the LiberalMember of Parliament (MP) Robert Pearce, who introduced the first Daylight Saving Bill to theHouse of Commons on 12 February 1908.[34] A select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearce's bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915.

Starting on 30 April 1916, Germany and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST (German: Sommerzeit) as a way to conserve coal during wartime. Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the next year and the United States adopted it in 1918.

Just seems so unnecessary to me. How does shifting the clock save energy resources? You've still got x no of hours to heat/light, just moved back an hour.

It was dumb then, and it's utterly irrelevant now.