Archive for the ‘egypt’ Tag
Being stuck in this house and this bed is driving me crazier than usual. Now that the Cov-19 has come and gone I still have a twenty-pound cast on my leg. I’m still limited by some door sizes which are too small for this freaking wheelchair to get through. Let me apologize, I immediately start to whine and feel sorry for myself when things aren’t going my way. It’s just human nature I suppose. I decided I would find a few items of trivia to help breakup your day. These are a mish-mosh of items collected totally at random. I hope you enjoy them.
- An Egyptian papyrus, dated at approximately 1850 B.C., gives us the earliest record of a method to prevent pregnancies. It required putting into the vagina a concoction of honey, soda, crocodile excrement, and some sort of gummy substance.
- Between the mid-1860’s and 1883, the bison population in North America was reduced from an estimated 13 million to a few hundred.
- Not a single bank existed anywhere in the thirteen colonies before the American Revolution. Anyone needing money had to borrow from an individual.
- After twenty years as a faithful unpaid servant of the Duke of Windsor, Walter Monckton was rewarded with a cigarette case on which his name was engraved – and misspelled.
- In the seventeenth century, and principally during the period of the Thirty Years War, approximately sixty million people in Europe died from smallpox.
- A conventional sign of virginity in Tudor England was a high exposed bosom and a sleeve full to the wrists.
- If all of the water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere were condensed at the same time, there would be enough water to cover the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) with twenty-five feet of water.
- The British erected in London’s Trafalgar Square a statue of U.S President George Washington, whose armies overthrew British rule in the colonies.
- When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it was not a federal felony to kill a President of the United States.
- For fear he might conceal a joke in it was one reason why Benjamin Franklin was not entrusted by his peers with the assignment of writing the Declaration of Independence.
WERE THEY TRIVIAL ENOUGH FOR YOU?
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Since I had a lot to say about dogs yesterday, it seems only right that I report a few things, both good and bad about cats. Here are a few . . .
- 7000 years ago, some of the first settlers in ancient Egypt were farmers, growing grain along the banks of the Nile. Their fields were overrun with about a zillion mice and ravenous rats. The farmers helped the cats develop a taste for those little rodents and one good cat could clear a field of vermin in an evening. They became such a part of the Egyptian lifestyle that in later years they were actually worshiped.
- Bastet was an Egyptian goddess with the body of a woman and the head of a cat. She became one of the most revered of the Egyptian gods, in charge of fertility, beauty, and motherhood.
- Julius Caesar, King Henry II, King Charles XI, and Napoleon all had terrible aelurophobia, a fear of cats.
- The prophet Mohammed was a big cat lover. His favorite cat, Muezza, once saved his life by warning him about a dangerous snake.
- Florence Nightingale, the world’s most famous nurse, was cat crazy. She owned more than 60 cats over the course of her lifetime.
- One more Egyptian note. In the 1800’s archaeologists digging in the shadows of the Egyptian pyramids unearthed a huge cemetery filled with more than 300,000 cat mummies.
I hope all of you rabid dog fans out there can now relax a little. We cat persons understand, appreciate, and sympathize about your passion for dogs. Some of your emails were a little disturbing but I really do understand your pain. LOL
CATS STILL RULE!
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We all love food, right? It’s the topic of so many conversations, television shows and TV advertisements. Here are a few foods based trivia facts that you might find interesting.
- Coffee, who had been introduced in Europe by Arab traders and was considered by many Roman Catholics to be the wine of infidels. Fortunately for all of us Pope Clement VIII officially recognized it as a Christian drink in an edict issued in 1592.
- Were you aware that a Dutch medical professor produced a product in his laboratory while trying to come up with a blood cleanser that could be sold in drugstores. The product was Gin and its original name was Hollandsch genever (Dutch Juniper).
- In ancient Egypt when taking an oath, the right hand was placed on an onion. Its round shape symbolized eternity.
- The Iroquois Indians planted what they referred to as the “three sisters”, corn, beans and squash. Planted together on earthen mounds, the cornstalks supported the vines of the bean plants, and the broad leaves of the squash plants blocked the growth of weeds.
- The company, F & M Schaefer, was the first American brewery to market beer in a bottle.
- In cooking, there are 60 drops to a teaspoon.
- The Heinz company is well-known for its “57 varieties”. The very first variety marketed by Heinz was horseradish in 1869.
- President Theodore Roosevelt was the person who coined the phrase that has been appropriated as the slogan for Maxwell House coffee: “Good to the last drop”.
- The queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, used the juice of cucumbers to preserve her skin and it’s still used today in facial creams, lotions, and cleansers.
- One acre of crocus plants produces only 10 pounds of dried saffron.
HAPPY EATING
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The first mention of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was in the 5th century BCE. They were some of the greatest human achievements at that time. The list was used over the centuries by many medieval writers but was mainly concerned with the accomplishments of the Greek or Roman empires. At that time very little was known of faraway cultures and their creations. Here is the traditional list of seven:
Giza Pyramids (Egypt), The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Iraq), Temple of Artemis (Turkey), Statue of Zeus (Greece), the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (Turkey), the Colossus of Rhodes (Greece), and the Pharos of Alexandria (Egypt).
While these seven were indeed a wonder, there were many other places elsewhere on the globe with achievements worthy of mention. Here are just a few to make my point:
The Great Wall (China), Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Machu Picchu (Peru), the Taj Mahal (India), the Moai Statues (Easter Island), the Aztec Temple of Tenochtitlan (Mexico), the Shwedagon Pagoda (Myanmar), and the Coliseum (Italy).
These were just a few. I could easily have named at least two dozen more. Let’s change categories now to name the Seven Wonders of the Industrial Age.
The Transcontinental Railroad (USA), the London Sewer System England), the Panama Canal (Panama), Hoover Dam (USA), the Three Gorges Dam (China), the Banaue Rice Terraces (Philippines), and the Bell Rock Lighthouse (Scotland).
What about the modern world and it’s wonders? Here are seven more to consider:
Itaipu Dam (Brazil), the Channel Tunnel (England/France), the Twin Towers (USA), the Zuider Zee Dam (Netherlands), the Petronas Towers (Indonesia), the CN Tower (Canada), and the Burj Khalifa (UAE).
I’ve offered up a lot of information here and many will likely disagree with some of my choices. The point of this historical rampage was to show that creativity and wonder aren’t limited to one country or one continent. The wonders of the world are too numerous to list, and every country has their own favorites. I find it amazing that as a species we have so many similarities and so little understanding of each other. Maybe someday it will improve.
WE CAN ONLY HOPE
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My better-half has an addiction. It’s one of those addictions that isn’t one that is so terrible that rehab becomes an issue. Her addiction is more like being madly in love rather than addicted. I kid her about it a lot but it’s always in good, clean fun. I dedicate this posting to her and the huge garbage bag of bottle caps she’s been saving for the last thirty years. At this rate we may have enough to build her a small drinking establishment made completely of bottle caps. If we do build something like that I think it should look something like this so all of her male friends, family, and co-workers can be totally comfortable.
Now let’s get started with a list of some of her most favorite topics which are always beer related.
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The ’33’ on a bottle of Rolling Rock was originally a printer’s error. It refers to the 33 words in the original slogan. It has generated enough mystery over the years that the company left it in the label.
Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. “Wet your whistle” is the phrase inspired by this practice.
In the Czech Republic, beer is cheaper than Coke. A half liter at the local pub costs just 30 cents (10.50 CZK) while a half liter of Coke costs 85 cents (30 CZK). Beer is a little more expensive than club soda (which costs 29 cents, or 10 CZK, for a half liter).
A labeorphilist is a collector of beer bottles.
A tegestologist is a collector of beer mats.
A flood of beer swept through the streets of St. Giles, England, on 17 October 1814. Caused by a rupture in a brewery tank containing 3500 barrels of beer, the tidal wave killed nine people and demolished two houses.
The first six-pack of beer was produced by the Pabst Brewery in the 1940s. The brewery conducted numerous studies, which found six cans were the ideal weight for the average housewife to carry home from the store.
In eleventh-century England, a bride would distribute ale to her wedding guests in exchange for donations to the newlyweds. This brew, known as Bride Ale, is the origin of the word ‘bridal’.
One method of checking a beer’s quality is the way in which the foam adheres to the side of the glass after each sip. Beer connoisseurs call this “Brussels lace.”
In 1888 citizens of Munich took to the streets and rioted after a beer price increase was announced.
Czechs drink the most beer in the world per capita – an average of 160 liters a year per person.
In merry old England, town inns paid a government tax known as a ‘scot’ for serving beer. Beer lovers who left town to drink at rural pubs were said to be drinking ‘scot free’.
Beer recipes have been found on Babylonian clay tablets from over 6000 years ago.
Guinness sells an average of 7 million glasses a day.
The British Army supplied its men with a cash allowance for beer, considered a vital nutritional staple on long overseas missions. With this allowance of one penny, soldiers enjoyed six pints of ale every day.
In Egypt, two containers of beer were the minimum wage for a day’s labour.
Beer was often served for breakfast in medieval England.
It was customary in the 13th century to baptize children with beer.
A barrel contains 31 gallons of beer. What Americans commonly refer to as a keg is actually 15.5 gallons, or a half-barrel.
The Budweiser Clydesdales weight up to 2,300 pounds and stand nearly 6 feet at the shoulder.
12 oz. of a typical American pale lager actually has fewer calories than 2 percent milk or apple juice.
The world’s strongest beer is ‘Samuel Adams’ Triple Bock, which has reached 17% alcohol by volume. To obtain this level, however, they had to use champagne yeast.
The oldest known written recipe is for beer.
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This posting should kick off her holiday celebration this year. I’ll be helping her stock up on her beer inventory because the worst thing that can happen is for her to run out too early. We’ll have to search diligently for a proper beer that’s special enough to be left out for Santa. To hell with that milk and cookies nonsense. In this house it’s beer and pretzels.
Little does she know that I was awake last Christmas eve when she slid quietly out of bed and drank all of Santa’s beer. My parents couldn’t fool me with the milk and cookies scam and she needs to know she can’t either. On top of everything else I hate waking up Christmas morning with a bed full of salt and pretzel chunks. They can hurt!
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