Fun Facts/Did You Know?

[Shinobi]

I did not know that.

 

Did you know that every organ we have two of, we only need one to survive? (LINK)

Edited May 31, 2018 by Shinobi

[Durandal]

It actually rains on the sun.

 

Spoiler

for more information check out the NASA APOD Site

 

[FireFoxie]

"Ninety four percent of all life forms on Earth are aquatic. From this number, ninety percent resides in the ocean’s abyssal zone." 

 

https://www.whatarethe7continents.com/44-interesting-facts-about-the-ocean/

[damon8r351]

Yes, I knew that. Humanity collectively knows more about the surface of Mars than we do about what's in our oceans.

 

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Chronicle

 

This is one of my favorite Viking related stories, and yes I've told it before in a status update.

 

In 1066, England was subject to two nearly simultaneous invasions. One from Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, and the other from William, Duke of Normandy. Harald Hardrada was also receiving help from Tostig Godwinson, who was Harold Godwinson, King of England's brother. After receiving word that a northern English army had suffered defeat from Hardrada's army at the Battle of Fulford, King Harold threw together an army and marched rapidly north. It should be noted that Harold had previously dismissed his army for the fall harvest, after waiting for Duke William to get around to crossing the Channel. King Harold subsequently surprised the army of Harald Hardrada and Tostig Godwinson, defeated them in a rout at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, received word that the Duke of Normandy had landed his army in southern England, left a large part of his army up north for whatever reason, then marched south in a week's time with a week's rest in London while not bothering to gather more forces as he went, and engaged the Duke of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings with a much reduced army. The rest, as you know, is history. It's been said that had King Harold not had to cross England twice and also dismissed the bulk of his army up north, things might have turned out a lot differently.

 

Anyway, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the foremost source of English history between the departure of the Roman legions and the Norman Conquest. It is obviously not infallible. Different copies contain contradictory information, some record events that others do not, some barely mention events that others cover extensively, and there's obvious political bias on the part of some of the scribes who contributed to it.

 

Nonetheless, in at least one copy of the Chronicle there's an account of the Battle of Stamford Bridge. In it, it records that King Harold caught Harald and Tostig completely by surprise at the battlefield. See, Harald Hardrada had left up to a third of his army downriver to see to the disposition of the invasion fleet, and they were trickling in a bit at a time. King Harold attempted to cross the bridge, and here is where it gets weird. According to at least one copy of the Chronicle, King Harold's army was delayed from crossing for a short while by a lone Viking berserker wielding a Dane Axe. It's recorded that this berserker killed 40 Saxon soldiers before someone managed to get under the bridge and kill him by stabbing at him from below.

 

This is obviously fake in the sense that there is no way a single Viking warrior could hold back an estimated 10,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, especially since the longbow was very much in use at the time. However, this is very much true in the sense that this is an actual story that appears in at least one copy of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the most important sources of English history between the departure of the Roman legions and the Norman Conquest. And as I've said before, this is one of my favorite Viking related stories because that obviously embellished story of a single Viking berserker holding back the fury of 12,000 pissed off Saxons blows way whatever backstory you cooked up for your Skyrim character.

[Terra]

Lincoln actually supported slavery in prior to the Civil War starting and used it to his advantage to win the 1860 election.

[FireFoxie]

"There are 100 billion neurons present in the brain."

 

https://sciencefirst.com/10-interesting-facts-about-the-human-brain/

[damon8r351]

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

 

Socrates is considered one of the most important philosophers of Western philosophy, yet we're not sure what can be reliably attributed to him and him alone. This is because he apparently never wrote anything of his down, or absolutely none of his writings have survived to the present day. Virtually everything we know about him is filtered through three of his students in their writings, Plato, Xenophon, and Antisthenes, who have been confirmed to have lived during Socrates' time. Plato had a habit of inserting the character of Socrates into his own writings to act as a mouthpiece for his own thoughts, and this creates conflicts and contradictions in information surrounding Socrates. Another source of info on Socrates is the playwright Aristophanes, who also lived during Socrates' time, but most of it seems to be concerned with lampooning him. Everyone else that have written about were either not students of his, or lived after his time.

[damon8r351]

There were actually six battles at Thermopylae over the course of history.

 

-The first in 480 BC is the most famous, being the infamous "Stand of the 300 Spartans" versus the Persians.

-The second in 323 BC was between the Athenians and the Macedonians, during a rebellion that started in the immediate aftermath of Alexander the Great's death.

-The third in 279 BC occurred between a Greek coalition and an invading army of Gauls, who were migrating into the Balkans at the time.

-The fourth in 191 BC was the first major battle in a war between the Roman Republic and the Seleucid Empire.

-The fifth in 254 AD was won by a combined force of Roman imperial soldiers and local Greek militia who successfully beat back an invasion by the Goths.

-The sixth occurred in 1941 between two German divisions and retreating ANZAC brigades during the German invasion of Greece.

[Shinobi]

 In 1856, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech so captivating that every single reporter forgot to take notes. There is no transcript of the speech in existence and the content could only be guessed at. The speech is known as “Lincoln’s Lost Speech”.

"On May 29, 1856, at the Bloomington Convention Lincoln gave a speech at the since demolished building, known as Major’s Hall, at the corner of East and Front Streets in Bloomington, Illinois. It was the speech that led to the founding of the state Republican Party. It is thought that the speech was a strong condemnation of slavery, and it was said that the reporters laid down their pencils and didn’t take any notes as if hypnotized. It is also possible that the text was deliberately lost because of the subject the speech dealt with." (SOURCE)

 

Edited April 28, 2019 by Shinobi

[damon8r351]

The vast majority of enemy names in Final Fantasy games are not made up names by the developers. They derive from mythology, folklore, and in certain cases from old literature (like Lewis Carroll).

 

And I know what you'll say: "Yeah I get it, Odin is also the head god of the Viking pantheon." Good, and if you've read the Bible, you'll know where Leviathan got its name, if you've a bit of knowledge of Indian mythology, you know where Ramuh and Shiva come from, and if you've delved in Arabic mythology, you know where Ifrit came from.

 

But no, it goes further than that. They use all sorts of mythology, some nobody with a Western upbringing would be familiar with, like Japanese and Philippine mythology, Native American mythology, etc, and they dig deep.

 

For instance, if you played Final Fantasy XIII and it's direct sequels, you may remember a vaguely annoying enemy called a Stikini. Well, that name comes from the folklore of the Seminole tribe of the US, and it's a shapeshifting witch who turns into an owl monster to eat people's hearts at night. http://www.native-languages.org/morelegends/stikini.htm

 

So next time you're playing a Final Fantasy game, Google that enemy's name you just fought. You might learn something you didn't know before.

[damon8r351]

The character Yagyu in the Senran Kagura series is an homage to a popular cultural portrayal of an historical figure.

 

The "eyepatch" that she wears is actually a tsuba fastened to her head with a ribbon. A tsuba is the guard from a katana.

 

Jubei Yagyu is the name of a samurai who lived during the Tokugawa era. He was the son of the Tokugawa shoguns' personal sword instructor. A legend associated with this figure is that he lost an eye in a sparring accident with his father and wore an eyepatch for the rest of his life. He's been the subject of many animes and live-action samurai films. One of his most popular and recognizable portrayals is by a Japanese actor named Sonny Chiba in the films Shogun's Samurai and Samurai Reincarnation, as well as a handful of TV shows from the late 70s/early 80s. In this portrayal, the eyepatch is made from a tsuba.

 

Side fact: You may recognize Sonny Chiba (much older) as the actor who played the character Hattori Hanzo in the film Kill Bill.

 

And yes, I have mentioned this connection before in another thread awhile ago.

Edited June 1, 2019 by damon8r351

[damon8r351]

In the movie Smoky & The Bandit, Burt Reynolds is promised $80,000 to transport 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana, TX to Atlanta, GA within 28 hours. The reason for the premise of the whole movie is that at the time, Coors beer wasn't sold anywhere further east than Oklahoma, so if you wanted it, you had to go to the western US to get it. The reason why one would go through so much trouble to get it was because it didn't have any preservatives in its recipe at the time and was considered to have a superior taste to other beers because of that. The reason for the 28 hour deadline was because due to the lack of preservatives, Coors beer was prone to spoil inside a week unless under constant refrigeration. As for the rigamarole with the "blocking car" was that due to the tight deadline, the transporting truck would almost certainly be violating speed limits and avoiding trucking weigh stations to save time. Also, in certain states at the time, it was illegal to transport liquor over state lines unless you were transporting in an official commercial capacity, or you were carrying a couple bottles for personal use. Since 400 cases of Coors is far beyond the amount reasonable for "personal use", and Coors wasn't sold east of Oklahoma and thus wasn't an official commercial transport, this would be considered a form of bootlegging.

[damon8r351]

Charles Lindbergh, the pilot that flew the Spirit of St Louis non-stop across the Atlantic, flew in combat missions during World War II. He was not in the military at the time, he was in the Pacific Theater acting as an engineering consultant employed by United Aircraft. He managed to convince some of the Marine squadrons out there to allow him to fly with them, and participated in up to 50 ground attack missions. He also had at least one confirmed kill to his name, a Japanese fighter-bomber that he managed to shoot down while piloting a P-38 Lightning. I found that interesting, as most people tend to think of Lindbergh as a mail service pilot that achieved a notable aviation feat, and not realize that he managed to get some combat experience at one point in his life.