News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
No Anthony, the oldest surviving newspaper is neither the Maryland Gazette nor the Hartford Courant, but the Post-och Inrikes Tidningar of Stockholm, Sweden which started in 1645. OK, since Jan.1, 2007 it’s been internet only but let’s not rain on the Swede’s parade. The oldest still circulated on dead trees is Haarlems Dagblad of the Netherlands which began in 1656.
Princess Pauline von Metternich and Countess Anastasia Kielmannsegg got into a tiff about floral arrangements at the Vienna Musical and Theatrical Exhibition of 1892. The chose to settle the matter with swords. They fought topless. Princess Pauline won. Nobody was seriously hurt.
The oldest hotel is Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan which has been around since 705 AD.
Carrots were originally white and harvested for their leaves. which were treated, as a herb and seeds which were thought to be medicinal.
Equinox derives from the Latin aequinoctium which means equality of night.
The first refrigerator was designed in 1805 by Oliver Evans of Newport, Del. It took 30 years, though, to get it built.
The first sniper rifle was the British-made Whitworth produced from 1857 to 1865. The muzzle-loader could hit a target at 2,000 yards. The Brits didn’t use it but the South certainly did taking out two Union generals and numerous artillery men.
So where was Gondwanaland? It was south of Laurussia. These were supercontinents that were thought to have formed just about all the earth’s land mass until joining to form Pangaea about 335 million years ago. Pangaea contained just about all the earth’s land mass.
The saxophone was invented by Belgian Antonine-Joseph Sax in the early 1840s. His friends called him Adolphe. Now ponder Belgium being hip.