In Scandinavian countries, Saturday is called lördag, lørdag, or laurdag - originally meaning bath-day. Because that's the day when vikings apparently used to take their baths.
The successful release of the SNES gained the attention of the infamous Japanese crime organization the Yakuza. Nintendo then began to ship the devices at night to avoid robbery.
Not only was Hulk Hogan not the first person to bodyslam Andre the Giant but Andre had been slammed dozens of times before Wrestlemania III. Andre had to really like a person for him to let them slam him and he had to like them even more to help. However, he and Hogan had a wonderful working relationship as the two made a great deal of money together.
Hogan had been doing the "Body Slamming The Giant" gimmick at house shows (non-televised events) for a month leading up to their rematch at Wrestlemania IV to the point that his back was suffering and the Body Slam spot was getting really sloppy. One night during a show in Montreal, Hogan dropped Andre and made the giant mad. Andre stood up, turned around, picked up Hogan and slammed him down to the mat with enough force to send a message.
However, that was not the only receipt. As Andre lifted Hogan into the air he forced his enormous thumb into the Hulksters rectum.
[Photo Showing Actual Size]
After the match, Hulk had trouble walking out of the ring upright and when he got backstage to the locker room he angrily confronted the giant. Andre without any emotion simply told him "Be careful with your slam or next time it will be two fingers... not just one thumb."
According to the extras on the Princess Bride DVD, by the time Andre made the movie, his body was so messed up, he couldn't lift Robin Wright (she said she was about 115 pounds at the time). She had to be suspended from wires for those scenes where he's holding her up.
The way that Andre the Giant dealt with his pain was to drink... a lot. one night, he passed out in the hotel lobby and the staff couldn't move him, because he weighed 550 pounds. They didn't want to call the police, so they just surrounded him with a velvet rope until he woke up. Andre the Giant made his own drink, which was made up of 40 ounces of several types of liquor. He called it "The American", and he drank several of them every night. But he never seemed drunk, and he never got hung over.
Cary Elwes tried some "American", and he said it tasted much like he imagined jet fuel would. When he and Andre went out drinking together, he'd sip one beer for most of the night, because he could never outdrink Andre, who could drink 100 beers in a night.
Also, when he was in New York, the NYPD followed him with an undercover, because once he'd become tipsy and fallen on a man while waiting for his car. So they followed him to ensure it wouldn't happen again. But Andre didn't care. He bought drinks for the undercover cop, which were gladly accepted.
There was a great documentary about Andre the Giant recently.
When he went in for surgery, the anesthesiologist had no idea how much to give to give a human that size. So he asked him "How much does it take to get you drunk?" Andre's response was a couple of liters of vodka gets him warm and fuzzy.
Andre loved working on The Princess Bride so much he would watch it over and over with anyone who would watch it with him. And in typical Andre style his guests were always treated to a glorious feast.
He just wanted to share it with as many people as he could.
Forced and coerced sterilization/eugenics programs existed in the US up until the late 70's and early eighties in some places. Years later at least here in NC I know the state just settled a few lawsuits by some of the women it was forced upon. They got all of about $20k for that crap and later mental anguish. Another terrible and mostly unknown legacy for the US.
So when Europeans first came across tomatoes, they thought they were poisonous for a couple of reasons. First off, they are apart of the nightshade family, and nightshade berries are supposed to taste very good, but are very toxic. The second reason is a lot of the plates, bowls and cookware Europeans used at the time was made of pewter, which generally contained lead back then. This was actually fine for a bland diet of bread and poverty, the lead leaching isn't very bad. When you put something really acidic, like tomatoes, on something lead based, it really absorbs a lot of lead.
Using lead for plumbing is also fine, so long as you're just moving water through it. The water doesn't have much contact with the lead, so won't absorb much. Water also doesn't take up much lead by itself. It's only when you have other acids present in the water it becomes an issue. You also very quickly build up a sediment layer on the inside of the pipes that insulates the water from the lead. If you start pumping through acidic stuff (like industrial run off), that insulating layer can get destroyed, and the acids can pull the lead off into the water. It's pretty much what went down in Flynt. The Roman lead plumbing likely did not cause any noticeable lead poisoning, and there is no evidence it caused some of the Emperors to go crazy. The Romans also knew high exposure to lead was toxic, and only used slaves to mine and process the stuff. Being sent to those mines was pretty much a death sentence.
There's also a hypothesis (essentially unprovable) that the banning of leaded gasoline is responsible for the decline of violent crime in places that used it heavily. Violent crime in the US peaked in the 90s, and has been in a decline since then. Mild lead poisoning has been associated with poor impulse control. It's impossible to say for sure if this is the reason, or not, though, so take it with a grain of salt and other reasons maybe responsible or have contributed to the decline in violent crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis
If you check out that video, Peasants ate pretty well when it came to lunch. Fresh Fish (from the local stream), herb pottage, rye bread, ale (thick and nutty). They actually ate a diet better for people than the richer and more meat-laden noble diet.
So when Europeans first came across tomatoes, they thought they were poisonous for a couple of reasons. First off, they are apart of the nightshade family, and nightshade berries are supposed to taste very good, but are very toxic. The second reason is a lot of the plates, bowls and cookware Europeans used at the time was made of pewter, which generally contained lead back then. This was actually fine for a bland diet of bread and poverty, the lead leaching isn't very bad. When you put something really acidic, like tomatoes, on something lead based, it really absorbs a lot of lead.
Only if you were well-off. Other people ate off ceramic pots, cups and plates. And if you were even less fortunate than that, you ate off wooden plates.
Using lead for plumbing is also fine, so long as you're just moving water through it. The water doesn't have much contact with the lead, so won't absorb much. Water also doesn't take up much lead by itself. It's only when you have other acids present in the water it becomes an issue. You also very quickly build up a sediment layer on the inside of the pipes that insulates the water from the lead. If you start pumping through acidic stuff (like industrial run off), that insulating layer can get destroyed, and the acids can pull the lead off into the water. It's pretty much what went down in Flynt. The Roman lead plumbing likely did not cause any noticeable lead poisoning, and there is no evidence it caused some of the Emperors to go crazy. The Romans also knew high exposure to lead was toxic, and only used slaves to mine and process the stuff. Being sent to those mines was pretty much a death sentence.
There's also a hypothesis (essentially unprovable) that the banning of leaded gasoline is responsible for the decline of violent crime in places that used it heavily. Violent crime in the US peaked in the 90s, and has been in a decline since then. Mild lead poisoning has been associated with poor impulse control. It's impossible to say for sure if this is the reason, or not, though, so take it with a grain of salt and other reasons maybe responsible or have contributed to the decline in violent crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis
Of course, they should be replacing those old pipes with PVC or Copper. Something similar is happening with the water in Newark as well.
So when Europeans first came across tomatoes, they thought they were poisonous for a couple of reasons. First off, they are apart of the nightshade family, and nightshade berries are supposed to taste very good, but are very toxic. The second reason is a lot of the plates, bowls and cookware Europeans used at the time was made of pewter, which generally contained lead back then. This was actually fine for a bland diet of bread and poverty, the lead leaching isn't very bad. When you put something really acidic, like tomatoes, on something lead based, it really absorbs a lot of lead.
Using lead for plumbing is also fine, so long as you're just moving water through it. The water doesn't have much contact with the lead, so won't absorb much. Water also doesn't take up much lead by itself. It's only when you have other acids present in the water it becomes an issue. You also very quickly build up a sediment layer on the inside of the pipes that insulates the water from the lead. If you start pumping through acidic stuff (like industrial run off), that insulating layer can get destroyed, and the acids can pull the lead off into the water. It's pretty much what went down in Flynt. The Roman lead plumbing likely did not cause any noticeable lead poisoning, and there is no evidence it caused some of the Emperors to go crazy. The Romans also knew high exposure to lead was toxic, and only used slaves to mine and process the stuff. Being sent to those mines was pretty much a death sentence.
There's also a hypothesis (essentially unprovable) that the banning of leaded gasoline is responsible for the decline of violent crime in places that used it heavily. Violent crime in the US peaked in the 90s, and has been in a decline since then. Mild lead poisoning has been associated with poor impulse control. It's impossible to say for sure if this is the reason, or not, though, so take it with a grain of salt and other reasons maybe responsible or have contributed to the decline in violent crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis
I blame the decline in violent crime on violent video games. It's much easier to maim, kill and destroy on your living room couch. Also less messy...
So, they discovered this tool made out of a rib bone in neolithic graves 50,000 years ago, but the scientists had no idea what it was, until they showed it to a native leatherworker and she was like, "oh, it's a leather burnisher." They still use them today, 50,000 years later- and they are exactly the same. Metal ones scratch up and damage the hide, wooden ones break and get splinters in the hide. Plastic ones are available, but they crack and break after only a few years. While bone scrapers get better the longer they are used.
Yes, after 50,000 years, they still haven't found anything better. Which kind of blows my mind.
Originally, Christ was born in the Spring (when Shepherds watched their flocks by night), but in Rome, so many people loved Saturnalia festivals that they moved the time of his birth to December, and the 25th, so the people could still have the trappings of Saturnalia while Celebrating Christ's birth. In early Christianity, Easter, the time of Christ's Death, is more important.
Interestingly enough, Easter is based off the name of a goddess, Eostre, who was a Germanic Goddess of Dawn and Spring. And her festival was in April.
The Catholic church just loved their mad science holiday experiments. "Yes, yeeeees, if we graft Jesus' birthday onto the winter solstice, more people will join us! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Originally, Christ was born in the Spring (when Shepherds watched their flocks by night), but in Rome, so many people loved Saturnalia festivals that they moved the time of his birth to December, and the 25th, so the people could still have the trappings of Saturnalia while Celebrating Christ's birth. In early Christianity, Easter, the time of Christ's Death, is more important.
Interestingly enough, Easter is based off the name of a goddess, Eostre, who was a Germanic Goddess of Dawn and Spring. And her festival was in April.
I was just watching a video from the Religion for Breakfast channel and he offered a different origin. It seems that early christians believed that Jesus was conceived on the same date he was crucified, and western christians thought that day was March 25th. December 25th was 9 months later so that date was chosen for his birth. The co-opting of Saturnalia and the feast of Sol Invictus then came after the date was already chosen. In the east, the crucifiction/conception date was April 6th, so they celebrated Christmas on January 6th, which does not have a major pagan holiday attached to it.
BTW, I highly recommend RfB. I'm still working my way through the backlog, but I find his neutral academic approach refreshing, though he had a problem with keeping his background music too loud in his early videos. https://youtu.be/3DHbOpS-N0c
During the height of the cold war, in 1955, the phone rang on the Commander of CONAD's (precursor to NORAD) desk. Not the black one - the high security, top secret red one. The room went silent as the commander goes to answer it, he barks out his name "Col Shoups," but gets silence until a little voice mumbles: "Is this Santa Claus?"
Thinking it was a joke, the colonel was livid and starts ripping into the kid, finishing with "Just what do you think you're doing?!"
He only hears sniffles on the other end and realizes then, it wasn't a joke. He pauses, looks around at his crew then goes "Ho, Ho, Ho! Of course this is Santa Claus have you been a good boy?"
He strikes up a conversation with the kid asking what he wants for Christmas then asks the boy to put his mother on the phone. Once the mother was on the phone, he let her have it stating what number her son actually reached, but she had an explanation and pointed the colonel to today's newspaper and the Sears Advert saying "Call me on my private phone, and I will talk to you personally anytime day or night." Beside it was listed ME 2-6681, the number for CONAD; a typo in the advertisement.
As soon as he hung up, the phone rang again. He ordered a staff member to answer each and every Santa Call that came in while he attempted to reach AT&T to get a new secure line between CONAD and the Pentagon.
A couple of nights later, the colonel came into work and above the world map where they mark unidentified flying objects from radar was a picture of Santa's sleigh being pulled by reindeer. "What is that?" he demanded and a crew member responded sheepishly "Just having a little fun sir." The staff braced for the colonel ripping them apart, but instead he ordered staff to get the community relations officer on the phone.
Soon after Colonel Shoups was on the phone with a local radio station stating CONAD had picked up an incoming flying object, from the North Pole region, distinctly sleigh shaped. Every year since, one of NORAD's stated missions is tracking Santa's progress around the globe on Christmas Eve.
Shoups passed away at the age of 91 in 2009. His gravestone notes his service in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam and the last line, his nickname: Santa Colonel.
Originally, Christ was born in the Spring (when Shepherds watched their flocks by night), but in Rome, so many people loved Saturnalia festivals that they moved the time of his birth to December, and the 25th, so the people could still have the trappings of Saturnalia while Celebrating Christ's birth. In early Christianity, Easter, the time of Christ's Death, is more important.
Interestingly enough, Easter is based off the name of a goddess, Eostre, who was a Germanic Goddess of Dawn and Spring. And her festival was in April.
I was just watching a video from the Religion for Breakfast channel and he offered a different origin. It seems that early christians believed that Jesus was conceived on the same date he was crucified, and western christians thought that day was March 25th. December 25th was 9 months later so that date was chosen for his birth. The co-opting of Saturnalia and the feast of Sol Invictus then came after the date was already chosen. In the east, the crucifiction/conception date was April 6th, so they celebrated Christmas on January 6th, which does not have a major pagan holiday attached to it.
BTW, I highly recommend RfB. I'm still working my way through the backlog, but I find his neutral academic approach refreshing, though he had a problem with keeping his background music too loud in his early videos. https://youtu.be/3DHbOpS-N0c
I haven't watched the video yet, but from what you say the gist is true. They had pegged December 25th as the date before they tried to transpose it with Saturnalia. It was however, an easy sell to get people to convert if they could still have festivals at about the same time. Asides from the Romans having Saturnalia, most cultures had some sort of festival at the solstice and another at the spring equinox, so having holidays around the same time helped to get converts. The custom of exchanging gifts most likely comes from Saturnalia. An argument could be made for it being like the gifts the Magi brought, though.
Speaking of Magi, a lot of people don't realize Magi were Zoarostrian priests. It's where we get our word Magic and Magus. To the ancient Greeks, the Persian rituals and religious ceremonies were mystical and strange, so they thought it to be magic. This thread's gone on so long I feel like I may have mentioned this at some point, though.
So I was in a bookstore the other day, and was absolutely drooling over this beautiful full set of Plutarch's Lives. The full set, hardcover with gold leaf. I think I died a little inside when I saw it was $700 bucks.
Comments
Changes in Marvel Music
Hogan had been doing the "Body Slamming The Giant" gimmick at house shows (non-televised events) for a month leading up to their rematch at Wrestlemania IV to the point that his back was suffering and the Body Slam spot was getting really sloppy. One night during a show in Montreal, Hogan dropped Andre and made the giant mad. Andre stood up, turned around, picked up Hogan and slammed him down to the mat with enough force to send a message.
However, that was not the only receipt. As Andre lifted Hogan into the air he forced his enormous thumb into the Hulksters rectum.
[Photo Showing Actual Size]
After the match, Hulk had trouble walking out of the ring upright and when he got backstage to the locker room he angrily confronted the giant. Andre without any emotion simply told him "Be careful with your slam or next time it will be two fingers... not just one thumb."
Hogan never dropped Andre again.
Cary Elwes tried some "American", and he said it tasted much like he imagined jet fuel would. When he and Andre went out drinking together, he'd sip one beer for most of the night, because he could never outdrink Andre, who could drink 100 beers in a night.
Also, when he was in New York, the NYPD followed him with an undercover, because once he'd become tipsy and fallen on a man while waiting for his car. So they followed him to ensure it wouldn't happen again. But Andre didn't care. He bought drinks for the undercover cop, which were gladly accepted.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cary-elwes-aka-westley-shares-inconceivable-tales-from-the-making-of-the-princess-bride
When he went in for surgery, the anesthesiologist had no idea how much to give to give a human that size. So he asked him "How much does it take to get you drunk?" Andre's response was a couple of liters of vodka gets him warm and fuzzy.
He just wanted to share it with as many people as he could.
http://www.whitewolfpack.com/2016/06/native-man-fishes-11000-years-old.html?fbclid=IwAR3-XR3pqL61VUERjT6CkqQZNRNi5vDrOxHWD5OamUEAnEgvuabtneFqBoY
Jack Kirby of comics fame, once designed costumes for a college production of "Julius Caesar.
http://the-insidious-dr-grey-matter.tumblr.com/post/176932165314/in-the-1960s-directoruc-santa-cruz-staffer?fbclid=IwAR3AJXB8e4ISPNbO1uM3tknW_jQPDHtq9GwKN3Q2BqdFnzSfRbej61LBLrM
Pictures (and drawings) at the link.
Freddie Mercury does *all* the voices on "Bohemian Rhapsody"'s opening. He layered his voice many times over, and put them together to make the album.
When revealed in 2014, Overwatch was Blizzard's first new IP in 17 years.
Worst Christmas Jobs in History
Another terrible and mostly unknown legacy for the US.
So when Europeans first came across tomatoes, they thought they were poisonous for a couple of reasons. First off, they are apart of the nightshade family, and nightshade berries are supposed to taste very good, but are very toxic. The second reason is a lot of the plates, bowls and cookware Europeans used at the time was made of pewter, which generally contained lead back then. This was actually fine for a bland diet of bread and poverty, the lead leaching isn't very bad. When you put something really acidic, like tomatoes, on something lead based, it really absorbs a lot of lead.
Using lead for plumbing is also fine, so long as you're just moving water through it. The water doesn't have much contact with the lead, so won't absorb much. Water also doesn't take up much lead by itself. It's only when you have other acids present in the water it becomes an issue. You also very quickly build up a sediment layer on the inside of the pipes that insulates the water from the lead. If you start pumping through acidic stuff (like industrial run off), that insulating layer can get destroyed, and the acids can pull the lead off into the water. It's pretty much what went down in Flynt. The Roman lead plumbing likely did not cause any noticeable lead poisoning, and there is no evidence it caused some of the Emperors to go crazy. The Romans also knew high exposure to lead was toxic, and only used slaves to mine and process the stuff. Being sent to those mines was pretty much a death sentence.
There's also a hypothesis (essentially unprovable) that the banning of leaded gasoline is responsible for the decline of violent crime in places that used it heavily. Violent crime in the US peaked in the 90s, and has been in a decline since then. Mild lead poisoning has been associated with poor impulse control. It's impossible to say for sure if this is the reason, or not, though, so take it with a grain of salt and other reasons maybe responsible or have contributed to the decline in violent crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis
Ya, with all the garbage in our water these days, lead is not a good choice.
After More Than 4,000 Years, Vibrant Egyptian Tomb Sees The Light Of Day
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/15/677068697/after-more-than-4-000-years-vibrant-egyptian-tomb-sees-the-light-of-day?fbclid=IwAR0K6pblsQ3bUVONRpg-WFq0UIdREJoeeR_d7ZgiBpiMyZLTmeofsg1zjfYIt's in Saqqara.
"The color is almost intact even though the tomb is almost 4,400 years old," said Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, according to Reuters. He told reporters the find was "one of a kind in the last decades."
Mystery Blast Sank The USS San Diego in 1918. New Report Reveals What Happened
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/11/675661414/mystery-blast-sank-the-uss-san-diego-in-1918-new-report-reveals-what-happened?fbclid=IwAR2_QNDZaKVZsuqYOWjfbdug4vAUzSvg84e29Y7jBr6G-UXnc4sNkemWtoAFor the past century, the ship has sat at the bottom of the Atlantic, its location well-known but the cause of its sinking a mystery. Now, a team of researchers say they have determined the source of the blast: an underwater mine from a German U-boat.
Why the Venus de Milo Has Extra-Long Second Toes
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mortons-toe-greek-foot?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page&fbclid=IwAR0EuGbt_SEPhU2ZmUqFI-nl7fZksXOW75us61bQYC2xXuyEqpsqBTrTHL0It’s a condition called “Greek foot” or “Morton’s toe”—and 15-20 percent of us have it.
Yes, after 50,000 years, they still haven't found anything better. Which kind of blows my mind.
Stunning fossils show pterosaurs had primitive feathers like dinosaurs
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2188405-stunning-fossils-show-pterosaurs-had-primitive-feathers-like-dinosaurs/?fbclid=IwAR1t3KEsT4-pUVu53Eg5O4b42WtQzNxPgR-LbR5F_5GieUGzsuAqE5dceNg
https://www.historyextra.com/period/roman/how-did-the-romans-celebrate-christmas/
Originally, Christ was born in the Spring (when Shepherds watched their flocks by night), but in Rome, so many people loved Saturnalia festivals that they moved the time of his birth to December, and the 25th, so the people could still have the trappings of Saturnalia while Celebrating Christ's birth. In early Christianity, Easter, the time of Christ's Death, is more important.
Interestingly enough, Easter is based off the name of a goddess, Eostre, who was a Germanic Goddess of Dawn and Spring. And her festival was in April.
BTW, I highly recommend RfB. I'm still working my way through the backlog, but I find his neutral academic approach refreshing, though he had a problem with keeping his background music too loud in his early videos.
NORAD started tracking Santa Claus because of a typo in a Sears Advertisement.
During the height of the cold war, in 1955, the phone rang on the Commander of CONAD's (precursor to NORAD) desk. Not the black one - the high security, top secret red one. The room went silent as the commander goes to answer it, he barks out his name "Col Shoups," but gets silence until a little voice mumbles: "Is this Santa Claus?"
Thinking it was a joke, the colonel was livid and starts ripping into the kid, finishing with "Just what do you think you're doing?!"
He only hears sniffles on the other end and realizes then, it wasn't a joke. He pauses, looks around at his crew then goes "Ho, Ho, Ho! Of course this is Santa Claus have you been a good boy?"
He strikes up a conversation with the kid asking what he wants for Christmas then asks the boy to put his mother on the phone. Once the mother was on the phone, he let her have it stating what number her son actually reached, but she had an explanation and pointed the colonel to today's newspaper and the Sears Advert saying "Call me on my private phone, and I will talk to you personally anytime day or night." Beside it was listed ME 2-6681, the number for CONAD; a typo in the advertisement.
As soon as he hung up, the phone rang again. He ordered a staff member to answer each and every Santa Call that came in while he attempted to reach AT&T to get a new secure line between CONAD and the Pentagon.
A couple of nights later, the colonel came into work and above the world map where they mark unidentified flying objects from radar was a picture of Santa's sleigh being pulled by reindeer. "What is that?" he demanded and a crew member responded sheepishly "Just having a little fun sir." The staff braced for the colonel ripping them apart, but instead he ordered staff to get the community relations officer on the phone.
Soon after Colonel Shoups was on the phone with a local radio station stating CONAD had picked up an incoming flying object, from the North Pole region, distinctly sleigh shaped. Every year since, one of NORAD's stated missions is tracking Santa's progress around the globe on Christmas Eve.
Shoups passed away at the age of 91 in 2009. His gravestone notes his service in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam and the last line, his nickname: Santa Colonel.
Speaking of Magi, a lot of people don't realize Magi were Zoarostrian priests. It's where we get our word Magic and Magus. To the ancient Greeks, the Persian rituals and religious ceremonies were mystical and strange, so they thought it to be magic. This thread's gone on so long I feel like I may have mentioned this at some point, though.
So I was in a bookstore the other day, and was absolutely drooling over this beautiful full set of Plutarch's Lives. The full set, hardcover with gold leaf. I think I died a little inside when I saw it was $700 bucks.