F**ked up Facts

[Grandpa]

This isn’t that spectacular, but I remember meeting someone (my great grandmother) who remembered meeting Queen Victoria. I like those surprising facts that connect the seemingly distant past with the present.

That stuff blows my mind... how quickly the world has changed... that my grandmother who was alive when the smartphone appeared... was also alive well before WWI. Alive when cars like this were new!

[Tichtheid]

A giant tortoise that Darwin picked up from the Galapagos Islands and took away on his ship died about 15 years ago.

Also this is a bit of a head fuck

[GogLais]

This isn’t that spectacular, but I remember meeting someone (my great grandmother) who remembered meeting Queen Victoria. I like those surprising facts that connect the seemingly distant past with the present.

The last American Civil War widow receiving a Union Army veteran’s pension died in 2020. Why else would a 16 year old marry a 101 year old?

Yes, that’s an astonishing one. There was also a surprising fact about a grandson of one of the very early presidents—was it Van Buren?—still being alive until quite recently. I forget the exact details.

I’m too lazy to check but that rings a bell.

[Torquemada 1420]

The last American Civil War widow receiving a Union Army veteran’s pension died in 2020. Why else would a 16 year old marry a 101 year old?

Most final salary pension schemes put restrictions in place to prevent just that happening: "Thai-bride clause". I'm pretty sure there has been an instance of someone marrying his daughter not just for that purpose but to avoid Inheritance Tax too. Woody Allen, eat your heart out.

[Grandpa]

A giant tortoise that Darwin picked up from the Galapagos Islands and took away on his ship died about 15 years ago.

Also this is a bit of a head fuck

Amazing really that they know that much...

And scary that we still know so little...

[Kawazaki]

Ben Youngs has more than 100 Test caps.

The paper folding fact would be easier to swallow.

[Torquemada 1420]

A T-Rex is closer in time to an iPad than it is to a Stegosaurus.

Not going to look up but that has to be touch and go? Not least because we can't be sure of their full periods of existence: we only know a narrow certainty from the (very incomplete) fossil record.

[Niegs]

The last American Civil War widow receiving a Union Army veteran’s pension died in 2020. Why else would a 16 year old marry a 101 year old?

Most final salary pension schemes put restrictions in place to prevent just that happening: "Thai-bride clause". I'm pretty sure there has been an instance of someone marrying his daughter not just for that purpose but to avoid Inheritance Tax too. Woody Allen, eat your heart out.

I think I read that she looked after the old fella in his later years and it was during the Depression so they married so she could get his pension as a thank you.

She was just 19 in 1936, when she married 91-year-old Civil War veteran James Bolin after volunteering as his caretaker in his final years.

“He asked her to marry him and basically explained that if they were to marry, that when he passed away, that she would be able to draw his pension,” historian Jill Phillips said.

Helen said “yes” and the two married at Bolin’s house. He lived there and Helen continued to live at her parents’ house.

James Bolin died three years later, after which his daughter — who was much older than Helen — learned of the marriage.

“His daughter confronted her after he passed away and threatened her that if you go after… his pension, I will ruin you,” her friend Ruthie Letterman said.

After becoming a widow in her early 20s, Helen Jackson never remarried and decided not to collect that pension, while also not telling a soul.

Full story: https://wgntv.com/news/last-civil-war-w ... -her-life/

[Niegs]

Facts please. Not mumbo jumbo.

The phrase "mumbo jumbo" is derived from the words "mambo" and "jambo" which are Swahili greetings, from when visitors to East Africa couldn't understand what the locals were saying to them.

Typical Brits abroad scenario

This is common in exploration, I'd think. Many indigenous North Americans got the name we called them until recently, possibly still do in some cases, because an explorer went: "Who lives over there?" and the people they were with, sometimes foes of those people, went: "We call them the Eskimo, or eaters of raw meat." Most names these people use now (that I know of) simply mean "the people" or "people of a certain thing/location/etc". Where I grew up used to be called Rama, which funnily enough was taken from actual East Indian, I think applied to them by the government, not anything to do with the local culture. They now call their community Mnjikaning, which means "place of the fish weirs", as they used to harvest fish out of the adjacent lake and one of the pre-contact weirs is still underwater in one bay.

Our Heritage Minutes showed one of the most notable mistakes

[Chrysoprase]

Cleopatra was Greek

[tabascoboy]

DNA is flame retardant

[Insane_Homer]

A T-Rex is closer in time to an iPad than it is to a Stegosaurus.

Not going to look up but that has to be touch and go? Not least because we can't be sure of their full periods of existence: we only know a narrow certainty from the (very incomplete) fossil record.

Of course, who wouldn't want verifiable facts to get in the way of your uneducated assumptions?

[Woddy]

Best way to appreciate the enormous role you individually play in the u niverse:

https://htwins.net/scale2/

There is still waterunder the Sahara.

[Sandstorm]

DNA is flame retardant

I’m gonna need evidence or at the very least a web link!

[Flockwitt]

The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue.

[Torquemada 1420]

Cleopatra was Greek

Not sure being Ptolemaic made her Greek. Next you'll be telling us Victoria was a kraut who embraced all things German.

Oh. Wait.

[Torquemada 1420]

A T-Rex is closer in time to an iPad than it is to a Stegosaurus.

Not going to look up but that has to be touch and go? Not least because we can't be sure of their full periods of existence: we only know a narrow certainty from the (very incomplete) fossil record.

Of course, who wouldn't want verifiable facts to get in the way of your uneducated assumptions?

Oh really.

So, Steg was Jurrasic. 201 to 145 mya.
T-Rex was Cretaceous. 145 to 65 mya.

You do the maths.

[tabascoboy]

DNA is flame retardant

I’m gonna need evidence or at the very least a web link!

Researchers find DNA can work as a flame retardant (w/ video)

[Biffer]

Not going to look up but that has to be touch and go? Not least because we can't be sure of their full periods of existence: we only know a narrow certainty from the (very incomplete) fossil record.

Of course, who wouldn't want verifiable facts to get in the way of your uneducated assumptions?

Oh really.

So, Steg was Jurrasic. 201 to 145 mya.
T-Rex was Cretaceous. 145 to 65 mya.

You do the maths.

Tyrannosaurus Rex was Late Cretaceous 68-66 million years ago.

You do the maths.

[Sandstorm]

DNA is flame retardant

I’m gonna need evidence or at the very least a web link!

Researchers find DNA can work as a flame retardant (w/ video)

Ah, sperm. I think we all know that is wet enough to put out a fire.

[Chrysoprase]

Cleopatra was Greek

Not sure being Ptolemaic made her Greek. Next you'll be telling us Victoria was a kraut who embraced all things German.

Oh. Wait.

She wouldn't have thanked you for calling her Egyptian

[Insane_Homer]

Not going to look up but that has to be touch and go? Not least because we can't be sure of their full periods of existence: we only know a narrow certainty from the (very incomplete) fossil record.

Of course, who wouldn't want verifiable facts to get in the way of your uneducated assumptions?

Oh really.

So, Steg was Jurrasic. 201 to 145 mya.
T-Rex was Cretaceous. 145 to 65 mya.

You do the maths.

Tyrannosaurus lived during what is referred to as the Lancian faunal stage (Maastrichtian age) at the end of the Late Cretaceous

The Lance (Creek) Formation is a division of Late Cretaceous (dating to about 69 - 66 Ma) rocks in the western United States.
The Hell Creek Formation in Montana ... and has been dated to 66 ± 0.07 Ma old

Stegosaurus
... where they are found in Kimmeridgian to early Tithonian aged strata, between 155 and 150 million years ago, in the western United States and Portugal.

The earliest stegosaurid (the genus Lexovisaurus) is known from the Oxford Clay Formation of England and France, giving it an age of early to middle Callovian.
... the Callovian is an age and stage in the Middle Jurassic, lasting between 166.1 ± 4.0 Ma (million years ago) and 163.5 ± 4.0 Ma

69 million < 81 million

[Fangle]

Flying south out of Detroit airport, the first foreign country you fly over is Canada.

[Sandstorm]

Flying south out of Detroit airport, the first foreign country you fly over is Canada.

[Torquemada 1420]

Tyrannosaurus lived during what is referred to as the Lancian faunal stage (Maastrichtian age) at the end of the Late Cretaceous

The Lance (Creek) Formation is a division of Late Cretaceous (dating to about 69 - 66 Ma) rocks in the western United States.
The Hell Creek Formation in Montana ... and has been dated to 66 ± 0.07 Ma old

Stegosaurus
... where they are found in Kimmeridgian to early Tithonian aged strata, between 155 and 150 million years ago, in the western United States and Portugal.

The earliest stegosaurid (the genus Lexovisaurus) is known from the Oxford Clay Formation of England and France, giving it an age of early to middle Callovian.
... the Callovian is an age and stage in the Middle Jurassic, lasting between 166.1 ± 4.0 Ma (million years ago) and 163.5 ± 4.0 Ma

69 million < 81 million

FFS. We only know with reasonable surety (assuming our dating methods are accurate) when they existed. We know f**k all for certain when they did not exist outside those margins because the fossil record is incredibly small. Point me to eo-stegosaurus fossils which will tell us when steg, as we know it, evolved.

I know such quotes sound clever but too often they are based on kindergarten usage of the science or make gratuitous assumptions of certainty and rigidity for stuff we are largely guessing at.

[Insane_Homer]

you're very pissy when you're wrong, taking France fcuking up the Grand slam a little hard? relax.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... -65556840/

[PornDog]

There are more atoms in the tip of your index finger than there are stars in the universe.

There are more stars in the visible universe than there are grains of sand on all of the beaches on Earth.



The vast vast majority (99.999999+%) of almost everything, is nothing!

*Neutron stars and black holes excepted.[/size]



If you were to line up every single virus instance (phage) on Earth so that it formed one very thin but very long line, that line would be 120 million light years long.
(The Milky Way Galaxy is only about 100,000 light years across)

[PornDog]

This isn’t that spectacular, but I remember meeting someone (my great grandmother) who remembered meeting Queen Victoria. I like those surprising facts that connect the seemingly distant past with the present.

My great grandmother was evicted from her home as a child by red coats. One of the soldiers went back into the burning house as she had left her little dolly thing inside. He also gave her her first boiled sweet.

She always said that you could find a nice Englishman, but that as a race they were cunts (my word, not hers)

[Yr Alban]

Flying south out of Detroit airport, the first foreign country you fly over is Canada.

Yep - that ties into one of my favourite weird facts. ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ has the line ‘born and raised in South Detroit’, but there isn’t a South Detroit. Where it would have been is Windsor, Ontario.

[Hellraiser]

The last American Civil War widow receiving a Union Army veteran’s pension died in 2020. Why else would a 16 year old marry a 101 year old?

Yes, that’s an astonishing one. There was also a surprising fact about a grandson of one of the very early presidents—was it Van Buren?—still being alive until quite recently. I forget the exact details.

I’m too lazy to check but that rings a bell.

John Tyler (1790 - 1862), 10th POTUS, still has one living grandson.

[Niegs]

This isn’t that spectacular, but I remember meeting someone (my great grandmother) who remembered meeting Queen Victoria. I like those surprising facts that connect the seemingly distant past with the present.

My great grandmother was evicted from her home as a child by red coats. One of the soldiers went back into the burning house as she had left her little dolly thing inside. He also gave her her first boiled sweet.

She always said that you could find a nice Englishman, but that as a race they were cunts (my word, not hers)

Was this in the early 1800s? Do you mean ‘khaki coats’?

[mat the expat]

Flying south out of Detroit airport, the first foreign country you fly over is Canada.

Yep - that ties into one of my favourite weird facts. ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ has the line ‘born and raised in South Detroit’, but there isn’t a South Detroit. Where it would have been is Windsor, Ontario.

Eastern Canada is much more skewed than memory suggests. I just read a book set along the Eastern states and when I looked up the towns on a map, it didn't gel at all

[Phredd]

Flying south out of Detroit airport, the first foreign country you fly over is Canada.

Not true if you are talking about Wayne County Airport. It is south west of the city.

First country if flying west would be Canada, but if flying due south would be Cuba.

[Biffer]

This isn’t that spectacular, but I remember meeting someone (my great grandmother) who remembered meeting Queen Victoria. I like those surprising facts that connect the seemingly distant past with the present.

My great grandmother was evicted from her home as a child by red coats. One of the soldiers went back into the burning house as she had left her little dolly thing inside. He also gave her her first boiled sweet.

She always said that you could find a nice Englishman, but that as a race they were cunts (my word, not hers)

Was this in the early 1800s? Do you mean ‘khaki coats’?

British army had redcoats as service uniforms into the late 19th century. Three generations plus the age of the poster can easily take us to that period.

And the British army was still being used to clear people of land in Britain in that time period, as well as in the colonised lands.

[tabascoboy]

Flying south out of Detroit airport, the first foreign country you fly over is Canada.

Not true if you are talking about Wayne County Airport. It is south west of the city.

First country if flying west would be Canada, but if flying due south would be Cuba.

True though if it was Detroit City Airport aka Coleman A. Young International Airport.

[GogLais]

For those interested in borders - do you know about the Belgian/Dutch enclaves? Fascinating stuff if you're that way inclined.

[Yr Alban]

For those interested in borders - do you know about the Belgian/Dutch enclaves? Fascinating stuff if you're that way inclined.

Love this sort of thing. Here’s something similar - the only area of land on earth that no country claims to own. Egypt and Sudan both say it doesn’t belong to them, because claiming it would mean accepting a border that gives something else they do want to the other one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil

[Lemoentjie]

The last time that all humans were on Earth (or more accurately, within the Earth's atmosphere) was last century.

[tabascoboy]

For those interested in borders - do you know about the Belgian/Dutch enclaves? Fascinating stuff if you're that way inclined.

Love this sort of thing. Here’s something similar - the only area of land on earth that no country claims to own. Egypt and Sudan both say it doesn’t belong to them, because claiming it would mean accepting a border that gives something else they do want to the other one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil

Think there used to be a bit of India which was within Bangladesh which was within India which was within Bangladesh, a third order exclave or somesuch. Then India ceded their territory after a time.

[Yr Alban]

Russia has a land border with Finland, and also one with North Korea.

Vladivostok, in eastern Russia, is due East of China and only 425 miles from Pyongyang.