Put – Listorati https://listorati.com Fascinating facts and lists, bizarre, wonderful, and fun Sun, 31 Mar 2024 10:55:59 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://listorati.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/listorati-512x512-1.png Put – Listorati https://listorati.com 32 32 215494684 10 Bribes That Put the Money to Good Use https://listorati.com/10-bribes-that-put-the-money-to-good-use/ https://listorati.com/10-bribes-that-put-the-money-to-good-use/#respond Sun, 31 Mar 2024 10:55:59 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-bribes-that-put-the-money-to-good-use/

Bribery is generally viewed in a negative context. There are different levels of bribery, of course. Convincing your child to be quiet by giving them candy is a different bribe than paying off the local police so you can continue to run a drug empire. Shades of gray, you might call it. 

Despite the mostly negative association we have with the act of paying someone to achieve some kind of desirable outcome for yourself, there have been times when bribes turned out great. In fact, once in a while, bribes end up supporting a very good cause.

10. Geddy Lee’s Parents Were at Auschwitz, Where His Father Bribed Guards to Give Gifts to His Mother

For many people of a certain generation, the band Rush qualifies as Canada’s greatest contribution to the world of rock ‘n’ roll and it’s hard to deny they had a great impact on music, even years later. Their late drummer Neil Peart is still considered one of the best in history.

Lead singer Geddy Lee is well known for his songwriting and his unique vocals but he has a fascinating history as well. Lee’s parents were born in Poland and hadn’t even entered their teens when the Second World War broke out. Both of them were taken to Auschwitz, just after they’d met, at around age 12.

Germans separated prisoners in the camps by sex so the two could only see each other but not spend time together. Lee’s father would bribe the guards to ensure that Lee’s mother had things she needed, like pairs of shoes.

Eventually they were split up and sent to different camps. At war’s end, Lee’s father found his mother at Bergen-Belsen and they actually got married in the camp, which by then was a “displaced person’s camp.” Later they moved to Canada and started a family. 

There’s no way to know if bribing the guards had any effect on the eventual outcome but there’s little doubt Lee’s father made a nightmare at least a little more tolerable for his mother as a result. 

9. Kevin Bacon Bribes Wedding DJs to Not Play Footloose

Kevin Bacon holds a unique place in pop culture. He’s the only actor ever to be the basis of a game that seeks to link literally anyone in the world to him in as few connections as possible. But he’s also been a well-liked actor since the 1980s and has appeared in many memorable roles. You’d be hard-pressed to argue that any of them are more well known than his role in Footloose and it’s likely Bacon would agree.

The movie Footloose also gave the world the song Footloose, which was written by singer Kenny Loggins in collaboration with the screenwriter Dean Pitchford. The song is very much tied to the film as a result and, in turn, to Kevin Bacon and the role he played.

Now that the movie and song are decades old, Bacon has had his fill. To avoid further contact with it in public, Bacon has admitted to bribing DJs at weddings to not play the song in his presence. That way the pressure to re-enact his famous Footloose dance sequence doesn’t have to weigh on his shoulders or make a scene on someone else’s special day. So what does it set Bacon back to avoid a blast from his musical past? A crisp $20 bill

8. NY Transit Authorities Were Bribed $40,000 by French Connection Director William Friedkin 

The 1971 film The French Connection won an Oscar for director William Friedkin and, to this day, is lauded for the incredible car chase scene. The movie was the definition of guerrilla filmmaking which, if you’re not familiar, means it wasn’t entirely legal or safe in its execution.

The infamous car chase takes place on the streets of New York at speeds up to 90 miles an hour. So what, right? Well, Friedkin didn’t have any permits or permission to do that so it was a real car driving in real traffic at that speed. There were other actors involved, and efforts made to limit danger, but most of that traffic was just normal drivers going about their day.

The chase involves a subway train on an overhead track and that wasn’t legally in the film, either. Friedkin bribed someone from NY Transit with $40,000 and a ticket to Jamaica to escape punishment after the fact. According to Friedkin that was a massive part of the budget. The transit official took his payoff and literally moved to Jamaica.

The result of the bribe is one of the best car chase scenes ever and a fantastic, critically acclaimed film.

7. Antoine Augustin Parmentier Let Thieves Bribe His Potato Guards to Popularize the Food

How do you convince people to eat something they don’t want to eat? For most people the answer probably involves cheese sauce, but back in the late 1700s Antoine Augustin Parmentier had to be more creative in his quest to get people to try potatoes.

When potatoes first came to Europe they were shunned. At best they were considered animal feed, but Parmentier was a visionary who saw the tuber’s potential. Still, he needed to convince everyone that they’d misjudged the potato. After serving dinners for the upper class, he came up with a clever ruse to get the average citizen on board as well..

Parmentier paid guards to protect his potato crop. This would make people believe the crop had some value they weren’t aware of. But he also paid those guards to take bribes from thieves and let them take the potatoes because nothing is more desirable than something you’re told you can’t have. His plan worked and potatoes became a staple of the French diet. 

6. Cops in Thailand are Bribed to Not Accept Bribes

Law enforcement is far from infallible and this is a worldwide truth. Corruption is rampant on many levels and in Thailand, bribing police is incredibly common. Corruption has been described as “ingrained” in Thailand. Tourist blogs even tell you to “tip” Thai police and then clarify that it’s not technically a bribe but, you know, it is. 

Traffic police in Thailand are the most well known for taking part in this culture of bribery as traffic in Thailand, in general, is a nightmare. So if police pull a driver over for speeding or failing to signal, the driver can often get out of a fine by slipping the cop a few buckets to supplement their notoriously low salary. The problem got so bad that the Thai government started bribing police to not accept bribes

Any government officials in Thailand who accept bribes are officially subject to potentially facing life in prison. So the 2014 rule to offer rewards of up to 10,000 Thai baht, or about $280 USD, was seen as a much better alternative.

5. Simon and Garfunkel’s First Single Aired on Radio Thanks to the Payola System

Simon and Garfunkel have sold tens of millions of albums over their career and stand as one of the most popular duos of all time. That fame had to start somewhere, of course, and the pair needed to get their foot in the door. That meant bribery.

Their first single “Hey, Schoolgirl” was recorded when the guys were just 15. It was released as a single in 1957 but it needed airplay. Their label bribed DJ Alan Freed $200 to get him to play the song on his nightly radio show and it quickly moved into regular rotation, kicking off the band’s career.

4. George Washington Bribed Voters with Booze

Political bribery is one of the most infamous kinds of bribery out there and it’s something we try to keep control of, or at least we pretend to. Whether it’s true or not, no one likes to have to admit that their government officials are bought, so most democracies make a show of being against such things.

Back in the day, maybe the rules were a little more lax and maybe some low key bribes were a little more tolerable. For instance, while a stack of cash might have been frowned upon, surely a few drinks between friends wasn’t.

George Washington believed that a buzzed electorate was a supportive electorate and his first election win was attributed to supplying 144 gallons of various kinds of booze to voters. After losing an earlier election that he ran dry, he took advantage of the local pubs to bribe the voters with a half gallon of drink for every vote he received, which was enough to get him into office. 

3. Lincoln Bribed Congressmen with Patronage to Support Anti-Slavery

Many people would likely list Lincoln among the best presidents of all time. His legacy is of not just a hell of a dresser but the Great Emancipator and a stand up sort of guy. But that didn’t mean he was above greasing the wheels of anti-slavery with some bribes to reach his goals. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty if you want to make good things happen.

In Lincoln’s case, he wasn’t doling out cash necessarily, but he had a way with patronage. In order to get support for his anti-slavery positions, Lincoln had to make promises. We call it patronage because that sounds fairly civilized, but it’s bribes. Lincoln promised favors and lucrative appointments to congressmen and others in key positions if they agreed to support him. This was done through proxies and he didn’t necessarily deal with anyone directly but the effect was the same.

2. The Bacon Memes Were the Result Of Pork Industry Bribes

If you’ve been online since at least 2009, this will seem like a betrayal of everything you hold dear. Remember when bacon was a meme? For a short while you couldn’t swing a cat on the internet without hitting some kind of bacon something. The LA Times wrote articles about it and bacon-infused products like bacon soap and bacon vodka were sold all over the place. 

What seemed like it might have been a weirdly obsessive but organic love of cured meat that soon became annoying overkill was nothing of the sort. This was a pre-planned pork attack on all of us, funded by piggy bribes. 

The health food craze of the 80s gutted the pork industry. Pork bellies used to be a reliable commodity, and they tanked brutally because no one wanted to eat salty, fatty things anymore. So the Pork Board set to work on restaurants, trying to convince them to produce new dishes that used bacon to “enhance” flavor. 

Because bacon was so cheap, restaurants took to it quickly, especially with pork industry lobbyists paying to get it out there. It was an easy way to make bad food taste like something at a low cost. This gave rise to things like Wendy’s Baconator and like-minded fast food offerings. That spread to food bloggers and then to novelty sites that would offer a range of quirky bacon offerings in an over-the-top effort to make a buck off the concept. 

1. England Spent $200 Million in Bribes to Keep Spain Out of WWII

There’s a bit of hyperbole involved in the name “World War” since the entire world was not involved in either war. A handful remained neutral, and it’s very debatable how neutral they remained, but officially they were not meant to be involved. One of the largest countries to hold this status was Spain. 

You could make a case that if Spain was an active participant in the war, a lot of battles would have gone differently, but the reason they remained on the sidelines was almost strictly business. The fact that England paid out $200 million in bribes was a big part of that.

Spain assured Britain that the country was in danger of siding with the Nazis unless cash kept flowing, so money sent through Swiss accounts was paid out. The money was alleged to have gone towards arresting various parties who would be trying to convince Franco to join on Hitler’s, but there’s no way to know how true that might have been.

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10 Remarkable Facts About Animals Put In Human Perspective https://listorati.com/10-remarkable-facts-about-animals-put-in-human-perspective/ https://listorati.com/10-remarkable-facts-about-animals-put-in-human-perspective/#respond Sat, 30 Mar 2024 04:02:34 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-remarkable-facts-about-animals-put-in-human-perspective/

We all know that our cat can jump high and our dog can smell well, but sometimes it’s hard to appreciate just how amazing their abilities really are. Putting the numbers into a human context can help us appreciate the superhuman capabilities of some of the animals we share our world with.

See Also: Top 10 Real Superpowers You Can Learn

10 Cats Jumping


Walking into your cat perched on top of a bookcase might be an everyday occurrence, and it can also make us forget just how amazing their jumping capability is. Most cats can make a vertical jump from a standstill to five times their own height. For the average, 6 foot-tall human, that means executing a standstill jump and clearing 30 feet. In other terms, that would make us capable of jumping to the roof of a 3-story building.[10]

9 Ants’ Carrying Power


Depending on the species of ant, these tiny creatures can carry anywhere from 10 to 50 times their own weight. While that might not sound impressive when you’re looking at such small creatures carrying leaves, blow that up to human proportions and it become truly astounding. If humans had the same muscle control and strength as an ant, that would mean an average, 180-pound man could carry anywhere between 1,800 and 9,000 pounds. And what do those numbers mean? On the low end, 1,800 pounds is about the same as a Clydesdale horse. And 9,000 pounds is about the same as three Volkswagen Beetles.[9]

8 A Monarch Butterfly’s Journey


The monarch butterfly might look delicate, but the North American monarch makes an epic journey every spring and fall. These hardy creatures travel up to 3,000 miles from their summer homes in the northern part of the United States to their winter home in Mexico. And all with a wing span of about 4 inches. To put this in human terms, the average stride of an adult is 32 inches. That’s 8 times the wing span of a butterfly, meaning a human would need to walk 24,000 miles to experience the length of the butterfly’s journey. That’s only a couple of hundred miles short of walking around the world at the equator.[8]

7 A Cats’ Purr


Most cats purr at a soft, comforting level, but the world’s record for the loudest purr is held by an English cat named Smokey. His purr has been recorded at a whopping 86.3 dB. To put this in perspective, a human breathes at about 10dB, and a normal speaking voice will register at about 60dB. Noises around 80-90dB that we’re more familiar with include hair dryers, vacuum cleaners, and many hand power tools.[7]

6 Breeding Like Rabbits


Start with one pregnant female rabbit. Keeping in mind that an average litter size for rabbits is 6 babies and a new mother can become pregnant again almost immediately after giving birth, the exponential estimate for rabbits produced not only from her but from her babies, and her babies’ babies, is astronomical. In the 7-year breeding lifespan of a rabbit, that means a single mother can – mathematically – be responsible for 95 billion little rabbits. For the sake of simple math, let’s say the human female’s fertile years are between the ages of 18 and 45 – 9 times the length of a rabbit’s. If we could reproduce like them, that would mean a staggering 855,000,000,000 offspring.[6]

5 An Elephant’s Trunk


An elephant uses his trunk like the ultimate multi-purpose tool. Not only can they pick things up with it, but it can manipulate objects and store several gallons of water. Bulbous appendages on the end of their trunks give them the fine motor skills needed to pick up and manipulate the smallest of objects. An elephant has roughly 100,000 muscles in their trunk alone that allows them this fine control. In comparison, the human body contains 34 muscles that control the fingers and thumb; only 17 of these are in the hand itself.[5]

4The Chicken’s Egg


Firstly, it doesn’t seem possible that an egg comes out of a relatively small bird. The Rhode Island Red, a common breed of chicken, weighs about 6.5 pounds at maturity. The size of the eggs vary, but they’re known for producing above average sized brown eggs – this means usually around 2.25 oz. Proportionately, this is the same as a 150 pound woman giving birth to a 3.25 pound baby. Still painful, but it doesn’t make a chicken’s life look quite so bad.[4]

3The Lion’s Share


In the wild, lions have to take their meals when they can get them. This means they need the ability to take full advantage of a major kill; in one sitting, an average, 300 pound male lion can consume up to 90 pounds of meat. That’s almost a third of their entire body weight, and it’s also like a 200 pound man eating 60 pounds of chicken fingers and french fries for dinner.[3]

2 Parrot’s Speech


All types of parrots have the capability to mimic and pronounce human speech, although that capability varies both between species and within individual members of each species. The African Grey parrot is one of the most prolific talkers, with some outstanding representatives. One bird in particular, named Alex, could correctly identify more than 50 objects and colors by name. At the end of his life, he was beginning to learn how to count and demonstrate that he not only knew the sequence of numbers, but that he understood what they meant. In comparison, the average human toddler will be about 2 years old when they start to use as many words, and will be about 3 before they understand the concept of numbers such as age.[2]

1 A Dog’s Nose


A dog’s nose is extremely sensitive, with its 300 million olfactory receptors compared to our measly 6 million. From their nose to their brain, their sense of smell works differently than ours, allowing them to separate different smells and process that information independently – resulting in a sense that is estimated to be (at least) 10,000 times better than ours. From search and rescue dogs to drug dogs, they’ve shown time and time again that they can use their amazing sense of smell to save countless lives. But how much better does that make their smell than ours? Since smell is difficult to measure, we’ll make a visual comparison. The human eye can detect a light source no brighter than a candle at 30 miles on a dark night. If our vision was as acute as a dog’s sense of smell, we would be able to see it 30,000 miles away. That’s the distance between Bangor, Maine and Los Angeles, California – 10 times.[1]

Debra Kelly

After having a number of odd jobs from shed-painter to grave-digger, Debra loves writing about the things no history class will teach. She spends much of her time distracted by her two cattle dogs.


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10 Animals That Were Put on Trial for Crimes https://listorati.com/10-animals-that-were-put-on-trial-for-crimes/ https://listorati.com/10-animals-that-were-put-on-trial-for-crimes/#respond Sun, 14 Jan 2024 09:43:23 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-animals-that-were-put-on-trial-for-crimes/

We’ve already covered a few animal trials, but there are many more cases worth mentioning. Far from being an oddity, trying animals for crimes was a solemn and frequent affair, especially in medieval Europe. It was also legally important, persuading people that everything was under control—its control. And of course punishing “theft” whatever the species helped to prop up the notion of property.

Charges ranged from case to case but they all had one thing in common: they were batsh*t insane. In ascending order of lunacy, here are 10 of the worst offenders—listed by the species in the dock.

10. Monkeys

When, during the Napoleonic Wars, some English found a monkey on a beach, they were immediately suspicious. Its appearance followed the wreckage of a French ship nearby and this was the only survivor, washed to shore on debris, soaked through and miserable-looking. Having never seen a Frenchman (only propagandist caricatures with claws and tails), they took this monkey to be one. It also didn’t help that, as the French ship’s mascot, it was dressed as a human sailor. After a hasty trial right there on the beach, they found it guilty of espionage, sentenced it to death, and hanged it from the mast of a fishing boat. This was extrajudicial– mob law—unlike the others on this list. But unfortunately it wasn’t uncommon. Although frowned upon, people often took the law in their own hands when it came to punishing animals. 

Disturbingly in this case, there may be more to the tale. According to one theory, it wasn’t a monkey they hanged but a child employed as a “powder monkey” for priming the cannons with gunpowder. Whatever the case, the people of Hartlepool are still known as “monkey hangers” today—although they’ve come to embrace the name. In fact, their football team’s mascot is a monkey called H’Angus. And in 2002 a mayoral candidate dressed as the monkey promised free bananas for school children (and won).

9. Termites

termite-queen

When the Portuguese invaded Brazil they took their insanity with them, embarrassing themselves in front of the natives by charging some termites with vandalism. Ironically, the plaintiffs were Franciscan friars—that is, followers of a man who five centuries earlier preached sharing and kinship with animals. Still, they sought to excommunicate the termites for eating their food and furniture.

It was actually the defense lawyer that most resembled Saint Francis, arguing that the termites had, like all of God’s creatures, a clear right to sustenance. He even claimed their industriousness put the idle grey friars to shame. Besides, he said, the termites were on the land first.

In January 1713, the trial finally ended with a “compromise”. The cloister of friars would set up a reservation where the termites could live undisturbed. The decision was announced to the termite mounds: “No sooner was the order of the prelatic judge promulgated by being read officially before the hills of the termites than they all came out and marched in columns to the place assigned.” Naturally, this was interpreted as proof of their submission to God.

8. Weevils

weevil

After ravaging some vineyards in a hamlet in France, weevils were personas non grata. But they had a good lawyer. The trial concluded, in the spring of 1546, with the judge ordering locals to beg for mercy from God, who, being the “supreme author of all that exists” had created the earth for all of his creatures. The hamlet also held three masses “in solemn procession with songs and supplications round the vineyards.” And it seems to have worked—for a time.

Forty years later, the weevils returned and were put on trial again. This second case, brought before “the prince-bishop of Maurienne, … the reverend lord his vicar-general and official”, and recorded on 29 folia with a very long title in Latin, lasted for several months. Again it was argued the people were guilty for incurring God’s wrath, since the weevils had the right to eat plants. The defense even pointed out it was “absurd and unreasonable” to apply human laws to insects. But the counsel for the plaintiffs, on the other hand, the local vine-growers, claimed the weevils were subject to man.

The case was adjourned repeatedly while each side considered the case. Eventually, the weevils’ legal team countered that even if they are subject to man, that doesn’t give us the right to punish them—especially with excommunication. That was God’s job. Two and a half months after the trial began, the people were ordered to set aside some land for the weevils, fenced off so they could live in peace. But it didn’t work. One month later, the case was back in court. The plaintiffs begged the judge to order the weevils to return to their enclosure under threat of excommunication. Meanwhile, the defense team said the enclosure was too barren with not enough food for the animals. Again, the case was adjourned numerous times and it wasn’t for another month and a half that a verdict was finally reached. What it was, however, we won’t ever know because the final page of the court records was eaten by weevils.

7. Cows

Because of their size, weight, and temper, cows were frequently charged with attacks. In 1314, for instance, a bull escaped from a farm in France and gored a man to death. Then it was captured by the Count of Valois’s men, imprisoned, and sentenced to hang. But since the Count had no jurisdiction in Moisy, the sentence was overturned (sadly after the bull had been killed).

There are numerous other examples of murderous cows being hanged. However, given the value of cows and bulls, they (like horses) were typically confiscated instead. In 12th-century Burgundy it was actually written into law that “if an ox or a horse commit one or several homicides, it shall not be condemned to death, but shall be taken by the Seignior [feudal lord] within whose jurisdiction the deed was perpetrated”, who would sell it and keep the profits. “But if other beasts or Jews do it,” the law continued, “they shall be hanged by the hind feet.”

As a rule, executed animals—even the organic grass-fed cows of the pre-industrial world—were never eaten as meat. Once an animal “had become the peer of man in blood-guiltiness and in judicial punishment,” it was felt that eating it “would savour of anthropophagy”, or cannibalism. So they’d usually get buried with human criminals. There were exceptions, though. One example is a cow killed in Ghent, Belgium, in 1578; its flesh was sold to a butcher in order to compensate the victim. But her head was impaled near the gallows.

6. Dogs

Dogs were different to livestock; they were already treated as people. Like women and serfs, they were even included in the weregild (insurance payable by their killers to their owners). In Old Germanic law, dogs (as well as cats and cocks) could even be witnesses in court if, for example, they were the only ones present when their owner’s house was burglarized. In this case, the homeowner would bring their dog to court, along with three straws from the roof thatch to symbolize the house.

Having sex with them, however, was—to Christian sensibilities—as bad as having sex with a Jew. In fact, when a Parisian man was burned alive for “coition with a Jewess,” or “sodomy,” the court said it was “precisely the same as if a man should copulate with a dog.” (Naturally, the woman was burned alive too.) Examples are many, but one stands out: In 1606 a Chartres man was sentenced to hang for sodomizing a dog, but he ran away before they could do it. So while authorities killed the victim with a knock on the head, they hanged a portrait of the rapist instead.

But dogs weren’t always sentenced to death. Sometimes they were simply imprisoned. This was the case in 1712 when a drummer’s dog bit a councilor in the leg; instead of execution, it was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment in the Narrenkötterlein, an iron cage over the marketplace.

5. Donkeys

Just like humans, animals were entitled to appeals. One donkey sentenced to hang, for example, was saved by appeal to a higher court and her sentence was commuted to a knock on the head.

Appeals could even lead to acquittal. In 1750 a donkey condemned for seducing her rapist was acquitted when the Vanvres parish priest delivered a certificate attesting to her good character. He and other parishioners of good standing, it read, were “willing to bear witness that she is in word and deed and in all her habits of life a most honest creature.”

Another donkey, or a mule rather, was not so popular. Raped by a man, it was sentenced to burn at Montpelier in 1565. Worse, because it was “vicious and inclined to kick” (vitiosus et calcitrosus, according to court records), the executioner took it upon himself to cut off its feet before burning—an extra-judicial mutilation for which he was presumably scolded. Courts didn’t like their hired thugs adding anything to the sentence.

4. Rats

Even as recently as the 19th century, rats were served a “writ of ejectment [or] … letter of advice … to induce them to quit any house.” And, because there was a good chance the rats wouldn’t read it, it was rubbed in grease to attract their attention. One such letter, from Maine, even expresses sympathy for the rats, advising them to leave 1 Seaview Street for 6 Incubator Street, where they could live in a cellar full of vegetables or a barn full of grain. It finished by advising the rats that if they didn’t leave, they’d be killed off with poison.

Centuries earlier, in the 1500s, rats were summoned to court for eating all the barley in Autun, a French province. The court knew they wouldn’t come and planned to punish the rodents accordingly. However, as their defense lawyer pointed out, there were too many rats in Autun for a single summons to suffice; it could never be seen by all the rats. The judge reluctantly agreed and ordered a second summons “to be published from the pulpits of all the parishes” in the province. Then, when they still failed to come, their defense lawyer argued that the cats on the route made the journey too dangerous for the rats. This meant they had “the right of appeal and [could] refuse to obey the writ”.

3. Caterpillars

Woolly-Bear-Caterpillar

In 1659, five Italian communes brought a complaint against caterpillars for devastating their crops. The summons were nailed to trees in the forests. And, while they didn’t show up for the trial, the caterpillars were conceded in court to have the same right “to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as man—as long as theirs didn’t infringe on the latter’s.

Talking of charismatic insects, even bees were put on trial. In 864, the Council of Worms (i.e. the Rhineland city, not the species) sentenced a hive to be suffocated for stinging a human to death. This was to be done as soon as possible, before it could produce any honey—which, on account of the “murder”, would be “demoniacally tainted” and unfit for Christian consumption.

2. Slugs

For devastating crops in 1487, the slugs of Autun were “generously forewarned” by three days of public processions—during which they were ordered to leave “under penalty of being accursed.” As crazy as it sounds, the same thing happened the following year at Beaujeu; slugs were warned three times that if they didn’t get out of the province, they would be excommunicated. Whether slugs even considered themselves members of the Church was irrelevant. Excommunication served an important legal purpose for ecclesiastical courts: it made an animal free game to kill.

Even snails were prosecuted, in 1487, 1500, 1543, and 1596—all in France. But it’s unknown how they were punished.

1. Pigs

Pigs were among the most commonly prosecuted animals. One reason for this was the way they roamed around the towns unattended, munching on whatever they found—including consecrated wafers and children. There are numerous examples of the latter, for which the pigs were usually hanged. In 1567, for example, “a sow with a black snout” was hanged from a tree for devouring a four-month-old child’s head, left hand, and upper chest. In another case, the plaintiff made a special point of the fact that a pig killed and ate a child “although it was Friday”, which, because it violated the Catholics’ proscription of meat, was a seriously aggravating factor.

Sometimes the punishment was “an eye for an eye”. In 1386, a pig that tore the face and arms off a child was sentenced to hang after being “mangled and maimed in the head and forelegs”. It was even dressed as a man for the occasion. Another particularly grisly punishment for pigs was getting buried alive. More popular, however, was burning them alive—although in this some judges were merciful, ordering they only be “slightly singed” before strangling them to death and throwing their corpses on the fire.

Like dogs, cows, and other animals, pigs were often jailed before they were executed, sometimes for weeks on end and in the same jails as humans.

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10 Things You Had No Idea Put You at a Higher Risk of Death https://listorati.com/10-things-you-had-no-idea-put-you-at-a-higher-risk-of-death/ https://listorati.com/10-things-you-had-no-idea-put-you-at-a-higher-risk-of-death/#respond Sat, 23 Dec 2023 08:19:54 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-things-you-had-no-idea-put-you-at-a-higher-risk-of-death/

From the moment you’re born you’re on a one way street towards death. No one has avoided it yet, so there’s no reason to be too worried. Realistically, you probably avoid dozens if not hundreds of potential ways to die every day. From car accidents to falls to choking on a chicken bone, you could get done-in at any moment. But worrying about it is hardly the way to live your life.

That said, while we can all do our due diligence to stay safe and breathing, there are several things you may do that are inching you ever closer to having your ticket punched without you even realizing it. 

10. Having An Apple Shaped Body Puts You at Higher Risk of Death

You probably don’t need to be told again that your diet and weight and exercise and all that jazz influences your overall health. Poor diet and poor health are more likely to lead you to an earlier grave. But did you know that your shape also influences this? As in your literal, physical shape.

Some people have what you might call a pear-shaped body, while others are a little more apple-shaped. Does it make a difference? More than you know. Research has shown that an overweight person who is pear-shaped is actually at less risk of death than someone with a “normal” weight who would be considered apple-shaped.

If you carry all your weight at your waistline, your risk of dying from any number of causes is higher than those who carry it on their hips and thighs. Traditionally, people, including doctors, are more focused on BMI. But this research suggests that even those with a good BMI who are thin but not muscular can still be less healthy than someone with a high BMI and more body fat. 

In studies of over 15,000 people, those with higher waist-to-hip ratio who were not overweight were at a greater risk, up to two times, than people considered overweight and obese. Abdominal fat is more linked to type 2 diabetes, some kinds of cancer, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and even dementia.

9. A Lack of Friends Puts You at a Higher Risk of Death 

Good news for social butterflies, there’s evidence that your friends are helping you live longer. Bad news for various introverts and people who just don’t socialize well, because that means the opposite for you. A lack of friends and overall loneliness puts you at a greater risk of death than many other factors such as obesity, blood pressure and even smoking.

One study concluded that social isolation can have the same effect on your overall health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. It can shorten your lifespan by as much as 15 years. People who suffer loneliness and isolation have a 50% greater risk of dementia as well as 29% increased risk of heart disease and a 32% increase in stroke risk. Across the board, it’s bad news.

If you’re feeling good about your own social life, then you should know many people aren’t. A third of people over 45 report feeling lonely, which can still happen even if others are around, while a quarter of those over 65 qualify as socially isolated, which means a lack of social connections.

8. Losing a Spouse Increases Your Risk of Death

Keeping in line with how relationships affect your health, losing a spouse can only devastate the partner left behind. Along with the emotional trauma of losing your partner, there’s also a potential physical toll. 

A massive study over over 370,000 elderly couples across nearly a decade showed that when one partner dies, the odds of dying from literally anything will increase for the surviving partner. Cause-specific mortality increases as well for things like cancer, infections and more. 

Other studies have shown that the younger a person is when their spouse dies, the more likely they are to die within the year. This is especially true for men. Men were 70% more likely to die within a year of their spouse dying than similarly aged men who had not lost a partner. Women were 27% more likely to die.

7. More Than 11 Moles On Your Arm Raises Your Skin Cancer Risk

For years now doctors have recommended going to get any suspicious moles on your body checked out in case it’s skin cancer. Most people have several moles already but if you sprout a new one or one grows larger or in an odd shape, it’s a good sign you may need to have it looked at. 

Less well known is that moles, in general, are a sign you may be at risk for skin cancer. Some research has shown that if you have over 11 moles on your right arm, you are now at higher risk for skin cancer. Feel free to take a second to count yours. 

If you got over 11, you may want to keep an eye on them and make sure you’re using sunscreen. Having over 50 moles anywhere on your body is also a risk factor. But if you got up to 100 moles, then the data suggests you’re now at 5 times the normal risk for skin cancer.

6. Couples Without Kids Have Higher Mortality Rates

The number of people in America who are choosing to not have children is growing, with 44% of non-parents between 18 and 49 saying they probably won’t ever have kids. And while it’s a growing and popular sentiment these days, some people may want to think twice as there’s evidence couples without kids don’t live as long.

Women who don’t have kids have shown a fourfold increase in death rates. Yes, there are a number mitigating factors to consider as well, but there’s a noteworthy correlation, nonetheless.  The biggest thing to consider in a Danish study that looked at 21,000 couples seeking IVF was that they could not have children for whatever reason so there could have been a myriad of other health issues at play. 

While the researchers could not assign causation and the numbers were low, just 316 deaths in 11 years, they were still something of a statistical anomaly. 

5. Diet Soda Has Been Linked to Increased Risk of Stroke and Death in Women

The soda industry is massive, raking in $221.6 billion in 2020. For some, the sugar is too much and so they stick to diet soda. It’s not nearly as big as the entire business but diet soft drinks pull in over $4 billion per year. And sure, you’re cutting back on sugar but you may not be doing yourself any favors in the long run.

Artificially sweetened drinks have been linked to increased risk to a variety of health concerns including stroke and coronary disease. The study involved 80,000 postmenopausal women between 50 and 79 over the course of 12 years. The women who had two or more diet drinks a day were at 23% greater risk of stroke, 29% greater risk of coronary heart disease and had an overall risk of death increased by 16%. The risk factors increased further for women who were obese or of African American descent

Again, there was no definite cause-and-effect link here but the noteworthy correlation may at least make you want to consider reaching for some water instead of a diet soda next time.

4. Tall, Thin Men Are at Higher Risk of Collapsed Lung

Obviously there’s no “right” body type but society tends to lean towards some being more desirable to most people than others. Being tall and thin, for instance, is typically considered healthy and attractive. But that’s not always true. 

Tall, thin men are at an increased risk of pneumothorax, or collapsed lungs. It happens when air gets between your chest cavity and your lungs and then pushes down on the lung. Men are at highest risk between ages 20 and 40 and if you’re tall but underweight, that increases your risk further. 

One theory is that growth spurts can spur the condition on. You grow taller while not gaining enough weight to keep up with the height and it causes a weakening of the lungs, which can then collapse. About half the patients who come into the Chest Medicine Clinic in Edmonton are tall, thin men.

3. Taller People Are at greater Risk of Cancer

Speaking of the dangers of being tall, your height may play a role in your cancer risk. There are 6 different cancers that seem to have increased risk for those who are taller. A study that followed nearly 1.3 million women over years showed that the relative risk of all cancers increases by 10% for every 10 cm or 4 inches over average height that you are. And that’s just in general.

Specific cancers carry different risks. Based on a 5 cm or 2 inch increase in height over the average you are at a 10% greater risk of kidney cancer, 8% for ovarian cancer, 4% for prostate cancer and 5% for colorectal. Other cancers have similar risks based on height, too.

2. Toxoplasmosis Significantly Increases Your Risk of Traffic Accidents

Toxoplasmosis is one of those things everyone on the internet knows about because plenty of sites have written about all the goofy ways it may mess with your brain. It’s been an internet staple for over 15 years. But the thing is, we keep discovering new ways it may mess with us.

So the original story about this parasite is that it infects mice and rats and makes them lose their fear of cats because it wants to get into the cats to continue its life cycle. So brave little rats get killed by cats and the parasite moves to the cat. Then you, a cat owner, get infected by cleaning your litter box. But what does it do to humans?

Aside from everything the other sites mention, including our own, toxoplasmosis may cause car accidents. It’s estimated that between 30% and 60% of the world population has been infected by toxoplasma gondii and part of the effect it has on humans seems to be slowed reaction times.

Based on comparisons between infected and non-infected individuals, those who have signs of the parasite are at a 2.65 times higher risk of traffic accidents. Those who have been infected longer show a lower risk, however.  Something to consider next time you plan to head out for a drive after cleaning the litter.

1. People Who Didn’t Get the Covid Vaccine Are at Higher Risk of Traffic Accidents

Here’s one that’ll melt your brain for a minute. We all know that the Covid vaccine caused a bit of a divide amongst people. Most of us got it and some people thought it was part of some government and pharmacy company conspiracy to poison the population. Ignore all of that for now. Research has shown that people who didn’t get the vaccine are at a significantly higher risk of traffic accidents.

Researchers looked at over 11.2 million people over a one month period. Of that group, 16% didn’t get vaccinated while the remaining 84% did. There were 6,682 traffic accidents reported among all of them. The unvaccinated group accounted for 25% of all the crashes which translates to a 72% increased relative risk compared to the vaccinated. Even adjusted for diverse variations like age, sex, location, economic status and more the increase is still 48%.

So how does not being vaccinated relate to car crashes? The research can’t draw concrete conclusions but the hypothesis is that there are psychological factors at play that put a person who would be hesitant to get the vaccine at greater risk of accidents. In other words, people who are distrustful of public health recommendations may be more inclined to ignore driving rules and be reckless behind the wheel.

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10 Great Speeches That Really Put The Boot In https://listorati.com/10-great-speeches-that-really-put-the-boot-in/ https://listorati.com/10-great-speeches-that-really-put-the-boot-in/#respond Mon, 23 Oct 2023 13:18:07 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-great-speeches-that-really-put-the-boot-in/

Most speeches follow an entirely conventional pattern. They are often self-congratulatory, bombastic, and, let’s face it, boring. However, it pays to listen closely because there are times when even an ordinary speech can take a sudden turn and leave the audience wondering whether they heard correctly.

Some speakers, given an opportunity to have their say, make the most of it and decide to let the audience know exactly what is on their mind. Rather than offering easy-to-digest platitudes, the following people chose to use their time at the podium to “put the boot in,” which, if you’re unfamiliar with the expression, essentially means to cruelly, mercilessly attack someone.

10 Charles Spencer At Princess Diana’s Funeral

When Earl Spencer stood up to speak at his sister’s funeral, he appeared to be quite calm. Or as calm as anyone could be with half the world watching. He began his speech by talking about the shock of Princess Diana’s death and the sorrow that people who knew her felt, all of which seemed entirely conventional and uncontroversial.

He praised her compassion, her sense of duty, and her “natural nobility.” This was the first hint of what was about to come, because Diana’s in-laws (with their presumed unnatural nobility) were sitting on the front row, and millions of people were watching their reactions.

For the next five minutes, they had to nod solemnly while he ripped into them in his genteel English manner. He said, “Genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum,” and though he didn’t specify who “those” at the opposite end of the spectrum were, everyone listening could take a pretty good guess. He “pledged” himself to protect her sons, saying, “We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair.”[1]

Finally, he finished his speech with the words, “I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men, so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned.”

Ouch.

9 David Trimble’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

In 1998, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to John Hume and David Trimble “for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.” John Hume was the Catholic leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, while Trimble was the Protestant leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and they had both been working tirelessly on the Good Friday Agreement to bring peace to their country.

If you win the Nobel Peace Prize, it might be assumed that you are a peaceful sort of guy. We might reasonably expect Nobel acceptance speeches to talk about “unity,” “acceptance,” or “tolerance.” And you are expected to keep on saying it. But when David Trimble jointly won a Nobel Peace Prize, he decided to go with something different. His speech seemed to be remarkably, well, grumpy.

The trouble started with, “It is a truth universally understood that there is no such thing as a free lunch. That being so, John and I are obliged to sing for our supper. In short some expect us to speak . . . ” Considering that he had just shared a million-dollar prize, it seemed a little churlish to be annoyed when asked to speak while accepting it.

The speech also ended on a less-than-hopeful note: “But common sense dictates that I cannot for ever convince society that real peace is at hand if there is not a beginning to the decommissioning of weapons [ . . . ] Any further delay will reinforce dark doubts about whether Sinn Fein are drinking from the clear stream of democracy, or is still drinking from the dark stream of fascism. It cannot for ever face both ways.”[2]

Trimble’s speech in Oslo caused widespread anger at home, which was compounded when he later called Southern Ireland “a pathetic, sectarian State.”

8 Frederick Douglass On The Fourth Of July

Frederick Douglass was a former slave, political activist, and public speaker. He had a prominent role in the abolitionist movement during the Civil War, and he continued to speak for human rights until he died in 1895.

In one of his most famous speeches, delivered on July 5, 1852, he posed the question, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” And then he answered it:

[It is] a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.[3]

That’s telling it like it is.

After the abolition of slavery, Douglass continued to campaign for civil rights. He died of a heart attack on his way home from a women’s suffragist meeting in 1895. Douglass toured America giving speeches about civil rights. The Fourth of July speech received a rousing reception and was repeated often, becoming his most famous.

7 Noel Botham On The Death Of Hughie Green

Noel Botham was a journalist and biographer with an eye for the main chance. In 1997, when he was asked to speak at the funeral of Hughie Green, a popular TV presenter, he must have seen it as a great publicity opportunity, which is nice.

He stood up in front of Green’s family, including his children and grandchildren, and spoke about Green’s four mistresses and numerous love children, one of whom was now one of the most famous faces in British television. Botham claimed that Hughie Green had known and approved of the speech that he was going to give at the funeral.[4]

Although Botham did not name the famous love child at the funeral, he later accepted £100,000 from a newspaper to reveal that it was Paula Yates, the former wife of Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof. Yates had recently suffered the loss of her new fiance, INXS singer Michael Hutchence.

Paula Yates was distraught at the revelation. She never recovered from the hurt of finding out, and the news was thought to have contributed to her death from a heroin overdose in 2000.

6 Nikita Khrushchev On Josef Stalin

When the newly appointed Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, addressed the 20th congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, the audience was more than a little nervous. There had not been a congress since their previous leader, Josef Stalin, had died, and no one knew quite what to expect.

Certainly, no one could have predicted what Khrushchev did. In a closed session, Khrushchev denounced Stalin, his crimes, and the imprisonment, torture, and execution of party members. He said, “Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation, and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint, and the correctness of his position—was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation.”

He went on to talk about the dangers of the “cult of the individual.” Stalin, whose image had been everywhere during his reign, had confused loyalty to the party with loyalty to the leader of the party and punished anyone who disagreed with him. Khrushchev added, “Stalin originated the concept enemy of the people. This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent . . . ”[5]

His audience sat stunned, not daring to move or even look at each other while Khrushchev talked for four hours. They were too stunned, or perhaps frightened, to applaud, and Khrushchev left the stage to deafening silence.

Though the speech had been made in closed session, it was somehow leaked to the media, and Stalinism was officially over.

5 Ann Widdecombe On Michael Howard

In 1997, it was well-known in British political circles that the prisons minister, Ann Widdecombe, had a difficult relationship with her boss, Michael Howard. Widdecombe was also known to be extremely plain-speaking. So, when the two clashed in Parliament over the sacking of the head of the prison service, the House of Commons was packed with MPs who wanted to see the show. Widdecombe said the sacking was “unjustly conceived, brutally executed, and dubiously defended,” which seems to be fairly mild parliamentary language.

However, Michael Howard took exception and began a smear campaign against his former junior, implying that she had been having an affair with the head of the prison service. Widdecombe, who had famously stated that she was a spinster and a virgin, was incensed. The warring colleagues appeared on a news program, where Mr. Howard was challenged 14 times about the sacking of the prisons officer, but he refused to answer.

The following week, the two met again in the House of Commons, and this time, it was packed not just with MPs but also with members of the press. Widdecombe alleged that there were at least three occasions when Howard had deliberately misled Parliament. She spoke for 45 minutes, famously ending with the statement that there was “something of the night” about Michael Howard, a phrase which followed him around for the rest of his career, which was brief.

He made a bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party a short time later and came last in the vote.[6]

4 Nellie McClung On Universal Suffrage

Nellie McClung was a Canadian suffragist. Her political activism began when she joined the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, campaigning against alcohol abuse. In 1912, she became a founding member of the Political Equality League.

She and her fellow members staged a mock parliament which held a debate satirizing the dangers of allowing men to vote. McClung mocked a speech that had been made by Manitoba’s premier, Rodmond Roblin, saying, “Man has a higher destiny than politics,” and that his responsibility was to look after his family. After all, he couldn’t be earning money if he was bothering himself with the affairs of the day.[7]

The speech was an instant success, producing howls of laughter from women who recognized the arguments that had been used against them, but despite appeals to Roblin, who seemed not to enjoy being mocked, he refused to back the idea of women’s suffrage.

In 1915, Roblin’s government collapsed. McClung agreed to make a speech in support of Tobias Norris in return for his support on votes for women. In it, she said, “I am not here to beg a favour but to obtain simple justice. Have we not brains to think? Hands to work? Hearts to feel? And lives to live? Do we not bear our part in citizenship? Do we not help to build the empire? Give us our due!”

Norris’s party was elected, and women were granted full suffrage.

3 Alexander The Great To His Army

Alexander the Great was an outstanding military leader. He had led his army undefeated for ten years, but on the eve of the Battle of the Hydaspes in India, he learned that his men were worried about the overwhelming odds against them.

And, as all great leaders do, Alexander confronted the issue head-on. He began in conciliatory terms, “I observe, gentlemen, that when I would lead you on a new venture you no longer follow me with your old spirit. I have asked you to meet me that we may come to a decision together: are we, upon my advice, to go forward, or, upon yours, to turn back?”

No one spoke.

He went on to list their achievements over the last ten years, pointing out the lands they had conquered, and then questioned their courage: “Are you afraid that a few natives who may still be left will offer opposition? Come, come! These natives either surrender without a blow or are caught on the run—or leave their country undefended for your taking.”

More uncomfortable silence.

He finished by saying, “I could not have blamed you for being the first to lose heart if I, your commander, had not shared in your exhausting marches and your perilous campaigns; it would have been natural enough if you had done all the work merely for others to reap the reward. But it is not so. You and I, gentlemen, have shared the labor and shared the danger, and the rewards are for us all. The conquered territory belongs to you [ . . . ] whoever wishes to return home will be allowed to go, either with me or without me. I will make those who stay the envy of those who return.”[8]

They all stayed. And they won. It was Alexander’s last great conquest.

2 Geoffrey Howe’s Resignation Speech

Geoffrey Howe served as the finance minister under Margaret Thatcher’s government and was once considered to be one of her most loyal colleagues. However, they’d had several disagreements, and he suddenly found himself frozen out of Thatcher’s inner circle.

Howe was famously considered to be a mild-mannered man. One opponent described his political attacks as having the ferocity of “being savaged by a dead sheep.” So, when Geoffrey Howe rose to make his traditional resignation speech in 1990, his colleagues could not have anticipated that he was about to bring down Margaret Thatcher completely.

He began his speech in conventional form, summing up his long career as an MP and a cabinet minister. But then he began to talk about Thatcher, her attitude toward the European Union, and the way that she conducted meetings: like a tyrant ignoring the advice of her cabinet. He claimed that she was hampering her colleagues’ ability to negotiate with Europe, saying, “It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain.”[9]

The speech blew the Conservative Party apart. Before long, knowing she was going to lose a leadership challenge, Margaret Thatcher resigned.

1 Ferenc Gyurcsany And The Oszod Speech

Ferenc Gyurcsany’s mother probably told him that honesty was the best policy. Which it is. Most of the time. However, when the Hungarian prime minister stood up to address his party in closed session in 2006, he might have done well to consider that other well-known proverb about discretion and valor.

Gyurcsany began his speech conventionally enough but soon moved into dangerous territory. Perhaps he had always intended to be so honest, or perhaps he got carried away in the heat of the moment. Talking about the political and economic situation in his country, he said, “We have f—ed it up. Not a little but a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have. It can be explained. We have obviously lied throughout the past one and a half to two years. It was perfectly clear that what we were saying was not true.”

And then, he went on, “We did not do anything for four years. Nothing. You cannot mention any significant government measures that we can be proud of . . . ”

He ended his speech on a note which turned out to be prophetic. “Divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy, and hundreds of tricks, which you do not have to be aware of publicly, have helped us to survive this. This cannot go on. Cannot.”[10]

A tape of the meeting was leaked to the press, which caused riots in the streets by all those citizens who had been lied to, followed, a few weeks later, by a landslide defeat for his party in elections. Gyurcsany himself, however, remained in politics and even survived a no confidence vote on his leadership.

Perhaps, after all, honesty does pay.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels, and an occasional travel writer.

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10 Historical Dining Clubs That Will Put You Off Your Food https://listorati.com/10-historical-dining-clubs-that-will-put-you-off-your-food/ https://listorati.com/10-historical-dining-clubs-that-will-put-you-off-your-food/#respond Sat, 30 Sep 2023 10:39:05 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-historical-dining-clubs-that-will-put-you-off-your-food/

The 18th and 19th centuries saw a growth in a whole range of clubs. Gentleman’s clubs, like White’s, flourished everywhere. Special interest societies sprang up. Whatever your hobby, interest, religion, or political persuasion, there was a club for you.

It was almost as if people didn’t want to go home.

The dining club, however, offered a particular experience. Good food, sophisticated conversation, brandy, cigars, and, most of all, discretion. But some clubs went further. They sought to combine intellectual interests with food.

As their members had wide-ranging and sometimes downright peculiar interests, the combination didn’t always work.

10 Ichthyophagous Club

The Ichthyophagous Club was one of the more unusual dining clubs in New York. It met from 1880 to 1887. The club held an elaborate annual banquet with the purpose of eating as many unusual marine creatures as possible. Their goal, they said, was to prove that there was a whole variety of edible creatures that were going uneaten, which they felt was a shame.

Club members included fishing experts (but not fishermen, who were considered to be too low-class), foodies, journalists, and writers. The first dinner was reported in the The New York Times and was said to include moonfish cooked Spanish-style, sea robin fish, and a lettuce salad.

By the third year, they were serving dolphin steaks, lamprey eels (complete with teeth) rolled in breadcrumbs, and dogfish shark croquettes. Their final banquet included 15 types of sea creatures, ranging from conventional salmon to stewed terrapin.[1]

It was said that dolphin tasted particularly unpleasant. However, alligator steak went down well and starfish soup was a hit. The club had its own song, which praised the variety of the ocean and the bravery of the man prepared to eat his way across it.

Ultimately, the club did not last. Could it be that the members couldn’t stomach the thought of more ruddy fish?

9 The Glutton Club

The Glutton Club was not founded so that members could stuff their faces with as much food as possible. Rather, members gathered to try “strange flesh.” Which sounds even more disturbing.

Under the presiding eye of a young Charles Darwin, the club sought to try out new foods. They began by eating fowl and tried hawk and bittern. But, after a particularly tough and stringy owl, they moved on to meat instead.

Darwin continued his adventurous eating habits during his travels by eating armadillo and some unidentified animals. It seemed that nothing was off-limits. One evening, however, he jumped up in the middle of dinner when he realized that he was eating a rare bird. He scraped up the leftovers and took them away to study.[2]

8 The Bullingdon Club

The unsavory thing about the Bullingdon Club was not so much the food as the membership. Founded in the 18th century, the organization opened its membership only to select Oxford undergraduates who had enough money and connections to buy their way out of trouble.

The dining club soon developed a reputation for lavish feasts, huge alcohol consumption, and vile behavior. The rich aristocrats vandalized both private and university property, abused the staff who cooked for them, sexually harassed the waitresses, trashed the restaurants, and engaged in bizarre and illegal dining rituals.

Although the club still exists today, its membership has dwindled—most recently due to the publicity surrounding the initiation ritual of a British prime minister who had once been a member of the club. Though the details are unclear, the ceremony was believed to have included a pig’s mouth, an open zipper, and a certain part of the prime minister’s anatomy.[3]

7 The Beaver Club

The Beaver Club was founded in Canada in 1785 with membership restricted to fur traders. To become members, candidates had to have overwintered in the harsh Northwest Territories and be upstanding citizens.

The club met once every two weeks. Once a year, they had a large banquet, which all members were expected to attend. It was one of those clubs with a lot of rules. Attendance at the dinners was compulsory unless someone was indisposed by reason of illness or business.

Members were encouraged to recount stories of the hardships and dangers that they had endured during their travels, all while wearing their ostentatious club medals and making toasts to “the fur trade in all its branches.”

At the meal, pemmican was served. It was a mix of dried buffalo meat, berries, and fat. Pemmican was a staple food of these voyageurs while out in the wilderness. At the club, however, it was served on silver platters in a luxurious dining room.[4]

At the end of the evening, these hardened fur traders sat on the floor in a row, as if in a large canoe, and pretended to row their imaginary boats while singing masculine songs.

6 The Club

In 1764, writer Samuel Johnson and artist Joshua Reynolds set up their own dining club for artistic and literary gentlemen. With the aim of providing good food and even better conversation, the group originally consisted of fewer than a dozen men, all of whom were “good fellows.”

The club’s motto was: Esto perpetua (“Let it be perpetual”). This sounded impressive, but no one seems to know what it meant.[5]

The club met in the Turk’s Head Tavern in Soho, London, and members ate a hearty supper followed by lots of talking and drinking. Membership continued to grow, much to the disgust of the founding members. They were particularly annoyed by the intake of politicians, which seemed to put the founders off their food.

5 The Explorers Club

In 1904, a group of adventurers decided to form their own club in New York with the aim of promoting adventure and conservation. Members have included pioneers who were the first to climb Mount Everest, walk on the Moon, and dive to the deepest depths of the ocean.

The Explorers Club has a number of strange artifacts, including a “Yeti scalp” and the remains of a four-tusked elephant. Once a year, the organization holds a dinner for members and guests. These dinners have given a whole new meaning to the term “exotic food.”

The meals are prepared by the finest chefs and include such delicacies as tarantula and big game animals. However, in 1951, the club caused controversy when it was discovered that they were eating meat from a frozen woolly mammoth that had been found in Alaska.

The mammoth was supposed to have been discovered by an explorer with the nickname “Glacier Priest.” A sample of the meat was kept in a museum and was later DNA-tested. It turned out that the meat was actually from a green sea turtle.[6]

The Explorers Club exists today, and the annual banquet still occurs. However, woolly mammoth is not on the menu.

4 Princeton Eating Clubs

Princeton University is known for its large number of eating clubs. Its traditional application process, called “Bicker,” still occurs. The first official club, known as Ivy, was formed in 1879.

Applicants must undergo 10 one-on-one interviews with members on a variety of subjects. Then the entire club of over 100 members votes on the prospective candidate. To be admitted, the candidate must receive 100 percent of the votes, which is quite a task.

The idea of the eating clubs began when a group of wealthy undergraduates, unimpressed by the meager offerings on campus, decided to arrange their own meals. They rented rooms in Ivy Hall, hired a cook and waitress, and bought themselves a billiard table for after-dinner entertainment.

Today, Princeton has 11 eating clubs, which still use the “Bicker” process to weed out applicants.[7]

3 The Divan Club

The Divan Club was established in 1744 by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, and Sir Francis Dashwood. Membership was available only to those who had visited the Ottoman Empire. In fact, the club took its name from the Turkish word for a council or meeting of rulers. The purpose of the club was to allow members to talk about their experiences in the East.

After dinner, the members would make the club toast, “To The Harem.”

The club lasted less than two years. It is thought that the main reason for the organization’s demise was that the entry criteria were so strict that almost no one qualified for membership.[8]

2 The Beefsteak Club

During the 18th and 19th centuries, several dining clubs bore the name Beefsteak Club. The steak was seen as a patriotic symbol and was especially associated with the liberal politics of the Whig Party.

The first of these clubs was founded in 1705, and its full title was The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks. It was immediately successful, and its membership included the great, the good, and the royal.

Meetings were held weekly. Members wore blue coats and buff waistcoats with brass buttons with the words “Beef and Liberty” impressed on them. Dinner was always steak with baked potatoes and was accompanied by large amounts of port.

More Beefsteak Clubs were opened, each having its own rules and its own membership. But all of them upheld the importance of liberty and the sublimeness of beef in steak form. Though the club died out during the 19th century, it was re-formed in 1966 and has met continuously since.[9]

1 The Hellfire Club

The Hellfire Club—or, to use its less catchy official name, Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe—was started in the mid-18th century by Sir Francis Dashwood (yes, the man who also started the Divan Club). He bought an old Cistercian abbey to use as a meeting house.

The abbey was ideal as it allowed him to express his deep hatred of Roman Catholics by dressing up and being silly. He devised the club and its rituals to be a mockery of the Catholic Church. In fact, the club’s rituals were deliberate pseudo-religious mumbo jumbo.

Twice a year, the organization held a chapter meeting. Members wore hats that were a cross between a beret and a clown’s hat and had the words “Love and Friendship” embossed on the front.

The men sat over sumptuous and extravagant dinners and were encouraged to bring ladies “of a cheerful, lively disposition.” Club members were called “monks,” and their female companions were considered to be their “lawful wives,” at least for the duration of their visit.

On one occasion, a member smuggled into the chapel a baboon dressed as a devil and hid it inside a cope chest. During the ceremonial portion of the evening, the baboon was released. No doubt having been terrified at being shut in, the baboon promptly rampaged through the chapel.

The animal leaped onto Lord Sandwich. Thinking he was about to be dragged down to hell, Sandwich suddenly found religion and, to the merriment of all, made a full confession of his sins.

In 1762, Dashwood was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. It suddenly occurred to him that the public might not appreciate the humorous nature of the club in quite the way he did. He wound up The Hellfire Club, stripping the abbey of any sign of the organization’s presence.[10]

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The Most Bizarre Ships Ever Put to Sea https://listorati.com/the-most-bizarre-ships-ever-put-to-sea/ https://listorati.com/the-most-bizarre-ships-ever-put-to-sea/#respond Mon, 27 Feb 2023 16:49:35 +0000 https://listorati.com/the-most-bizarre-ships-ever-put-to-sea/

Mankind has been creating boats for about 8,000 years now. The earliest boats were either rafts or canoes and obviously pretty simple in their construction and function. If you’ve ever seen a modern super-yacht or aircraft carrier you know how significantly the times have changed. But the path from ancient raft of reeds strapped together up to your modern aircraft carriers is far from a straight line. There have been a number of curious twists and turns along the way.

10. SS Baychimo

You may not have heard of the SS Baychimo but it’s one of the most unusual ships in all of naval history. The thing that makes it unusual is the fact that, as of right now, no one even knows where it is.

Launched in 1914 by the Hudson Bay Company, the SS Baychimo was originally named Ångermanelfven after a river in Sweden, where it was built. It was a massive vessel that weighed 1,322 tons and was over 200 feet long. It was used throughout the Arctic of Canada to deliver provisions after the war. Prior to that it made runs from Sweden to Germany.

In 1931 it got trapped in the ice off the coast of Alaska. The crew left the ship and walked to the nearest town. Later, as the weather grew worse, storms ravaged it and at one point the temperature went from -60 all the way up to zero. When the crew went to check on the ship trapped in the ice they discovered it no longer was trapped. It just wasn’t there anymore.

Over the next several decades the ship was sighted again and again, sailing as a ghost ship across the ocean. It was last seen in 1969, nearly 40 years after it had been set loose to do its own thing.

Because it’s been so long since it’s been seen most people assume it sank some time ago, but no wreckage has ever been found and the path it managed to wander through the oceans was one that spanned hundreds of miles. So it’s entirely possible that it’s still out there somewhere. 

9. Project Habakkuk

During the Second World War, the British planned to create an aircraft carrier unlike any that had ever been seen before. Called Project Habakkuk, it wasn’t a vessel created from steel or wood; it was to be a 2,000 foot long vessel made from a substance called pykrete. Pykrete is what happens when you mix wood pulp into water and then freeze it. The result is even stronger than concrete. Bullets ricochet right off it. The entire vessel would be one giant, dirty ice cube.

While Habakkuk never came to fruition for the British in the war, a test version of it was constructed in Canada. Set into Lake Patricia in Alberta, Canada, the scale model was 60 feet long and weighed 1,000 tons. A 1-horsepower motor was used to keep it frozen. The project was eventually abandoned due to numerous impracticalities.

8. The FLIP Buoy 

The Floating Instrument Platform, or FLIP, is what happens when you want to have both a boat and a buoy at the same time and can’t decide between the two. It’s a research vessel on which scientists will spend weeks at a time doing studies on the open water. And while in motion it’s a ship that’s over 355 feet long, when it’s ready to do work the ballast tanks fill with water down three hundred feet of its entire length, causing it to flip forward at a right angle until only the habitable end is sticking up out of the water.

With three hundred feet of vessel under the water and just the last 50 ft floating above, it’s able to weather nearly any kind of rough seas without a risk of flipping over or sinking. The length of the vessel is well below the water that is disturbed by surface waves, so it’s simply bobs calmly on top of the water.

When the research is done, compressed air is forced into the ballast, the water drains out, and the boat flips back into position so that it can sail home again.

7.  The Plongeur Submarine

The French Plongeur submarine has a special place in history. It was the first submarine that was able to propel itself through mechanical power. First launched in 1863, you can imagine how terrifying it must have been at that time to trust a machine to take you under the water and somehow keep you alive.

Earlier subs had been powered by human energy — crews pedaling to keep the ship moving like an underwater bicycle. The Plongeur had a compressed air-powered engine and was far larger than anything before it. At 140 feet long, the ship also contained 23 tanks of compressed air which took up 403 cubic feet of space. 

The Plongeur made several successful journeys before it was decommissioned, mostly out of fears of its unstable design, it’s limited air supply, and the fact that technology improved enough to make better vessels 

6. Camel Supply 

If you’ve ever wondered how camels travel the world, then wonder no longer. The tale of the USS Supply, the most uncreatively named supply ship in US Naval history, can answer that question for you. 

In 1855, US Secretary of War Jefferson Davis crafted a mission to acquire camels so that the US Army could have a camel division. The goal was to have camels to navigate deserts in Mexico. The thinking was clearly that since camels were adapted to desert climates in the Middle East, they could handle desert climates in North America just as easily and give soldiers an upper hand. 

A 60 foot long camel barn was constructed on the USS Supply. By 1865 the ship had reached the Middle East and was loaded down with 33 camels from different regions of the Middle East to see which would adapt best to life in North America. 

It took 87 days to get back to America and inexplicably, despite leaving with 33 camels, they arrived home with 34 since a new one had been born along the way. Camels adapt well to ocean travel. A second trip brought back 41 camels.

The USS Supply had proven its worth as a camel carrier, but the camels themselves ended up being a failure as they adapted poorly to combat, they smelled terrible, and they had rather unpleasant attitudes if they didn’t like the person who was handling them. 

5. The Hughes Glomar Explorer

While the idea of a covert spy ship doesn’t seem that unusual, the Hughes Glomar Explorer was the CIA‘s clever attempt to retrieve a sunken Soviet vessel without anyone having any idea what was going on. The plan was for it to sneak in and snag a Soviet nuclear sub and then take off again without any outward sign that anything that ever happened.

The Explorer was originally built after a Soviet ballistic missile nuclear sub sank at the height of the Cold War. The Soviets were unable to determine exactly where the sub had gone down so they couldn’t salvage it themselves. Then the US Navy discovered it. 

The top secret construction of the vessel proved to be one of the strangest missions the CIA has ever conducted. The final product was so large it couldn’t even fit down the Panama Canal. The front and back ends of the ship were meant to bob and weave on waves while the center remained stable. The reason for that was it was essentially one of those giant claw machines you see in supermarkets. The plan was to grasp the sunken submarine some 17,000 feet below the surface of the ocean and make off with it. The ball bearings were apparently the size of bowling balls. 

Even more impressive than the construction was the fact that this all had to be done super secretly. Obviously the Soviets would not have approved if word got out, so the CIA came up with a cover story. Billionaire Howard Hughes designed the ship so he could farm manganese nodules at the bottom of the ocean. Front companies were set up and stories were leaked to the press. 

The ruse worked for a time, but the claw apparatus broke and then the cover story was blown. They never actually managed to retrieve the sub, but it was an impressive effort. 

4. USS Wolverine 

Most everyone knows what an aircraft carrier looks like. They’re the largest vessels on the sea and weigh upwards of 40,000 tons. It’s hard to imagine, then, that there was a second kind of aircraft carrier designed for use in freshwater. The Great Lakes had their own aircraft carriers, including the USS Wolverine. It was originally a side paddlewheel steamer that transported people from Cleveland to Buffalo. 

The Navy purchased the vessel in 1942 and set it up as a freshwater training aircraft carrier in the Great Lakes. It had none of the armaments that a normal carrier is outfitted with, and was smaller than a modern carrier, but it saw extensive use as a training vessel for pilots. In fact, over 17,000 pilots trained to land and take off from the Wolverine during the Second World War. 

3. HMS Zubian

During the First World War the Royal British Navy had two Tribal-Class warships known as the HMS Zulu and the HMS Nubian. Both vessels were badly damaged in 1916 but not destroyed. So, in a feat of naval ingenuity, the front of the Zulu was welded onto the back of the Nubian to create a brand new vessel – the HMS Zubian.

Despite being a Frankensten vessel, the Zubian saw extensive service during the war and proved its worth more than once. It even managed to sink a German U-Boat in 1918. The threat of submarines was so great the Navy couldn’t afford to lose any ships if they could avoid it, and forging a new ship from two old ones was more cost-effective and faster than starting from scratch.

2. Baron of Renfrew

We live in what some people call a disposable culture these days. Everything from razors to coffee pods are designed to be used and tossed out. That seems normal to us, but the idea of a 304 foot long wooden ship, the largest wooden ship ever built, being built to be tossed out still seems a little odd.

The Baron of Renfrew was built as a single use vessel. It was a little bit of a scam, meant to ship timber from the New World to Europe. The ship itself would be taken apart when it got where it was going and the wood that was used in its construction would be tax exempt because it was part of the ship, as opposed to the cargo. Things didn’t go quite as planned and the ship started taking on water. Timber washed up on shore in France, having almost reached its destination.

1. Ramform Titan

When you need to measure seismic activity or do surveys at sea the Ramform Titan is the ship on which to do it. Shaped like a giant wedge of cheese, the Titan has an insanely powerful engine that produces 26.4 megawatts of power. For some perspective, a giant wind turbine produces about two megawatts of power, which is enough to power about 400 average homes. So the engine here could power over 5,000 homes.

The massive design is meant to be stable in any weather, so crews could safely work even in the middle of a storm at sea. The vessel is capable of running survey streams behind it, 24 in total, that can span well over 100 kilometers in length. In fact, in 2015 they ran 129.6 kilometers of streamers during a survey, breaking a world record.

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10 Former Lunatic Asylums Now Put to Other Uses https://listorati.com/10-former-lunatic-asylums-now-put-to-other-uses/ https://listorati.com/10-former-lunatic-asylums-now-put-to-other-uses/#respond Fri, 24 Feb 2023 21:55:00 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-former-lunatic-asylums-now-put-to-other-uses/

The Victorian era saw hundreds of vast buildings spring up across the UK, Europe, and North America as governments sought to address the “epidemic” of madness that appeared to be growing in lockstep with the industrialization of the western world. The agreed solution was to build immense institutions run under strict regimes and isolated from the rest of the community.

Urban sprawl eventually surrounded many of the old asylums. By the 1960s, it was decided they would need to be wound down and closed, “releasing” their patients back into the community whether appropriate housing and care had been arranged for them or not.

While scant consideration was given to patients, alternate uses for the buildings themselves were rarely considered either. So hundreds of well-built, often astoundingly beautiful, historic structures were left to rot and face eventual demolition. Here is a handful of those that found other fates besides the wrecking ball.

10 Royal Bethlem, London

The original Bethlehem Priory was founded in Bishopsgate in 1247 and used to house “mad” patients since as early as 1377. A brand new version of the institution (by then commonly known as “Bedlam” was built at Moorfields in 1676 and designed by the eminent scientist and architect (as well as great rival of Sir Isaac Newton) Robert Hooke (1635–1703).

The third version, known as “Royal Bethlem,” opened at Southwark in 1815 and was the largest of all, housing up to 425 patients at any one time. It also initially confined all of Britain’s “criminal lunatics.” Bedlam was notorious throughout its history as a place of cruelty and suffering, although by the 1860s, it had begun housing only fee-paying middle-class patients.

Today: Closing in 1930, the former “lunatic palace” is—with unavoidable irony—now the London home of the Imperial War Museum, documenting the history of warfare and conflict, which typifies mankind’s madness at its most extreme and destructive.[1]

9 Claybury, Essex

File:Claybury Mental hospital, or London County Lunatic Asylum.jpg

Built as the Fourth London County Asylum at Woodford, Essex, Claybury was the largest of all British asylums in terms of its overall footprint. It housed around 2,740 patients at its peak.

It was designed by George T. Hine (1842–1916), who was responsible for the building of more asylums than any other architect; he exclusively created asylums for the whole of his career. Fifteen across the UK are attributed to him, with extensions or additions made to five more.

Today: This immense building, which was once secured and surrounded by railings to keep its pauper patients inside, closed in 1997 and is now a gated community. Its wards are now converted to housing, its chapel is now a swimming pool, and its lavish recreation hall is now a gym. It is among the most desirable locations on the outskirts of London and, besides the still rather exclusive gym, is closed off to the public, meaning that these days, the paupers are all locked outside its grounds instead.[2]

8 Traverse City, Michigan

This third asylum for Michigan opened in 1885. It quickly became the city’s largest employer, growing to encompass over 1,400,000 square feet (130,064 square meters) of floor space with around 3,000 patients in residence by 1959.

Its first medical superintendent, Dr. James Munson (1848–1902), oversaw the asylum’s regime for its first 39 years (retiring at the age of 76). He believed that the patients being within beautiful surroundings with plenty to keep them occupied was the key to wellbeing and recovery. He also abolished the use of straitjackets and other forms of restraint.

Today: Frustratingly, the asylum’s beautiful Italiante central block—the most handsome part—was allowed to fall into disrepair and be demolished in 1963, while the remainder closed in 1989. A $60,000,000 redevelopment program began in 2000, with the remaining 1880s buildings and extensive grounds renovated to a mix of residential, shopping, catering, hotel, and conference facilities.[3]

7 The Lawn, Lincoln

The Lincoln Lunatic Asylum, later the Lawn, was a charitable public asylum that opened in 1820 at the center of the ancient town, next to its huge castle and overlooked by its cathedral. When the church’s main tower was completed in 1311, it was the only structure in the world taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The Lawn took patients on a charitable basis, meaning most did not have to pay at all. It had a good reputation, inspired by its first visiting medical physician, Dr. Edward Parker Charlesworth (1783–1853). Charlesworth insisted that mechanical restraints (bindings, cuffs, straitjackets, etc.) were abolished and that violence and physical coercion should never be used upon the patients, which was then a controversial approach.

Today: The Lawn closed in 1982 and was later used by the local council. It is now a conference center and coffee shop, with its grounds open as a public park.[4]

6 Mapperley, Nottingham

Nottingham was progressive during Georgian times when medicine for the poor was usually left to unqualified quacks and questionable herbal remedies. It built its general public hospital as early as 1781 and opened the very first of Britain’s “county asylums” at Sneinton in 1812.

As its first asylum became grossly overcrowded, middle-class patients were moved to new accommodations at The Coppice in 1859. However, as Nottingham continued to grow into a large industrial city, Sneinton again became overcrowded, with the much larger Mapperley Asylum eventually built in 1880. This, too, was full by the end of its first year and soon expanded.

During the 1950s, Mapperley’s superintendent, Dr. Duncan MacMillan, reclassified all the chronic (long-term) patients as “voluntary.” Instead of assuming rehabilitation for them was impossible, as was the case at most asylums, he encouraged confidence-building and their integration back into society. No new patients were allowed to be shut away in the dingy old chronic wards, and the doors to all wards were gradually kept unlocked.

Today: Closing in 1994, half of the old buildings are now converted to luxury housing, while the northern side is still in NHS use as the University of Nottingham Medical School. There is also a large medium-security forensic unit built within the grounds.[5]

5 Matteawan State Hospital, Beacon, NY

File:Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane - Men's room, Matteawan Asylum LCCN2014680061 (cropped).jpg

Located in pleasant surroundings between the Hudson River and Fishkill Mountains, Matteawan opened in 1892 and catered for various classes of mental health problems. It also incorporated a significant quota of those then labeled as “criminally insane.”

Its most famous patient to fall under that category was George Metesky, aka the “Mad Bomber.” He terrorized New York with homemade explosives planted in public locations from the 1940s until his arrest in 1957. Perhaps surprisingly, he was released just sixteen years later, in 1973.

Today: The role of Matteawan evolved from the 1970s into what is now Fishkill Correctional Facility, which still uses the old asylum buildings to house a mix of high-security and medium-security psychiatric patients. It also operates a minimum security work-release program for those undergoing rehabilitation.[6]

4 Royal Albert Idiot Asylum, Lancaster

File:Royal Albert Hospital.jpg

The first “idiot asylum” was founded in Surrey by John Langdon Down (1828–1896), who first described the syndrome that now bears his name. It was then formally known as “idiocy.” Langdon Down created an asylum designed to house, educate, and support people with learning differences to live productive lives beyond its walls.

Similar institutions appeared in the west, east, and midlands of England, and Royal Albert was originally known as the Northern Counties Idiot Asylum, designed in an extravagant Flemish style in 1870. It would initially house 500 children between six and fifteen years of age for up to seven years each before they were “ready” to use their skills in the outside world.

These high ideals were gradually lost over time; by 1948, its population had swelled to over 800, 35% of whom were aged over thirty-five and considered long-stay cases.

Today: The building closed in 1996 and was converted to the Jamea Al Kauthar Islamic College, a private Islamic boarding school for girls aged eleven to eighteen.[7]

3 Buffalo State Hospital, NY

Buffalo State hospital opened in 1880 and was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886), who went on to be widely regarded as the first American architect to achieve international renown. It was designed in the Kirkbride style, which saw staggered sets of ward blocks spreading out from the central administrative block rather like the wings of a bird in flight.

Buffalo was arguably the most impressive of all the American asylums, with its incredibly imposing gothic towers looming down from the enormous central block like something from a dark fairytale.

Today: Despite the addition to the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 1973 and designated an official National Historic Landmark in 1986 (one of only seven in Western New York), it sat empty and neglected for years. A lawsuit eventually forced state authorities into proactively pursuing its renovation. The Hotel Henry (named after its architect) occupied the central third of the complex but closed in 2021 but fortunately reopened as The Richardson Hotel. Tours are available of the remaining abandoned areas of the old asylum, with an expectation they will eventually become apartments and offices.[8]

2 Glenside, Somerset

Glenside opened in 1861 as the Bristol City Lunatic Asylum, built to a corridor-pavilion layout typical of its time.

Its first departure from psychiatric use was during WWI when it became the Beaufort War Hospital. During the war, 29,434 wounded soldiers were treated there, while all its psychiatric patients were sent home or decanted into other asylums. When the patients returned in 1919, they included one Elsie Leach, mother of the actor Cary Grant.

Today: The buildings were modernized and converted into residence halls and training areas for the UWE Faculty of Health and Social Care, with its grand recreation hall, adapted into a cafeteria. It is a rare example of a former hospital building finding a genuinely fitting new use that makes the best of the existing buildings rather than lazy demolition and/or partial conversion to housing. The former chapel now hosts a museum packed with information and objects about Glenside’s long history as an asylum and war hospital.[9]

1 Gheel, Belgium

Dymphna was born in Ireland to a wealthy family in the 7th century and sunk into depression after the death of her mother. Her father mourned, too, his advisers eventually suggesting he remarry to overcome his pain. He sent emissaries across Europe, who returned claiming they could find none so delightful and suitable as… his own daughter, Dymphna.

Unsurprisingly horrified, she fled to the continent, accompanied by a priest, the court jester, and his wife. They traveled to Antwerp in modern-day Belgium and settled in the small village of Gheel. Dymphna’s father pursued her and executed the priest when he tried to defend her, and when she continued to resist, he murdered Dymphna, his own fifteen-year-old daughter. She was martyred, becoming Saint Dymphna in around AD 650.

Miracles and cures were said to occur for those suffering from mental health problems who visited Gheel, and so St. Dymphna became the patron saint of the mad, with increasing numbers then brought to the village by friends and relatives. At first, patients were housed in a small asylum building attached to the church built in St Dymphna’s honor. But they were eventually accommodated in the homes of ordinary families living in Gheel.

Today: Remarkably, although the original buildings are gone, the system at Geel (formerly Gheel) remains very similar to this day. While most other western countries (including the rest of Belgium) adopted a similar model of placing patients in vast out-of-town institutions away from the general populace, Gheel families continue to provide similar care to patients with mental disorders. Some families have been doing so for many generations, and it has become as normal and accepted as any other practice handed down through a family line.[10]

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10 Stunning Energy Equivalents That Put Nature in a Whole New Light https://listorati.com/10-stunning-energy-equivalents-that-put-nature-in-a-whole-new-light/ https://listorati.com/10-stunning-energy-equivalents-that-put-nature-in-a-whole-new-light/#respond Thu, 16 Feb 2023 21:04:34 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-stunning-energy-equivalents-that-put-nature-in-a-whole-new-light/

It could be argued that the scale of the universe is such that our minds will never be able to comprehend it. In fact, it seems very likely that even things here on earth are far beyond what our minds could imagine at the best of times. That’s one of the reasons people will refer to flooding by saying it was like 100 Olympic sized pools, or a distance something travelled was six football fields. They’re all just ways to make something hard to comprehend a little more understandable. And when it comes to the incredible power and energy nature can wield, it’s pretty mind blowing.

10. Mount St. Helens Released 24 Megatons of Thermal Energy

North America is subject to frequent hurricanes and tornadoes as well as more than its fair share of earthquakes. And though they are rare, there are a number of volcanoes present as well that also erupt from time to time, such as Washington state’s Mount St. Helens. When it erupted back in 1980, it proved its remarkable power in terrifying ways. 

Starting in March of that year, a series of earthquakes were recorded in the area and the actual volcano itself began to bulge outward by 450 feet. When it finally erupted on May 18, it released 24 megatons of thermal energy, which means 24 million tons of TNT. It released 520 million tons of ash and destroyed enough trees to have built 300,000 houses just with the initial lateral blast.

9. Turning 1 kg of Hydrogen to Helium Releases as Much Energy as Burning 20,000 Tons of Coal 

The sun is forever engaged in a fusion reaction that turns hydrogen into helium, producing light and heat and keeping us all alive. Fusion is a hell of a way to produce power and we’re all hoping one day someone masters it down here on Earth because it would make life a lot easier. But until that time we have to make do with things like nuclear fission, solar power and good ol’ fossil fuel burning. 

The difference between how fusion and burning coal works is so preposterous that it seems made up when you try to match it up on the same scale. By that we mean the difference in power generated when the sun turns one kilogram of hydrogen into helium versus how much coal we need to burn down here on earth to get the same amount of energy produced.

The reaction of one kilogram of hydrogen becoming helium releases 630 trillion joules, or what you’d get from burning 20,000 tons of coal. 

Over the course of its life, the sun will use 1.95 x 1029 kg of hydrogen. In a single second, the sun generates 3.9 x 1026 watts of power. To put that in perspective, in one second, the sun produces more power than the entire world would use in a few hundred thousand years. 

8. A Hurricane’s Energy is 200 times the Electricity Generating Capacity of the Whole World

Hurricanes are arguably the most terrifying force of nature any of us will ever see. The destructive potential of a hurricane is hard to believe and we’ve all seen the evidence of the destruction they can produce. But how much power is behind that terrifying force? The scale is massive and really puts things in perspective for you.

From the moment a hurricane is born through its cycle of destruction until its ultimate demise, it will release as much energy as 10,000 nuclear weapons. Put another way, all of that energy, and we’re including cloud and rain formation, is about 200 times the amount of electricity generated across the entire planet. That’s just one hurricane. We average about six per year, with several other storms not quite reaching hurricane status. 

7. Krakatoa Exploded with the Force of 10,000 Atomic Bombs 

In 1883, the volcano on the island of Krakatoa exploded and produced the loudest sound in the history of the world. It’s estimated to have hit 310 decibels, so loud that it managed to circle the planet 4 times. It was 172 decibels, 100 miles away. A jet engine will hit you with 150 decibels if you’re standing next to it. 

When it erupted, it went off with the force of 200 megatons of TNT. That’s 10,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It’s believed upwards of 36,000 people were killed.

6. 1 kg of Uranium 235 Produces 3 Million Times the Heat of 1 kg of Coal

For a long time now, people have debated the merits of nuclear power versus something like traditional coal burning. Nuclear comes with dangers such as the potential for meltdowns and the problem of nuclear waste. Coal burning causes pollution and, as we’re about to see, is terribly inefficient by comparison.

If you had one kilogram of uranium-235, you could generate 24,000,000 kWh of heat. By comparison, you’ll make 8 kWh from the same weight of coal. So uranium has around three million times the energy-producing capability of an equal amount of coal. One single uranium fuel pellet is equal to one ton of coal. 

5. Tsunamis Can Produce Enough Power to Run Major Cities or Even Countries for Days

In the past few decades, there have been a couple of massively destructive tsunamis. In 2011, a tsunami hit Japan wielding three petajoules of energy. That was enough to power New York City for an entire week. But even that pales in comparison to one just seven years earlier.

 In 2004, an undersea earthquake triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean the day after Christmas. The power of the tsunami has been estimated to be equal to 0.8 gigatons of TNT. In more practical terms, that’s as much energy as the entire United States of America will use in 11 days and works out to 3.35 exajoules. What the heck is an exajoule? That’s one quintillion joules.

One calorie of food produces 4,184 joules of energy. A Big Mac has 550 calories. That means a Big Mac is equivalent to 2,301,200 joules. Divided by the exajoules in the tsunami and it produced the energy equivalent of just under 1.46 trillion of them. That’s a lot of Big Macs. 

4. Climate Change is Adding Energy Equivalent to Exploding Thousands of Nuclear Weapons Per Day 

These days everyone is aware of climate change and most people who still want to argue about it choose the man vs nature approach. Which is to say even the critics have agreed that earth is getting warmer, they just don’t agree on why. But if we all accept the earth is warming up, just how much energy is the earth absorbing to do such a thing?

Heat is energy, so the energy required to warm the entire planet is no small scale achievement. Scientists studying global temperature trends tried to put it in perspective in a fairly dramatic way. 

Between 2005 and 2019, scientists compared the earth’s energy imbalance. This compares the amount of energy we absorb versus how much we can radiate. The imbalance doubled in that time period and the amount of extra energy the earth is absorbing works out to four Hiroshima explosions occurring every single second. This is actually slightly better than the 2012 estimate by NASA climate scientists that said it was equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima’s per day, but not by much. 

3. A 9.0 Earthquake Releases 90 Times the Power Produced by the US

Like any natural disaster, an earthquake packs a serious punch. The seismic power of an earthquake is typically related to use by use of the Richter scale, but saying an earthquake measures a four on that scale doesn’t really put much into perspective. Luckily, there are some equivalences we can make.

If an earthquake did register a 4.0 on the Richter scale, you’d consider it fairly mild, more or less. That said, it releases energy equivalent to 1 kiloton of TNT. Sounds like a lot, right? It works out to about 1162 mWh or the energy. If the average US household uses 10.715 kWh in a year, then a 4.0 earthquake could power 108 American homes for a year. But that’s just a moderate quake. Let’s go up the scale to a serious quake.

It’s rare that an earthquake measures 9.0 on the scale. That’s a serious quake and they only happen every few years, if not decades. Based on data from the US Geological Survey, they’ll release energy on par with exploding 32,000 megatons of TNT. That works out to 1,338,880,000,000 gigajoules. Convert that to MwH and you get 371,911,111,111.11. The US generates 4,095,487,406 MwH of electricity. So that 9.0 earthquake generated 90 times the power of the entire US annual power production capacity. 

2. The Meteor That Killed the Dinosaurs Was More Powerful Than The World’s Nuclear Arsenal 

Everyday we go about our business with the knowledge, somewhere in the back of our heads, that a meteor could hit the Earth and wipe us all out in a matter of moments. It’s not likely or anything, but it happened before, so it could certainly happen again one day. And that means a meteor must be a pretty powerful thing when it touches down. We can look at a recent one to figure out just how powerful they can be.

In 2013, a meteor lit up the Russian skies over the city of Chelyabinsk. The 11,000 ton rock flew through the air at 42,000 miles per hour, creating a shockwave that laid waste to 4,000 buildings. It released energy equivalent to 30 times the bomb that exploded at Hiroshima. Powerful stuff. But, as you may have noticed, the world didn’t end.

If we go back in time, the most famous meteor in history would be the one commonly attributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. That one was clearly more powerful than Chelyabinsk, and the scale of that power was remarkable.

Research has estimated the power of that particular blast was equal to 10 billion of the bombs dropped during the Second World War. Enough to scorch life thousands of miles away and cover the earth in a cloud that wiped out 75% of all life. 

1. A Supernova Produces More Energy Than Anything You Could Imagine

Let’s leave the earth for a minute because, as powerful as nature is here, the universe at large shames our tiny blue dot. Let’s go into the vastness of the great beyond towards a star as it lashes out in its death throes. A supernova

As far as we know, this is the biggest explosion that can exist. And they can get big. So big that our efforts to try to make it sound understandable are still, frankly, ridiculous. But at least it will offer some kind of perspective.

The energy released during a supernova can be around 1044 joules. That one event will therefore release as much energy as the exploding star released during the previous 10 billion years of its existence. Imagine our sun burning as hot and bright as it does for 10 billion years. We already covered that every second it produces all the energy the earth could use in hundreds of thousands of years. All of that, for 10 billion years of time, released all over again during the supernova. 

That’s still very insane and very hard to grasp, so we can break it down further. One specific supernova was observed by scientists in 2015. Called ASSASN-15lh, the dying star was 580 billion times brighter than our own sun. It produced a blast that was a billion trillion times more powerful than the explosion of the tsar bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever tested. It was 30 times brighter than the entire Milky Way galaxy, itself home to 100 thousand million stars.

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