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Post by sadie1263 on Feb 14, 2011 1:58:17 GMT
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh was a famous English writer, poet, and explorer who rose to prominence under Queen Elizabeth I (1558). Raleigh was sentenced to death for treason and his body was buried at the parish church next to Westminster Abby, but his head wasn’t, and it would be many years before his head found its final resting place.
Raleigh hated Catholicism and was very vocal about it before a very Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. We can say that Raleigh was accumulating brownie points with the Queen. The Queen became enamored of Raleigh and in fact, made him one of her court favorites. The story goes that Raleigh once laid his expensive cloak over a puddle the queen was to walk over. He just couldn’t let her feet get wet. But this is just a story, which may very well be a Victorian fable.
During Elizabeth’s reign, Raleigh made the mistake of falling in love and secretly marrying one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, Throckmorton “Bess,” who was was eleven years younger than him. Raleigh was imprisoned. It took several years for the scandal to simmer down and for Raleigh to regain favor at court. But Raleigh and Bess remained together, devoted, and had two children, Walter and Carew.
When Elizabeth died in 1603 Raleigh was implicated in a plot to overthrow the new king, James I. Raleigh was tried for treason, & imprisoned in the Tower of London until 1616. It is during this time he writes, The Historie of the World, a book about ancient Greece and Rome. When released, he led an expedition to South America to find the lost city of El Dorado. In this expedition he attacked the Spanish settlement at San Thome, and in this battle his son Walter is killed.
As if the death of his son was not enough punishment, the Spanish Ambassador convinces James I to reinstate Raleigh’s death sentence. Raleigh is beheaded at Whitehall on October 29, 1618. Before putting his head on the block, he asked to see the ax, and looking at it said, “This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases.” His devoted Bess, still grieving the death of her son, Walter, must now grieve her husband. She had his head embalmed and kept it in a red leather bag, by her side, all the time. And according to a biography written on Raleigh, “Shepherd of the Ocean,” by J. H. Adamson, & H. F. Holland, Bess was in the habit of “frequently inquiring of visitors if they would like to see Sir Walter.”
Bess died twenty-nine years later at age eighty two, and Raleigh’s head was inherited by his son, Carew, who kept it until his death. On January 1, 1668 Carew was buried with the head, alongside the body of Raleigh. It had taken fifty years for Raleigh’s head to finely rest.
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Feb 14, 2011 13:13:07 GMT
Wasn't Sir Walter Raleigh given credit for introducing tobacco to Europeans?
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Post by sadie1263 on Feb 14, 2011 18:56:58 GMT
I have no idea......but then again I didn't know the thing about his head and my youngest son did.....he didn't know the wife was carrying it around and showing it to people.....which is just plain bonkers......but knew it wasn't buried with him...........
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Post by sadie1263 on Feb 14, 2011 18:58:00 GMT
I have already told hubby that while I love him dearly.....that is just not going to happen and I would prefer he not do that with me either!
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Post by june on Feb 14, 2011 19:52:14 GMT
Yes and the potato!
I thank him for the chips and egg I have just eaten and the fag I'll have later.
I thank the Benedictine monks for the fizz I am drinking too!
I have written this in English please refer to babble fish for USA version!
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Post by sadie1263 on Feb 20, 2011 15:51:51 GMT
Bushido - The Ancient Code of the SamuraiThe Tradition: For centuries, the samurai and their spiritual descendants followed "the way of the warrior," living lives governed by its tenets of honor, strict devotion to one's master and, above all, self sacrifice. This ancient tradition helped make World War II a hell of a lot scarier, since, according to the Internet, "Kamikaze pilots used the samurai and their code for inspiration ... Just like the samurai, kamikaze pilots had no fear of death, and were honorable men that were loyal to their country." How Old It Actually Is: The idea that samurai are either loyal to their country or eager to die in battle is approximately as old as Walt Disney. Bushido as a coherent ideology only dates back to 1905. Who Made It Up? The whole thing started with an honest, if retarded mistake by a historian named Nitobe Inazo, who based his 1905 book Bushido: The Spirit of Japan on rules written for samurai. According to Karl Firday, professor of history at the University of Georgia and author of a bunch of really smart books on Japan, aside from laws that they were told to follow, the history of the samurai is notable for a complete lack of evidence that they were any more happy to die in battle and even a little bit loyal. It's entirely possible that a warrior sacrificing his life was seen as noble, but that's no different than the European code of chivalry which also made room for honorable suicide. In fact, the evidence paints a picture of samurai that looks more like a modern professional athlete than what we see in our martial arts films. They'd fight and kill for you as long as the money was right. When it wasn't, they'd switch sides, and slice the word "for" clean out of the previous sentence. So how did a bunch of Japanese pilots find themselves swan diving at air craft carriers? As it turns out our modern concept of Bushido developed as a method of social control. The Emperor and the Imperial Army and Navy wanted something that would boost their men's fighting spirit. When Nitobe Inazo sucked at his job badly enough to write that "the way of the warrior is to die," they all just sort of nodded and said, "Yep, that's the way of the warrior alright!" www.cracked.com/article_18510_6-supposedly-ancient-traditions-that-totally-arent.htmlfound this article at Cracked.Com......really funny site......not sure how accurate.....but that would be pretty bizarre!!
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Post by sadie1263 on Feb 24, 2011 0:42:53 GMT
Captain James Cook
In 1779, Captain Cook, the renowned English navigator, was on his third voyage to the Pacific. On January 16 of that year, he arrived in Hawaii just as the islanders were celebrating the annual festival of makahiki in honor of their god Lono-i-ka-makahiki.
James Cook Mistaken for a God This coincidence produced what turned out to be a fatal case of mistaken identity. To Cook’s astonishment, he was greeted by some three thousand five hundred canoes and ten thousand Hawaiians. They lavished gifts on him, performed ceremonies in his honor and in all other ways appeared to regard him as the divine Lono incarnate.
A pig was sacrificed and Cook was smeared with its fat. He was afterwards anointed with coconut oil, so confirming his divinity. Cook had always been meticulous about respecting native customs and responded by allowing the Hawaiians on board his vessel. For their benefit, he also staged a display of fireworks. This overawed his visitors but quite possibly also convinced them even more firmly that he was, indeed, their god.
After two weeks, Cook weighed anchor and left Hawaii to resume his Pacific explorations. For the Hawaiians, however, his departure tied in with the legend of Lono, an unhappy deity who wandered the Pacific after killing his wife in the mistaken belief that she had been unfaithful to him.
Lono built a triangular shaped canoe and departed, promising to return at some time in the future. It was easy enough for the Hawaiians to believe that an 18th century vessel in full sail was, in fact, this canoe, especially after Cook came back to Hawaii in February 1779.
Cook-Lono Loses Prestige What the islanders did not expect, though, was that Lono’s canoe would return to Hawaii in such poor condition. Cook’s fleet had received a severe battering in the Arctic waters north of Canada, and the Hawaiians were puzzled that the great god Lono could have suffered such damage in his own realm.
Consequently, their attitude towards Cook became less reverential. They also turned more aggressive and proceeded to steal metals from his ships, together with a cutter. This was not the first time the islanders had thieved from Cook’s vessels but now he lost patience and on February 14 he went ashore with nine crewmen to demand the return of the cutter.
The Murder of Captain Cook Although the Hawaiians prostrated themselves before him when he came ashore on Kealakekua Bay, a skirmish developed and Cook was clubbed, repeatedly knifed, half-drowned and battered about the head with a rock. He died, quite probably, when an iron dagger was sunk into his neck
Afterwards, with great displays of grief and remorse, the Hawaiians treated Cook’s body like a ritual sacrifice. The sacrifice was first offered by the island king, Kalani’opu’u. The body was dismembered and part of the flesh was roasted over a fire and eaten.
Cook’s Remains Become Trophies All Cook’s grieving crewmen were able to retrieve was the flesh of one thigh and some bones. Cook’s head was given to the son-in-law of the High Priest. The leg, arm and lower jaw bones, complete with teeth, were given to King Kalani’opu’u. Another island King, Kehemameha I, received Cook’s hair. To the Hawaiians, all these trophies were permeated with divine power.
The Hawaiian circumstances of Cook’s violent end seem to have given it the appearance of a pagan blood sacrifice, but in England he was, of course, mourned as a lost hero foully done to death by savages.
The lesson? It is entirely possible to pretend to be a god, but just politely leave after your festival is over. It's not the sort of thing you can keep up forever.
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Post by sadie1263 on Feb 28, 2011 3:10:17 GMT
Alexander Hamilton
1791 Alexander Hamilton, first treasury secretary of the U.S. and codrafter of the Constitution, found himself in a bit of a pickle. Earlier that year he had listened sympathetically to the plight of Maria Reynolds, who had come to his office in dire need of financial help because her husband had recently deserted her. Responding as much out of ardor as magnanimity, Hamilton agreed to do what he could, and a few nights later he appeared at her home with the needed cash. Mrs. Reynolds was grateful to say the least--so grateful, in fact, that she melted in his arms, whereupon the great statesman, who was married and the father of five children, had his way with her.
And continued to have his way with her whenever the duties of state and family did not interfere. It all went quite smoothly until Mrs. Reynolds's AWOL husband reappeared on the scene and handed Hamilton an ultimatum: pay or be exposed as an adulterer. Hamilton, of course, had no choice but to pay Reynolds. Having silenced his blackmailer, he continued his liaison with Mrs. Reynolds without interruption.
A year later Reynolds was accused of shady dealing with the government. Tried and convicted, he went to jail, and soon after that Hamilton and Mrs. Reynolds ended their affair. But five years later, some of Hamilton's political foes accused him in public of having been an intimate of Reynolds's and of having conspired with him to defraud the government. Hamilton's reputation was at stake, and rather than be marked forever as a crook--which he was not--he told the entire story of the Maria Reynolds affair, revealing all the sordid details in a pamphlet that had as big an audience in its day as Forever Amber and Peyton Place had in theirs. Alternately spicy and bathetic, it was the first of the great "true confession" stories, and it cleared Hamilton's name as a public statesman. And, happily, Mrs. Hamilton forgave him as well.
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Post by Big Lin on Feb 28, 2011 22:46:14 GMT
Hamilton was a brilliant and complex man who was the main intellectual force behind the US Federalist Party.
He showed his patriotism by, when the Federalist President Adams failed to win re-election, choosing Jefferson over Aaron Burr.
Burr responded by challenging him to a duel and killing Hamilton.
A sad loss for America.
Hamilton, by the way, was one of the first people to argue in favour of 'deficit financing.'
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Post by sadie1263 on Mar 3, 2011 3:18:30 GMT
Attila the Hun:
One of the most notorious villains in history, Attila's army had conquered all of Asia by 450 AD--from Mongolia to the edge of the Russian Empire--by destroying villages and pillaging the countryside.
How he died: He got a nosebleed on his wedding night
In 453 AD, Attila married a young girl named Ildico. Despite his reputation for ferocity on the battlefield, he tended to eat and drink lightly during large banquets. On his wedding night, however, he really cut loose, gorging himself on food and drink. Sometime during the night he suffered a nosebleed, but was too drunk to notice. He drowned in his own blood and was found dead the next morning.
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Post by Big Lin on Mar 3, 2011 13:58:59 GMT
Attila the Hun:One of the most notorious villains in history, Attila's army had conquered all of Asia by 450 AD--from Mongolia to the edge of the Russian Empire--by destroying villages and pillaging the countryside. How he died: He got a nosebleed on his wedding night In 453 AD, Attila married a young girl named Ildico. Despite his reputation for ferocity on the battlefield, he tended to eat and drink lightly during large banquets. On his wedding night, however, he really cut loose, gorging himself on food and drink. Sometime during the night he suffered a nosebleed, but was too drunk to notice. He drowned in his own blood and was found dead the next morning. Although German legends give a slightly different account of his death. They claim that Ildico stabbed him to death with a hair pin! He wasn't as successful as he was cracked up to be either; his reputation is a bit inflated. Genevieve (later canonised) saved Paris from his assault by persuading the governor of the city to deny food and water to the surrounding countryside. Not long after his army was massively defeated at Chalons. A good thing too considering how ruthless he was!
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Post by sadie1263 on Mar 5, 2011 15:03:20 GMT
Alexander I of the Hellenes:
King of Greece from 1917, following the forced abdication of his father.
How he died: Bitten by his pet monkey
He was walking his dog in the garden when the dog and his monkey became embroiled in a fight. In trying to separate them Alexander received a bite on his ankle from the monkey. Five days later the wound turned septic and fever set in. The King died from the resulting Cellulitis
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on Mar 12, 2011 14:22:42 GMT
TWO TOUGH QUESTIONS
Question 1:
If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?
Read the next question before looking at the response for this one.
Question 2:
It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates.
Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.
Candidate B: He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.
Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never committed adultery.
Which of these candidates would be our choice?
Decide first ... No peeking, and then scroll down for the response.
Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Candidate B is Winston Churchill. Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.
And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question:
If you said YES, you just killed Beethoven.
Pretty interesting isn't it?
Makes a person think before judging someone.
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Post by sadie1263 on Mar 18, 2011 18:49:20 GMT
Couldn't settle on a single odd thing....so I gathered a group of odd things.....
The Atlantic Ocean is slightly saltier than the Pacific Ocean.
Contrary to popular belief, bagpipes originated in India.
New York City officials denied a request by Harry Houdini to perform a public stunt that involved a straightjacket, a hand grenade and a hive of bees.
Spike, the dog actor who played Old Yeller in the classic Disney film, was buried at sea.
Famed Italian explorer Marco Polo never learned to swim.
The game of hopscotch originated as a mockery of the Catholic funeral procession.
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, was also the target of the first federal wiretap.
The U.S. military spends more money on condoms than bullets for U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.
In 2003, after a visit to the American Southwest, the Crown Prince of Dubai had a Texas-shaped swimming pool constructed at his royal palace.
Bruce Lee was a third cousin of one of the Watergate burglars.
Every ant on Earth, queued up in single file, would form a line long enough to wrap around the equator more than 1,000 times.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was instrumental in the formation of the WNBA.
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Post by sadie1263 on Mar 22, 2011 23:03:34 GMT
WALTER HUNT
We all have had our share of failures in life, but I don’t think I’ve heard failure as bad as the failures of inventor Walter Hunt. Walter Hunt was a genius at making things, but awfully bad at making money.
In 1834 he invented the very first sewing machine in the United States. However, during this time, the US was going through a depression and the last thing people wanted to buy was a machine that would render more people unemployed! Discouraged, he didn’t patent his invention, which was a bad move. Within a few years of Hunt’s invention, Elias Howe invented and patented a similar sewing machine and made a fortune! Hunt’s passion to invent did not die, he went on to invent the first fountain pen and the first repeating rifle, but failed at making these feasible products. But the worse misfortune was yet to occur. One lazy afternoon he played with a piece of wire. In a matter of 4 hours he managed to twist the wire into a pin with a spring on one end and a clasp on the other end, what we know as today, a safety pin. A million-dollar idea, and Hunt must have thought the same because he patented this marvelous product. But the question is, did he become rich with this? No, he didn’t! Hunt was broke, and quickly needed to get cash. He sold this million-dollar baby (patent) for a mere $100!
Hunt did manage to get some fame during his life, and a little credit for the invention of the sewing machine. In fact, in 1858 Isaac Singer agreed to pay Hunt $50,000 for his original design to end the sewing machine patent controversy. But as fate would have it for poor Hunt, Hunt died before Singer made payments. Hunt’s family did get some money from another invention, namely the paper shirt collar. Although he patented 25 inventions, not a one, provided financial security for him and his family. I have to hand it to Hunt, not one disappointment stopped his tenacity to invent. In fact, he died at a workbench while trying to develop a diver apparatus at the age of 63.
A lot of his inventions are used today, and have made our lives easier, yet the inventor struggled every inch of the way. The struggle was not only financial, I can only imagine the mental toll on him and his family. So the next time you are sewing on a sewing machine, or using the safety pin, or simply wearing a favorite outfit, think of Hunt, and I think you will appreciate it more than before.
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Post by sadie1263 on Apr 24, 2011 16:46:03 GMT
Jimmy Carter
The Cold War was still raging and America was due for her own linguistic gaffe. Fortunately, President Jimmy Carter was just the man for the job. In 1973, Carter traveled to Poland to hold the United States' first-ever news conference in a communist country, one where he would be fielding questions from actual Communists. So the stakes of this little visit were mega-huge. Imagine President Barack Obama holding a news conference in Taliban country. Now imagine that the night before the huge news conference, Obama says he wants to have sex with the Taliban. Congratulations -- you just imagined Jimmy Carter's Poland visit.
"I appreciate the comment, but you will die for it" Carter was speaking through a $150-a-day freelance translator who barely spoke Polish. The guy's mistakes started early on and never let up: When Carter opened with "I left the United States this morning," it got translated to, "I left the United States, never to return." When he said, "I have come to learn your opinions and understand your desires for the future," it was translated into, "I desire the Poles carnally." If the people of Poland weren't creeped out enough by Carter's apparently insatiable lust for some Polish sausage, the interpreter made things even more confusing by using archaic words and Russian syntax, and while he was at it, he made fun of the Polish constitution, too. Carter couldn't catch a break with this guy.
"The American president also asks if all of your country's walls are painted with the color of feces." So that guy was fired, and a new translator was hired for a state banquet. Carter delivered the first line of his speech, paused for the translator ... and heard nothing. Carter said the next line, paused again, and again there was silence. Apparently Translator No. 2 was having the opposite problem -- he couldn't understand Carter's English -- and so he decided silence was the best option, forcing the Polish leader's own translator to step in and pick up the slack. When Carter finally left the country, he was the butt of a thousand Polish jokes.
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Post by sadie1263 on May 6, 2011 18:58:28 GMT
Rubber[/]
Although rubber itself can not be considered an "accidental invention", the process of curing the rubber into a more useful form fits that description.
In the sixteenth century, rubber balls were a novelty in Europe after being introduced to Spain by Christopher Columbus. Columbus found out about the rubber by watching the Indians of Central and South America play a game which was sort of a cross between basketball and football where the object was to get the rubber ball to go through a stone ring. For the next two centuries, inventors saw potential in this interesting material, however the properties of rubber were too inconsistent in various temperatures.
It was an American inventor, Charles Goodyear who finally had a breakthrough. After mixed success of finding ways to "cure" the rubber, he was introduced to the idea of using sulphur on the rubber by Nathaniel Hayward who at the time was associated with the rubber industry. One day Goodyear decided to try combining rubber with sulphur and white lead and then applying heat. In February of 1839, after an accidental over-heating, he realized that although the center of this material was charred, the edges were dry and springy. Goodyear had invented the process of "curing" or "vulcanizing" rubber.
Sadly, Goodyear never enjoyed the commercial success he had hoped for. He died in 1860 leaving his family $200,000 in debt. It wasn't until 1870 that Civil War surgeon named Benjamin Franklin Goodrich, convinced of rubbers potential, started the B. F. Goodrich company which became a huge success, making everything from fire hoses (its first product) to tires. Although Goodyear didn't live to see the results of his sacrifices, over time, accumulated royalties from his inventions made his family comfortable..
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Post by sadie1263 on May 22, 2011 13:45:21 GMT
6 Objects You Won't Believe People Managed to LoseIn a world overrun with people and technology, you wouldn't think anything of value could remain lost for long. For instance, somebody has surely stumbled across the warehouse and the specific crate that contains the Ark of the Covenant by now. But there are some great treasures of both wealth and knowledge that remain determinedly out of sight, despite the fact that someone has to know where they are. Such as ... #6. The Amber Room Built in 1701, the Amber Room was one of Russia's greatest treasures, and had even been called "the eighth wonder of the world." A spectacular chamber constructed out of amber, gold leaf and mirrors, it is exactly the kind of thing Indiana Jones would fight Nazis to obtain. The entire piece changed palaces a few times until it landed in a St. Petersburg Palace, where Hitler's army stumbled across it in 1941. Unable to move it to safety, the evacuating Russians had simply wallpapered over it, hoping the Germans wouldn't ask why a room in a palace would have such tacky wallpaper. But they did and brought the entire room back home to Germany. Once in Konigsberg, the room was set up in a castle and proudly displayed. By 1945, with the Russians advancing, Hitler personally ordered it to be taken down and sent to a secret location. The record indicates that the room was taken to a railway station, packed up and then the record screeches to a stop like someone told a racist joke at the Apollo. That was the last anyone ever heard of it. How exactly do you lose an entire room full of gold and amber? Some say it was put on a boat that was sunk by the Allies. Other reports place it in a hidden bunker under the city. Meanwhile, the Russians have been searching for it like crazy. Since the end of the war, several expeditions have been mounted all over Europe, with sightings supposedly in abandoned mines, lagoons and caverns. And new investigations even go so far as to say the whole room was destroyed, and the Soviets covered the entire thing up. The Soviets covering things up? That's a reach. The room has since been reconstructed in St. Petersburg, but certain pieces of the original pop up now and then just to keep the mystery alive, including a piece of a mosaic a German soldier took out when he helped move the room in 1945. Whoever finds it is going to be able to be rich enough to, we don't know, build a room out of freaking gold. #5. Hitler's Body In 1945, with Berlin about to fall to the Soviets, Adolf Hitler decided to kill himself, his new wife Eva Braun and their dog, Blondi (he also ordered her puppies shot. What did you expect? It was Hitler.) The Soviets came in and found the bodies in a bunker about seven hours after he died. After they were buried, Stalin figured Hitler shouldn't get off that easily, so he had their burned corpses exhumed and reburied, then took a part of his skull and his jawbone, because evidently Stalin didn't think much of photographic evidence. Later, in 1970, the site that held the remains was set to be given back to East German control, but fearing a shrine or monument to their former adversary, the Soviets had a KGB team come in the middle of the night, dig up the bodies again, cremate them and spread the ashes in the Elbe River. For the Russians, the case was finally closed. That is until 2009, when testing on "Hitler's skull" revealed it to have belonged to a woman under 40. Whoops. Either they got the wrong skull or Hitler was hiding a huge secret. This hastily reopened the question: What happened to his body? The jawbone, also alleged to be Hitler's, is also in Russian possession, suspiciously being guarded under the pretense that it is "too fragile." With pressure building on the Russians to release it for testing, the mystery remains open. And there's always the outside chance that we'll find a 120-year-old Hitler living comfortably in a mansion in Argentina. #4. The From Hell Letter In October 1888, all London was aflutter about the granddaddy of serial killers, Jack the Ripper, whose identity to this day has never been discovered. The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, an organization of volunteers, was doing its best to keep the streets safe at night (or at least a little less murdery than usual), as was the London police department. One day, the head of the Committee, Dean Lusk, received an unmarked package. Inside were two things. The first was a note from Jack taunting the Committee and gloating about the other item in the box. That other item was a half-cannibalized human kidney. Unlike the hundreds of other letters supposedly written by Jack the Ripper, many scholars believe this letter, signed "From Hell," to be one of the few likely authentic ones. Partly because it was packaged alongside a kidney, which are not exactly easy to acquire. Based on the fact that the Ripper was a known kidney thief, the letter was generally agreed to be from the killer. It was subsequently put in a file in the police station and was never seen again. Today, with modern analyzing techniques with ink types, paper types and possibly even century-old smudged fingerprints, it's conceivable that we could put the mystery of Jack the Ripper to rest once and for all. At least we could let the cast of CSI give it their best shot. But with the letter and the preserved kidney both lost to terrible record-keeping procedures, we may never know. Seriously, we understand losing a piece of paper, but a kidney? #3. The San Jose In 1708, old adversaries, the British and the Spanish, were fighting the War of Spanish Succession. One fateful day in the Caribbean, the Spanish ship San Jose was going back to Spain when passing English ships casually blew it up off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia, and continued on their way. What the British didn't know was that the San Jose was carrying six years of accumulated treasure on board the ship, including 344 tons of silver and gold, 116 chests of emeralds and pretty much the entire life savings of the Viceroy of Peru. All in all, it is worth about $2 billion in today's market, and some estimate that collectors might cough up as much as $10 billion to secure it. Despite many desperate searches in the area they're pretty sure it went down, nothing has been found. As the years have passed, more and more people have been trying to find this elusive treasure. By the 1980s, actor Michael Landon and former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman got in on a few expeditions to find it. But since 1984, legal expeditions have dropped dramatically ever since the Colombian government dropped the finders share slightly, from 50 percent to, well, five percent. However, there is one imposing nonlegal hurdle to all this: We still don't know where the hell the wreck is. The Colombian government doesn't really allow things like SONAR and other remote methods of searching, so all treasure hunters really know are vague descriptions given by a few British sailors who helped deep six the boat, as well as a few murky videos from 1982 that may or may not be the San Jose. So the $2 billion is still out there, waiting to be rediscovered. #2. The 18 1/2 Minute Gap in the Watergate Tape If there is one thing that defines the Nixon presidency, it's the Watergate Scandal. Richard Nixon resigned as president in 1974, after it was discovered he kinda knew and approved of breaking into and bugging democratic party offices. This was due in part to the fact that Nixon was so chronically obsessed with bugging things that he recorded all his own conversations to later be used in his memoirs. The tapes were then listened to, and evidence piled up, including one tape where Nixon asked his aides to tell the FBI to stop its investigation, which for those of you who don't know, is obstruction of justice -- a severe criminal offense. While the taped evidence sealed Nixon's fate, there were several noticeable missing gaps in the tapes, including an almost 19 minute gap in a tape of Nixon talking to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. His same chief of staff who helped orchestrate the break-ins and who was later arrested and imprisoned for 18 months. When the commission in charge of the case asked why over 18 minutes had been erased, many weak excuses were given, including putting the blame on Nixon's secretary. Since the tapes were probably not "accidentally" erased, it is generally viewed that something unlawful was recorded. But what was it? Nixon giving the orders to bug the offices? Nixon ordering an assassination? Nixon telling Haldeman to follow the clues to lead him to the treasure? We'll never know, as they are lost to history. Or maybe not. While the exact words are still lost, they may not be for long. The National Archives is currently trying to find the exact point in the tapes where it was erased and, with the aid of future technology, maybe restore it. Several attempts have already been made. They know where it is, but not how to find it. Someday, we may get to hear what Nixon did not want us to hear. #1. Nuclear Bombs Militaries are very good at hurling bombs at each other, but not so good at cleaning them up. This is why, for instance, 90 years after WWI over 900 tons of unexploded bombs are still being found around Europe. Even with today's advanced remote-sensing technology, many bombs are not found until a farmer clips one with a plow. And because bombs sank into the soil over time, they appear each spring after the frozen earth pushes them back to the surface. This is what the locals call the "Iron Harvest," as each year brings a new "crop." And these are not the simple "hit them and they explode" bombs, either -- many of them contain mustard gas and other dangerous chemicals that can murder you from a distance. The bombs are still so dangerous that sometimes entire towns have to be evacuated. But still, you know, it's not like there are nukes laying around out there. Ah, about that ... The United States has officially acknowledged 11 nuclear weapons lost over the years, while the Russians have had several weapons just go missing, with hundreds of attempts to steal weapons from their facilities. But according to several watchdog organizations, including Greenpeace, there are about 50 nuclear weapons currently unaccounted for, most of them at sea. That's basically misplacing an apocalypse. In case you are thinking of making an expedition to find one of these, most of them are in areas that humans cannot easily get to. One such place is in British Columbia, where a bomb was lost on the way to a simulated strike of San Francisco. Another bomb, accidentally lost when a U.S. Air Force B-52 crashed in 1968, is in the middle of Greenland, so we can't find it until global warming kicks in. But then, a lot of these missing bombs, lovingly termed "broken arrows" by the U.S. military, are lost at sea and eerily close to civilization. One bomb was lost in 1965 when the jet it was attached to simply rolled off the loading elevator into the ocean, only 80 miles off the coast of Japan. Then there is the case of the hydrogen bomb lost in 1958 in the ocean less than half a mile off the coast of Georgia. As in the U.S. state of Georgia. But not to fret, the military powers that be say that most do not have sufficient material for a nuclear blast. So don't worry, most won't explode probably! www.cracked.com/article_19201_6-objects-you-wont-believe-people-managed-to-lose_p2.html#ixzz1N5XJHse6
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Post by sadie1263 on May 28, 2011 13:39:05 GMT
The Embalmed body of Jeremy Bentham I thought I heard it all, but this is by far, the most bizarre story I’ve heard in a long time. In the University College London in the main building of the college is a polished wood-paneled cabinet holding the embalmed body of its founder, Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. Born to a wealthy family in 1748 and educated at Westminster School, and Queens College, and Oxford. Because he was wealthy he had nothing but time to dedicate to study and writing. According to a contemporary, William Hazlitt, Jeremy became a hermit for forty years…”reducing law to a system, and the mind of a man to a machine.” In 1789 he publishes his first book, “Introduction to the Principles of Morals,” and establishes the principles of utilitarianism.
Bentham died on June 6, 1832 and he left his entire estate to the University College London under one condition, that his body be wheeled into the college’s board meetings! Wow, ok…. His body is embalmed and sits in a cabinet at the college, and yes it attends the board meetings. Bentham is listed on the minutes as “present but not voting.” So if you ever walk into this college, you will see Bentham’s embalmed body on a chair and dressed in a black jacket, fawn breeches, and straw-colored hat, and holding a stick. His real head was damaged when they tried to embalm it, so they used a wax head instead. The real head was kept in a case for many years but students kept stealing it for pranks. It is now locked away in a vault; although I’ve read about, and seen pictures of his head in a jar, which is placed at his feet. Ewww!
Why did this man wish to be kept out like this? Board meetings, hmmm, guess he wanted to be sure his money was being used for the right thing. It’s a sure way to be immortalized. Well let’s just say the dude was eccentric. The college did what it had to do to get the money, but still I can’t help but think this story to be…. well, gross, macabre, and bizarre.
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Post by gg on May 29, 2011 21:33:51 GMT
I have already told hubby that while I love him dearly.....that is just not going to happen and I would prefer he not do that with me either! Too late Ethyl! I read on his website that he has already been carrying your weight for over 20 years
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