And still they didn't warn him

https://en.wikipedia.org/...

And they could've done it from french submarines.

Ooooh that's a good one

Was there a phone line network intact enough to send a fax from Japan to the United States........?

Missed opportunity.

Ironic that you didn't post a recipe and only an about me and my life section.

The one time you might have wanted a touch of personal trivia with your goulash recipe... Good grief!

https://justtherecipe.com/ <-- pretty good scraper that removes all the mommy blog fluff

There was a 20 million year window, in which dead trees just piled up. Nothing could digest the lignin. This is how germany's brown coal reserves came to be.

The sharks thing actually leads to another fun fact:

Sharks are older than some of the north star, as the noth star is actually a binary star system next to a solo star. I forget what part it's actually older than, so here's the source.

https://youtu.be/-YU8Vt9VpbE

This would be so nice I swear.

I can't imagine there's any minute that doesn't have dozens news stories running

Honestly, that's your choice. My advice; limit your news to 2 - 3 "channels" (like RSS app, Lemmy), set them up that you have to "open them" (no by-the-side stream) and have days where you just don't do that.

Yes, i'm easily stressed.

Hey, that was my -76th Birthday!

🎵Almost Heaven, West Virginia

Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River

Life is old there, older than the trees

Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze🎶

Crazy those lyrics are literal facts. Also, you win the thread.

The New river also formed a beautiful gorge where we humans built an awesome bridge and some scenic overlooks. If you find yourself driving through that southern region of WV, it is worth a detour!

https://www.nps.gov/...

Funfact regarding the New River:

The Cartographers charting the river had it marked by the direction it flows, NE-W, eventually this just stuck as the name.

before any bacteria or enzymes could break down trees (which eventually compacted and became all the coal in the mountains that formed alongside them).

Building off of this, the difference between coal and oil is that coal comes from carbon that was buried before the bacteria existed to break it down, and oil after. There will eventually be more oil, but there will never be more coal

TIL I've shot rapids in a 320m year old body of water

The basis for the human era calendar, more or less, right? We'd be on year 12025.

That could make for a very interesting sitcom.

Were they still a playing card company then?

having a Coke and playing Nintendo

So playing a card game and drinking literal cocaine?

Don't forget Kodak & the Dracula book were apparently contemporaries too: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/22690621

1850s, possibly. Good facts tho

studies about transgender people were burnt by the Nazis.

This is still happening tbf

• The oldest Evidence in the archeological record we have of transgender individuals is older than the oldest archaeological evidence for gay couples.

Can you expand more on this, I'd love to know more.

One of the last people born into (legal) Slavery in the USA died after being hit by a car in the 1970s.

The last ship to (illegally) bring Africans as slaves to the United States landed in Mobile Bay in 1860. There are photographs of it.

110 human cargo on an 86 foot boat.

The last known survivor from that trip died in 1940.

Life is old there, older than the trees

Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze

Pretty sure sharks are older than trees too

Older than bones....

And almost certainly the oldest mountains in the solar system

The sheer amount of people, knowledge, and culture lost in the Americas due to European invasion and their treatment of the native peoples makes me so sad.

The weird part about that is that Columbus was the third expedition to the American continent from the European continent.

First was a single Irish/Celtic(?) monk in the 800s. Second was Leif Erikson and his crew of "Vikings" in the 1100-1200s. Neither one of those caused widespread disease in the Americas, despite the fact that the monk made it as far as The Great Lakes, and Leif Erickson's expedition was cut quite short with them engaging in battle with the first natives they saw, resulting in the death of Leif Erikson as well as a few of his companions.

Then Cortez finished the job when he explored from Florida to Texas. He also introduced wild hogs to the continent, which introduced trichinella parasites to native fauna. Truly one of the most ecologically destructive events in the past thousand years.

follow it up with "Guns, Germs, and Steel"

Considering the yellow weather warning and snow this morning in Scotland, I think I'd choose walking to Tasmania as well.

Humans got to Tasmania, Australia 20 000 years before they got to Scotland despite it being 3x the distance

Early humans out of Africa walked along the south Asian coasts, so Tasmania makes sense it its path was warmer than Scotland. Also, there were land bridges available near Australia that aren't present today.

and featured the first time humans journeyed over the ocean.

We can't possibly know that since Homo Erectus bones have been found on Crete. They could have island-hopped there from Greece, or they could have built a boat/raft.

To provide some context and a good book to read more on this:

Historian Louise Levathes, in When China Ruled the Seas (2008), argues that “the Ming voyages were primarily a diplomatic mission to incorporate Indian coastal states into the Chinese tributary system; the Sultan of Calicut and the ruler of Cochin accepted Chinese titles and protection in exchange for regular tribute and trade privileges (tax exemptions)”.

I wouldn't take this to mean that all or even the majority of India came under China's sphere of influence. The kingdoms of the Malabar coast acted as the gateway into India for over a millennia and were plutocratic hubs where foreign influence (Arab, European, African) was not uncommon.

In fact it was common for the kingdoms of the Malabar coast to pay tribute to multiple domestic and foreign polities to secure tax exemptions.

This was also the port through which significant trade occurred between India and the Roman Empire which led a prominent Roman (Pliny the Elder, writer of Naturalis Historia) to remark

‘It is quite surprising that the use of pepper has come so much into fashion,’ Pliny wrote, 'especially when you consider that in other substances which we use, it is sometimes their sweetness, and sometimes their appearance that has attracted our notice; whereas, pepper has nothing in it that can plead as a recommendation to either fruit or berry, its only desirable quality being a certain pungency; and yet it is for this that we import it all the way from India! Who, I wonder, was the first to make trial of it as an article of food?'

In confirmation of such grumbles, two south Indian dynasties, the Pandyas and the Cheras, went as far as sending embassies to Rome to discuss the balance-of-payments problem and the inability of the Romans to pay their various Indian debts.

Eighty per cent of the 478 recipes included in the Roman cookbook of Apicius included pepper, and it appears regularly even in the pudding section. It was still, however, an expensive treat. The Tamil and Sanskrit words for sugar, ginger, pepper, sandalwood, beryl, cotton and indigo all made their way into Latin, and hence to modern English: ‘pepper’ and ‘ginger’ are both loan words from Tamil – pipali and singabera respectively.

According to some recent calculations, customs taxes on trade with India may have generated as much as one-third of the entire income of the Roman exchequer.

(Source: The Golden Road by William Dalrymple)

The history of the Ming Treasure Fleet and Zhang He is absolutely fascinating and I will be reading more on it! If I may get on my soapbox, it is important for everyone to expose themselves to non Eurocentric historical narratives to arrive at a more complete and balanced worldview.

That's a good one. I should really learn more about the Ottoman Empire.

Did 1899 skip December for some reason?

Edit: Or do you mean the last surviving person, or longest-lived person, born in the 1800's?

In this vein,

In July 1938, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave a speech at Gettysburg to mark the 75th anniversary of the battle. 25 veterans from the original battle attended. They were filmed, on movie film, walking in the parade.

(This vignette opens the Ken Burns documentary)

I've personally seen behavior from cats and bears that appear to contradict your last statement but only anecdotal.

Ah classic mistake, building up defenses on a choke point only to realize it's not the only entrance to your base and now zerglings are eating your SCVs.

Should be noted that it was a few thousand initially. When they found out they were being flanked they sent away most of the other soldiers. So it was just the Spartans and one other contingent, 700 Thespians.

Also, phalanx v short swords just lose as soon as the formation breaks a tiny bit, there's uneven terrain or open flanks. Up close long pikes don't do anything and the gladius goes stabby stabby.

He is also the inventor of all the ridges around the edge of coins, because at the time it made coins almost impossible to forge.

From what I've heard, the position was given to him as a sinecure — but Newton, being Newton, took it seriously.

Land of the free lol

Also paint

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown

How else do you cure a cough?

Foul.

AI could never write such a thing

That's really interesting, thank you.

I guess when you're seriously inbred like the royal families of Europe, the risk of recessive genetic disorders manifesting is far higher.

Read it 3 times and that never clicked! Nice one.

I've seen Bayer heroin tins in a few museums and was glad I lived in an era where you had to go to the work of calling your friend's brother Todd to take you to Corey's house to get high, which was way more trouble than it was worth.

the funny thing about Custer is that he was warned about the ambush but his hubris was just too much

also it is rumored among those that have heard direct stories from people that were there was that it was a woman that made the killing blow on him and they probably scalped and then dismembered him and most of his men, and thats why nobody found him

Earlier in his Army career, Custer attended the Confederate surrender at Appomattox (as a Union officer). He decided to keep the white dish towel that Lee used as a flag of truce (aka the true last and final Confederate flag), as a souvenir. Custer's wife bequeathed that dish towel to the Smithsonian quite a bit later.

Interesting. I think the real question about "is it the same language?" is whether modern readers can still understand it.

For early modern English (think Shakespeare) then most modern speakers can. You'd probably have a basic understanding from reading, although missing some nuance. A lot of the jokes in Shakespeare come out better when they're performed, so you'd probably have a better understanding of it in the theatre.

For middle English (think Chaucer) then you'd struggle a bit. Vocabulary and grammar have changed a lot. Might have a few passages in the Canterbury Tales that make sense unaided, but in general, not really.

For early English (think Beowulf) ha ha, fat chance. Even scholars of early languages don't understand everything in it, there's a few words the meaning of which are lost, but in general about one word in fifty even looks familiar and it's probably a false friend.

So I'd probably put English at 'about 500 years old'.

How far back modern French speakers can understand French would be interesting. I can understand a fair amount of Latin from my knowledge of Spanish; and unlike eg. William the Bastard invading England and introducing a whole pile of new vocabulary, the French have the advantage of never having been invaded by the French ;-)

I always found it super interesting that you can sort of see the class divide in English based on the French and Germanic roots, especially when it comes to food and farming. For example:

Cow = Germanic (Kuh), Beef = French (Boeuf)

Hen = Germanic (Henne/Huhn), Poultry = French (Poulet)

Sheep = Germanic (Schaf), Mutton = French (Mouton)

Wheat = Germanic (Weizen), Flour = French (Farine/Fleur in old French)

It's not all words of course, but there are quite a few ones where you can see that the people who grew the food used the Germanic, and the people who ate the food used the French.

The oldest Old French we have is from 842AD, but old English fragments are as old as the 5th century.

I bet those Old English fragments were way easier to understand for speakers of Old Saxon that for a 1500s English speaker.

This is a very arbitrary way of looking at the problem and you won't see serious linguists claiming this sort of stuff. Latin branching off into a variety of languages and Old English not branching off doesn't change anything about the relationship between Latin and French as opposed to OE vs. Modern English. They're a "parent" and "child" language, and whehter they have any "siblings" is a consequence of their geographical distribution (occupy more space > changes in language not reaching all areas equally > divergence into dialects and languages). Besides, OE is also a parent of Scots, so you actually can't count it as an unambiguous ancestor of Modern English.

Comparing a district in Paris actively using Latin and English undergoing the vowel shift is mixing up internal and external linguistic phenomena.

All the stuff about Académie is not relevant for determining the identity of a language. Institutions tend to have only surface-level effect on language (spelling, prescribing some words, etc., hardly anything that can create or end a language).

"English is older than French" is a weird way to put it. "English spelling was standardised a century before French spelling" might be a better. After all, both languages existed the whole time but are named differently by periods in history for convenience. There's no way to say "Middle English ended in 1658" for example.

If you look at countries by their constitutions then the US is the second oldest country behind just San Marino.

I like how languages evolve, but recently they've domesticated themselves. But languages like English are more like free range language.

The way you phrased that, it's like the queen wouldn't fuck so dicks went out of style.

Did someone say codpiece?

Link not working:

https://en.wikipedia.org/...

Also, HOLY SHIT!

Sounds like a good name for a metal band

And look at them now... Scrubbing their backloga of anything that paints Nazis in a bad light.

Gaumont was created in 1895.

There's a bardcore artist that goes by Hildegard von Blingin. Apparently the OG von Bingen was also something of a notable musician.

Crikey I wouldn't have thoughts plants would have gone extinct so easy! interesting fact

She wrote some bangers. “O Viridissima Virga” slaps.

https://www.themoviedb.org/...

Now I'm just imagining Nintendo in the early 1900s attempting to sue every other card manufacturing company for copyright infringement.

Could have been six child support cases... Avoided!

and now private equity is going to burn the candle at both ends until all the stores are spirit halloweens

Possible... But unlikely in practice. Male sperm starts decreasing in quantity and quality after 30.

And the timing means they still had literal milkmen...

Fuck off no way

Edit: 81 YEARS OLD!?!?

Another one I found:

Dick Van Dyke (still very much alive!) was alive at the same time as Annie Oakley, Harry Houdini, and Claude Monet.

it always seemed to be like they were further. 21 years between the 2 most brutal wars is insane.

My grandfather enlisted at 18 to fight in WWII. He was the second youngest of 13 siblings. His oldest brother died around age 18 in the flu pandemic that was going on during WWI. My reference point for the space between the wars has always been the time it took to have 13 children.

And WW2 lasted 50% longer

We could bring this back.

Uuuh... When was that? Got some examples?

Not this "erased from history" crap again. There was no grand ancient civilization that existed and was wiped out before the Sumerians came around 4,000 BCE. You know how we know? Because 1) there would be archaeological evidence and there is none 2) they would have had to invent agriculture and that would've left evidence behind via genetics in modern plants of human-guided cultivation 3) they would have used all the same energy resources we have, so timber, peat, coal, oil, etc. and that would have significantly altered the environment in such a way as to leave a record - not to mention it would mean there would be no coal or oil left for us and 5) we have archaeological evidence of early humans during this time - and they were hunter/gatherers leading basic subsistence lives as evidenced by the wear on their bones and teeth and the radioactive signatures in their bones of what they ate.

So why did it take almost all of the last 100,000 years for civilization to happen? Because without the stability provided by agriculture, doing anything more than surviving is really fucking hard. Not to mention the repeated ice ages and other things that made long term progress impossible.

We use terms like "stone age" and "iron age" because those are materials that lasted long enough for us to see them. Wood, fabric, rope, animal hide, many other materials don't last that long so we have much less information about what people were doing with them.

You know that the rate of discoveries & innovations accelerates in history, to the point that the last century was more knowledge created than all of humanity before? Exactly.

Can't invent much if all you have is a sharp stone and very limited understanding of nature.

I'm gonna piggy back mine on this one. Before the invention of writing, the only new thoughts you could ever encounter, were from the people you would meet face to face.

Proto human ancestors were also far more capable than we give them credit for. There is archaeological evidence that, possibly as far back as 2.5 million years ago, human ancestors were harvesting specific types of stone in one location before transporting it over seven miles away to a different location where it was being processed. That is vastly beyond the complexity of what most people think homosapiens were capable of only 100k years ago.

People didnt have to build a society in the exact likeness of modern humanity for it to be vastly complex and advanced in its own right

Do we know that knowledge of those accomplishments has been repeatedly erased from history? That seems like a bit of a leap.

Or sometimes the technology is there, but we're just not ready. For example, a very rudimentary steam engine existed in ancient Rome, and was described by others as early as 30BC. While it was highly unlikely to happen because the infrastructure/materials were limited, imagine where we'd be now if the Industrial Revolution had happened in Ancient Rome.

It also makes me wonder if there's anything around today that's considered some oddball quirk of physics that might change the world in the future when we're ready to use it.

@Archangel1313@lemmy.ca Look into Islamic scolars, a lot of scientific discoveries done in Europe after the middle ages were made hundreds of years earlier by them. Then I guess their dark ages started, making a lot of knowledge "lost". On te other hand, you should keep in mind two things, the first is that knowledge is incremental, everything we know is built on previous knowledge. The other is that while humans were around a long time, they were not in the big numbers of today. As a consequence they didn't need farming, they could always travel further to new lands for finding food and shelter.

@LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone

Sharks are older than polaris, the north star.
They are older than trees.
They have traveled around the milky way twice.

that thing with Kleopatra is only to the Great Pyramid.

Cleopatra (69 BCE-30 BCE) was born well AFTER the LAST pyramid was built in 2611 BCE.

Incorrect.

Cleopatra lived from ~70BCE to ~30BCE.

The iPhone was released in September of 2007, slightly over 2037 years after her death.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, tomb of Khufu, was built ~2600BCE, making it some 2530 years old when Cleopatra was born. So the statement "Cleopatra was closer in time to the iPhone than the construction of the Great Pyramid" is correct. But, the Great Pyramid is the largest and heaviest, but not the oldest, of the ancient Egyptian pyramids. So, the same can be said for the dozen or so pyramids built before, to include the Bent and Red pyramids of Dahshur, the Meidum pyramid, and Djoser's stepped pyramid.

You've also got 500 years after the Great Pyramid as well, which covers the rest of the Giza necropolis (with the possible exception of the Sphinx), right on up to Pepi II with room to spare. There are some pyramids newer than ~2000BCE but they're smaller, not as well built, most are ruined.

What's wild is how short the pyramid construction craze was. Both pyramids ad Dahshur and the pyramid of Meidum, and their complexes, were built during the reign of Sneferu, partially simulteneously. Djedefre and Khafre were brothers, so they're pyramids were constructed either simultaneously or in very quick succession. The entire Giza necropolis including the two largest pyramids ever built was done start to finish in approximately 85 years. One human could have lived to watch the whole thing. The Great Pyramid itself was built in 20 years. And they did it with human muscle and copper chisels.

If we go to something like the discovery of electricity or the founding of the United States, we can say without qualifications that event was closer to Cleopatra's life than the construction of anything we would call an "Ancient Egyptian Pyramid."

What about the Not-as-great pyramid?

@LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone

Bit of a nitpick, we don't know that the dark matter is pervasive throughout the universe. What we observe is that galaxies and galaxy clusters are held together too strongly to be explained by our current theory of gravity, and the motions of galaxies within clusters do not match the gravitational forces that are known to act on them from observed matter - The Milky Way for instance is spinning fast enough for the stars on the edges to be flung off into intergalactic space.

One solution to this contradictory observation is that there is bunch of extra mass we can't see (dark matter) that is holding the galaxies and clusters together. Every experiment designed to detect dark matter has failed, and more serious work is going into adjusting theories of gravity as a result. However no adjusted theory has arisen that can explain every observation either, so physics is a bit lost at the moment.

I always sort of vaguely wonder if we actually are surrounded by evidence of intelligent life, we just don't know how to interpret or even detect it. Sort of like one of those isolated Amazonian tribes surrounded by wifi signals.

I think it's either something like that, or we haven't found anything because the universe is just too big and there simply isn't any way to get around it, no matter how advanced a species becomes. Like FTL travel/wormholes/whatever just isn't possible. Which is not a fun explanation but Occam's Razor and all that.

I'm not an astronomer, but IIRC, our electronic signals don't make it particularly far out of the solar system until they merge with the background noise. So I guess we are safe for now.

Good thing we've been speedrunning killing ourselves off before they get here 🤪 TRUMP 2027

Also, one of the leading theories of why we haven’t met other intelligent alien cultures is because there is one major ancient, highly advanced race that is so devoted to being the only race on the Universe, that every time they find any evidence of another intelligent race, they travel there and extinguish them entirely.

What evidence is there to support this theory?

That theory says more about humans than anything else

Did you feel lighter afterwards, like a great weight had been taken from you?

No you can't, because Special Relatively and Quantum Mechanics are inherently more complicated and harder to learn.

Your mind-blowing scale of history fact is a tribute to Elvis was written in the 1980's?

That's a less impressive version of one of the two facts that are specifically not asked for :-)