Interesting Wikipedia articles?
Discussion
OpulentBob said:
My reading is that all of these planes are Air Force One, except they only have that name when the Prez is on board.
As I understand it Air Force One is a VC-25 where as the E-4 is a survivabity command post in case the Prez is killed.So not specifically for the President.
Although if he was on board it would be by default AF1.
Seek said:
My new favourite article. Amazing stuff!Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow".
Of course Napoleon had to find that out the hard way.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of...
Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Verdun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
Grab a shovel and book yourself a flight to Canada...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island#Pirate_tr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island#Pirate_tr...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
Greek dude who worked at the Library of Alexandria and calculated the circumference of earth whilst never leaving egypt. 200 years before Christ. When you read about the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, you almost weep for the centuries of ignorance we lived in afterwards.
Greek dude who worked at the Library of Alexandria and calculated the circumference of earth whilst never leaving egypt. 200 years before Christ. When you read about the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, you almost weep for the centuries of ignorance we lived in afterwards.
glazbagun said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
Greek dude who worked at the Library of Alexandria and calculated the circumference of earth whilst never leaving egypt. 200 years before Christ. When you read about the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, you almost weep for the centuries of ignorance we lived in afterwards.
Greek dude who worked at the Library of Alexandria and calculated the circumference of earth whilst never leaving egypt. 200 years before Christ. When you read about the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, you almost weep for the centuries of ignorance we lived in afterwards.
It's staggering isn't it. You look at the precision of the Great Pyramid- 0.5mm gaps between stones, and the base squared to 1/300th of a degree, and the fact it was the tallest building constructed until Lincoln Cathedral in around 1,300.
Then you realise they had the skill & knowledge of mathmatics to achieve that in around 2,500BC!
Likewise with the Pharos (Lighthouse of Alexandria), and things like the Antikythera Mechanism (analogue computer to predict astrological positions).
All that skill and knowledge lost for hundreds if not thousands of years. It truly makes you appreciate why the Dark Ages were so named. It does make you wonder where we might be now had we continued on that upward curve and avoided the knowledge re-boot of the centuries that followed.
FredClogs said:
Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Verdun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
Certainly puts paid to the idea of the French not wanting to fighthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
Negative Creep said:
FredClogs said:
Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Verdun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
Certainly puts paid to the idea of the French not wanting to fighthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
FredClogs said:
Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Verdun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
It's difficult to comprehend the scale of it. The idea of tens of thousands of soldiers losing their lives, sometimes in a single day- particularly in today's society where every individual UK casualty suffered makes the headlines. Back then many of the losses would simply be a statistic, the chance of recovering & identifying every casualty was an impossibility- see the vast numbers listed as 'MIA', inevitably changed to KIA as time passed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
TTwiggy said:
The driving force behind Dreadnought was Admiral Fisher who had started his naval career on board HMS Victory - as in Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar.
Another point that highlights just how rapidly technology progressed during that time- he joined a navy comprised of wooden ships of the line and left it around 60 years later in a time of battleships and aircraft carriers.Contrast it to the relatively small progress that happened over the preceding couple of centuries- for example HMS Victory herself was already 40 years old by the time of Trafalgar in 1805 having been launched in 1765, and was actually laid down only a few months after Nelson was born!
In addition to her physical age (although she had been extensively rebuilt) she was in effect at least a 100 year old design at the time of her most famous action, yet was still one of the most capable ships available.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_even...
this interesting, especially the Historic consequences section re Islam.
this interesting, especially the Historic consequences section re Islam.
Squirrelofwoe said:
FredClogs said:
Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Verdun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
It's difficult to comprehend the scale of it. The idea of tens of thousands of soldiers losing their lives, sometimes in a single day- particularly in today's society where every individual UK casualty suffered makes the headlines. Back then many of the losses would simply be a statistic, the chance of recovering & identifying every casualty was an impossibility- see the vast numbers listed as 'MIA', inevitably changed to KIA as time passed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Quite astonishing levels of human waste, there seems to be little consensus on how many people died in this single 10 month battle, but it's estimated casualties could have been as high as 75,000 a month, but doubtless hundreds of thousands of young men would suffer the scars for the rest of their lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expe...
this is interesting. I know this was 200 years ago and people perhaps didn't understand geography well, but to believe you could basically travel up one major river from the Atlantic side of the States, and get to its head, and then you'd find the another head to a major river that flowed the other way all the way to the pacific, seems like incredulous wishful thinking to me. Juts the whole 'Rocky Mountains' ranges separating them.
Interesting to read about the Louisiana Purchase too. France sells the whole of the central region of the continental America to the newly formed country 'United States' so that Napoleon Bonaparte could fund an invasion of Britain, which never occurred. Not a great financial deal either.
this is interesting. I know this was 200 years ago and people perhaps didn't understand geography well, but to believe you could basically travel up one major river from the Atlantic side of the States, and get to its head, and then you'd find the another head to a major river that flowed the other way all the way to the pacific, seems like incredulous wishful thinking to me. Juts the whole 'Rocky Mountains' ranges separating them.
Interesting to read about the Louisiana Purchase too. France sells the whole of the central region of the continental America to the newly formed country 'United States' so that Napoleon Bonaparte could fund an invasion of Britain, which never occurred. Not a great financial deal either.
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