• The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and
Wilma Flintstone.

• Coca-Cola was originally green.

• Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

• Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

• The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% ( now get this...)

• The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

• The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000

• The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

• The youngest pope was 11 years old.

• The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

• Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
Spades - King David,
Hearts - Charlemagne,
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

• 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

• If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

• "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

• Q. What occurs more often in December than any other month?
A. Conception.

• Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you could find the letter "A"?
A. One thousand

• Q. What do bullet-proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.

• Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
A. Honey

• In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight, sleep tight".

• It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month or what we know today as the honeymoon.

• In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"

• Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.

• In ancient England a person could not have sex unless you had consent of the King (unless you were in the Royal Family). When anyone wanted to have a baby, they got consent of the King, the King gave them a placard that they hung on their door while they were having sex. The placard had F.*.*.* (Fornication Under Consent of the King) on it. Now you know where that word came from.

• In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden... and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

courtesy of yazie of 06a3

Since someone hollered so loudly for it (lol) here it is. I got it off a webpage whole sale so if there are any errors and missing bits, well, let's leave them to ms nora to fill in the juicier parts of the story that may be missing yeah? hehe

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The 'Singa' - How Singapore was named
The word 'singa' is actually the Malay word for 'lion'. Therefore, Singapore is sometimes referred to as the 'Lion City'.

Sang Nila Utama, an imaginative & adventurous king was restless by nature and wanted to travel to far away places. He loved hunting wild animals, so when he heard that there were stags in the jungles of Tanjong Bentam which were not easy to hunt, he was excited and took with him a great fleet of ships to Tanjong Bentam.

When the king arrived upon the island, he and his subjects had a hunting expedition that lasted several hours, slaying many wild and savage beasts, but no stags. This disappointed the king, for he had a sense of unfulfillment in his heart.

Suddenly, a large stag darted out of the bush in front of Sang Nila Utama, giving the king a shock...but the king drew his silver dagger and hurled it at the stag, only grazing the animal. The stag began to run and the king pursued it (in those days, it was either your feet or nothing)

The stag ran through the jungle and darted up a knoll. The king followed the stag up the hill, but upon reaching the summit, the stag was nowhere to be seen. There was a large rock, so the king climbed it and looked the land and sea spread out around him. In the distance, he saw a stretch of white sand - an island.

Sang Nila Utama was fascinated by the sight of the island. He turned to one of his subjects who had followed him.

'What is the name of that island?'

The subject looked into the distance and smiled.

'That is Temasek, Your Highness.'

'Then we are going there.'

The king ordered his fleet to set sail and they began on their journey towards the island.

Suddenly the once clear blue skies were covered with black clouds, heavy rain poured from them and strong bursts of wind threatened to tear the ships apart. The ship carrying Sang Nila Utama was in the very eye of the storm. The crew lowered the sails, started to bail the water from the ship and get most of the cargo for jettisoning.

However, an idea came to the king's head. He remembered a story his grandfather told him of how one of his ancestors became the Sea-King and that his crown was the only thing which belonged to his ancestor. He removed his crown immediately & threw it into the sea.

All at once, the storm broke. As suddenly as it started, the skies began to clear and the crew gave a shout of joy and set sail once more to the island of Temasek.

When the king stepped upon the island, a creature stepped out of nowhere, and the king and his men were awe-struck by the magnificent creature. It was large and moved with grace, had a black head, covered in a furry mane, a whitish neck and a red body. When the king drew his bow & arrow, the beast stared back at him with golden eyes and let out a deafening roar before leaping into the jungle.

'What sort of animal was that?', the king asked.

A wise old man stepped forth.

'I have seen animals in potraits from the Far West. Perhaps this is a 'singa', but I wonder how it got all the way here.'

'This must be a great place if it breeds such a beautiful animal. Let us live here...here on the island of Singapura.'

Hello,

I'm back thanks to an IT savvy friend. Anyway, I have decided to turn this into a purely "fun history" section even though some of you might think that "fun history" is an oxymoron in itself. What's an oxymoron, you make ask? Well, go figure. Something to do with a moron who uses oxy.

Anyway, little bit of historical detail to add here virtue of a pu1 student, Melvin, who enlightened me on the naming of bombs. Something to do with the bigger bombs being called "little boy" and the smaller ones being knowns as "fat man". Oh well. Did I get that right?

Anyway, note to whoever, what's with the mdmnora, heestoree etc?? What talking you?

Warmest regards,
wackiac

The etymology of fuck has given rise to a great deal of speculation, which should be regarded skeptically. The authoritative Oxford English Dictionary is quite cautious in providing an etymology for this word. In the quotation below, the dictionary's usual abbreviations are spelled out for clarity:

Early modern English fuck, fuk, answering to a Middle English type *fuken (weak verb) [which is] not found; ulterior etymology unknown. Synonymous German ficken can be shown to be related.
The first known occurrence, in code because of its unacceptability, is in a poem composed in a mixture of Latin and English sometime before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, "Flen flyys," from the first words of its opening line, "Flen, flyys, and freris"; that is, "Fleas, flies, and friars". The line that contains fuck reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk." The Latin words "Non sunt in coeli, quia," mean "They [the friars] are not in heaven, since when though." The code "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" is easily broken by simply substituting the preceding letter in the alphabet, keeping in mind differences in the alphabet and in spelling between then and now: i was then used for both i and j; v was used for both u and v; and two v's were used for w. This yields "fvccant (a fake Latin form) vvivys of heli." The whole thus reads in translation: "They are not in heaven since they fuck wives of Ely (a town near Cambridge)." From The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition.

As the OED notes, some have attempted to draw a connection to the German word ficken (to fuck, in dialects: to rub, to scratch, and historically to strike).

Other possible connections are to Latin futuere (hence the French foutre, the Italian fottere, the Romanian fute, the vulgar peninsular Spanish follar and joder, and the Portuguese foder). However, there is considerable doubt and no clear lineage for these derivations. These roots, even if cognate, are not the original Indo-European word for to fuck; that root is likely *h3yebh-, ("h3" is the H3 laryngeal) which is attested in Sanskrit (yabhati) and the Slavic languages (Russian yebat`, Polish jebać), among others: compare Greek "oiphô" (verb), and Greek "zephyros" (noun, ref. a Greek belief that the west wind caused pregnancy). However, Wayland Young (who agrees that these words are related) argues that they derive from the Indo-European *bhu- or *bhug-, believed to be the root of "to be", "to grow", and "to build". [Young, 1964]

Spanish follar has a different root; according to Spanish etymologists, the Spanish verb "follar" (attested in the 19th century) derives from "fuelle" (bellows) from Latin "folle(m)" < Indo-European "bhel-"; ancient Spanish verb folgar (attested in the 15th century) derived from Latin "follicare", ultimately from follem/follis too.

A possible etymology is suggested by the fact that the Common Germanic fuk-, by an application of Grimm's law, would have as its most likely Indo-European ancestor *pug-, which appears in Latin and Greek words meaning "fight" and "fist". In early Common Germanic the word was likely used at first as a slang or euphemistic replacement for an older word for "intercourse", and then became the usual word for "intercourse". Then, fuck has cognates in other Germanic languages, such as Middle Dutch fokken (to thrust, copulate, or to breed), dialectical Norwegian fukka (to copulate), and dialectical Swedish focka (to strike, copulate) and fock (penis). A very similar set of Latin words that have not yet been related to these are those for hearth or fire, "focus/focum" (with a short o), fiery, "focilis", Latin and Italian for hearthly/hearthling, "foc[c]ia/focac[c]ia", and fire, "focca", and the Italian for bonfire, "focere". But these words came from New Latin, centuries after Middle Dutch.

There is perhaps even an original Celtic derivation; futuere being related to battuere (to strike, to copulate); which may be related to Irish bot and Manx bwoid (penis). The argument is that battuere and futuere (like the Irish and Manx words) comes from the Celtic *bactuere (to pierce), from the root buc- (a point). An even earlier root may be the Egyptian petcha (to copulate), which has a highly suggestive hieroglyph. Or perhaps Latin "futuere" came from the root "fu", Common Indo-European "bhu", meaning "be, become" and originally referred to procreation.

Christmas is just round the corner. Since there's not much activity going on here, I thought I'd share the origins of the Christmas Tree.

It started way back in ancient Egypt. King Tut never saw a Christmas tree, but he would have understood the tradition which traces back long before the first Christmas. The Egyptians were part of a long line of cultures that treasured and worshipped evergreens. When the winter solstice arrive, they brought green date palm leaves into their homes to symbolize life's triumph over death.

The Romans adopted it with their celebration of the winter solstice with a fest called Saturnalia in honor of Saturnus, the god of agriculture. They decorated their houses with greens and lights and exchanged gifts. They gave coins for prosperity, pastries for happiness, and lamps to light one's journey through life.

Meanwhile, in Great Britain, woods priests called Druids used evergreens during mysterious winter solstice rituals. The Druids used holly and mistletoe as symbols of eternal life, and place evergreen branches over doors to keep away evil spirits.

Late in the Middle Ages, Germans and Scandinavians placed evergreen trees inside their homes or just outside their doors to show their hope in the forthcoming spring. Our modern Christmas tree evolved from these early traditions.

Legend has it that the founder of Protestanism, a German named Martin Luther began the tradition of decorating trees to celebrate Christmas. One crisp Christmas Eve, about the year 1500, he was walking through snow-covered woods and was struck by the beauty of a group of small evergreens. Their branches, dusted with snow, shimmered in the moonlight. When he got home, he set up a little fir tree indoors so he could share this story with his children. He decorated it with candles, which he lighted in honor of Christ's birth.

How these traditions traveled to England is interesting. Queen Victoria often visited relatives in Germany in the town of Coburg and while there she fell in love with a young Prince Albert. After which they got married and returned to England to raise their family.

The tree that Price Albert provided his family was admired by all in England. This tree was decorated in the finest of hand blown glass ornaments. Since everyone liked the Queen, they copied her Christmas customs including the Christmas tree and ornaments.

The Christmas tree tradition most likely came to the United States with Hessian troops during the American Revolution, or with German immigrants to Pennsylvania and Ohio.

But the custom spread slowly. The Puritans banned Christmas in New England. Even as late as 1851, a Cleveland minister lost his job because he allowed a tree in his church. Schools in Boston stayed open on Christmas Day through 1870, and sometimes expelled students who stayed home.

The Christmas tree market was born in 1851 when Catskill farmer Mark Carr hauled two ox sleds of evergreens into New York City and sold them all. By 1900, one in five American families had a Christmas tree, and 20 years later, the custom was nearly universal.

The Garrotte



This instrument bears a Spanish name because it was "improved" in Spain, where it became the official instrument of capital punishment. It remained in use until 1975, when the last person to be executed was a young student who was later found to be innocent. This incident was one of the arguments used for the abolition of death penalty in that country. This instrument has very ancient origins. Simply put, a pole was driven into the ground and a rope was tied around the victim's neck. But if the pole was not very thick and the rope was tightened behind the pole, the neck of the victim could be tightened more gradually and easily released.This sort of torture was used all over the world as testified by etchings.The string tying the victim's neck to the pole could be made of a material that would shrink once wetted, so that the victim would slowly suffocate as it dried.The "improved" Spanish version of this instrument was used for executions. It had a steel collar, larger in size than the victim's neck to prevent strangulation, but, at the same time, tight enough to immobilize the head and the neck.Preventing neck and head movement was necessary because it allowed the victim's cervical vertebrae to be penetrated by a steel tip, moved by a screw mechanism positioned in the rear of the pole. In theory, such penetration was to be quick and precise, thus, able to administer a rapid and certain death. Actually, though, the possibility of error and failure is so high that I leave it to the imagination of the reader to consider the suffering it actually inflicted.

Branks



These devices had two main features: They exposed the victims to ridicule by forcing them to wear a ridiculous likeness, and, at the same time, they inflicted mortification and physical torture by occluding the victims' mouth or nose and covering their eyes. As we can see in the picture number 3, the victim's mouth was stopped up with a ball to prevent her from screaming and moaning.The long ears represented the ears of an ass. In Europe, many negative characteristics were attributed to this animal. Even today, donkeys are considered to be the stupid version of horses and the epithet "ass" is still used, in Italy, France and Spain, to define a stupid person.The version with a pig nose or even a pig head, symbolizes someone dirty. The word pig, when referred to a person, is considered offensive in all European languages.

The heretics fork



This instrument consisted of two little forks one set against the other, with the four prongs rammed into the flesh, under the chin and above the chest. A small collar supported the instrument in such a manner that the victims were forced to hold their head erect, thus preventing any movement. The forks did not penetrate any vital points, and thus suffering was prolonged and death avoided. Obviously the victims' hands were tied behind their back.

(Images and information was from--> http://www.torturamuseum.com/this.html)

For the truly interested and sadistic, go to http://www.occasionalhell.com/infdevice/ for more devices.... and for your information it's listed in alphabetical order making it even better with interesting details. ^_^

Okay okay, now for some december holiday fun. We have a collection of historic torture devices, bloody too, how about that?

The Rack

The Rack was an instrument of torture often used in the Middle Ages, and a popular means of extricating confession. The victim was tied across a board by their ankles and wrists, rollers at either end of the board were turned, by pulling the body in opposite directions until dislocation of every joint occurred. According to Puigblanch, quoted in Mason's History of the Inquisition, "in this attitude he experienced eight strong contortions in his limbs, namely, two of the fleshy parts of the arms above the elbows, and two below; one on each thigh, and also on the legs."

The Pear

The pear was a torture device highly used on females. This device was inserted into the orfices, including the rectum, vagina, or mouth of the victim and then expanded by force of the screw to the maximum aperture setting of the victims cavity. The antrum would then irremediably become mutilated, nearly always fatally so, ripping the tissue, flesh and membranes within the body.
The insertion of the pear depended on the crime the victim was accused of. While slanderers and blasphemers would have their mouths mutilated, homosexuals would suffer the same fate on their anuses. It would be used on the vaginas of women who had induced a miscarriage or been accused of witchcraft and carnal knowledge of demons.

The Wheel

The wheel was one of the most popular and insidiously methods of torture and execution practiced in medival Europe. The giant spiked wheel was able to break bodies as it rolled forward, causing the most agonizing and drawn-out death. Other forms include the "braided" wheel, where the victim, would be tied to the execution dock or platform. There limbs were spread and tied to stakes or iron rings on the ground. Pieces of wood were placed under the main joints, wrists, ankles, knees, hips, and elbows. The executioner would then smash every joint with the iron-tyred edge of the wheel--however the executioner would avoid fatal blows to give the victim a painful death. According to a German chronicler, the victim was transformed into a huge screaming puppet writhing in their own blood. It looked like a sea monster with four tentacles, and raw slimy shapeless flesh, mixed with splinters of bone. After the smashing had taken place the victim would literally be "braided" into the wheel and hung, horizontally, at the top of the pole, so that ravens can peck at the victim. The wheel could be refined, too, to include other torturous aspects. A suspended wheel might be turned over a fire or a bed of nails. In any event it meant unbearable suffering for the victim.

The Interogation Chair

An inspiration for the modern comfy chair. Frequently the chair was built of iron and could be heated up from the back side . The chair, as we can see, is embedded with about 2000 or so spikes. The victim, usually naked, was strapped to the chair using tight leather straps. The initial pain of hundreds of sharp rusty spikes penetrating the flesh can always be increased by the torturer by tightening the straps, forcing the prisoner down or back against the spikes.

The Judas Cradle


Another anal invasion device, the Judas Cradle is a medieval torture device, created as a 'humane' replacement for other bone-breaking, blood-letting and flesh burning instruments of torture. This procedure has remained essentially unchanged from the Middle Ages until today. The victim is stripped, placed inside the iron harness and hoisted up in the manner shown in the accompanying illustration, and lowered onto the point of the pyramid in such a way that his weight rests on the point positioned in the anus, in the vagina, under the scrotum or under the coccyx (the last two or three vertebrae). The executioner, according to the pleasure of the interrogators, can vary the pressure from zero to that of total body weight. The victim can be rocked, or made to fall repeatedly onto the point.
Nowadays this method enjoys the favour of not a few governments in Latin America and elsewhere, with and without improvements like electrified waist rings and pyramid points.

The Iron Maiden

And finally, the lovely Iron Maiden. The Iron Maiden was used primarily in Germany, the most famous version being the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg. This apparatus was essentially a large container, shaped like a woman, equipped with two doors with adjustable iron spikes. Legend has it that a German who had forged coins was shut inside the Iron Maiden on August 14, 1515. His arms, legs, belly, chest, bladder, genitals, eyes, shoulders and buttocks were slowly pierced by the spikes causing excruciating pain and subsequent death after 2 days. The Iron Maiden's embrace, much like many other investigative methods, was designed not to execute but to torture. One would think that in the 21st century, these machines would have ceased to be operational. Not true. One of the girls was found in Uday Hussein's backyard in Iraq just 2 years ago.