|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Trivia ~ Man Made
~ War/Military ~
Iraqi terrorist, Khay Rahnajet, didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with "return to sender" stamped on it. Forgetting it was a bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits.
Tracked armored vehicles are called "tanks" because the first were shipped under strict security measures and were camouflaged as "water tanks."
You've probably seen movies in which a knight in armour was lifted by a winch onto his horse, so heavy was his protective covering. Or maybe you've seen the scene where Sir Somebody is knocked from his horse and can't get up without assistance.
"Poppycock," as we used to say in medieval England. Those suits of armour weighed no more than about 50 pounds and were flexible enough to permit Sir Laughalot to walk around. You wouldn't want to play squash in one, but they were not much more constricting than a business suit, the armour worn by today's corporate warriors.
Which reminds me: A medieval kingdom of Bohemia, later became part of the Czech Republic. had knights in armour. Could this have been the origin of the phrase, "The Czech is in the mail?" Just a thought.
The world's oldest still commissioned warship afloat is none other than "Old Ironsides". The Constitution was launched on October 21, 1797
The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
When upwind of their enemies in battle, the Aztecs would set fire to chilies and use the smoke as tear gas.
Before all-porcelain false teeth were perfected in the mid-19th century, dentures were commonly made with teeth pulled from the mouths of dead soldiers following a battle.
History probably records only one instance in which cavalry won a naval battle. The French army that invaded Holland in the winter of 1794 captured a Dutch fleet when its mounted soldiers swept across the ice and seized control of the ships, frozen in place just offshore.
Do you suppose the cavalry attacked in waves?
Just what is a Yankee Doodle?
So "Yankee-Doodle went to town." And just why should anyone care? Why would anyone ever sing such goofus-like lyrics? "Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni." Really? You must be kidding!
In fact it's ironic that Americans proudly sing a song that originally mocked them and their notion that they should be free and independent. It originated as a 14th century nonsense song in Holland about a silly character named "Yankee-Doodle." English school children adopted it to make fun of Oliver Cromwell. In the same spirit the British troops fighting against the colonists in the American Revolution poked fun at their adversaries with the song. But wouldn't you know it! The Americans not only shot from behind trees at the Redcoats marching in the open in formation, they also turned their own song against the British troops, making of them not macaroni but mincemeat.
During World War One, the preferred lubricant for aircraft engines was castor oil. Unfortunately, the engines also sprayed considerable quantities of the oil (a common remedy for constipation) back into the cockpit, where the pilots would ingest it and develop, uh, 'intestinal distress.'
Why do sailors wear bell-bottomed trousers?
We know that the reason is not, "Because they're caught up in 60s nostalgia." Sailors got there first, and with them it was never merely a matter of style.
It figures that any prominent feature of a military uniform is there for its usefulness, and that's the case here. For one thing, bell-bottoms make it easier to roll up one's pants when swabbing the deck is the order of the day. Sailors have been doing that since the beginning of history.
This style of pants-leg also facilitates getting the pants off quickly. Wipe that grin off your face, we're talking here about what happens if a sailor suddenly finds himself overboard and needs to swim, free of encumbrances. We'll discuss how sailors behave on shore leave some other time.
The salute originated with the medieval knight, who pulled up his visor to reveal his face and show he was a friend. It evolved into a widespread custom of nodding or tipping one's hat as a greeting, and in the military became the more formal salute. Similar to the handshake upon meeting came from the custom of showing the other person that you carried no concealed weapon.
Servicemen and women learn to put snap into their salute. But don't overdo it if you join up. You lose face if you knock yourself unconscious in front of an officer.
In the last 3,500 years of world history, we have had approximately 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.
In the ancient kingdom of Scythia, a soldier's share of the spoils of victory depended on how many heads of enemy soldiers he brought in.
When the soldiers presented their trophies to be tallied, was the command , "Heads up!"?
A 1971 law requires each of the seven million citizens of Switzerland to possess: a fallout shelter. If they don't actually own one, they must arrange for access to a community shelter.
Consequently there are 260,000 personal fallout shelters in the country. But with the end of the Cold War many people have adapted the shelters for other purposes, such as wine cellars.
The Japanese kamikaze pilots who purposely crashed their planes into U. S. ships toward the end of World War II received special training to help them succeed in their suicide missions. They were all volunteers, but anyone who opted to drop out of the program once he joined was executed as a traitor.
Now that's what I like: options.
In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon, but they had to find a way to prevent them from rolling about the deck.
The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon.
There was only one problem...how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others.
The solution was a metal plate called a "Monkey" with 16 round indentations. But, if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls quickly would rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make the "Monkey" out of brass, thus the "Brass Monkey."
Brass, however, contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.
Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey". (And all this time, you thought that was an improper expression, didn't you?)
The Louisville Slugger oval logo was on the first cruise missile fired in the Persian Gulf war. The missile was painted by sailors on the U.S.S. Louisville nuclear attack submarine which fired the opening shot of the conflict. Each of the sailors on board received a personalized Louisville Slugger bat when the ship was originally commissioned.
The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."
The Roman emperor Julius Caesar lost many ships when he invaded Britain--he didn't beach them high enough because he hadn't taken tides into account
The custom of mounting a horse from the left side began centuries ago when men carried swords. Since most men are right-handed, the sword was usually carried on the left hip to make it more accessible to the right hand. With a long sword dangling from a rider's left side, it was clearly easier for him to mount his horse by putting his left foot into the stirrup and then throwing his right leg across the horse's back. This, of course, required that the horse be mounted from the left. Even after riders no longer carried swords, mounting from the left remained the custom (Because that's the way it's always been done)
As bits of trivia are presented on my e-mail list I will add them here. See them first by sending an e-mail to twotreestrivia-subscribe@topica.com
If you have other good Trivia to add please E-mail me
