Interesting Facts

4th August  1914 - Germany declared war on Belgium 1914 - Britain declared war on Germany. 1914 - The US declared neutrality. A woman gives flowers to a German soldier leaving for the front, Berlin, August 1914  pic.twitter.com/AbpfIdFCN9 — History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics)  August 5, 2014 1944 - Anne Frank was arrested in Amsterdam by German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified.1964 - FBI agents uncovered the bodies of three missing civil rights workers at a dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

26th July 1745 – The first recorded women's cricket match took place near Guildford, England 1803 – The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opened in south London. 1847 – Liberia declared independence. 1944 – The first German V-2 rocket hit Great Britain. 1945 – The Potsdam Declaration was signed in Potsdam, Germany. 1945 - Clement Attlee became Britain's new prime minister after Labour won a sweeping victory. (It's always a bit surprising to think of this when you consider how popular Churchill was during the war. Maybe people just wanted to look to the future and forget the past.) 1952 - Eva Peron died. 1963 - Thousands were killed during an earthquake in the Yugoslavian city of Skopje. 1989 – A federal grand jury indicted Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm. He was the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

20th June 451 – Flavius Aetius' defeated Attila the Hun. 1214 – The University of Oxford received its charter. 1631 – The Irish village of Baltimore was attacked by Algerian pirates. 1685 – James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declared himself King of England at Bridgwater. 1756 – A British garrison was imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta. 1782 – The U.S. Congress adopted the Great Seal of the United States. 1791 – King Louis XVI of France and his immediate family began the Flight to Varennes during The French Revolution. 1837 – Queen Victoria succeeded to the British throne. 1840 – Samuel Morse received the patent for the telegraph. 1976 - Hundreds of Americans and Britons were moved from Beirut and taken to safety in Syria by the US military, following the murder of the US ambassador. 1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart was shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder was caught on tape and sparked inte...

20th May 1506 - Christopher Columbus died in poverty in Spain. 1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas. 1609 – Shakespeare's Sonnets were first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe. 1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany was seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire and most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years' War. 1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets. 1902 – Cuba gained independence from the United States. Tomás Estrada Palma became the first President of Cuba. 1927 - Charles Lindbergh took off for Paris from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, N.Y., aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. 1932 – Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot. She landed in Irel...

19th April 1587 – Francis Drake sank the Spanish fleet in Cádiz harbour. 1775 – The Battle of Lexington and Concord began, which started the American Revolution against the British. 1839 – The Treaty of London established Belgium as a kingdom. 1961 – The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ended. 1984 – Advance Australia Fair was chosen as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours. 1987 – The Simpsons premièred as a short cartoon on The Tracey Ullman Show. 1989 – Daphne du Maurier, British novelist died. 1992 – Benny Hill, and Frankie Howard died. They were both English comic actors. 1995 – A bomb in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, killed 168 people. 1999 – The German Bundestag returned to Berlin. 2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave.

18th April 1506 – The cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica was laid. 1909 – Joan of Arc was beatified in Rome. 1783 – Fighting ceased in the American Revolution, eight years since it began. 1924 – Simon & Schuster published the first crossword puzzle book. 1945 – Over 1,000 allied bombers attacked the small island of Heligoland, Germany. 1955 - Albert Einstein died. 1980 – The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) came into being. Canaan Banana was the country's first President. 1983 – A suicide bomber destroyed the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people. 1996 – At least 106 civilians were killed when the Israel Defense Forces shelled the UN compound at Quana, Lebanon, where more than 800 civilians had taken refuge.

29th March 2017 - The UK is going to trigger Article 50 to begin negotiations to leave the European Union. 2017 - Germany is switching off its current terrestrial TV signals to allow the broadcast of HD signals. 

30th January 1948 - Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was murdered by an extremist. 1933 - Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

In a survey that examines the good each country does for humanity as well as what it takes away, Britain has ranked 4th. (The Good Country Index placed Sweden first, Denmark second, and the Netherlands third, but the UK came above France and Germany because Britain does more “good” and less harm than more than 150 countries around the world. Britain came top for its global contribution to science and technology, thanks to the high number of journal exports, Nobel prizes and international publications it has produced,  was ranked 2nd on its global contribution to health and wellbeing, but it scored poorly on international security and peace, coming 64th out of 163 countries. Simon Anholt, who created the Good Country Index, said that while countries must serve the interests of their people it should not be at the expense of other populations.  I think we could apply that to ourselves as individuals too.)

Hamburg, Germany has banned coffee pods from all state-run buildings as part of an environmental drive to reduce waste. (In fact, the inventor of the American version of the coffee capsule, John Sylvan, has admitted he regrets ever inventing them due to their environmental impact:  Some pods contain 6 grams of coffee, but have 3 grams of packaging, and because they are made of mixed materials, combined with organic content, they are extremely difficult to recycle. Imagine if cars were sold like that.)

For everyone who was in today's Skype session.  Who does Greece owe money to? In Euros Germany - 68.2bn France - 43.8bn Italy - 38.4bn Spain - 25bn IMF - 21.4bn  (International Monetary Fund) ECB 18.1bn  (European Central Bank) The Netherlands 13.4bn The US - 11.3bn The UK 10.8bn Belgium 7.5bn Austria - 5.9bn Finland 3.7bn (I told you everyone needs to start learning big numbers nowadays.)

According to Fixr.com, the Google autocomplete function can tell you the top searches for the cost of something by geographic area. (They have created an eye-opening infographic that shows what the most pressing concerns of an area are.  Some of their results were amusing, some sad, others worrying. “Camel” was the top search for Saudi Arabia “Croissant” came top in France "Passport and patent" were neck and neck in North America “BMW” in Germany "Prostitute" in Ukraine, Hong Kong, Latvia and Brazil "Slave” in Mauritania "Kidney" in Iran I decided to do a couple of tests, so I started with a simple "cost of * in ..." search for Nottingham. The results were:- ... living / parking / taxi Then I did the "How much does a * cost in ...". The results were:- IVF / the tram / to hire a limo Good old Nottingham. Then I did a "How much does a * cost in ..." search for England:- The results were:- divo...

According to a study conducted at the University of Bonn, in Germany, watching reality TV shows such as Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity makes you nicer. (Allegedly it develops our ability to feel “vicarious embarrassment” for others, activating those parts of the brain that make us more empathic, concluding that people who watch reality TV were able to “put themselves in another person’s shoes” more easily. I wonder if it makes people feel more empathy for the poor insects and critters eaten in I'm a (Z list) celebrity.)

The top 5 countries in the Global Wellbeing Index, published by the United Nations, are Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Canada. (The researchers believe that the differences in happiness can be explained by 6 factors: levels of gross domestic product (GDP), life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom and level of corruption. The US is 15th, the UK is 21st, but Germany is only 26th.) Source

According to research carried out at Saarland University in Germany, a short nap at the office or in school significantly improves recall, they found that a nap 'produces a five-fold improvement in information retrieval from memory'. (Participants in the study learned 90 single words and 120 unconnected word pairs.  Some students then watched a DVD while others slept.   When they were then retested, those who had slept remembered more word pairs. I'm just going to close my eyes for a few minutes now.)

According to figures from the Bank of England, personal debt in the UK has reached a record level. Including mortgage debt, households now owe a total of £1.43 trillion! (On average, that means each adult in the UK owes £28,489. I am so glad I'm living in Germany, people simply don't flash the plastic as much here.)

Australia, Germany and Canada all allow women to take on close-combat ground roles in the armed forces. (It looks as if women will be allowed to take on combat roles for the first time in the UK soon.)

Allegedly Mick Jagger has a reputation for jinxing every football team he supports. (He is now being blamed for Brazil's devastating 7:1 defeat to Germany in the semi-finals of the World Cup, and has been dubbed in Brazil "Pe Frio", which translates literally as Cold Feet, a Brazilian term for a jinx. I think Brazil would be better served to look at how their team actually played.)

The top teams at the World Cup are Brazil, Germany and Italy. (To date, the points they have are as follows:- Brazil - 20 tournaments / 101 games / 224 points Germany - 18 tournaments / 103 games / 209 points Italy - 18 tournaments / 83 games / 156 points Poor Italy are already out, which opens up the 3rd place, and maybe we will see a Brazil vs Germany final.  What do you think?)

Around two-thirds of Western countries charge patients to see their GP, fees range from 80p in France to £18 in Sweden, with an extra £5 for a home visit.  In the UK it is currently free (see below). (In some countries patients pay for hospital visits or stays, including Germany, and Sweden where they charge around £7.50 per night, and in Portugal you also have to pay £8 every time you go to A&E. According to a poll conducted by Pulse magazine, half of British GPs are in favour of charging patients for appointments - with some wanting to impose fees of between £5 and £25 a time. The problem is that it puts people off seeking medical help. Germany introduced a similar GP charge, but they later scrapped it.) We've been talking about this in the forum .