Home / Fact
Showing posts with label Fact. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fact. Show all posts

The Rosetta Disk Preserving The World’s Languages


It is estimated that there are some 7,000 spoken languages in the world, of which nearly half are in danger of extinction and are likely to disappear in the next hundred years. Most of these endangered languages have less than a few thousand speakers left, and with no documentation. Nearly five hundred languages have fewer than ten speakers and are very likely to vanish very soon. Other languages are lost gradually when they are overwhelmed by a more dominant language at school, in the marketplace and on television.

The Rosetta Project is an effort to preserve all of these languages—numbering some 1,500— that have a high likelihood of extinction before this century is over. Inspired by the original Rosetta Stone, the idea of the Rosetta Project is to create a key that would allow future generations to decipher the lost languages.

rosetta-disk-4

Pada Komentar

Coco de mer The Forbidden Fruit


In the islands of Praslin and Curieuse, in the Seychelles, grows one of the most exclusive palm trees in the world. The coco de mer (Lodoicea maldivica) has tall slender trunks that rise more than 30 meters above the ground. At its crown is a mass of fronds, with leaf blades fanning out nearly five meters across. On mature individuals, the leaves are often fringed at the edges. Their withered ends hang from the palm below the vibrant, healthy green crown.

Possibly the most renowned feature of coco de mer are its enormous seeds—the largest and heaviest seeds in the plant world. But it is the shape and not the size of the seeds, that makes coco de mer famous; the seeds bear an uncanny resemblance to a woman’s butt. Indeed, one of coco de mer’s archaic botanical name was Lodoicea callipyge, where callipyge in Greek means “beautiful buttocks”.

coco-de-mer-8

Pada Komentar

How War Drove to Extinction The Wake Island Rail

 Wake Island rail


The day Japan bombed Pear Harbor, many American outposts in the Pacific, such as Philippines, Guam, Midway, Wake Island, Malaya, Thailand, and Shanghai also came under aerial attack. These raids took place within a few hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor’s naval base had begun.

One of the targets, Wake Island, was a tiny atoll located strategically between two other American possessions, Guam and Midway islands. Message of the attack on Pearl Harbor was received by the garrison on Wake Island at 6:50 AM local time; but the date was December 8, 1941—a full 22 hours ahead of Pearl Harbor because Wake Island was situated on the other side of the international date line. Without wasting much time, Wake Island’s commander, Marine Corps Major James Devereux, ordered his men to prepare for combat, and four of the twelve Wildcat fighter aircraft on the island’s airbase were sent up to keep watch.
Pada Komentar

Fake Tree Observation Posts of World War 1


Camouflaging has always been a part of warfare, but it was only during the two world wars that things got really creative.

During the First World War, both sides kept constant watch of the enemy lines for movement, but that was not an easy task. Anyone who stuck his head above the trench parapet for more than a few seconds was shot. So the French started disguising observation posts as trees. Then they taught the British how to do it. Later, the Germans started using them too.

ww1 camouflage-fake trees

Pada Komentar

The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides, Dagen H


Few traffic jams are as organized and coordinated as the ones that took place nationwide in the morning of September 3, 1967, on the streets of Sweden. That day, at exactly five in the morning, all traffic came to a standstill. Then slowly and cautiously, motorists and cyclists steered their cars, bikes and cycles across the road to the other side. Sweden had decided that they are no longer going to drive on the left side of the road.

Chaos unfolded across the country as million of motorists, who had been driving on the “wrong” side of the road all their lives, adjusted to the new rules. Daily commutes became profoundly unfamiliar. The hardest part was unlearning many of the things they had committed to muscle memory, which constitutes much of driving itself.
dagen h

Pada Komentar

World’s Oldest Confirmed Person, 116-Year-Old Kane Tanaka

At 116 years and 85 days old (as of March 28, 2019), Kane Tanaka from Fukuoka, Japan has been officially confirmed by Guinness World Records as the oldest person living.
Kane was born prematurely on 2 January 1903, the same year the Wright brothers became the first to achieve powered flight! Check out the video below from Guinness World Records.

Pada Komentar
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)