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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 28, 2013 1:38:13 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 2:39:33 GMT
The state of Wyoming has only two escalators.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2013 6:09:06 GMT
France has 168 film festivals every year, more than all of the rest of the EU combined.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2013 22:22:28 GMT
The Philippines have 240,000 sailors, more than any other country.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2013 22:22:14 GMT
The sale of Lucky Strike cigarettes has increased 44% since the series Mad Men appeared on television.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 28, 2013 23:13:50 GMT
Seriously? I wonder if they're being bought by a generation not yet alive in the Mad Men time period.
Here's something I learned yesterday while reading a novel. I have not double-checked it: the border between the US and Canada is the longest land border in the world.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2013 23:31:49 GMT
I'm pretty sure that it is true about the land border. Also about Lucky Strike (you can Google it).
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Post by rikita on Nov 1, 2013 22:29:09 GMT
that there are plans to open a coffee shop in a nearby park. and that in the same park, dogs supposedly like eating the excrements of junkies to get high - but i am not sure if the latter is true, as the article i read that in was kind of weird.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2013 20:54:35 GMT
The Doctor Who theme music, written in 1963, is credited with being the first major piece of electronic music ever created.
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Post by htmb on Dec 6, 2013 22:11:56 GMT
Today I learned that frogs scream when they are in pain.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 7, 2013 5:12:55 GMT
I'm assuming you weren't doing fiendish experiments in the basement (Florida ain't got no basements), so please tell how you know this distressing fact.
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Post by htmb on Dec 7, 2013 13:35:15 GMT
Look at my recent wildlife post in the image bank.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2013 13:55:33 GMT
Well, I didn't learn this today, but, last week while in NY.
I purchased a book on local history for my brother. (I also procured one for myself). It's called Where My Grandfather Lived. It gives a history of the village/hamlet where I grew up. In it I found out that my father's family, my paternal grandparents were the very first Polish potato farmers there. The earliest were the early settlers off the Mayflower, then the Irish. ( I am not sure if the Native Americans farmed potatoes or not.)
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Post by bjd on Dec 29, 2013 16:06:52 GMT
Casi -- potatoes come from the Andes,so I doubt N American Natives farmed them.
I have been spending a lot of computer time doing genealogy research these days too -- many Polish archives have been put online, although there are often gaps in information I want. But I have managed to fill in a lot of information and names.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 29, 2013 20:46:37 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2013 8:49:11 GMT
Along these same lines, the hamlet where my father's family migrated to in NY is called Sagaponack,which is Native American and means" land where the wild nuts grow" (my family was pretty nutty ). Anyway, I suspect that the reference is to potatoes. Another thing I learned when I met with my mother's 94 year old sister was that my maternal grandfather came to the U.S. in 1900 from Suwalki which at that time was in East Prussia or Russia. The borders changed so many times. At one point it was part of Lithuania, then became Poland.
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Post by bjd on Dec 30, 2013 11:53:18 GMT
Bixa -- much of the online documentation for Poland is being done by volunteers, so there are quite a few gaps. And the Mormons have also scanned some stuff. I have found a few documents, but they are handwritten, of course, with various curlicues and old-fashioned words. I am beginning to make some of them out, but not all. And since much of the country where my families lived (on both sides) was under Russian partition until 1918, around 1860 documents started being written in Russian, making things more complicated. But I also discovered a second cousin with whom I am in contact since the beginning of December. He has made a really complete webpage so I learned a lot from him. Casi -- I have an aunt by marriage from Suwalki. It wasn't Prussian for very long, but it was certainly under the Russians for a long time. And, as you might know, Lithuania-Poland was one kingdom for several centuries. Some info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwa%C5%82kiYou can find the lists of emigrants to the US online. There is the Ellis Island Foundation, as well as other sites. A few years ago I found the trace of one of my grandmother's brothers who emigrated to the US in 1910. He left from Bremen, Germany.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2013 12:10:14 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2013 12:44:53 GMT
Yes, there are many black walnut trees up there although they are not edible. Instead they put dents on the roofs of cars as if having been in a bad hail storm.
Thanks for the link BJD. It appears to have had a long history of government rule. Charming as well from the pics. The cold climate would make it absolutely miserable.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 30, 2013 20:10:00 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2013 22:13:26 GMT
117 journalists have been killed on the job this year. The record was 132 journalists in 2012.
This year, 16 journalists died in Syria, 13 each in the Philippines and Iraq, 11 in India, 9 in Pakistan, 8 in Somalia and 6 in Brazil.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2014 12:10:58 GMT
The tomato is the most consumed "vegetable" in France.
12.6 kgs of fresh tomatoes per person and 15.8 kgs of "transformed" tomatoes
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 13, 2014 20:51:27 GMT
Per year??
That doesn't seem like very much. It's also surprising that tomato is the winner. It would have been way down in the list if I'd been guessing.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2014 21:09:46 GMT
I know. The automatic winner that comes to mind is the potato. (Must try to look that up.)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2014 21:12:40 GMT
Found it. Remarkably low: 15.4 kgs per person.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 13, 2014 22:28:44 GMT
The potato was my first thought as well. Then I thought it might have been disqualified as a "starch", so my next guesses were green beans and cabbage. Do you suppose with the North African influence in France, tomatoes gain ground every year? I'm stunned that Mexico trails French consumption of tomatoes by a good margin. This chart has some very surprising figures. I can only assume that some of the heavyweight tomato consumption countries must be processing & exporting tomato products. Either that, or they don't eat anything else.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2014 22:36:17 GMT
Wow, some of those countries seem to eat nothing but tomatoes -- Armenia, Greece, Turkey! And Thailand is also surprising for its extremely low consumption. But I admit that I have only seen a small symbolic slice of tomato in most Thai salads and in no other dishes...
Probably the use of tomatoes in sauces is what's throwing us off.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2014 1:55:56 GMT
What I learned today: That when driving home in a snowstorm to concentrate on the road instead of what I'll be wearing tomorrow. Got home safe and sound though.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 14, 2014 20:26:15 GMT
Florence Nightingale spent most of the last fifty years of her life bedridden from a disease she contracted in the Crimea.
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Post by questa on Feb 14, 2014 22:19:28 GMT
I have heard her disease was syphilis. but have never been able to verify this. She did a huge amount of lobbying and political work from her bed, however some saw it as a ploy to keep the people on side with while she made her reforms.
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