Category: History

Nerd Stuff You Didn’t Know

trivia

I love trivia, and if it’s nerd trivia, I love it even more.  And if it’s nerd trivia that nerds don’t know, I love it even more than that.  For example, it’s a common nerd “fact” that the only animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.  Sorry!  There are tons of animals not mentioned in the Bible — including kangaroos, California Condors, Komodo Dragons and polar bears.  So with that in mind, here are three extraordinary nerd facts to astound your friends, win Pub Night Quizzes and generally make you smarter than your know-it-all brother-in-law.

If you’re over 30, you’ve probably read the legend of King Arthur.  If you’re under 30. you’ve seen the one of the crap movies.  Either way, you kinda know the story.  Somewhere in Britain, there was a sword stuck in a stone (no idea how it got there) and anybody who pulled it out became the King of Britain.  Simple — except nobody could.  Then one day a regular guy — sometimes an oaf, sometimes a churl, but usually a squire — accidently gives it a yank and OMG! out it comes.  He is proclaimed King Arthur, and with the sword, Excalibur, rules Britain wisely for many years.  (Until he screws up, but that’s a different story.)  The problem is the sword Arthur pulled out of the stone was not Excalibur.  Excalibur was actually given to Arthur by The Lady of the Lake after Arthur broke the original sword, Caliburn.  We’ve streamlined the legend because contemporary audiences don’t have a great attention span – hence all the crap movies.  Plus, in some versions of the original story, King Arthur also has a spear called Ron.

In Nepal, it’s legal to hunt the Yeti, (Abominable Snowman.)  All you have to do is apply for a permit, pay the fee (about $1,200) and you’re good to go.  However, you can’t kill the Yeti, and if you do manage to capture one, you have to turn it over to the Nepalese government.  So it’s not like you can come home and put on the brag about the head mounted on your wall.  (Ewwww!)  Apparently, however, there are official bumper stickers.

And my favourite:

Everything is this world has a regular name and a scientific name.  For example, humans are Homo sapiens, wolves are Canis lupus, apples are Malus domestica — and so on and so on.  Scientific names are usually Latin, mostly boring, sometimes fun (like Gaga germanotta – a fern named for Lady Gaga) and sometimes they’re just lazy like Gorilla gorilla, the scientific name for … gorillas.  Normally, when a new species is discovered, the scientific community goes into warp speed to name it.  (These days, it takes less than a year.)  However, there is one species that baffled science nerds for nearly 300 years – the giant tortoise.  These huge creatures were discovered by the Spanish in the early 1500s, but they didn’t get a scientific name until 1812 when August Friedrich Schweigger named them Testudo gigantean.  So why the three century delay?  Everybody knew they existed.  Well, it seems, giant tortoises are such good eatin’ that none of them ever survived the journey back to the universities of Europe.  They all became lunch!  According to every account, the giant tortoise was so delicious that even the most dedicated botanists and biologists couldn’t resist them.  Ships would literally stop in mid ocean so the sailors could finish eating their tortoises before they made harbour and had to share.  For generations, scientific expeditions would sail out to far-flung parts of the world and return with all manner of exotic species and … a bunch of empty giant tortoise shells … having consumed the contents.  I’m not making this up!  Even the mighty Charles Darwin, Lord High Poobah of animal studies, dined on giant tortoise on the way home from the Galapagos.  Thus, it took nearly 300 years for a few of them to avoid the frying pan long enough to get a scientific name.

These days, there are international laws that protect the giant tortoise from becoming an extinct item on the menu.  However, there is a heavy illegal trade for the tables of rich culinary connoisseurs with no conscience.  Meanwhile, if you want to taste the most delicious meat in the world, apparently, you can — there’s a very expensive synthetic version.  But be warned: you might like it a little too much.

Leap Year 2020

leapyear

Okay, ladies and gentlemen!  Brace yourselves — because there’s no way to sugar-coat it.  Tomorrow doesn’t exist; you are about to enter a man-made time warp.  As of midnight tonight, what you think is the present is actually the past, and the future won’t begin again for another 24 hours.  Deep, huh?  Don’t be scared, though; it happens every four years.  (Not really, but it’s too complicated to explain*.)  It’s called a Leap Year, or Leap Day to be more precise, and we need it because the universe doesn’t care what time you want to go to work.

The Universe, Mother Nature’s boss, doesn’t get involved in the affairs of humans.  It’s got better things to do.  We humans, Mother Nature’s most precocious children, have never quite understood that.  We think that if we make a couple more scientific discoveries or sit naked on a mountainside for a couple of years, we’ll get this whole universe thing figured out.  It’s not likely, but nobody ever accused our species of being humble.  The Universe actually rolls on without us, asking neither permission nor forgiveness, and nothing we say or do is going to change that.

Despite what old hippies and serious dope smokers will tell you, Time is not an artificial concept.  It exists, and people have always measured it.  Way back in caveman days, there were only two times — dark and light.  This is an extremely accurate measurement which most species on this planet still use.  However, as our species got busier and busier, we discovered that minor Time (major time is beyond our grasp) had recurring themes.  The sun travelled across the sky, the moon got larger and smaller, and familiar clusters of stars moved in elliptical patterns.  All these things happened with incredible regularity.  Therefore, it was simple for primitive humans to figure out that there were usually twenty nine suns between each full moon.  Not only that, but our ancestors also found that if they persistently watched the night sky, the movement of the stars corresponded to the seasons.  For example, in the Northern hemisphere, what we call Orion’s Belt first appears in the southwestern sky in early January, soon after the morning sun is lowest on the horizon.  Thus, by noting when Orion’s Belt first appeared in the sky and counting the number of suns until it reappeared, early sky watchers discovered a complete earthly cycle — or a year.  These two rough and ready measurements (or something similar) are the basis of all early calendars.

Unfortunately, as our society got more and more sophisticated, these primitive tools didn’t keep pace.  There’s an inconsistency between the months and the years that causes nothing but problems.  Essentially, 12 lunar months equal only 348 solar days — which leaves a 17 day gap in the celestial year.  As the years went on, the seasons were slowly getting out of whack.  No less a light than Julius Caesar saw this and devised a new system called The Julian Calendar that remedied most of the problems – for a while.  However, 1600 years later, these problems were back — with some extra added attractions.  Not only were the seasons out of place again (they had moved twelve calendar days in the centuries since Caesar) but the highest holiday in the Christian calendar, Easter, whose timing is based on the Spring Equinox was disappearing into seasonal winter.  Pope Gregory XIII decided rather than let the Universe figure it out, he would fix it.  After all, he was the infallible head of the Roman Catholic Church.  He set his minions a mission: devise a calendar that would work for all time and keep Easter in the spring (where it belonged.)  They came up with the Gregorian Calendar which added an extra day in February every four years (or so) to even out the imbalance.  Gregory’s new calendar was proclaimed in a papal bull on February 24th, 1582 and is now in general use.  Problem solved.

Which brings us back to the time warp that is tomorrow.  Tomorrow doesn’t exist because Gregory’s extra day was inserted for time already past.  Here’s the deal.  As our earth moves around the sun, it takes 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds to made one full circle.  For simple calculations, we call that a year.  That was the amount of time a year took in 2017, 2018 and 2019.  Obviously, that time is gone.  However, in our burning need to realign the Universe, here we are with a whole extra day to make up for it.  But the reality is that day is over.  We’ve already lived those hours, minutes and seconds.  In the great metaphysical scheme of things, this is borrowed time.

So take tomorrow off, kick back, throw a ball, read to your kids or just lie elbows deep in a pillow, contemplating the infinite.  If anybody asks, blame it on Pope Gregory.  He’s the guy who thought a little time management would be good for the Universe.

*A Leap Year is every year that is exactly divisible by four, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100.  However, the centurial years that are exactly divisible by 400 are still leap years. For example, the year 1900 was not a leap year but the year 2000 was.

Originally written 2012 and gently edited.

An “Olde” Christmas Tradition

christmas

I love Christmas.  I love everything about it.  I love Santa and the reindeer, jingle bells, mistletoe (yeah, I said it) the baby Jesus and the Wise Men – everything.  I like the crowds and the bitchin’ and the music in the malls.  I even tolerate that stupid Little Drummer Boy – the first 500 times.  It’s all too cool, but I’m an old-fashioned guy, so I like the older traditions best.  That’s why, every year, I wait, in uncontrollable anticipation, for one of our society’s oldest and dearest traditions — the arrival of The Annual Christmas Basher.  For me, the arrival of the Christmas Basher actually kicks off the Christmas season.  When I was younger, the Christmas Basher was usually just an odd malcontent who’d been disappointed with Christmas (and perhaps, life) since puberty and wanted to spread the misery around.  However, in the 21st century, Christmas bashing is trending, and the Basher could be anyone — a friend, a colleague, the guy you meet in the mall, even a family member.  Like Christmas itself, the Christmas Basher has become somewhat universal.

So who are Christmas Bashers?  They’re that person, who, filled with the spirit of “I’m Smarter than You Are” (and overcome with joy at the sound of their own voice) takes it upon themselves to explain just how screwed up Christmas really is.  This could be the guy who stops you in mid “Merry Christmas” to tell you to say “Happy Holidays.”  (Or vice versa.)  Or the woman who tells you, “Christmas is becoming just too commercialized.”   Or it could be that pompous ass who explains, “According to the fragmentary records from the Augustan period of the Roman Era BCE, tax collection was done in July of the Julian calendar; therefore, Christ could not possibly have been born in December.”  But the one I like the best is the cynical jerk who questions the holiday itself, asking, “How did we get from the birth of the ‘so-called’ Saviour to Santa Claus and elves?  All of the things we have for this ‘so-called’ Christian holiday are really just pagan symbols.”   When I hear these dulcet voices singing, I know it’s finally Christmas.  I like to take a second or two to contemplate the infinite universe and its delights before I respond, in my best little kid voice, “Sorry, I forgot.”  What these neo-fascists don’t realize is that they’re actually engaging in a Christmas tradition that is one of our very oldest.  Christmas bashing actually pre-dates most of what we know to be a traditional Christmas.  In truth, these modern merry morons are merely acting like our most intolerant Christian ancestors – the Puritans.  They didn’t like Christmas, either – over 400 years ago.

In Elizabethan England, Christmas was the main holiday of the year.  When good Queen Bess was on the throne, the locals really knew how to party.  First of all, Christmas lasted 12 days – the 12 days of Christmas, from the song.  Secondly, nobody went to work, so if you wanted your wood chopped, your candles waxed or your doublet patched, you were out of luck until January.  What people did was roll out of bed and head for the local tavern.  They drank and gambled and chased women (who returned the favour by not running that fast.)  They sang bawdy songs, ate, laughed, joked and then drank some more – and this went on every day.  They dressed up as supernatural creatures and animals and danced in the streets or watched acrobats, or bear-baiting or one of Will Shakespeare’s new comedies.  It was called Topsy-Turvy time — when the servant became the master and the shepherd became the sheep.  The Elizabethans celebrated by honouring the Lord of Misrule, a local dimwit or barmaid who rode backwards on a donkey through the streets to the steps of a church or cathedral where he or she was crowned, in front of the cheering, jeering mob.  Basically, it was all one big, queen-sized debauch.  Clearly, our ancestors saw Christmas as an opportunity to have fun, much as we do.  So it was only a matter of time before somebody wanted to put a stop to it.

Enter the Puritans.  Without overstating it, the Puritans were a gang of uptight, intolerant fanatics who wanted the world to do as it was told, and they wanted to do the telling.  They were so narrow-minded they could look through a keyhole with both eyes.  They believed life was a serious business and anybody who wasn’t serious about it needed to be whipped into shape – literally.  They also believed they had all the answers, and were willing to provide them– even when nobody was asking for their opinion.  Actually, they compare very well with our contemporary Christmas bashers — except the Puritans didn’t have Twitter.  They looked at Christmas, circa 1570, and practically burst a blood vessel.  One unnamed source wrote “There is nothing else [at Christmas] but cards, dice, tables, masking, mumming, bowling and such fooleries…”   It was clearly the work of the Devil.  As early as 1583, some churches were setting penance for “keeping the superstitious day called Yule,” and by the turn of the 16th century, the common folk were well-advised to stay off the streets after the middle of December.  The times were changing in Merrye Olde England: it was getting a lot less merry.  By the time Cromwell and his Puritan crowd actually came to power, anybody who wanted to celebrate Christmas did it at their peril, and in the privacy of their own hovel.  Within a couple of years, there was nothing much left of Christmas, and on December 24th, 1652, it was formally banned.  The proclamation read, “That no observation shall be had of the five and twentieth day of December, commonly called Christmas nor any solemnity used or exercised in churches.”  It would take Christmas just about 200 years to recover.

So, as you can see, all the oh-so-enlightened Christmas bashers who wander the earth, setting everybody straight year after year, are just following in the footsteps of their Puritan ancestors. They’re actually celebrating a very, very old Christmas tradition.  That’s why I wait for them so eagerly every December.  They’re as much a part of Christmas as Santa Claus himself and, for me, the irony is just too good to miss.