Interesting Wikipedia Links

[suiraclaw]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Ratjen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Boursicot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_photography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon

Unrelated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(soldier_bear)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

 

[Antilogic]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

Sometimes that has intrigued me for a long time and still does.

Same here, I read this book on it and it was pretty good at covering the different code-breaking attempts as well as the history in greater detail.

I've been searching for some good historical mysteries, and the wiki has a good collection. Here's one:

The Baghdad Battery

The Baghdad Battery, sometimes referred to as the Parthian Battery, is the common name for a number of artifacts created in Mesopotamia, during the dynasties of Parthian or Sassanid period (the early centuries AD), and probably discovered in 1936 in the village of Khuyut Rabbou'a, near Baghdad, Iraq. These artifacts came to wider attention in 1938 when Wilhelm König, the German director of the National Museum of Iraq, found the objects in the museum's collections. In 1940, König published a paper speculating that they may have been galvanic cells, perhaps used for electroplating gold onto silver objects.[2] This interpretation continues to be considered[who?] as at least a hypothetical possibility. If correct, the artifacts would predate Alessandro Volta's 1800 invention of the electrochemical cell by more than a millennium.

 

[IAM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

ancient advanced technology

 

[madviking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupon_collector's_problem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_or_Girl_paradox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

 

[caketastydelish]

<delete>

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love-shy

The neutrality of this article is disputed.

Gee, I wonder why?

 

[caketastydelish]

<delete>

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Fascinating stuff though. The article describes me pretty well and I would consider myself to be love-shy.

As do I.

 

[madviking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)

A guy who tried to overthrow Nicaragua almost single-handedly, and did.

 

[Bud2998]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran

Before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the issue of transsexuality in Iran had never been officially addressed by the government. Beginning in the mid-1980s, however, transsexual individuals were officially recognized by the government and allowed to undergo sex reassignment surgery. As of 2008, Iran carries out more sex change operations than any other nation in the world except for Thailand. The government provides up to half the cost for those needing financial assistance, and a sex change is recognised on the birth certificate.

Not exactly something I expected going into that article.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCulloch_(congressman)

He's some Whig congressman.

 

[Verarde]

List of generic forms in place names in the United Kingdom and Ireland

I thought this was cool.

 

[madviking]

The guy whom William the Conquerer deposed had quite an adventurous life afterwards.

 

[Formaldehyde]

From doing some research fpr a recent thread:

The fruit machine

 

[TheLastOne36]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_takeover_of_Danzig
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_exiles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukes_of_Pomerania (try to follow along )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casanova (Didn't know about this guy before)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasil_(mythical_island)

 

[madviking]

Mad Gasser of Matoon/Botetourt County
Kentucky Meat Shower
Dancing Plague of 1518

 

[Goodfella]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush_fetish

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly–Hopkinsville_encounter

 

[Kaitzilla]

Interesting wiki links?
I have lots of links! There are so many!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage

Spoiler :

Dazzle camouflage, also known as razzle dazzle or dazzle painting, was a family of ship camouflage used extensively in World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II and afterwards. Credited to artist Norman Wilkinson, though with a prior claim by the zoologist John Graham Kerr, it consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colours, interrupting and intersecting each other.

Unlike some other forms of camouflage, dazzle works not by offering concealment but by making it difficult to estimate a target's range, speed and heading. Norman Wilkinson explained in 1919 that dazzle was intended more to mislead the enemy as to the correct position to take up than actually to miss his shot when firing.

Dazzle was adopted by the British Admiralty and the U.S. Navy with little evaluation. Each ship's dazzle pattern was unique to avoid making classes of ships instantly recognisable to the enemy. The result was that a profusion of dazzle schemes were tried, and the evidence for their success was at best mixed. So many factors were involved that it was impossible to determine which were important, and whether any of the colour schemes were effective.

Dazzle attracted the notice of artists such as Picasso, who claimed that cubists had invented it. The vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth, who supervised the camouflaging of over 2,000 ships during the First World War, painted a series of canvases of dazzle ships after the war, based on his wartime work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots

Spoiler :

As the violence escalated over the ensuing days, thousands of white servicemen joined the attacks, marching abreast down streets, entering bars and movie houses and assaulting any young Latino males they encountered. In one incident, sailors dragged two zoot suiters on-stage as a film was being screened, stripped them in front of the audience, and then urinated on their suits.[17] Although police accompanied the rioting servicemen, they had orders not to arrest any of them. After several days, more than 150 people had been injured and police had arrested more than 500 Latinos on charges ranging from "rioting" to "vagrancy".[5]

A witness to the attacks, journalist Carey McWilliams wrote,


"Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot suiter they could find. Pushing its way into the important motion picture theaters, the mob ordered the management to turn on the house lights and then ran up and down the aisles dragging Mexicans out of their seats. Streetcars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked from their seats, pushed into the streets and beaten with a sadistic frenzy."[24]

The local press lauded the attacks by the servicemen, describing the assaults as having a "cleansing effect" that were ridding Los Angeles of "miscreants" and "hoodlums".[25] As the riots progressed the media reported the arrest of Amelia Venegas, a female zoot suiter charged with carrying a brass knuckleduster. While the revelation of female pachucos' (pachucas) involvement in the riots led to frequent coverage of the activities of female pachuco gangs, the media suppressed any mention of the Anglo-American pachuco gangs that were also involved.[17]

The Los Angeles City Council approved a resolution criminalizing the wearing of "zoot suits with reat [sic] pleats within the city limits of LA" after Councilman Norris Nelson stated "The zoot suit has become a badge of hoodlumism". No ordinance was ever approved by the City Council or signed into law by the Mayor, although the council did encourage the War Production Board to take steps "to curb illegal production of men's clothing in violation of WPB limitation orders." While sailors and Marines had initially targeted only pachucos, African-Americans in zoot suits were also attacked in the Central Avenue corridor area. This escalation compelled the Navy and Marine Corps command staffs to intervene on June 7, confining sailors and Marines to barracks and declaring Los Angeles off limits to all military personnel with enforcement by U.S. Navy Shore Patrol personnel. Their official position remained that their men were acting in self defense.[5]

By the middle of June, the riots in Los Angeles were dying out but the riots spread throughout California and to cities in Texas and Arizona while incidents broke out in northern cities such as Detroit, New York City, and Philadelphia, where two members of Gene Krupa's dance band were beaten up for wearing the band's zoot suit stage costumes. A zoot suit riot at Cooley High School in Detroit, Michigan was initially dismissed as an "adolescent imitation" of the Los Angeles riots; however, within weeks, Detroit was in the midst of the worst race riot in its history.[17]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_F._Clark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Lopes

Spoiler :

The traffickers drove Lopes along a winding back dirt road leading away from the Vila Cruzeiro favela (which is situated in Penha) and into the Complexo do Alemão network of favelas,[4] a distance of about 5 kilometers[11] (3.1 miles) on windy roads through hilly terrain (this also being the same route used by groups of fleeing criminals brandishing assault rifles when military police units and the Brazilian military invaded Vila Cruzeiro during the 2010 Rio de Janeiro Security Crisis).[25] Upon arriving at the Favela da Grota, (which was the headquarters of the criminal faction who controlled the Complexo) Tim Lopes was met by Elias Maluco. Once they pulled Lopes out of the car trunk he was recognized by one of the traffickers, Cláudio Orlando do Nascimento, known by the nickname Ratinho "little rat". (Lopes had filmed Ratinho on the street in the Grota the previous year while Ratinho was cleaning an automatic rifle; which was aired as part of the "Feirão das Drogas" report that got so much attention). Also present were other traffickers named Xuxa and Zeu.[11]

Elias Maluco and other traffickers then transported Tim Lopes to a nearby hill within the Complexo called Pedra do Sapo (rock of the toad). The sides of the hill are densely packed with the type of brick shacks typical of favelas, but the geography at the top of the hill features a desolate, grassy plateau with scattered small trees, and a rudimentary soccer field.

The traffickers tied Lopes to a tree.[4] Because this area had been essentially abandoned by Rio's government for several years, and was considered outside the control of law enforcement, as well as the protections of the legal justice system, (a paradigm termed poder paralelo, parallel power), the traffickers leveraged this reality to conduct a tribunal, acting as judge and jury with Elias Maluco as arbiter. The traffickers knew that the impunity of the present moment would only add to Tim Lopes' terror. Ratinho was convinced that this was the same "Tim Lopes" that did the television report in 2001, resulting in his arrest and interference with the gang's drug profits. For this he insisted that Lopes had to die.[11] Lopes pleaded for his life, but he was told that he would die.[23] One of the traffickers who was present, Frei, later told detectives that there were more than twenty people present at the scene,[26] nine of whom participated in Lopes' murder.[11]

They proceeded to burn Lopes' eyes with a cigarette.[23] In a "macabre ritual" of violence,[11] using a samurai or a ninja type sword, Elias Maluco proceeded to cut off Tim Lopes' hands, arms, and legs while Lopes was still alive.[23][27][28] The other traffickers such as André Capeta and Ratinho also participated in the torture. Police were later told that there was blood on several of the traffickers that were gathered around. Lopes was placed within several tires, covered in diesel gasoline, and set on fire. This process, which had become institutionalized among traffickers within Rio's most violent favelas at the time, was referred to as micro-ondas[11][23][24][29][30] (microwave oven[3]).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(AD_70)

Spoiler :

Destruction of Jerusalem[edit]

"Destruction of Jerusalem" redirects here. For the destruction under Nebuchadnezzar, see Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC).

The account of Josephus described Titus as moderate in his approach and, after conferring with others, ordering that the 500-year-old Temple be spared. (Solomon's Temple dated to the 10th century BC, though the physical structure was Herod's Temple, about 90 years old at the time.) According to Josephus, the Roman soldiers grew furious with Jewish attacks and tactics and, against Titus' orders, set fire to an apartment adjacent to the Temple, which soon spread all throughout. However, Josephus may have written this in order to appease his coreligionists.

Josephus had acted as a mediator for the Romans and, when negotiations failed, witnessed the siege and aftermath. He wrote:

Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done), [Titus] Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as they were of the greatest eminence; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison [in the Upper City], as were the towers [the three forts] also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall [surrounding Jerusalem], it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind.[2]
And truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judaea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change. For the war had laid all signs of beauty quite waste. Nor had anyone who had known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again. But though he [a foreigner] were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it.[3]

Josephus claims that 1.1 million people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish, and that 97,000 were captured and enslaved, including Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala.[4]


"The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests, those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the work of extermination."[5]

Many fled to areas around the Mediterranean. Titus reportedly refused to accept a wreath of victory, saying that the victory did not come through his own efforts but that he had merely served as an instrument of God's wrath.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:P...fPresidentWilsonCampShermanOH1918-commons.jpg (WTH???)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

Spoiler :

Accident[edit]

As a researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, Bugorski worked with the largest Soviet particle accelerator, the U-70 synchrotron.[2] On 13 July 1978, Bugorski was checking a malfunctioning piece of equipment when the safety mechanisms failed. Bugorski was leaning over the equipment when he stuck his head in the path of the proton beam. Reportedly, he saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns," but did not feel any pain.[1]

Aftermath[edit]

The left half of Bugorski's face swelled up beyond recognition, and over the next several days, started peeling off, revealing the path that the proton beam (moving near the speed of light) had burned through parts of his face, his bone, and the brain tissue underneath. As it was believed that he had received far in excess of a fatal dose of radiation, Bugorski was taken to a clinic in Moscow where the doctors could observe his expected demise. However, Bugorski survived and even completed his Ph.D. There was virtually no damage to his intellectual capacity, but the fatigue of mental work increased markedly.[2] Bugorski completely lost hearing in the left ear and only a constant, unpleasant internal noise remained. The left half of his face was paralyzed, due to the destruction of nerves.[1] He was able to function well, except for the fact that he had occasional complex partial seizures and rare tonic-clonic seizures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle (It will travel the observable universe in 32 days from its perspective due to time dilation, but forces will act to slow it down sadly )

Spoiler :

The Oh-My-God particle was an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (most likely a proton) detected on the evening of 15 October 1991 over Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, by the University of Utah's Fly's Eye Cosmic Ray Detector. Its observation was a shock to astrophysicists (hence the name), who estimated its energy to be approximately 3×1020 eV (3×108 TeV, about 20 million times more energetic than the highest energy measured in radiation emitted by an extragalactic object);[1] in other words, a subatomic particle with kinetic energy equal to that of 48 Joules, or a 5-ounce (142 g) baseball traveling at about 93.6 kilometers per hour (60 mph).[2]

The particle was traveling very close to the speed of light[3] &#8212; assuming the particle was a proton, its speed was only about 1.5 femtometers (quadrillionths of a meter) per second less than the speed of light, translating to a speed of approximately 0.999&#8201;999&#8201;999&#8201;999&#8201;999&#8201;999&#8201;999&#8201;9951c. At that speed, in a year-long race between a photon and the particle, the particle would fall behind only 46 nanometers, or 0.15 femtoseconds (1.5×10&#8722;16 s); or one centimeter every 220,000 years.[4]

The speed of the particle, if it was a proton, is so high that it would experience relativistic time dilation by a factor of about 320 billion. At that rate, the particle could have traveled for the entire duration of the universe's existence while experiencing less than sixteen days subjective time.

The energy of this particle is some 40 million times that of the highest energy protons that have been produced in any terrestrial particle accelerator...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaizers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawks_Nest_Tunnel_disaster

Spoiler :

During the construction of the tunnel, workers found the mineral silica and were asked to mine it for use in electroprocessing steel. The workers were not given any masks or breathing equipment to use while mining, although management wore such equipment during inspection visits. As a result of the exposure to silica dust, many workers developed silicosis, a debilitating lung disease. A large number of the workers eventually died from silicosis, in some cases as quickly as within a year.

There are no definitive statistics as to the death toll from the Hawks Nest disaster. According to a historical marker on site, there were 109 admitted deaths. A Congressional hearing placed the death toll at 476.[2] Other sources range from 700 to over 1,000 deaths amongst the 3,000 workers.[3] Many of the workers at the site were African-Americans from the southern United States who returned home or left the region after becoming sick, making it difficult to calculate an accurate total.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

Spoiler :

The Halifax Explosion occurred in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, on the morning of 6 December 1917. SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship fully loaded with wartime explosives, was involved in a collision with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in the Narrows, a strait connecting the upper Halifax Harbour to Bedford Basin. Approximately twenty minutes later, a fire on board the French ship ignited her explosive cargo, causing a cataclysmic explosion that devastated the Richmond District of Halifax. Approximately 2,000 people were killed by debris, fires, and collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 others were injured.[1]

Mont-Blanc was under orders from the French government to carry her highly explosive cargo overseas to Bordeaux, France. At roughly 8:45 am, she collided at slow speed, approximately one knot (1 to 1.5 miles per hour or 1.6 to 2.4 kilometres per hour), with the 'in-ballast' (without cargo) Imo, chartered by the Commission for Relief in Belgium to pick up a cargo of relief supplies in New York. The resultant fire aboard the French ship quickly grew out of control. Approximately 20 minutes later (at 9:04:35 am), Mont-Blanc exploded with tremendous force. The blast was the largest man-made explosion prior to the development of nuclear weapons,[2] with an equivalent energy release of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT.[3]

Nearly all structures within a half-mile (800 m) radius, including the entire community of Richmond, were obliterated. A pressure wave of air snapped trees, bent iron rails, demolished buildings, grounded vessels, and carried fragments of the Mont-Blanc for kilometres. Hardly a window in the city proper survived the concussion. Across the harbour, in Dartmouth, there was also widespread damage.[1] A tsunami created by the blast wiped out the community of Mi'kmaq First Nations people that had lived in the Tuft's Cove area for generations.

Relief efforts began almost immediately after the explosion, and hospitals quickly became full. Rescue trains began arriving from throughout eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, but were impeded by a blizzard. Construction of temporary shelters also began soon after the disaster to house the many people left homeless. The modernized North End now includes several memorials to the Halifax Explosion. The initial judicial inquiry found the Mont-Blanc to be at fault for the disaster, but a later appeal determined that both vessels were to blame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Gardner_(Wiccan) This guy's picture!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claque

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe_murder_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_James_A._Garfield

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Notre_Dame_vs._Michigan_State_football_game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_millennium_BC


There, that should keep y'all busy for a bit

 

[madviking]

Action Park

this is quite possibly the most hilarious wiki article of them all

 

[Kaitzilla]

Action Park

this is quite possibly the most hilarious wiki article of them all

Now that's an Action Park!!!

The long section detailing all the deaths and injuries never repeats itself describing all the rides.