Today I Learned #3: There's a wiki for everything!

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We can only assume counts Serego Alighieri have a complete family tree.

Plus we can all relate: finding the right partner... can be hell! :D

EDIT: here's one of them discussing what it's like to be the descendant of Dante.
 
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Well, if that linked estate was bought 30 years after Dante's death by his son, I imagine that his son lived longer than he did.
 
Well, if that linked estate was bought 30 years after Dante's death by his son, I imagine that his son lived longer than he did.

It was customary for male Florentines of Dante's social status (that is, wealthy) not to marry at a very young age. Plus, his wedding was arranged, and tradition says it was not a happy one (it appears she didn't follow him in exile).

Anyway, let's check this trail, as long as I can.
The son in question, Pietro, was born when Pop was... drumroll... 35! Bullseye!
Pietro's male heir was another Dante, and he had it when... 49!
Dante the younger in turn was succeeded by Leonardo, this when he was... 46!
Leo proved the family champion when it came to generating a boy, fathering another Pietro at the age of 30. (Note: I'm not sure what to make of the fact that naming babies back then was as simple as recycling their grandpa's is sweet or simply the easy way out)
Pietro II did really try to improve the average. But it took five daughters to be born before the arrival of... wait for it... Dante the Third. He was 37. (another side note: as I'm following the family tree, I have to say the Alighieris appear to have had a rampant tendency to produce female heirs).
Dante III, aged 34, could not think of anything better to do than adding to the world another Pietro.
And here the curtains close: Pietro could not come up with a male heir. When he was 38 he became the father of Ginevra, who married in the Sarago family who in turn changed their name to the current form. It was 1549.
 
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Moderator Action: The extended Star Trek discussion has been moved to its own thread.
 
^Clearly I'm an Alighiero.
 
TIL that there is a site that publishes deleted tweets from politicians. It is not half as interesting as I thought it would be, who knew that most people delete tweets 'cos they are boring rather than controversial.
 
Til about the athenian law regarding punishment of sleeping with another man's wife, in the time of Lysias (around the time of the Peloponnesian war, 5th century BC).

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Should be noted that in the case a man would discover the "seducer" in the act, he had by law the right to either kill him or demand monetary compensation. The defendant in this case chose to kill the seducer (some Eratosthenes, from the demos of Oea), and now has to prove that he did this in a non-premeditated way (actually, though, he sort of did premeditate it, knew of the affair days ago, supposedly wanted to make sure, and mostly argues that the law still gives him that right etc etc)
The defendant's speech was written by the famous orator Lysias, and delivered by the defendant (as was customary). The main argument is that he wouldn't have actually killed the seducer, if it didn't happen (due to the seducer's own decision) to catch him in the act that night. It is interesting that he went to great pains (certainly this isn't by chance; Lysias was an expert orator) to allude (without explicitly saying it) that the defendant was a rather feeble and weak person, so he gathered a lot of others to help him when he would catch the seducer, and only managed to kill him because the other person was unarmed.
I think we don't know what the judges ruled (as happens in most of the court cases we have speeches from).

PS: I much prefer the Cyrenean Eratosthenes.
 
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Easter is named after the goddess Ēostre, and we associate bunnies with easter because hares were sacred to her.

Ostara_by_Johannes_Gehrts.jpg
 
Easter is named after the goddess Ēostre, and we associate bunnies with easter because hares were sacred to her.

Ostara_by_Johannes_Gehrts.jpg

The first article doesn't link hares to Eostre at all, and the wiki article makes it clear that's a very debated claim, which is consistent with what I've read eslewhere, so I would take the second part of what you learned today with a pinch of salt.
 
Yeah, the festival itself definitely derives from Passover, but the name in some germanic languages (including English) probably derives from that of a pagan godess, whether directly or through a more indirect route via the naming of a month or other period of time.
 
The first article doesn't link hares to Eostre at all, and the wiki article makes it clear that's a very debated claim, which is consistent with what I've read eslewhere, so I would take the second part of what you learned today with a pinch of salt.
Yeah, but does anybody know where "take it with a pinch of salt" comes from? You never know, we could have that all wrong, too. :run:
 
Wiki sez maybe some Roman but dunno.
Wikipedia said:
An alternative account says that the Roman general Pompey believed that he could make himself immune to poison by ingesting small amounts of various poisons, and he took this treatment with a grain of salt to help him swallow the poison. In this version, the salt is not the antidote. It was taken merely to assist in swallowing the poison.
Aha. So the phrase "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down" is all wrong, too. It's supposed to be salt! Ew.
 
TIL: you can get private video messages from famous and not so famous people.

https://www.cameo.com
I glanced at the first couple pages of actors, and I'm amazed at how few of them I recognize. Also, Tom Felton is worth more than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? The world has gone insane.
 
I glanced at the first couple pages of actors, and I'm amazed at how few of them I recognize. Also, Tom Felton is worth more than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? The world has gone insane.
You can sort by category and price. I also was surprised by how few I recognized.

Peter Noone is only $50 though!
 
I am trying to figure it out if you own the IP? Could you make an NFT out of it?
 
Buy one and try it?
 
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