Today I learned...

Today I learned that the birds we call canaries were named for the islands, not the other way around.

The Canary Islands were actually named by the ancient Romans, who saw large seals there and mistook them for dogs.

They named the islands “Canariae Insulae" which means “Islands of the Dogs.”
 
Today, I learned the person who invented shopping carts realized shoppers would usually stop shopping when their baskets/bags were full, so he wanted to make it more convenient for them to buy more. I also learned that shoppers didn't like the carts at first, so he had to hire people to walk around with the carts in the store and mimic shopping to guide the customers to try it.
 
So here’s something interesting I found out when I randomly explored Wikipedia and landed on 'Great Expectations'.

1842 - Charles Dickens goes to America. At some point, he meets Laura Bridgeman, a deafblind woman living in Perkins (the institute/boarding school for the blind.) He writes about how inspiring she is in his journal about his travels to America. Bam, she becomes an insta-world celebrity.

1886 - Kate Keller (Helen’s mom) reads about this, writes to Perkins and in comes Anne Sullivan.

1888 - Helen and Anne Sullivan go to the Perkins Institute. From what I can see, Helen and Laura did have a brief encounter where, according to an article I found on American Academy of Ophthalmology (https://www.aao.org/lifetime-engage...-shines-upon-me-how-helen-keller-became-poste) where apparently it was kinda awkward.

"The meeting was awkward. Laura was 59 and quite set in her ways. She was fastidious to the point of near phobia and refused to let children touch her needlework or her face. When eight-year-old Helen tried to sit on the floor beside the older woman, Laura chastised her for mussing up her clean clothes. And then, as the two were parting and Helen was attempting to kiss Laura goodbye, she stepped on the frail woman’s toes."

Later, Keller, wrote in 1929 about Laura Bridgman, “she would have outshone me had she had a lifelong companion like Annie Sullivan."

So, in some way, it’s kinda thanks to Charles Dickens we even know about Helen at all.

EDIT:

And apparently Samuel Gradey Howe, the director of the Perkins Institute who helped educate Laura... was married to Julia Ward Howe, who wrote 'Battle Hymn of the Republic'.

AND SAMUEL GRADEY FOUGHT IN THE GREEK WAR OF INDEPENDENCE!?

"Howe did not remain in Massachusetts for long after graduating. In 1824, shortly after Howe was certified to practice medicine, he became fired by enthusiasm for the Greek Revolution and the example of his idol, Lord Byron. Howe fled the memory of an unhappy love affair and sailed for Greece, where he joined the Greek army as a surgeon.[5][9]"

en.wikipedia.org

Samuel Gridley Howe - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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Link the Writer said:
Victorians. They never did anything half-measured, or sane.
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True. If you want an example of a Victorian who never did anything half-measured or sane, just look at Major-General Charles Stanley Gordon. (In brief, Gordon was a British Army officer, was sent to Sudan with orders to evacuate garrisons, but instead he chose to defend the city of Khartoum, leading to a famous and ultimately fatal siege against the Mahdist forces in 1885).

It's worth mentioning that General H. H. Kitchener (he of the famous moustache and even more famous finger) ultimately defeated the Mahdi's forces at Omdurman in 1898, a battle so lopsided (in terms of casualties) that it might be better termed as an execution. A young Winston Churchill was there to witness it. From "Churchill: Master and Commander" (by Anthony Tucker Jones):

Kitchener soon discovered that his exposed mounted forces on his far-right flank were under pressure. He observed, ‘By 6.30 am the Egyptian Cavalry, which had been driven in, took up a position with the Horse Artillery, Camel Corps, and four Maxims on the Kerreri ridge’. Before the Anglo-Egyptian zareba the enemy were greeted by rifles, machine guns, artillery and howitzers. It was killing on an industrial scale and the Dervishes did not stand a chance. Kitchener’s British, Egyptian and Sudanese infantry opened fire with section volleys at 2,000 yards and stopped the Dervishes at 500 yards. The fire was such that the riflemen became deafened by the din and almost blinded by the resulting smoke billowing over their ranks. ‘Rifles grew red-hot; the soldiers seized them by the slings and dragged them back to the reserve to change for cool ones,’ adds Steevens. ‘It was not a battle, but an execution.’ Churchill’s ears may have detected the different rates of fire by the infantry. The British were equipped with the bolt-action magazine-fed Lee-Metford rifle, while the Egyptians and Sudanese were armed with the much older single-shot breechloading Martini-Henry rifle. The latter was a weapon he had handled as a school boy at Harrow. Lacking a magazine, the Martini had a much slower rate of fire. The Dervishes with their ancient rifles and homemade ammunition, supported by their swordsmen and spearmen, struggled to respond to the storm of searing metal. Further slaughter became a pointless task. ‘Cease fire please!’ Kitchener ordered one British regiment. ‘Cease fire! What a dreadful waste of ammunition!’
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To add to the horror, the British were using expanding bullets (also known as dum-dum bullets), which are designed to expand on impact. This causes the bullet to increase in diameter, produce a larger wound, and dealing more damage to a living target. What this does to a human being can only be imagined. The final casualty figures tell the tale: British casualties were 47-48 killed and 382 injured, but the Mahdists suffered 12,000 killed and 13,000 injured.

A final curious point: dum-dum bullets are banned in war, but can still be used for hunting and by police departments.
 
Rigor Mortis said:
What police department allows use of dum-dum bullets?
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To be honest, I don't know. I was simply quoting the wikipedia article about them, which in turn was quoting a 2012 paper from the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute in Newtown, CT.

But I was curious, and asked google: Can police departments use dumdum bullets?

The results were ... strange. Google and its AI friends seem to think the answer is "yes", but the links that point to this are dubious (e.g. Quora, Reddit, Guardian, London Evening Standard). *shrug*

Perhaps the police did use these back in 2012, but not any more. Or, perhaps they still do. (And, yes: different police departments, different rules). *shrug* Sorry, I can't say for sure.
 
Yeah, I read the same article in wiki after posting. Seems hard to believe, but then I was thinking maybe very specific circumstances like snipers covering a hostage situation where prompt lethality is a priority to protect civilian hostages. Our police force is unarmed apart from detective level and specialist firearms units.
 
CatrionaGrace said:
And therein lies the reason why consulting Wikipedia for reliable information is a problem.
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Rigor Mortis said:
Sorry, I thought you'd a specific point on the topic. Yeah, skepticism with wiki and any other source is advisable and increasingly so with the application of AI.
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I'd gotten into a "discussion" with someone either on the old WF or on the .com counterpart. I used a wikipedia article as a source in trying to make my point.
the other person said the article was useless and didnt make my point. So i went back to the page and THE INFO THAT I'D CITED WAS NO LONGER THERE. I was miffed. i ended up going to the History page that talked about the edits to the article and what was added and deleted and when it'd been updated.
the article had been updated moments before the person had replied to me to specifically edit OUT the content i was using in my argument.

could have been a coincidence.... but the irrational and intensified combative part of me believed this person somehow made a wikipedia account to delete the evidence that would make my point valid 😤

anyways, all this to say.... any rando can just edit a wikipedia page or even make one.
I only use the info after looking at the references at the bottom of the page to see where the info comes from
 
Hmm. Would the Encyclopedia Britannica be a better online source, then?

Also, is wikipedia a valid source when you're looking up non-controversial subjects (e.g. a historical event from over 100 years ago, etc.)? Or, for instance, the process of pasteurization? :)

I mean, maybe it's just me, but I fail to see why anyone would have a problem with (say) the fact that milk is pasteurized, or the Tea Pot Dome Scandal.
 
Non-controversial subjects featured on wiki are just as likely to contain misinformation as controversial ones when they are addressed by people who haven't done their research. If someone wrote that the Teapot Dome Scandal took place in Sweetwater County, Wyoming during Harding's administration would you really just accept that bit of misinformation because surely no one would have any reason to get the location wrong? If I wrote that the spout of Teapot Dome was blown off during a rare high altitude tornado in 1978, would you believe that because you read it on the internet?

It's one thing to begin a research project by checking out documents mentioned in the footnotes, but treating Wiki like a primary source? Nope.
 
CatrionaGrace said:
Non-controversial subjects featured on wiki are just as likely to contain misinformation as controversial ones when they are addressed by people who haven't done their research. If someone wrote that the Teapot Dome Scandal took place in Sweetwater County, Wyoming during Harding's administration would you really just accept that bit of misinformation because surely no one would have any reason to get the location wrong? If I wrote that the spout of Teapot Dome was blown off during a rare high altitude tornado in 1978, would you believe that because you read it on the internet?

It's one thing to begin a research project by checking out documents mentioned in the footnotes, but treating Wiki like a primary source? Nope.
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Agreed, which is why I don't treat Wiki as a primary source, but merely a starting point from which to find more information (e.g. from the footnotes).

I don't know enough about the Teapot Dome Scandal to comment on where it took place, but I know it was a major corruption scandal in the mid-1920s, so I'd imagine it took place in Washington? Please correct me if I'm wrong. :)
 
Rath Darkblade said:
I don't know enough about the Teapot Dome Scandal to comment on where it took place, but I know it was a major corruption scandal in the mid-1920s, so I'd imagine it took place in Washington? Please correct me if I'm wrong. :)
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It was a corruption scandal, all right, but Teapot Dome Oilfield itself is in Natrona County, WY, about 25 or 30 miles north of where I'm sitting right now. Teapot Rock is a little closer, and looks nothing like a teapot anymore. THIS appears to be a well-researched article, if you're really interested.
 
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