Today I learned...

Louanne Learning said:
Today I learned that people in the Seattle region better watch out:

Approximately 14 million bees escaped after a tractor-trailer carrying more than 70,000 pounds of pollinator hives rolled over Friday in northern Washington state, authorities said.
www.cbsnews.com

14 million bees escape after truck overturns in Washington state

The commercial truck hauling about 14 million honeybees overturned around 4 a.m. in Whatcom County, Washington, which borders Canada's British Columbia.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com
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If they're ordinary honeybees, it might be a benefit to the region. That is, if the beekeepers who have come to the rescue can't get them rounded up and returned to their hives.
 
Very true, but "Knave" means "a dishonest or deceitful man", not the sort to mix with kings and queens. (Originally, though, "knave" meant "boy or young man", so I guess the name "Jacks" makes more sense, as a generic name for young men - Jack, John, James and so on).

But "jacks" replacing "knaves" makes sense: "Knave" and "King" could be easily confused, as they both start with a K.
 
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Today I listened to the "You're Dead to Me" podcast on the BBC, which (most of the time) blends history and entertainment, and focuses on famous people or movements.

But the podcast today focused on the life of Frederick Douglass (who is obviously very famous in the USA, but perhaps not so much in the UK or Australia, where I am).

I'd heard about and read about this man before, but it's the first time I heard the full story. I'm seriously in awe. (I previously listened to a podcast about Harriet Tubman, and am equally in awe). Part-inspired, part-tearful. He didn't do it all by himself, of course, but even with the help of others, he achieved so much.

So much done, so much still to do.
 
I learned that James Garfield, who would go on to become the 20th president of the USA, nearly died as teenager, but was saved by what could be called a miracle.

Excerpt from Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic:

As he stood alone at the bow one night, struggling with a coiled rope, he lost his balance and, before he could right himself, fell into the canal. He had fallen in before, more than a dozen times, but each time it had been daylight, and there had been men on deck to pull him out.

Now it was midnight, and Garfield was certain that he would drown. He cried out for help although he knew it was useless. Everyone on the boat was fast asleep. As he searched frantically and blindly for something to save his life, his hands suddenly struck the rope that had been the cause of his fall. Gripping it tightly, he found that, with a "great struggle," he could use it to slowly pull himself up until, finally, he fell heavily onto the boat.

As he sat, dripping and scared, on the deck of the canal boat, Garfield wondered why he was still alive. The rope was not secured to anything on the boat. When he had pulled on it, it should have fallen off the deck, slipping to the bottom of the canal and leaving him to drown. "Carefully examining it, I found that just where it came over the edge of the boat it had been drawn into a crack and there knotted itself," he would later write. "I sat down in the cold of the night and in my wet clothes and contemplated the matter. . . . I did it believe that God had paid any attention to me on my own account but I thought He had saved me for my mother and for something greater than canaling."
 
Rath Darkblade said:
Today I learned that the most expensive piano in the world is the one from "Casablanca", famous for the phrase "Play it, Sam". (No, not "Play it again"). It sold for $3.4 million at a Bonhams auction in 2014.

No-one knows if it's still tuned. :)
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Interesting. Kurt Cobain's Martin from the Unplugged is the most expensive guitar at a bit over $6 million. There are a others, too, that have sold for more than the Casablanca piano, but I guess that makes sense with guitars being easy to carry/display and a piano essentially being a massive piece of furniture. It's a bigger commitment, but I suppose if you can afford a few million for a piano you can probably afford the space it would need too. And the fanboy nature of rock and roll and guitar heroes that isn't necessarily as passionate in the piano world.
 
Homer Potvin said:
And the fanboy nature of rock and roll and guitar heroes that isn't necessarily as passionate in the piano world.
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I'd further suggest that piano players are likely to use the house equipment rather than rock in with their own, which makes it less identifiable with any particular artist.
 
Rigor Mortis said:
I'd further suggest that piano players are likely to use the house equipment rather than rock in with their own, which makes it less identifiable with any particular artist.
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Great point. I bet you that, say, the piano Billy Joel recorded Piano Man on was a run of the mill instrument in a studio in Jersey somewhere. I think one of Elton John's pianos sold for around a million. And it looks like a Chopin can go for about a million and a half.

There's a 1957 Les Paul Custom at a local job here for $90K. Most expensive instrument I've ever seen on a shelf before. Of course, it's been at local shop for like a decade now. This is the actual model from their website:

1749402069701.png
 
In Georgian England, they hanged gypsies for 'impersonating an Egyptian'. You could also be hanged for 'stealing an heiress' - apparently meaning convincing a wealthier woman to marry your broke arse against her family's wishes.
 
Yes, Homer, people did fuck in those days. Delightful times, when the prisons were owned and run by the Duke of Leeds, etc. Men, women and children all put together. If the rape didn't kill you, the typhus would. They'd put spiked collars on you and charged a fee for 'easement of irons'. What's the worst that could happen? But it turns out, from what I'm reading, visitors from continental europe thought English common law shit soft. Italy, Germany, France etc used canon law of ye church, which allowed torture to get confessions, no presumption of innocence, all those good things. Since I'm still sick and it's raining anyway, you're all stuck with me today, and I will regale ye all with me choice bits as they come to light.
 
DLC said:
Yes, Homer, people did fuck in those days. Delightful times, when the prisons were owned and run by the Duke of Leeds, etc. Men, women and children all put together. If the rape didn't kill you, the typhus would. They'd put spiked collars on you and charged a fee for 'easement of irons'. What's the worst that could happen? But it turns out, from what I'm reading, visitors from continental europe thought English common law shit soft. Italy, Germany, France etc used canon law of ye church, which allowed torture to get confessions, no presumption of innocence, all those good things. Since I'm still sick and it's raining anyway, you're all stuck with me today, and I will regale ye all with me choice bits as they come to light.
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You sound like you need a beer.
 
Public hangings were quite the event back in the day. Usually ended with brawls between the surgeon's college corpse takers and friends of the dearly departed. This was Tyburn.

When brickmakers came out to defend the bodies of two felons with several years’ good standing in the trade against the surgeons, when bargemen came down from Reading to guard one of their own at a hanging, when the hackney coachmen rallied to keep the body of a fellow coachman “from being carried off with Violence,” or when the small cottagers and market people of Shoreditch surrounded the tumbril of Thomas Pinks their neighbour in the village, “declaring that they had no other Intention, but to take care of the Body for Christian burial,” the evidence … shows the depth of the mutuality of the poor, their solidarity in the face of personal disaster.
 
DLC said:
I will not allow alcohol to taint the sacred temple of my body because it's a Monday.
Whoohoo, I found the thing that started the import of undesirables to far off lands, starting with Virginia, and ending with Australia.

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Blimey. What a thing for me to have to read (and, apparently, understand) at 9:48 in the morning, and with only one cup of tea in me. (Yes, I read the first three paragraphs ... and understood them, in spite of "ye olde spellynge").

Queen Lizzy and her paranoia. "Anyone wandering about and refusing to work for just wages". I suppose she was paranoid about spies and such-like, but I prefer to think she didn't like to see people not working ... because if you're not working, you can't pay taxes. And then you get put in jail until such time as you can pay taxes. Because, obviously, going to jail means you suddenly become very rich.

Snark aside, debtors' prison never made any sense to me.

DLC said:
In Georgian England, they hanged gypsies for 'impersonating an Egyptian'. You could also be hanged for 'stealing an heiress' - apparently meaning convincing a wealthier woman to marry your broke arse against her family's wishes.
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True. Then again, in Georgian (and early Victorian) England, you could be hanged for over 100 offenses, included (but not limited to):

1. Being an unmarried mother and concealing a stillborn child. (Being unmarried, she was considered to have killed the child. Because if she was married, she would've been too virtuous to do such a thing, I suppose?)
2. Pickpocketing goods worth a shilling (equivalent to £30 in today’s money).
3. Penning a threatening letter.
4. Stealing from a shipwreck. (Only owners of wrecked ships could do that!)
5. Being a soldier or sailor ... and begging without a license. (Also known as "Impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner").
6. Strong “evidence of malice” in children between 7 and 14. (Determining if a child criminal matched this vague definition, and thus making that child eligible for the death penalty, was often left to the discretion of judges and juries).
7. Destroying turnpike roads.
8. Arson.
9. Stealing rabbits from a rabbit warren.
10. Vandalizing a fishpond.

By 1861, the death penalty was abolished except for five offenses: murder, high treason, espionage, piracy with violence, and arson in royal dockyards. (Public executions were eliminated in 1868).

In 1969, capital punishment for murder was abolished. In 1999, it was eliminated for treason and piracy with violence.

But I guess that espionage ... and setting fire in a dockyard ... would still get you executed? ;)
 
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You got it. The population doubled in a few short years due to industrialisation, starting with Jethro Tull's invention of the seed drill. Probably before. Anyhow, 70% of people still lived in the countryside, and all of a sudden there's unemployment. So they end up with a scattergun system of being able to hang whoever they liked, within reason. But they didn't always! Sez here : over 69% were actually executed in 1758. It steadily drops until 1808 where it's around only 14%. Why is it thus? You could petition the king (George III) who would grant clemency with a note from your parson etc. Beauty here is it made it look that your king cares about you, and was merciful. Cunning. Those are the bits I'm interested in. The actual why's and so on.
 
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