interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles

[Shostakovich]

I like reading shit. this guy is cool

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

In the 1920s, Fuller experimented with polyphasic sleep, which he called Dymaxion sleep. Inspired by the sleep habits of animals such as dogs and cats,[74]:133 Fuller worked until he was tired, and then slept short naps. This generally resulted in Fuller sleeping 30-minute naps every 6 hours.[69]:160 This allowed him "twenty-two thinking hours a day", which aided his work productivity.[69]:160 Fuller reportedly kept this Dymaxion sleep habit for two years, before quitting the routine because it conflicted with his business associates' sleep habits.[75] Despite no longer personally partaking in the habit, in 1943 Fuller suggested Dymaxion sleep as a strategy that the United States could adopt to win World War II.[75]

[Great Rumbler]

The Urantia Book (sometimes called The Urantia Papers or The Fifth Epochal Revelation) is a spiritual and philosophical book that originated in Chicago sometime between 1924 and 1955. The authorship remains a matter of speculation and it has received criticism from both the scientific and religious communities as being inaccurate.

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_(Fomenko)

The New Chronology is a pseudohistorical theory which argues that the conventional chronology of Middle Eastern and European history is fundamentally flawed, and that events attributed to the civilizations of the Roman Empire, Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt actually occurred during the Middle Ages, more than a thousand years later.

...

According to Fomenko's claims, the written history of humankind goes only as far back as AD 800, there is almost no information about events between AD 800–1000, and most known historical events took place in AD 1000–1500.

according to Fomenko the word "Rome" is a placeholder and can signify any one of several different cities and kingdoms. He claims the "First Rome" or "Ancient Rome" or "Mizraim" is an ancient Egyptian kingdom in the delta of the Nile with its capital in Alexandria. The second and most famous "New Rome" is Constantinople. The third "Rome" is constituted by three different cities: Constantinople (again), Rome in Italy, and Moscow. According to his claims, Rome in Italy was founded around AD 1380 by Aeneas and Moscow as the third Rome was the capital of the great "Russian Horde"

[jakefromstatefarm]

Billington writes that the theory "might have quietly blown away in the wind tunnels of academia" if not for Kasparov's writing in support of it in the magazine Ogoniok.

man. what’s with chess masters and being a complete crank?

[Great Rumbler]

In 2004 at the Moscow International Book Fair, Anatoly Fomenko with his coauthor Gleb Nosovsky were awarded for their books on "New Chronology" the anti-prize called "Abzatz" (literally 'paragraph', a Russian slang word meaning 'disaster' or 'fiasco') in the category "Pochotnaya bezgramota" (the term is a pun upon "Pochotnaya gramota" (Certificate of Honor) and may be translated either "Certificate of Dishonor" or literally, "Respectable Illiteracy" ) for the worst book published in Russia.

 

[benjipwns]

There is just an awesome bunch of garbage that has come out of the social sciences in Russian academia in the post-Soviet period. History especially is full of it, I assume because for 80 years or so it was so controlled and set down by the state that basically you didn't have to learn actual historiographical practices just repeating the "Marxist-Leninist" truth as laid down by higher ups and you'd advance to prestigious positions.

Then when the Soviet system collapsed (and it lingered a bit longer in social science academia out of inertia), it freed them all up to publish their TRUE LIFE'S WORK finally. Like you can see on the Wiki page, The New Chronology is like this box set of giant 800 page historical tomes full of charts and diagrams and maps, not some single 300 page crank book or wild revisionist theory like would be more standard in the West. And it's taken seriously by all kinds of "certified" people in high positions, they get great reviews, etc. We obviously have own our issues in academia but the Eastern European social sciences can be seriously wild because in some ways they're like a century or more behind in figuring out methodology. A lot of their stuff looks more like what we were publishing in the late 19th century. Like the guy who wrote that geopolitics book in the late 90s (along with a bunch of other fantastic stuff) that popular media in the West discovered last year finally, and it got a bunch of play from the 100 part message Twitter people as PUTINS SECRET PLAN WITH TRUMP and whatever.

So it can be just totally awesome. Real problem is more getting it translated, because it's not really going to get translated for publication here, so you're relying on the true believers.

[benjipwns]

Actually now that I mention it, I hear there's in general a lot of good stuff like this available from all over Asia for a lot of the same reasons. I guess even someplace like India, which we usually consider to be more "ahead" of the others because of its Commonwealth ties, is actually not really any different in this regard. And as much as we make a big deal of soft vs. hard sciences for political hay, there is at least that check of "shit has to not break" that can let these nations have respectable academics in maths, physics, etc. while history is full of insane people. (In other words, it's exactly the same as here.)

I have to imagine North Korea potentially has the best stuff. Oh man...

[benjipwns]

Like the guy who wrote that geopolitics book in the late 90s (along with a bunch of other fantastic stuff) that popular media in the West discovered last year finally, and it got a bunch of play from the 100 part message Twitter people as PUTINS SECRET PLAN WITH TRUMP and whatever.

This guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Dugin

In June 2012, Dugin said in a lecture that chemistry and physics are demonic sciences, and that all Orthodox Russians need to unite around the President of the Russian Federation in the last battle between good and evil, following the example of Iran and North Korea.[72] He added, "If we want to liberate ourselves from the West, it is needed to liberate ourselves from textbooks on physics and chemistry."

In one of his publications, Dugin introduced the term the sixth column and defined it as "the fifth column which just pretends to be something different"

[benjipwns]

One of my favorite Wikipedia things. The list pages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sexually_active_popes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_be_Jesus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pirates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_con_artists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_unincorporated_territory_officials_convicted_of_federal_corruption_offenses

[Nintex]

Like the guy who wrote that geopolitics book in the late 90s (along with a bunch of other fantastic stuff) that popular media in the West discovered last year finally, and it got a bunch of play from the 100 part message Twitter people as PUTINS SECRET PLAN WITH TRUMP and whatever.

This guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Dugin

In June 2012, Dugin said in a lecture that chemistry and physics are demonic sciences, and that all Orthodox Russians need to unite around the President of the Russian Federation in the last battle between good and evil, following the example of Iran and North Korea.[72] He added, "If we want to liberate ourselves from the West, it is needed to liberate ourselves from textbooks on physics and chemistry."

In one of his publications, Dugin introduced the term the sixth column and defined it as "the fifth column which just pretends to be something different"

When things were heating up in Ukraine there was this Russian official (might've been the speaker of the Duma or whatever) who was interviewed and said that World War 3 was inevitable.
He rambled something about this being the 'age of technology' like the last age was the 'age of industry' and each age he said would end in a massive war.

Even I was shocked by how convinced he was of this theory. "It can't be helped, it is the natural order of things"

[Great Rumbler]

mods please change benji's name to "respectable illiteracy" pls thx

[Raist]

There is just an awesome bunch of garbage that has come out of the social sciences

Agreed.

[Joe Molotov]

One of my favorite Wikipedia things. The list pages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sexually_active_popes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_be_Jesus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pirates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_con_artists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_unincorporated_territory_officials_convicted_of_federal_corruption_offenses

Non-notable officials, such as sewer inspectors and zoning commissioners, are not included on this list

Sounds like it's time for someone to create...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_unincorporated_territory_sewer_inspectors_convicted_of_federal_corruption_offenses

 

[Mr Gilhaney]

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_and_ball_torture 

the humbler looks fun

[CatsCatsCats]

TIL Wikipedia is not shy about naughty bits

[Raist]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_and_ball_torture 

the humbler looks fun

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Miliband_bacon_sandwich_photograph

[Valkyrie]

Apologies if any of these have already been posted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_killer
I know he’s famous, but it’s still worth a read.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stories_set_in_a_future_now_past
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_notable_for_negative_reception

This one is probably one of the most eerie but interesting ones I’ve read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

[benjipwns]

triggered by post i quoted in garbage thread reminded me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutic_style#England

Æthelstan's court was the centre of a revival of the elaborate hermeneutic style of later Latin writers, influenced by the West Saxon scholar Aldhelm (c.639–709), and by early tenth-century French monasticism. Foreign scholars at Æthelstan's court such as Israel the Grammarian were practitioners. The style was characterised by long, convoluted sentences and a predilection for rare words and neologisms.

David Woodman gives a translation of the start of a charter drafted by "Æthelstan A", S 416 issued on 12 November 931:

The lamentable and loudly detestable sins of this tottering age, surrounded by the dire barkings of obscene and fearsome mortality, challenge and urge us, not carefree in a homeland where peace has been attained but, as it were, teetering over an abyss of fetid corruption, that we should flee those things not only by despising them together with their misfortunes with the whole effort of our mind but also by hating them just like the wearisome nausea of melancholy, striving towards that Gospel text, "Give and it will be given unto you"

In the late tenth century, Latin had higher prestige than Anglo-Saxon, and hermeneutic Latin had higher prestige than simple Latin. This presented Byrhtferth with a problem in his Enchiridion, a school text designed to teach the complicated rules for calculating the date of Easter, as hermeneutic Latin is unsuitable for pedagogic instruction. His solution was to include passages in hermeneutic Latin condemning the ignorant and lazy secular clergy, who he said refused to learn Latin, thus justifying using Anglo-Saxon to provide clear explanations for their benefit.[35] In a passage in Latin he wrote:

Some ignorant clerics reject calculations of this kind (for shame!) and do not wish to keep their phylacteries, that is, they do not preserve the order, which they have received in the bosom of mother church, nor do they persist in the holy teaching of meditation. They should consider carefully the way of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and they should spit out their doctrine like filth. A cleric ought to be the keeper of his own soul, just as a noble man subjects a young foal to the yoke, so he ought to subject his own soul to service, by filling the alabaster box with precious oil, that is, he ought to be inwardly subjected daily, by obeying the divine laws and admonitions of the Redeemer.

also my desperate need to determine if this is intentional or not:

The historian W. H. Stevenson commented in 1898:

The object of the compilers of these charters was to express their meaning by the use of the greatest possible number of words and by the choice of the most grandiloquent, bombastic words they could find. Every sentence is so overloaded by the heaping up of unnecessary words that the meaning is almost buried out of sight. The invocation with its appended clauses, opening with pompous and partly alliterative words, will proceed amongst a blaze of verbal fireworks throughout twenty lines of smallish type, and the pyrotechnic display will be maintained with equal magnificence throughout the whole charter, leaving the reader, dazzled by the glaze and blinded by the smoke, in a state of uncertainty as to the meaning of these frequently untranslatable and usually interminable sentences.

[EightBitNate]

When I was a pre-teen and hadn’t figured out porn yet I messaged the user that uploaded pics to the breast Wikipedia article, letting them know how nice I thought they were.

[Mandark]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_Gonna_Get_Your_Fucking_Head_Kicked_In

Really just for the title.

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_Copronymus

Constantine's avowed enemies over this bitterly contested religious issue, the iconodules, applied to him the derogatory epithet Kopronymos ("dung-named", from kopros, meaning "feces" or "animal dung", and onoma, "name"). Using this obscene name, they spread the rumour that as an infant he had defecated in his baptismal font, or on the imperial purple cloth with which he was swaddled.

[Joe Molotov]

that ain't it, chief

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_on_Hair_Powder_Act_1795

The Act stated that everyone wishing to use hair powder must, from 5 May 1795, visit a stamp office to enter their name and pay for an annual certificate costing one guinea. Certain exemptions were included: the Royal Family and their servants, clergymen with an income of under £100 a year, subalterns, non-commissioned officers, privates in the army, artillery, militia, mariners, engineers, fencibles, officers in the navy below commander, yeomanry, and volunteers. A father with more than two unmarried daughters might buy two certificates which would be valid for any number he stated at the stamp office. The master of a household might buy a certificate for a member of his servants which would also be valid for their successors within that year.

[benjipwns]

The two buildings that dominate the town were built after World War II. The 14-story Hodge Building (renamed Begich Towers) was completed in 1957 and contains 150 two- and three-bedroom apartments plus bachelor efficiency units. Dependent families and Civil Service employees were moved into this high-rise. The Whittier School was connected by a tunnel at the base of the west tower so students could safely access school on days with bad weather. The building was named in honor of Colonel Walter William Hodge, who was a civil engineer and the commanding officer of 93rd Engineer Regiment on the Alcan Highway.[10]

The other main structure in town, the Buckner Building, was completed in 1953, and was called the "city under one roof". The Buckner Building was eventually abandoned. Buckner and Begich Towers were at one time the largest buildings in Alaska. The Begich Building became a condominium, and along with the two-story private residence known as Whittier Manor, houses a majority of the town's residents

With most of the community and its services either inside of or connected to the building, residents are able to remain inside the building for long periods of time if the weather is inclement, or they simply do not want to leave.

After the military left, the ownership of the Buckner Building went through a handful of people.[10] At one point, it was owned by one Pete Zamarillo who wanted to turn it into the state prison. In 1972 it was purchased by the citizens of the new City of Whittier and soon fell into disrepair.[6][10] With the windows and doors missing, the elements began to take it over, water infiltrated, leaving the building in a constant state of freezing and thawing.[11] In 2016 the building went into foreclosure and the city assumed ownership. There is now a fence around the building to keep trespassers out.[10] The Whittier Department of Public Works and Public Utilities have done some work. The city would like to maintain it to preserve history but the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation recommends that the building be torn down.

awwww sweet, i have a thing for giant abandoned buildings:

[Joe Molotov]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittier,_Alaska

Whittier is a city at the head of the Passage Canal in the U.S. state of Alaska, about 58 miles southeast of Anchorage.[5] The city is within the Valdez–Cordova Census Area. At the 2010 census the population was 220, up from 182 in 2000. The 2016 estimate was 214 people, almost all of whom live in a single building.[6] Whittier is also a port for the Alaska Marine Highway.[7]

Is that building the Palin Compound?

[benjipwns]

In July 1974, state Bureau of Highways officials told the city that the tower's sign was illegal because it advertised something which didn't yet exist[3].

Among the discussed possibilities were repainting the tower or covering the words with a large tarpaulin. With time running out to comply with the law, civil staff met for a brainstorming session at the Stringtown Restaurant with the late C.M. "Hop" Ewing (d.2006), then Mayor of Florence, who "sketched different ideas on a napkin".[4] Ewing ultimately devised the idea of removing the vertical lines at the sides of the M in MALL, adding a stem to make it a Y and adding an apostrophe; resulting in "Y'ALL". ...

The publicity surrounding the Florence Y'all tower advertised the mall better than a passive sign alone. On the mall's opening day in late 1976, mall-goers created a traffic jam at the Kentucky Route 18 exit from I-75.[2]

[benjipwns]

The building is considered the shallowest commercial building in the world by the Guinness Book of Records and was formerly also viewed as such by Ripley's Believe it or Not!, but in recent years this status has been challenged by the "Skinny Building" in Pittsburgh.[4][5] The dispute centres around the fact that while the Sam Kee Building's width varies from floor to floor, Pittsburgh's "Skinny Building" is 5'2" (1.57 m) wide on all floors.

[benjipwns]

The standard should be: how many Ben Shapiro's can lay down across the floor of the Sam Kee or Skinny buildings.

[benjipwns]

The area is especially of interest to Esperantists because of initiatives in the early 20th century to found an Esperanto‑speaking state, named Amikejo (lit. Place of Friendship), on the territory of Neutral Moresnet.

gross

[Joe Molotov]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fart_(word)

The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English lexicon.

[curly]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

When I first learned about these it blew my mind that it was possibly a "written" language made up of knots

[BisMarckie]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ems_Dispatch

Bismarck took it upon himself to edit the report, sharpening the language. He cut out Wilhelm’s conciliatory phrases; [...] It was designed to give the French the impression that King Wilhelm I had insulted Count Benedetti; likewise, the Germans interpreted the modified dispatch as the Count insulting the King.

Bismarck had viewed the worsening relations with France with open satisfaction. If war had to come, now was as good a time as any. His editing, he assured his friends, "would have the effect of a red rag on the Gallic [French] bull."[8] The edited telegram was to be presented henceforth as the cause of the war.[9]

Bismarck

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sark

Sark was considered the last feudal state in Europe. Together with the other Channel Islands, it is the last remnant of the former Duchy of Normandy still belonging to the Crown. Sark belongs to the Crown in its own right and has an independent relationship with the Crown through the Lieutenant Governor in Guernsey.[38] Formally, the Seigneur holds it as a fief from the Crown, reenfeoffing the landowners on the island with their respective parcels. The political consequences of this construction were abolished in recent years, particularly in the reform of the legislative body, Chief Pleas, which took place in 2008.

Until 2008, Sark's parliament (Chief Pleas) was a single chamber consisting of 54 members, comprising the Seigneur, the Seneschal, 40 owners of the Tenements and 12 elected deputies. A change to the system was advocated largely by the Barclay brothers, who had purchased an island within Sark's territorial waters in 1993[17] along with the hotels on the island.[21] Their premise was that a change was necessary to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights though it was suggested that their objection was more likely at odds with certain property tax requirements and primogeniture laws affecting their holdings.

In August 1990, an unemployed French nuclear physicist named André Gardes armed with a semi-automatic weapon attempted an invasion of Sark. The night Gardes arrived, he put up two posters declaring his intention to take over the island the following day at noon. The following day he started a solo foot patrol in front of the manor in battle-dress with weapon in hand. While Gardes was sitting on a bench waiting for noon to arrive, the island's volunteer connétable approached the Frenchman and complimented him on the quality of his weapon.[17] Gardes then proceeded to change the gun's magazine, at which point he was tackled to the ground, arrested, and given a seven-day sentence which he served in Guernsey.[17][18][19][20] Gardes attempted a comeback the following year, but was intercepted in Guernsey.

[Kara]

Sark is wild, yeah.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/29/sark-spring

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_pyramid_claims

Since 2005,[2] Semir Osmanagić, also known as Sam Osmanagich, a Bosnian businessman now based in Houston, Texas,[3] has claimed that these hills are the largest human-made ancient pyramids on Earth.

Osmanagić initiated excavations in 2006 and has since reshaped one of the hills, making it look like a stepped pyramid.

[Kara]

You really can't understate how profoundly dumb the U.K. is as a polity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mouser_to_the_Cabinet_Office

[Raist]

You think having an official kitty at the PM's residence is bad?

To this day, they clip the wings of the ravens housed at the Tower, because the legend says the day the ravens leave, the monarchy will fall.

[Madrun Badrun]

Had no idea Rome had a bread dole
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura_Annonae

The dole in the early Roman Empire is estimated to account for 15 to 33 percent of the total grain imported and consumed in Rome.

It's just weird for me because I always assumed history was a march toward socialism, not away from it. Populist Roman politics in general is stuff I had simply never heard of.

you never heard this phrase?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

[benjipwns]

It's just weird for me because I always assumed history was a march toward socialism

Yeah, that was Karl's assumption too.

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod

The Cadaver Synod (also called the Cadaver Trial; Latin: Synodus Horrenda) is the name commonly given to the posthumous ecclesiastical trial of Pope Formosus, held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January 897.[1] The trial was conducted by Pope Stephen VI (sometimes called Stephen VII), the successor to Formosus' successor, Pope Boniface VI. Stephen had Formosus's corpse exhumed and brought to the papal court for judgment. He accused Formosus of perjury and of having acceded to the papacy illegally. At the end of the trial, Formosus was pronounced guilty and his papacy retroactively declared null.

The macabre spectacle turned public opinion in Rome against Stephen. Rumors circulated that Formosus' body, after washing up on the banks of the Tiber, had begun to perform miracles. A public uprising led to Stephen being deposed and imprisoned. While in prison, in July or August 897, he was strangled.

[benjipwns]

You're doing really poorly at posting wikipedia articles in YOUR THREAD about wikipedia articles.

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857#The_Enfield_Rifle

The final spark was provided by the ammunition for the new Enfield P-53 rifle.[39] These rifles, which fired Minié balls, had a tighter fit than the earlier muskets, and used paper cartridges that came pre-greased. To load the rifle, sepoys had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder.[40] The grease used on these cartridges was rumoured to include tallow derived from beef, which would be offensive to Hindus,[41] and pork, which would be offensive to Muslims. At least one Company official pointed out the difficulties this may cause:

unless it be proven that the grease employed in these cartridges is not of a nature to offend or interfere with the prejudices of caste, it will be expedient not to issue them for test to Native corps.[42]

On 27 January, Colonel Richard Birch, the Military Secretary, ordered that all cartridges issued from depots were to be free from grease, and that sepoys could grease them themselves using whatever mixture "they may prefer".[48] A modification was also made to the drill for loading so that the cartridge was torn with the hands and not bitten. This however, merely caused many sepoys to be convinced that the rumours were true and that their fears were justified. Additional rumours started that the paper in the new cartridges, which was glazed and stiffer than the previously used paper, was impregnated with grease.[49] In February, a court of inquiry was held at Barrackpore to get to the bottom of these rumours. Native soldiers called as witnesses complained of the paper "being stiff and like cloth in the mode of tearing", said that when the paper was burned it smelled of grease, and announced that the suspicion that the paper itself contained grease could not be removed from their minds.

At the time, the main manpower of the British Army in India (~200,000 men and coming off recent wars in Persia and Afghanistan) was like almost all natives, with generally only the higher level officers being from back home, etc. Which made this more than a wee bit of a problem.

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace

The floor too had a dual function: the gaps between the boards acted as a grating that allowed dust and small pieces of refuse to fall or be swept through them onto the ground beneath, where it was collected daily by a team of cleaning boys. Paxton also designed machines to sweep the floors at the end of each day, but in practice, it was found that the trailing skirts of the female visitors did the job perfectly

Full-size elm trees growing in the park were enclosed within the central exhibition hall near the 27-foot (8 m) tall Crystal Fountain. Sparrows became a nuisance; shooting was out of the question in a glass building. Queen Victoria mentioned this problem to the Duke of Wellington, who offered the solution, "Sparrowhawks, Ma'am".

The Crystal Palace had the first major installation of public toilets,[23] the Retiring Rooms, in which sanitary engineer George Jennings installed his "Monkey Closet" flushing lavatory[24] (initially just for men, but later catering for women also).[25] During the exhibition, 827,280 visitors each paid one penny to use them.

In 1871, the world's first cat show, organised by Harrison Weir, was held there.

While the original palace cost £150,000 (equivalent to £15.1 million in 2016),[22] the move to Sydenham cost £1,300,000—(£121 million in 2016),

On 30 November 1936 came the final catastrophe – fire. Within hours the Palace was destroyed: the glow was visible across eight counties.[50] That night, Buckland was walking his dog near the palace, with his daughter (Crystal Buckland, named after the palace[50]) when they noticed a red glow within.

100,000 people came to Sydenham Hill to watch the blaze, among them Winston Churchill, who said, "This is the end of an age"
...
Coming as it did just as the abdication crisis was reaching its terminal stage, the building's destruction was widely seen as symbolic of the end of King Edward VIII's brief and controversial reign.

The South Tower and much of the lower level of the Palace had been used for tests by television pioneer John Logie Baird for his mechanical television experiments, and much of his work was destroyed in the fire.[57][58] Baird himself is reported to have suspected the fire was a deliberate act of sabotage against his work on developing television

[benjipwns]

typical big government going after a small businessman

well, okay, a large businessman

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Tasty]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths

[toku]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balaam

[bork]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

Fan death is a well-known superstition in Korean culture, where it is thought that running an electric fan in a closed room with unopened or no windows will prove fatal. Despite no concrete evidence to support the concept, belief in fan death persists to this day in Korea.

Electric fans sold in South Korea are equipped with timer knobs that turn them off after a set number of minutes. This is perceived as a life-saving function, essential for bedtime use.

Not just a Korean thing- my Japanese in-laws were super-concerned the first time I stayed over at their house and wanted to use a fan during the summer.  Woke up sweating because the fan had shut off- it had one of those stupid timers on it.  When we moved in with them for a few months, the first thing I did was to go buy a fan that did not have a shut-off timer on it.

[Raist]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

Fan death is a well-known superstition in Korean culture, where it is thought that running an electric fan in a closed room with unopened or no windows will prove fatal. Despite no concrete evidence to support the concept, belief in fan death persists to this day in Korea.

Electric fans sold in South Korea are equipped with timer knobs that turn them off after a set number of minutes. This is perceived as a life-saving function, essential for bedtime use.

Not just a Korean thing- my Japanese in-laws were super-concerned the first time I stayed over at their house and wanted to use a fan during the summer.  Woke up sweating because the fan had shut off- it had one of those stupid timers on it.  When we moved in with them for a few months, the first thing I did was to go buy a fan that did not have a shut-off timer on it.

I know in-laws can be tough to deal with sometimes, but trying to kill them is a little bit rough.

[Tasty]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_laughs_attack

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Rose_Willson

As Stratford, Willson wrote three books, the most famous of which was Satan's Underground, purporting to tell a true story of her upbringing as a baby breeder (for sacrifices) in a satanic cult.

Willson claimed to have given birth to three children as a result of rape; two were allegedly killed in snuff films, and the third was supposedly sacrificed in her presence at a Satanic ritual.

She would later create another false identity in 1999 ...  Pretending to be Laura Grabowski, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Willson collected thousands of dollars in donations intended for Holocaust survivors. As Grabowski, Willson befriended Binjamin Wilkomirski, claiming to remember him from the camps. Wilkomirski himself (real name Bruno Grosjean) was later revealed to be neither Jewish nor a Holocaust survivor, aiding in the exposure of Willson as a fraud

[chronovore]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

Fan death is a well-known superstition in Korean culture, where it is thought that running an electric fan in a closed room with unopened or no windows will prove fatal. Despite no concrete evidence to support the concept, belief in fan death persists to this day in Korea.

Electric fans sold in South Korea are equipped with timer knobs that turn them off after a set number of minutes. This is perceived as a life-saving function, essential for bedtime use.

Not just a Korean thing- my Japanese in-laws were super-concerned the first time I stayed over at their house and wanted to use a fan during the summer.  Woke up sweating because the fan had shut off- it had one of those stupid timers on it.  When we moved in with them for a few months, the first thing I did was to go buy a fan that did not have a shut-off timer on it.

Maybe your in-laws are secretly Korean?

[Joe Molotov]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Rose_Willson

As Stratford, Willson wrote three books, the most famous of which was Satan's Underground, purporting to tell a true story of her upbringing as a baby breeder (for sacrifices) in a satanic cult.

Willson claimed to have given birth to three children as a result of rape; two were allegedly killed in snuff films, and the third was supposedly sacrificed in her presence at a Satanic ritual.

She would later create another false identity in 1999 ...  Pretending to be Laura Grabowski, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Willson collected thousands of dollars in donations intended for Holocaust survivors. As Grabowski, Willson befriended Binjamin Wilkomirski, claiming to remember him from the camps. Wilkomirski himself (real name Bruno Grosjean) was later revealed to be neither Jewish nor a Holocaust survivor, aiding in the exposure of Willson as a fraud

I like to read about the Satanic Panic every so often, some of that stuff was batshit crazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Remembers

The Mail on Sunday] asked Pazder: "Does it matter if it was true, or is the fact that Michelle believed it happened to her the most important thing?"

He replied: "Yes, that's right. It is a real experience. If you talk to Michelle today, she will say, 'That's what I remember'. We still leave the question open. For her it was very real. Every case I hear I have skepticism. You have to complete a long course of therapy before you can come to conclusions. We are all eager to prove or disprove what happened, but in the end it doesn't matter."

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Menestheus

When minelaying was completed in October 1943, she was retained for conversion to an amenities ship as part of a mobile naval base for British Pacific Fleet warships. She underwent further conversion at Vancouver in 1944 including installation of a movie theater and canteen staffed by mercantile crews of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary service.[3] Conversion included a brewery to make beer for shipboard consumption.

[Rufus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Use_of_technology_by_different_Amish_affiliations

Handy chart for what technologies different groups of Amish are allowed to use.

[Joe Molotov]

prostrate cancer

[Great Rumbler]

"Leck mich im Arsch" (literally "Lick me in the arse") is a canon in B-flat major composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K. 231 (K. 382c), with lyrics in German.

"Lick me in the arse" is a calque of the song's title and lyrics into English. A more idiomatic translation would be the English "Kiss my arse!" or American "Kiss my ass!"

[Joe Molotov]

What did they expect when they made the "bad guys" leader General Ripper?

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Moths_described_in_1874

The following 200 pages are in this category, out of approximately 376 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).

[Tasty]

Not a wiki article but still Very Cool:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/chemically-treated-wood-could-send-excess-heat-to-space/

Kashyyk here we come.