February Facts Finish Today.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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February facts finish here, but not to worry, all being well there will be more next month.

Meantime have a look at this selection.

I hope you find something interesting.

Enjoy.

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did you know5

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Approximately seven hundred

tweets per minute contain a YouTube link.

twitter logo

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The most beer-drinking country in

the world is the Czech Republic.

With an incredible per capita beer consumption

of almost 40 gallons a year, the Czechs are way out

in front in the beer drinking world league table,

leaving the Irish, Germans, Americans and

other “beer nations” far behind.

most beer-drinking country in the world is the Czech Republic

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None of the soldiers wore metal helmets in 1914.

The French were the first to introduce them in 1915.

Future prime minister Winston Churchill wore a

French one during his time on the front in 1916.

WWI soldiers 1914

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The first known pyramid architect was Imhotep,

an Ancient Egyptian polymath, engineer and

physician who is considered to be the designer of

the first major pyramid – the Pyramid of Djoser.

Imhotep statue

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In 1783, then Yale University president Ezra Stiles

predicted that the population of the United States

would reach 300 million in the next two hundred years.

He based his prediction on his analysis of the

population growth in Europe.

Apparently, just a little over 200 years later,

the population of the country actually hit 300 million.

Ezra Stiles portrait

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Sean Connery,

the first and arguably the best James Bond,

began balding when he was only 21-years-old,

therefore in al his appearances as ‘Bond’

he is wearing a toupee.

Sean Connery as James Bond

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The phrase, “Bite the bullet”,

meaning to endure something painful,

was first recorded in Rudyard Kipling’s 1891 novel

‘The Light that Failed’ describing the barbaric era

before anesthetics were used in medical procedures.

Injured soldiers had to bite on a bullet to help them

endure the pain of an operation or amputation,

an action that usually also resulted in a few broken teeth

aside from the other pain.

Bite the bullet

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A normal heart valve is about

the size of a half dollar

size of a half dollar

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Payne Stewart was a prolific golfer

and a three-time major championship winner

who was extremely popular with spectators

for his exciting style of play and fancy clothes.

Sadly, in 1999 his career was cut short by an

airplane accident that cost him his life a few

months after his latest triumph in the U.S. Open.

Payne Stewart

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The Laser is an innovation made possible

by Quantum mechanics.

It was once thought to have no practical use,

however, innovation and development has

enabled laser technology to be applied to different

inventions from the CD player to

missile-destroying defense systems.

The Laser

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In  Port Lincoln, Australia, each January

they hold the ‘Tunarama Festival’ which is a

competition to see how far someone can

throw a frozen tuna.

Fortunately, the 2007 festival was the last one

in which real tunas were used for the throws

(because of their drastically dwindling populations).

Since then artificially made fake tunas have been used.

Tunarama Festival

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From 1850 to 1942, marijuana was

considered a useful medicine for

nausea, rheumatism, and labor pains

and was easily obtained at local general stores

or pharmacies throughout the U.S.

marijuana used to be for sale in pharmacies

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In Formula 1 motor racing,

there is no longer a car with the number 13.

The number has been removed after two drivers

were killed in crashes — both driving cars numbered 13.

Formula 1 no car with the number 13 now

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Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space,

was also a victim of a training jet crash.

He died on March 27, 1968,

along with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin,

when their MiG-15UTI plane crashed.

There has always been a lot of speculation and

conspiracy surrounds their deaths.

For example, documents declassified in April 2011

include a 1968’s commission conclusion that they

had to maneuver sharply to avoid a weather balloon,

whereas a KGB report concluded the aircraft

entered a spin. from which it subsequently could

not recover. to avoid a bird strike or another aircraft.

Yuri Gagarin funeral

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Alan Thicke,

the father in the TV show Growing Pains

wrote the theme songs for

The Facts of Life

and

Diff’rent Strokes.

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today Number Twenty-Seven 27

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today is another numbers day and the randomly chosen number is twenty-seven. Were you  born on the 27th, is it your lucky number, has it some other significance for you or do you just like facts and trivia. Whatever your interest you will probably find something in here that you didn’t know about the number twenty-seven.

Enjoy.

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Number Twenty-Seven 27

27

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In religion

  • There are six occurrences of 27th in the Bible: Genesis 8.14; I Kings 16.10, 16.15; 2 Kings 15.1, 25.27; Ezekiel 29.17
  • God creates man “male & female” in the 27th verse in Genesis I;
  • After the Flood, the earth was dried on the 27th day of the 2nd month (Genesis 8.14);
  • In the 27th year the Lord gave Egypt to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon;
  • Book 27 of Proverbs has 27 verses;
  • The New Testament is made up of 27 books;
  • The Book of Revelation is the 27th Book and last book of the New Testament;
  • John Calvin published Institutes of the Christian Religion when he was 27 years old (1536);
  • Twenty-seven is the highest level of knowledge in rupaloke (Buddhism);
  • In ancient Incan culture there were 27 roads to El Dorado.

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In mathematics

  • An Octillion is 1027 which is a 1 followed by 27 zeros
  • Twenty-seven is a perfect cube, being 3 to the power of 3 or 3 × 3 × 3.
  • Twenty-seven is the only positive integer that is 3 times the sum of its digits.

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In science

  • The atomic number of Cobalt (Co) is 27
  • The atomic weight of Aluminum (Al) is 27

In space

  • Solar rotation: The Sun rotates on its axis once in about 27 days;
  • The 27th moon of Jupiter is Sinope.
  • The planet Uranus has 27 moons
  • Messier 27, the Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Apple Core Nebula, M 27, or NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1,360 light years;

Messier 27, the Dumbbell Nebula  .

  • On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, he was 27 years old;

Yuri Gagarin

  • This is the official insignia of the NASA STS-27 mission. The patch depicts the space shuttle lifting off against the multi-colored backdrop of a rainbow, symbolizing the triumphal return to flight of our nation’s manned space program. The design also commemorates the memory of the crew of Challenger mission STS-51-L, represented by the seven stars. The names of the flight crew members of STS-27 are located along the border of the patch. They are astronauts Robert L. Gibson, commander; Guy S. Gardner, pilot; Jerry L. Ross, Richard M. (Mike) Mullane and William M. Shepherd, mission specialists. Each crew member contributed to the design of the insignia.

STS 27 Mission Insignia space shuttle .

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In books, music, TV and movies

  • Rudolph Valentino was 27 when he stared in film Blood and Sand;
  • Sergei Eisenstein directs The Battleship Potemkin in 1925, aged 27;
  • 27 year old Greta Garbo uttered the famous words, “I want to be alone” in film Grand Hotel in 1932;
  • Errol Flynn (1909-1959) stars in film Charge of the Light Brigade (1936);

charge of the light brigade errol flynn 1936

  • Ingmar Bergman (born 7-14-1918) directs his first film Crisis (1945);
  • Deanna Durbin, teenage star retires in 1949, aged 27, after her 22 film career;
  • In the 1977 Carl Reiner movie Oh, God!, Jerry Landers (John Denver), a supermarket manager meets God (George Burns) on the 27th floor in Room 2700;
  • Captain Jean-Luc Picard has made contact with twenty-seven species of aliens in the series Star Trek: The Next Generation;
  • The following famous authors published these works when they were 27 years old: Jacob Grimm, Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1812-1815); George Sand, her first book, Indiana in 1831; Nikolai Gogol, The Inspector General in 1836 and Upton Sinclair, The Jungle in 1906;
  • Famous Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes The Kilmarnock Poems in 1786, aged 27;
  • Rupert Brooke was 27 when he wrote the poem “If I should die, think only this of me…” in 1914; he died the following year (1915) in World War I;
RupertBrooke
RupertBrooke
  • Hugh Hefner (born 1926) publishes Playboy magazine (1953);
  • In 1956, Grace Kelly was 27 years old when she retired from movies to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco;
  • Aged 27 Julie Andrews starred in her first film Mary Poppins in 1963 and won an Oscar for the Best Actress (1964);

Mary Poppins

  • January 27 is the birthday of Mozart 1756, Lewis Carroll 1832, and Jerome Kern 1885;
  • When he is 27 years old Claude Debussy composes Claire de Lune in 1890;
  • The 27 Club is the collective term used when talking about musicians and singers who all died at the age of 27: Robert Johnston, blues singer and musician; Brian Jones, founder member of the Rolling Stones; Janis Joplin, rock singer, from drugs overdose in 1970; Jimmy Hendrix, rock guitarist, died from drugs overdose in 1970; Jim Morrison, rock singer, from a heart attack in 1971; Kurt Corbain, rock singer, from drugs overdose in 1994; and Amy Winehouse, singer, from drink and drug overdose in 2011.

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In politics

  • Florida became the 27th State to enter the Union (March 3, 1845)

Florida State Flag

  • There are twenty-seven words in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;
  • The 27th President of the United States was William Howard Taft (1857-1930), who served (1909-1913). He later served as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1921-1930).
William H Taft
President William H Taft
  • Taft was the heaviest president ever at 332 pounds, and famously got stuck in the White House bathtub. Subsequently he had an oversized version brought in for his use.
  • William Howard Taft was the first president to own a car at the White House (he had the White House stables converted into a 4-car garage), the first to throw out the first ball to begin the professional baseball season, and the first president to be buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
  • Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912, also making Taft the first President of the 48 contiguous states.
  • Taft liked milk so much that he brought his own cow to the White House. The cows name was Mooly Wolly. Mooly was replaced by another cow called Paulin. Paulin was the last cow to graze on the White House lawn.
  • During his administration, the U.S. parcel post system began, but sadly during his term Congress approved the 16th Amendment, providing for the levying of an income tax.

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In sport

  • Carlton Fisk, Baseball Hall of Famer, wore uniform #27 while playing with the Boston Red Sox. Fisk waves his homer fair to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series 7-6 in the 12th inning against the Cinncinati Reds.
Carlton Fisk
Carlton Fisk
  • The size of a tennis court for singles is 78 feet long and 27 feet wide.
  • In tennis Bill Tilden (1893-1953) won his first Wimbledon tennis championship in 1920 at the age of 27 (he went on to win  it two more times in 1921 and 1930); he also won his first US Championship in 1920 aged 27 (and went on to win it six more times in 1921-25, and in 1929)

Bill Tilden

  • At the age of 27, Bob Feller achieved a strike-out record of 348 batters; Sandy Koufax breaks his own NL strike-out record with 276 and also sets major-league record with 11 shut-outs for a left-hander;
  • Dawn Fraser won the Olympic 100-meters freestyle swimming in 1964 aged 27.

dawn fraser

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In militaria

  • USS Suwannee (CVE-27)
  • During WWII, USS Suwannee (CVE-27) (originally an oiler AO-33, converted to an escort carrier AVG/ACV/CVE-27) saw a great deal of active service and earned 13 battle stars.  She took part in the invasion of North Africa and during the Naval Battle of Casablanca from 8–11 November, Suwannee sent up 255 air sorties and lost only five planes, three in combat and two to operational problems. She was also the first escort carrier to score against the enemy undersea menace, and she helped to prove the usefulness of her type in anti-submarine warfare.
  • Later the Suwannee was sent to the South Pacific. For the next seven months, she provided air escort for transports and supply ships replenishing and bolstering the marines on Guadalcanal, as well as for the forces occupying other islands in the Solomons group. She also participated in the Gilbert Islands operation as part of the Air Support Group of the Southern Attack Force, and her planes bombed Tarawa, while the ships in the Northern Attack Force engaged the enemy at Makin.
  • During 1944 the Suwannee joined the Northern Attack Force, and her planes bombed and strafed Roi and Namur Islands, in the northern part of Kwajalein Atoll, and conducted antisubmarine patrols for the task force. By 30 March, she was in the vicinity of the Palau Islands as the 5th Fleet subjected those islands to two days of extensive bombing raids.
  • On 24–25 October 1944, the Japanese launched a major surface offensive from three directions to contest the landings at Leyte Gulf. Suwanee was hit during the attacks but was able to resume air operations helped to fight off two more air attacks. Just after noon on 26 October, another group of kamikazes jumped Taffy 1. A Zero crashed into Suwanee’s flight deck at 1240 and careened into a torpedo bomber which had just been recovered. The two planes erupted upon contact as did nine other planes on her flight deck. The resulting fire burned for several hours, but was finally brought under control. The casualties for 25-26 October were 107 dead and 160 wounded.
  • Suwannee remained in reserve at Boston for the next 12 years. She was redesignated an escort helicopter aircraft carrier, CVHE-27, on 12 June 1955. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 1 March 1959. Her hulk was sold to the Isbrantsen Steamship Company, of New York City on 30 November 1959 for conversion to merchant service. The project was subsequently canceled and, in May 1961, her hulk was resold to the J.C. Berkwit Company, also of New York City. She was finally scrapped in Bilbao, Spain, in June 1962.

USS_Suwannee

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  • MIG-27
  • The Mikoyan MiG-27 is a variable-geometry ground-attack aircraft, originally built by the Mikoyan design bureau in the Soviet Union and later license-produced in India by Hindustan Aeronautics as the Bahadur (“Valiant”). It is based on the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 fighter aircraft, but optimized for air-to-ground attack. Unlike the MiG-23, the MiG-27 did not see widespread use outside Russia, as most countries opted for the MiG-23BN and Sukhoi Su-25 instead. It currently only remains in service with the Indian, Kazakh and Sri Lankan Air Forces in the ground attack role. All Russian and Ukrainian MiG-27s have been retired.
  • It was used by Soviet forces during the later stages of the Afghanistan conflict in 1987–1989.
  • The MiG-27 aircraft also entered service with the Sri Lanka Air Force in 2000. During the Sri Lankan Civil War, they saw considerable action bombing strategic targets and providing close air support.
  • Since 2001, the Indian Air Force has lost 12 MiG-27s to crashes and in mid-February 2010, India grounded its entire fleet of over 150 of the aircraft after a MiG-27 crashed on 16 February 2010 in Siliguri, West Bengal. The crash was attributed to defects in the R 29 engines of the aircraft, suspected to have occurred during the overhauling of the aircraft by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
  • The MiG-27 remains in service with the Kazakh Air Force.

Mig-27 .

  • Alenia C-27J
  • The Alenia C-27J Spartan is a medium-sized military transport aircraft. The C-27J is an advanced derivative of Alenia Aeronautica’s G.222, with the engines and systems of the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules.

c-27

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  • CZ 27
  • The CZ-27, a single action semiautomatic pistol with a capacity of 8 or 9 rounds, was developed in around 1926 by Czech arms designer Frantisek Myska in an attempt to produce simplified version of the CZ Vz.24 pistol, chambered for less powerful 7.65×17 SR Browning ammunition (also known as .32 ACP) and suited for police and security use.
  • It was put into production in 1927, at arms factory in Praha. Until the appearance of the famous CZ-75 pistol, the CZ-27 was one of the most successful handguns produced in Czechoslovakia, with well over 500 000 guns of this type produced between 1927 and 1951. During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia it was manufactured for German armed forces and police as Pistole model 27, or P.27(t) in short. It was extensively used by Czechoslovak police and security forces, and widely exported to many parts of the world.

CZ 27 .

  • OTs-27 “Berdysh” pistol
  • Originally developed by the TSKIB SOO (central design bureau for sporting and hunting arms, Tula, Russia, later merged with famous KBP design bureau) the OTs-27 “Berdysh” is a Double Action semiautomatic 9 mm pistol with a capacity of 18 rounds. It was developed for “Grach” trials, with the goal being the replacement for the venerable Makarov PM as a standard issue sidearm for Russian army. The  OTs-27 was subsequently dropped from the Grach trials, but the development continued and the pistol first appeared circa 1994.

OTs27

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Other stuff

  • Cities located at 27 degrees longitude are Lajes, Azores and Izmir, Turkey;
  • Cities located at 27 degrees latitude are Brisbane, Australia and Katmandu, Nepal;
  • There are 27 bones in the human hand;
  • The Hebrew alphabet consists of 27 letters;
  • Napoleon was named commander of the army of Italy during his 27th year, on March 2, 1796;

Napoleon Bonaparte

  • Elias Howe invents the first sewing machine in 1846 when he was 27 years old;
  • When he was aged 27 F.W. Woolworth founded Woolworth Co. (1879) selling 5¢ and 10¢ merchandise;
  • There are 27 small cubes in a Rubik’s cube;

Rubik's Cube

  • In 1806, aged 27, Zebulon M. Pike discovers Pike’s Peak, Colorado;
  • At the age of 27, Captain Matthew Webb was the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875. He took 21 hours 43 minutes for the distance of 21 miles. Sadly eight years later, aged 35, Webb drowned while trying to swim across the waters above Niagara Falls in an attempt to exploit his fame as a swimmer. A memorial stone to Webb carries this inscription: “Nothing Great Is Easy”.

Captain Matthew Webb memorial

  • John Smith was 27 years old when he led the first English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607; he was saved from death by Pocohontas.

Pocahontas

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