It’s Friday 13th!!!

February 13, 2015January 9, 2015 fasab Accidents, Factoids, Phobias, Unusual 13th, 44th worse loss of life in an airplane crash, a billion dollars, Aeroflot Il-62 airplane, afraid, air show at Lowestoft, alive, amusing, an insect flew up her dress, apartment block, Asteroid 99942 Apophis, attacked guests, attempt suicide by putting his head in a gas oven, aunt, Australia, Bangladesh, Black Friday, Black Sabbath, Bob Renphrey, Britain’s unluckiest man, brokers were in a state of shock, burning socks, bushfires, California, cancer, car stolen five times in one day, casualty, ceremony, chaos, Chile, Chittagong, climbing to the top of a mountain, collapsed, commuter flight, Costa Concordia, crash IBM computers in Britain, crashed, crashed a motorcycle, cruise ship, damage, Daz Baxter, deadly virus, Dow Jones Industrial Average, driving on Friday the 13th, East Kilbride Registry Office, eat a piece of gristle, eating human flesh, education, England, English Friday, Entertainment, Ethan Hawke, explosion, fact, factoid, factoids, facts, facts about Friday 13th, fallen downstairs, fell into a river, first album, first unveiled, floods, folklore remedies, French king, Freyja, Freyja’s Day, Friday 13th, Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th’s, Frigg’s Day, full moon, funeral, funny, Ganges Delta, Gregorian calendar, Harry Chandler, hit by falling guttering, holes in them, Hollywood sign above Los Angeles, hospitalized, Humor, Humour, increased chance of death, information, John Sheridan, Kansas, Knights Templar, Lanarkshire, land underwater, Leningrad, Los Angeles Times newspaper, lost every Friday the 13th, lost their wedding video, lottery win, Louis IV, Manchester man, Mary Strachan, massacred, Mayan calendar, memorable wedding, methodology flawed, Michelle, Michelle and Gary Docherty, misfortunes, monster South Asian storm, Montevideo Old Christians, Montevideo to Santiago, Moscow, natural gassing, New York man, no survivors, Norse goddess Frigg, North Wales, panic attack, Paris, partially sank, People, plane, redundant, released, rescuers, retired bus conductor, Robert Bullard, run of bad luck, satellites, scared to work and travel, Sheremetyevo airport, skyscraper, smashed an expensive digital camera, snow, soldier monks, something bad, stand on your head, stay in bed, stock exchange, stupid, suicide, Sunday, superstitions, superstitious people, survivors, swarm of wasps, The Great Flood, the world will end, ticket in the washing machine, triskaidekaphobia, trivia, TVs explode, unlucky, upstate New York, Uruguayan rugby team, walked through a plate glass door, weather was bad, widow, women drivers, wrote off four cars

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

There is a lot of nonsense surrounding Friday 13th.

Many superstitious people consider it to be unlucky. So much so in fact that they spend most, if not all, of that day in their homes, afraid to venture out into the great world beyond in case something bad happens to them.

In fact it has been estimated that around a billion dollars are lost every Friday the 13th because people are scared to work and travel on this date.

The really unfortunate thing is that sometimes circumstances play right into their hands, which only serves to reinforce their superstitions.

You can find some of them below along with other facts about Friday 13th that I hope you enjoy reading.

Every month has a 13th but no single year

has more than three Friday the 13th’s

and on average there are two.

Months with a Friday the 13th

always begin on a Sunday.

Folklore remedies for triskaidekaphobia

include climbing to the top of a mountain

or skyscraper and burning all the socks you own

that have holes in them.

Another is to stand on your head

and eat a piece of gristle.

It is from the Norse goddess Frigg, or Freyja,

that we get Frigg’s Day, or Freyja’s Day

which became the English Friday.

On Friday 13 2006,

36 inches of snow fell on upstate New York.

The ensuing chaos claimed three lives

and caused $130 million worth of damage.

On a Friday 13th in 1307.

thousands of soldier monks of the powerful

Knights Templar were massacred

by French king Louis IV.

Many people believe this is where

our fear of the date springs from.

Friday 13 January, 1939

in Australia is known as Black Friday

because on that date bushfires

decimated 20,000 km² of land,

killing 71 people and

destroying several towns entirely.

Retired bus conductor Bob Renphrey of North Wales

decided to spend every Friday 13 in bed

after a run of bad luck on the

fateful day during the early 1990s.

Among other misfortunes

he wrote off four cars,

got made redundant,

fell into a river,

crashed a motorcycle

and walked through a plate glass door.

When Bob died of cancer in 1998,

his widow Betty, who on previous Friday 13ths

had fallen downstairs,

been hit by falling guttering

and been hospitalized

after Bob hit her in the face

with a stick he was throwing to a dog,

decided to book his funeral for

Friday 13 March as a final tribute.

Alas, all Rhyl’s undertakers were too busy.

“Bob would have seen the funny side,”

said Mrs Renphrey.

On Friday 13 July, 1951

in Kansas ‘The Great Flood’

left 2 million acres of land underwater,

causing $760 million and killing 24 people.

Friday 13 August, 1976

was particularly unlucky

for New York man Daz Baxter.

Having elected to stay in bed

to ward off bad luck,

the floor of his apartment block collapsed

and he fell six storeys to his death.

Black Sabbath’s self-titled first album

was released in the UK on

Friday, February 13, 1970.

It wasn’t unlucky for them.

Michelle and Gary Docherty had a

memorable wedding on Friday 13 August 2004.

First, a swarm of wasps attacked guests

at East Kilbride Registry Office, Lanarkshire,

as they waited for Michelle’s arrival.

Her aunt Mary Strachan

smashed an expensive digital camera

trying to swat one of the pests,

and when Michelle finally did turn up,

an insect flew up her dress,

triggering a panic attack.

After the ceremony,

two minibuses booked to transport guests

to the reception failed to turn up

and the couple lost their wedding video.

On Friday November 13, 1970

a monster South Asian storm hit Bangladesh

killing 300,000 people in Chittagong

and creating floods that killed one million people

living on the Ganges Delta.

Women drivers have a 64% increased chance

of death when driving on Friday the 13th.

Friday 13 February, 1998

was simply business as usual for Manchester man,

John Sheridan, dubbed Britain’s unluckiest man

after once having his car stolen five times in one day,

making 16 trips to casualty in two years,

seeing eight TVs explode in six months

and losing out on a £4000 lottery win when he

put the ticket in the washing machine with his jeans.

John’s big day began when his Saab ran out of petrol.

He hitched a lift with a sympathetic policeman,

whose car broke down at the garage.

John returned to his car with a can of petrol,

got it started but lost a wheel as he turned a corner.

He returned home on a bus, which broke down.

Completing his journey on foot,

he realized he’d left his keys inside the car

and had to return in case in was stolen.

Friday, October 13th, 1989,

the stock exchange suffered a serious crash,

the second most damaging in market history at the time

(this was in the pre-recession era).

Brokers were in a state of shock,

as the Dow Jones Industrial Average

was down 190.58 points.

In Britain a deadly virus crashed IBM computers,

terrifying people and deleting lots of data

that could not be recovered.

This was before backup systems were used.

A full moon on Friday February 13 1987

drove troubled Robert Bullard, 21,

to attempt suicide by putting his head in a gas oven.

Not only was his methodology flawed,

suicide by natural gassing is virtually impossible

since Britain moved from lethal coke gas

to less dangerous natural gas,

but a flicked light switch caused an explosion

which injured his mother and a policeman

and caused £35,000 of damage.

Robert was unharmed.

On Friday the 13th, 2012,

the cruise ship Costa Concordia partially sank

killing more than 30 people.

Friday 13 October 1972 was the date

a plane carrying Uruguayan rugby team

Montevideo Old Christians crashed

on its way from Montevideo to Santiago, Chile.

When rescuers finally found the fourteen

survivors two months later,

it emerged that they had survived

by eating human flesh from some of the

thirty-one crew and passengers

who had perished in the crash.

In 1992, the story was filmed as

Alive, starring Ethan Hawke.

On the same day, Friday October 13, 1972,

an Aeroflot Il-62 airplane carrying 176 people

took off from Paris on a commuter flight

bound for Leningrad and Moscow.

The plane landed at Leningrad

and then took off for Sheremetyevo airport,

located just outside Moscow.

The weather was bad with rain and poor visibility.

The pilots were told to descend on approach to

the airport, but for unknown reasons,

they attempted and failed to land twice.

On the third attempt to land,

the plane crashed into a large pond

about 4 miles short of the airport.

There were no survivors.

No cause of the accident was ever established.

At the time, the crash resulted in one of the worst

loss of life incidents for a single plane crash, in history.

It remains the 44th worse loss of life in

an airplane crash in aviation history.

On Friday the 13th August, 2010

at 13 minutes after the 13th hour (1 PM),

a 13 year old boy was struck by lightning

as he was watching an air show

at Lowestoft, England.

The Hollywood sign above Los Angeles, California,

was first unveiled by the owner

of the Los Angeles Times newspaper,

Harry Chandler,

on Friday the 13th of July, 1923.

According to at least one interpretation

of the Mayan calendar the world will end

on 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0

or in the Gregorian calendar,

Friday, October 13, 4772.

But before then,

on Friday the 13th in 2029,

Asteroid 99942 Apophis

is forecast to pass earth at a

closer distance than any of our satellites.

Crikey!

===============================

Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today The Number Had To Be 1776

July 4, 2014 fasab Factoids, Numbers 1776, Adam Smith, Adam Weishaupt, America, American colonies, American Continental Army, American Continental Navy, American Continentals, American friends, American gunboats, American navy, American Patriots, American Patriots Royal Navy, American Revolution, American Revolutionary War, American Southwest, American submersible craft Turtle, americans, an independent nation, Andrew Doria, Arctic, Assembly of New Hampshire, Austria, Bahamas, battle, Battle of Harlem Heights, Battle of Long Island, Battle of Pell's Point, Battle of the Rice Boats, Battle of Trenton, Battle of White Plains, Bavaria, Benedict Arnold, Benjamin Franklin, bigamy, bird tail, Boston, Bowling Green, Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, British, British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship HMS Eagle, British authority, British control, British fleet, British parliament, British Royal Navy, Brooklyn, California, Captain James Cook, Chatterton Hill, Cherokee, Cherokee Nation, cock tail, Col. Johann Rall, Committee of Five, common sense, Continental Army, Continental Congress, Continental Congress delegates, Continental Union Flag, crossed the Delaware River, Crown Prince Paul, customer, declaration of independence, Delaware General Assembly, Doncaster, Dorchester Heights, Duchess of Kingston, Dutch flag, education, Edward Gibbon, England, enlistment of free blacks, Entertainment, espionage, facts, fatal, Father Francisco Palou, first Europeans, first governor, first state constitution, first US fraternity, Fort Orange, Fort Washington, France, Francisco Atanasio Domínguez, Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, French support, Gen George Washington, George III of Great Britain, George Mason, George Washington, Gregorian calendar, Guadeloupe, Haffner, Halifax Resolves, hanged, happy Fourth of July, Hessian mercenaries, Hessian troops, HMS Resolution, horse races, hurricane, Illuminati, independence day, independence from British rule, Ingolstadt, interrogation torture, invading spaceships, Jersey bank, Johannes de Graaff, Juan Bautista de Anza, Julian calendar, King George III, Kips Bay, Lake Champlain, leap year, Lee Resolution, Liberty Bell, Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, loyalist leaders, Lt Jose Joaquin Moraga, Manhattan, Marines, Marquis de Lafayette, Massachusetts, McKonkey's Ferry, MDCCLXXVI, Mission Dolores, Mission San Francisco de Asis, Monterey Presidio, Moore's Creek bridge, Mozart, Nassau, Nathan Hale, new york, New York City, New York Harbor, Norfolk, North Carolina, number, number factoid, numbers, Pacific Ocean, pamphlet, Patriot cannons, Patriot forces, patriot victory, peace conference, Phi Beta Kappa, Philadelphia, Plymouth, Presidio of San Francisco, Province of Georgia, published, rebels, renounce allegiance to King George III of Great Britain, Rhode Island, Richard Caswell, Richard Henry Lee, Roman numerals, Royal Colony of North Carolina, Royal Navy, Russia, Salzburg, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Savannah River, Scottish economist, Scottish North Carolina Loyalists, Second Continental Congress, Serenade No. 7, Significant Number Factoid Friday, significant numbers, Sir Guy Carleton, Sophie Marie Dorothea, South Carolina, Spaniards, spy, St Leger, State of North Carolina, Staten Island, successful assault, The American Crisis, The Bronx, The Crisis, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the Rockies, the Sierras, The Wealth of Nations, the world's first submarine attack, These are the times that try men's souls, third voyage, thirteen colonies, Thomas Paine, time bomb, Trenton, United States Declared Independence, Valcour Island, Virginia, Virginia Convention of Delegates, Virginia Declaration of Rights, vote for independence, Washington, Washington's troops, Württemberg, William & Mary College, William Howe, Wilmington

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Hello everyone.

And a very happy Fourth of July to everyone, particularly my American friends.

Independence Day again, and no sign of invading spaceships so I’m assuming its safe to do another number factoid.

And what else could it be today other than 1776, the year America became an independent nation.

Here we go.

Enjoy

And where else to start but with….

American Revolutionary War

On January 1^st, 1776 Gen George Washington hoisted the Continental Union Flag. The same day the town of Norfolk, Virginia, was destroyed by the combined actions of the British Royal Navy and occupying Patriot forces.
On Jan 5^th the Assembly of New Hampshire adopts its 1st state constitution.
On January 10^th Thomas Paine published his pamphlet Common Sense “written by an Englishman” in Philadelphia arguing for independence from British rule in what were then the Thirteen Colonies.

On Jan 16^th the Continental Congress approves enlistment of free blacks.
On February 27^th Scottish North Carolina Loyalists charge across Moore’s Creek bridge near Wilmington to attack what they mistakenly believed to be a small force of rebels. Several loyalist leaders are killed in the ensuing battle. The patriot victory virtually ended all British authority in the province.
On March 2^nd and 3^rd the American Continental Navy and Marines made a successful assault on Nassau, Bahamas, and in the Battle of the Rice Boats, American Patriots resisted the Royal Navy on the Savannah River effectively ending British control over the Province of Georgia.
On March 4^th American Patriots capture Dorchester Heights thereby dominating the port of Boston, Massachusetts. Threatened by the Patriot cannons on Dorchester Heights, the British evacuate Boston on March 17^th.
On April 12^th the Royal Colony of North Carolina produced the Halifax Resolves making it the first British colony officially to authorize its Continental Congress delegates to vote for independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.
On May 4^th Rhode Island became the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III of Great Britain.
On June 7^th Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Second Continental Congress (meeting in Philadelphia) that “these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.”
On June 11^th the Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five to draft a Declaration of Independence.

On June 12^th the Virginia Declaration of Rights by George Mason was adopted by the Virginia Convention of Delegates and three days later on June 15^th the Delaware General Assembly voted to suspend government under the British Crown.
On July 2^nd the final (despite minor revisions) U.S. Declaration of Independence was written. The Continental Congress passed the Lee Resolution.
And as we all know, on July 4^th the United States Declared Independence: The Continental Congress ratified the declaration by the United States of its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.
On July 8^th the Liberty Bell rang in Philadelphia for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence and the following day an angry mob in New York City toppled the equestrian statue of George III of Great Britain in Bowling Green.

On August 2^nd most of the American colonies ratify the Declaration of Independence.
On August 15^th the first Hessian troops land on Staten Island to join British forces.
On August 27^th in the Battle of Long Island, Washington’s troops were routed in Brooklyn by British under William Howe.
On September 1^st the Cherokee Nation was invaded by 6,000 patriot troops from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina begins. The troops destroyed thirty-six Cherokee towns.
On September 7^th saw the world’s first submarine attack when the American submersible craft Turtle attempted to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe’s flagship HMS Eagle in New York Harbor.
On September 11^th an abortive peace conference took place between British and Americans on Staten Island.
On September 15^th British troops landed on Manhattan at Kips Bay.
On September 16^th in the Battle of Harlem Heights, the Continental Army under Washington are victorious against the British on Manhattan.
On September 22^nd the British hanged spy Nathan Hale in New York City for espionage.
The following month, on October 11^th on Lake Champlain near Valcour Island, a British fleet led by Sir Guy Carleton defeated 15 American gunboats commanded by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold. Although nearly all of Arnold’s ships are destroyed, the two day-long battle gave Patriot forces enough time to prepare defenses of New York City.
On October 18^th in the Battle of Pell’s Point, forces of the American Continental Army resisted a British and Hessian force in The Bronx, whilst on October 28 in the Battle of White Plains, British forces attacked and captured Chatterton Hill from the Americans.
On October 26^th Benjamin Franklin departed from America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution.

The last day of that month, October 31^st saw King George III make his first speech before British Parliament since the Declaration of Independence that summer, in which in perhaps the understatement of the year, told the British Parliament that all was not going well for Britain in the war with the United States.
On November 16^th Hessian mercenaries under Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen captured Fort Washington from the American Continentals. The captain of the American navy ship Andrew Doria fired a salute to the Dutch flag on Fort Orange and Johannes de Graaff answers with eleven gun shots.
On December 7^th the Marquis de Lafayette attempted to enter the American military as a major general.
And on December 21^st the Royal Colony of North Carolina reorganizes into the State of North Carolina after adopting its own constitution. Richard Caswell becomes the first governor of the newly formed state.
On December 23^rd Thomas Paine, living with Washington’s troops, began publishing The American Crisis, containing the stirring phrase, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
At Christmas 1776, Gen. George Washington ordered the first issue of The Crisis to be read to his troops on Christmas Eve, then at 6 p.m. all 2600 of them march to McKonkey’s Ferry, crossed the Delaware River and land on the Jersey bank at 3 a.m.
And finally December 26^th saw the Battle of Trenton, in which Washington’s troops surprised and defeated the 1500 Hessian troops under the command of Col. Johann Rall outside Trenton, taking 948 prisoners while suffering only 5 wounded.

In other things and other places in 1776

The year 1776 was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Friday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar.
In Roman Numerals 1776 is written as MDCCLXXVI.
On January 2^nd Austria ended interrogation torture
On February 17^th Edward Gibbon published the first volume of his famous work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

On March 9^th Scottish economist Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in London.
On March 28^th Juan Bautista de Anza found the site for the Presidio of San Francisco.
On April 15^th the Duchess of Kingston was found guilty of bigamy.
On May 1^st Adam Weishaupt founded the Illuminati in Ingolstadt, Bavaria.
On June 17^th Lt. Jose Joaquin Moraga leads a band of colonists from Monterey Presidio, landing on June 29^th and constructing the Mission Dolores of the new Presidio of San Francisco.
On July 12^th Captain James Cook sets off from Plymouth, England, in HMS Resolution on his third voyage, to the Pacific Ocean and Arctic, which would turn out to be fatal.

On July 21^st Mozart’s Serenade No. 7 (the “Haffner”) is first performed in Salzburg, Austria.
On July 29^th Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, Francisco Atanasio Domínguez, and eight other Spaniards set out from Santa Fe on an eighteen-hundred mile trek through the American Southwest. They were the first Europeans to explore the vast region between the Rockies and the Sierras.
On September 6^th a hurricane hit Guadeloupe, killing more than 6000 people.
On September 24^th the first of the now very famous St Leger horse races were held at Doncaster, England.
On October 7^th Crown Prince Paul of Russia married Sophie Marie Dorothea of Württemberg.
On October 9^th Father Francisco Palou founded the Mission San Francisco de Asis in what is now San Francisco, California.
On October 18^th in a New York bar decorated with a bird tail, a customer orders “cock tail”.
On December 5^th the first US fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa (William & Mary College), is formed.

The Standard Practice for Conditioning and Testing Textiles is Active Standard ASTM D1776
The Standard Specification for Eye Protective Devices for Paintball Sports is Active Standard ASTM F1776.
MTE M-1776 is a Surge Protective Device
P1776 is the code for solenoid stuck in low/reverse which is a fairly common problem and can be prevented most of the time by keeping the fluid clean.
The 1776 Premier Program offers a venue for highly-committed, elite players to receive professional, year-round coaching and to seek competition at the highest levels of US Youth Soccer.

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today The Number Is Twenty-Eight 28

February 15, 2013 fasab Factoids, Numbers, Uncategorized, Unusual 1919 Peace Nobel Prize, 28 billion light years, 28 days, 28 Days Later, 28 degrees latitude, 28 degrees longitude, 28 Hotel Rooms, 28 letters, 28 permanent teeth, 28 Weeks Later, 28th President of the United States, 28th State to enter the Union, 30th NASA Space Shuttle mission, ABC television, Abner Haynes, Adam Hall, Arab alphabet, asteroid, asteroid belt, Atlantic City, atlantic ocean, atomic mass, atomic number, aviation, B28, Barnardius zonarius semitorquatus, Bellona, Bert Blyleven, Betty Thomas, Birkat Hachama, books, British aircraft, C J Spiller, California, canada, Canadian CF-104, Canberra, car number twenty-eight, carbon monoxide, cells, centered nonagonal number, central Florida, Challenger disaster, Chapter 28, Chicago Bears, Chinese constellations, Christa McAuliffe, classified, Clemson Tigers, Cleveland skyscrapers, CO, Commander Brewster H Shaw Jr, composite number, concrete, constellation Phoenix, constellation Sagittarius, convex uniform honeycombs, created the heavens and the earth, cricket, Crimean War, curing time, Curtis Martin, Daltons, date of birth, Davey Allison, David C Leestma, Diane Ladd, distance of our universe, Dominic West, domino set, dutch, edge to edge, education, Edwards Air Force Base, eight and twenty cubits, elliptical galaxy, Enstrom F-28, Enstrom Helicopter Corporation, Entertainment, epidermis, Eure-et-Loir, factoid, fictional aircraft, first female teacher in space, Fokker, Fokker F28 Fellowship, Fokker-VFW, Fourteen, fourth magic number in physics, François Pérusse, Frédéric Chopin, French department, Gematriya, Genesis, globular cluster, God, God's promise, Gregorian calendar, Hall of Famer, happy number, harmonic divisor, Hebrew Numerology, hexagonal number, HMS Cleopatra (F28), HMS Kandahar (F28), Holland, horticulture, human menstrual cycle, India, Indian magic square, Isaac, Istanbul, Jacob, Jacob's Ladder, James C Adamson, jersey number 28, Johannesburg, Jupiter, K-class destroyer, Kansas City, Kansas City Chiefs, Kerala, koakh, length of one curtain, Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, Lt. Pete Maverick Mitchell, lucky number, lunar mansions, M/28, M/28-30, Madrid, Major League Baseball, Mark N Brown, Mars, Marshall Faulk, mathematics, MBB, medium battle tank, Mersenne prime 7, Messier, Messier object M28, MiG-28, Miles M.28 Mercury, Militaria, military aircraft, Minnesota Twins, Misc, Miscellaneous, Mission Specialists, mission STS-51-L, Missouri, molars, molecular weight, monopoly, Moon, Morton Thiokol, Moscow, Mosin-Nagant, movies, Municipal Stadium, music, N2, nasa, NASA managers, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, NATO, neo-Nazi, New Delhi, New General Catalogue, New York Jets, NFL, nickel, nitrogen, NJ, North American Aviation, Northern Ireland, nuclear weapons, number, numbers, O-ring seal, object NGC 28, Opus 28, Parker Brothers, parrot, perfect number, phases, Pilot Richard N Richards, piston-engined helicopters, poisonous, politics, postal code, Preludes, Pretoria, Princeton University, Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Economy, quebec, Quiller novel, R Luther, Random, RCAF Nuclear Strike Force, Red Army, Red Square, religion, revolution time, Rogers Commission, Roman goddess of war, Roman numeral, Rose, Roses, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, Runik alphabet, SACEUR, Sandra Bullock, science, SDS-2 communications satellite, second perfect number, Second World War, seven words, shipping, Short Brothers, short range jet airliner, Silicon, skin research, solid rocket booster, South Africa, South Australia, Soviet T-28, space, space related disasters, Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle Columbia, spain, sport, St Louis Rams, Stone of Bethel, structural failure, STS-28, sun, Supercarrier, T-28 Trojan, Teacher in Space Project, technology, Texas, the Bible, the number twenty-eight, The Sinkiang Executive, thermonuclear bomb, Tom Cruise, Top Gun, triangular number, Turkey, twenty and eight cubits, twenty-eight, United States Army Air Corps, United States Department of Defense, United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, United States President Ronald Reagan, US Air Force, US Northrop F-5, Valiant, Viggo Nortensen, Warrick Dunn, West Germany, Western Australia, wheel of fortune, Willie Galimore, wisdom teeth, Woodrow Wilson, XB-28, Xiu, Yates Racing

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

It’s been a few weeks since we had a numbers factoid. Today we are having a look at the number twenty-eight, so if that’s your lucky number or your date of birth or if you are just interested in numbers and things associated with them then read on.

And enjoy.

The Number Twenty-Eight 28

In religion

In Hebrew, the first verse of the Bible “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis I.1) has seven words and 28 letters.
The length of one curtain shall be eight and twenty cubits. (Exodus, 26.2)
The length of one curtain was twenty and eight cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: the curtains were all of one size. (Exodus, 36.9)
In Chapter 28 in Genesis: Isaac blesses Jacob; Jacob’s Ladder; God’s promise; Stone of Bethel:

Artistic impression of Jacob's Ladder — Artistic impression of Jacob’s Ladder

In mathematics

28 is a composite number, its proper divisors being 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14.
Twenty-eight is the second perfect number. As a perfect number, it is related to the Mersenne prime 7, since 22(23 – 1) = 28. The next perfect number is 496, the previous being 6.
Twenty-eight is a harmonic divisor number, a happy number, a triangular number, a hexagonal number, and a centered nonagonal number.
Twenty-eight is the ninth and last number in early Indian magic square of order 3.
There are twenty-eight convex uniform honeycombs.

In science & technology

28 is the atomic mass of silicon and the atomic number of nickel.
28 is the molecular weight of nitrogen, (N2 = 28.02) and the molecular weight of carbon monoxide, (CO = 12 + 16 = 28.01); also interesting in that while carbon monoxide is poisonous, nitrogen is essential to life, yet they have the same molecular weight of 28 daltons.
28 is the fourth magic number in physics.
The average human menstrual cycle is 28 days although no link has been established with the nightlighting and the Moon.
Skin research has discovered that the epidermis is constantly regenerating itself, and all of its cells are replaced every 28 days.
By the age of fourteen most people have 28 permanent teeth; the last four molars, the wisdom teeth, erupt only if the jaw allows space for them.
The curing time of concrete is classically considered 28 days.

In space

Our universe is 28 billion light years in distance from edge to edge.
The revolution time of the surface of the Sun on itself is 28 days while its core is revolving in 33 days.
The moon completes 4 phases once it has wandered through the 28 lunar mansions.
28 Bellona is a large main belt asteroid between Mars and Jupiter. Bellona was discovered by R. Luther on March 1, 1854. It is named after Bellona, the Roman goddess of war; the name was chosen to mark the beginning of the Crimean War. Its diameter is 120.9 km, rotation period of 15.7 hours, and orbital period of 4.63 years.
The New General Catalogue object NGC 28, an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Phoenix.
Messier object M28 is a magnitude 8.5 globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius.

STS-28
STS-28 was the 30th NASA Space Shuttle mission, and the fourth dedicated to United States Department of Defense purposes. It was also the eighth flight of Space Shuttle Columbia.
The mission launched on 8 August 1989 and traveled 2.1 million miles during 81 orbits of the Earth, before landing on runway 17 of Edwards Air Force Base, California, on 13 August.
The mission details of STS-28 are classified, but the payload is widely believed to have been the first SDS-2 communications satellite.
The crew consisted of Commander Brewster H. Shaw, Jr., Pilot Richard N. Richards, and three Mission Specialists, James C. Adamson, David C. Leestma and Mark N. Brown.

Space Shuttle Challenger
One of the worst space related disasters happened on January 28 1986.
On that fateful day Space Shuttle Challenger (mission STS-51-L) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members.
The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of central Florida at 11:38 EST (16:38 UTC). Disintegration of the entire vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRBs aft attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces promptly broke up the orbiter.
The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. Although the exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown, several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. However, the shuttle had no escape system and the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable.
The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA’s organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident. NASA managers had known contractor Morton Thiokol’s design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977, but failed to address it properly. They also disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning and had failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors.
What Rogers did not highlight was the fact the vehicle was never certified to operate in temperatures that low.
Many viewed the launch live because of the presence of crew member Christa McAuliffe, the first member of the Teacher in Space Project and the (planned) first female teacher in space.
The Challenger disaster has been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics.

In politics

28th President of the United States is Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), who served (1913-1921). Wilson was President of Princeton University (1902-1910), where he graduated (1879) and taught as Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Economy (1890-1902). Wilson won the 1919 Peace Nobel Prize.

President Woodrow Wilson portrait December 2 1912

28th State to enter the Union is Texas (December 29, 1845)

In sport

The jersey number 28 has been retired by several North American sports teams in honor of past playing greats or other key figures:
In Major League Baseball: the Minnesota Twins, for Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven.

In the NFL: the Chicago Bears, for Willie Galimore; the Kansas City Chiefs, for Abner Haynes; the New York Jets, for Hall of Famer Curtis Martin; the St. Louis Rams, for Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk.

Car number twenty-eight was formerly run in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series by Yates Racing. The most notable driver was Davey Allison, who had the ride for his entire Cup Series career.

Baseball’s 28th All-Star Game was played at Municipal Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri, on July 11, 1960.
In the British game of cricket, the wicket is made of three wooden stakes each 28 inches high stuck into the ground.
The widely used 6-6 domino set contains 28 pieces.

In books, music and movies

In Quebec, Canada, François Pérusse, made a parody of Wheel of Fortune in which all of the letters picked by the contestant were present 28 times. As a result, 28 became an almost Mythical number used by many Quebec youths, the phrase “Y’en a 28” (There are 28 [Letters]) became a running gag still used and recognized more than 15 years later.
The Preludes, Opus 28 consists of Frédéric Chopin’s 24 preludes for piano, ordinarily but not necessarily played together in concert.
28 Days (2000) is a 104-minute movie directed by Betty Thomas and starring Sandra Bullock, Viggo Nortensen, Dominic West, Diane Ladd. A big-city newspaper columnist is forced to enter a drug and alcohol rehab center after ruining her sister’s wedding and crashing a stolen limousine.
28 Days Later (2002). Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.
28 Weeks Later (2007). Six months after the rage virus was inflicted on the population of Great Britain, the US Army helps to secure a small area of London for the survivors to repopulate and start again. But not everything goes to plan.
28 Hotel Rooms (2012). A novelist and an accountant meet while they are traveling for work, and though they both are in relationships, their one-night stand could become something more.

In militaria, shipping and aviation

T-28 Trojan
T-28 Trojan is a training military aircraft. In 1948 the U.S. Air Force originally acquired the T-28A as a trainer to replace the venerable AT-6. The T-28B and T-28C were acquired by the U.S. Navy and included a tailhook for carrier landing training. T-28 was shown on Card #15 of Topps Wings: Friend or Foe (1952).

Miles M.28 Mercury
The Miles M.28 Mercury was a British aircraft designed for either training or communications during the Second World War. It was a single-engine, monoplane of wooden construction with a twin tail and a tailwheel undercarriage with retractable main units.
Originally, the M.28 had been planned as a replacement for the Whitney Straight and Monarch, but this was shelved when war broke out.
In 1941, the project was revived in response to a requirement for a training and communications aircraft. The design was produced as a private venture by Ray Bournon using Miles’ normal wooden construction. The resulting machine introduced several features not found on trainers ncluding retractable undercarriage and trailing edge flaps. In the communications role, the M.28 had four seats and a range of 500 miles (800 km).
Owing to Miles’ heavy commitment to war-production, however, only six aircraft were built, of slightly varying specifications, the last being the Mercury 6 which first flew in early 1946. Examples were operated in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and Australia.

XB-28
The North American XB-28 (NA-63) was an aircraft proposed by the North American Aviation to fill a strong need in the United States Army Air Corps for a high-altitude medium bomber. It never entered into full production, with only two aircraft having been built.

MiG-28
The MiG-28 is a fictional aircraft that has appeared in several different unrelated works. These fictional aircraft have been independently created and the aircraft share nothing but a name.
The first instance of a “MiG-28” was in the 1978 Quiller novel The Sinkiang Executive written by Adam Hall. Referred to in the work as the MiG-28D, it was an aircraft that resembled a somewhat modified MiG-25, but with sharper air intakes and swept wings.
In the 1986 film Top Gun, Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) squared off against MiG-28s of unspecified nationality. These were actually US Northrop F-5s, which at the time were being used as aggressor aircraft for dissimilar air combat training at the real TOPGUN seminar (now known as the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School). The F-5s “acting” as MiG-28s were painted flat black to indicate their villainous status, and retained those paint jobs after production closed. The paint also increased the aircraft’s visibility, a plus for filmmaking.
Another MiG-28 is “seen” in the 1988 ABC television series Supercarrier. This MiG-28 was a fictional Soviet stealth fighter. An F-16 fighter in Soviet-style markings was used to “simulate” the Soviet fighter.

Fokker F-28 Fellowship
The Fokker F28 Fellowship is a short range jet airliner designed developed in Holland (1964) and assembled by defunct Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. The Fokker F-28 Fellowship jet was to complement Fokker’s highly successful F-27 turboprop.
Announced by Fokker in April 1962, production was a collaboration between a number of European companies, namely Fokker, MBB of West Germany, Fokker-VFW (also of Germany), and Short Brothers of Northern Ireland. There was also government money invested in the project, with the Dutch government providing 50% of Fokker’s stake and the West German government having 60% of the 35% German stake.
In total 241 Fokker F-28s were sold, including 160 in commercial service and 10 used as corporate jets.
The Fokker F-28 shown on a 40¡ Nauru stamp. Postage stamps with Fokker airplanes

Enstrom F-28
The Enstrom F-28 and 280 are a family of small, light piston-engined helicopters produced by the Enstrom Helicopter Corporation.[1]
Since delivering their first helicopter shortly after Federal Aviation Administration type certification of the F-28 model in April 1965, Enstrom helicopter has produced (as of 2007) approx 1,200 aircraft.[2]
The company produces three models, the F-28, the more aerodynamic 280 and the turbine-engined 480, each with their own variants. The F-28 and 280 both use Lycoming piston engines virtually identical to those found in general aviation fixed-wing aircraft

T-28 Tank
The Soviet T-28 multi-turret medium battle tank was among the world’s first medium tanks and became a symbol of the Red Army as was its heavier “brother” the T-35. Its silhouette is well known from pre-war newsreel about Soviet military parades in Moscow’s Red Square.
41 T-28 tanks were built in 1933 with hightest production of 131 in 1939. In the summer of 1941, the design of the T-28 became obsolete due to the drawbacks of multi-turret vehicles. The T-28 could hit any German tank from long distances.

The B28
The B28, originally Mark 28, was a thermonuclear bomb carried by U.S. tactical fighter bombers and bomber aircraft. From 1962 to 1972 under the NATO nuclear weapons sharing program, American B28s also equipped six Europe-based Canadian CF-104 squadrons known as the RCAF Nuclear Strike Force. It was also supplied for delivery by UK-based Royal Air Force Valiant and Canberra aircraft assigned to NATO under the command of SACEUR. Also USN carrier based attack aircraft such as the A3D Skywarrior and the A4D Skyhawk were equipped with the MK 28.

HMS Kandahar (F28)
HMS Kandahar (F28) was a K-class destroyer of the Royal Navy, named after the Afghan city of Kandahar.
Kandahar was launched on 21 March 1939, and on 21 February 1941, in company with HMS Kimberley and HMS Manchester, she captured the German blockade runner SS Wahehe off Iceland. On 19 December 1941, she was part of British Force K, tasked to intercept an Italian convoy bound for Tripoli when she was irreparably damaged by a newly laid Italian mine whilst attempting to rescue the stricken HMS Neptune. She was scuttled the next day by Jaguar. 73 men went down with the ship.

HMS Cleopatra (F28)
HMS Cleopatra (F28) was a Leander-class frigate of the Royal Navy, built at HMNB Devonport. She was launched on 25 March 1964 and commissioned on 4 January 1966.
Upon Cleopatra’s commissioning, she joined the 2nd Destroyer Squadron, Far East Fleet and then participated in the Beira Patrol, which was designed to prevent oil reaching the landlocked Rhodesia via the then Portuguese colony of Mozambique (Lorenzo Marques).
In 1969, Cleopatra was present at the Evans-Melbourne collision.
In 1972, Cleopatra took part in escort duties during the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh’s South East Asia tour.
In 1973, Cleopatra was dispatched to protect British trawlers against the Icelandic Coast Guard in the Second Cod War.
Afterwards, Cleopatra began her modernisation, becoming the first Batch Two Leander to do so, which included the removal of her one twin 4.5-in gun to allow the addition of the Exocet anti-ship missile system.
On 31 January 1992, Cleopatra was decommissioned. The following year, Cleopatra was sold for scrap.

Mosin–Nagant M/28
The Mosin–Nagant is a bolt-action, internal magazine-fed, military rifle created under the government commission by Russian inventors, and used by the armed forces of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and various other nations.
It has gone through many variations, the M/28 designed by the White Guard. The M/28 differs from the Army’s M/27 primarily in the barrel band design, which is a single piece compared to the M/27’s hinged band, and an improved trigger design. Barrels for the M/28 were initially purchased from SIG, and later from Tikkakoski and SAKO.
The M/28-30 is an upgraded version of the M/28. The most noticeable modification is a new rear sight design.

Smith & Wesson (S & W) Model 28
The most famous handgun with the 28 designation is the Smith & Wesson (S & W) Model 28, also known as the Highway Patrolman. It is an N-frame revolver chambered for the .357 Magnum cartridge, in production from 1954 to 1986. It is a budget version of the S&W Model 27.

Other stuff

The Roman numeral for 28 is XXVIII.
The Arab alphabet has 28 letters
Cities located at 28o latitude include: New Delhi, India.
Cities located at 28o longitude include: Johannesburg, South Africa; Pretoria, South Africa; and Istanbul, Turkey.
28 is not yet used as the code for international direct dial phone calls.
Two Cleveland skyscrapers have 28 floors, the McDonald Investment Center (1969): East 9th St. at Superior Ave. (305 ft);and the Marriott at Key Tower (1991): 127 Public Square, Cleveland (320 ft)
Parker Brothers Monopoly board game consists of 40 squares with 28 properties for sale. In the U.S. version, the properties are named after locations in Atlantic City, NJ.

The Runik alphabet, also called Futhark, used by Germanic peoples of northern Europe, Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland (3rd century to the 16th or 17th century AD) has 28 letters.
In Gematriya, the system of Hebrew Numerology, the number 28 corresponds to the word koakh, meaning “power”, “energy”.
The number of days in the shortest month of the Gregorian calendar, February (except in leap years, when there are twenty-nine).
The Gregorian calendar follows a 28-year cycle for the most part, since there are seven days in a week and leap year generally occurs every four years; usually, a calendar from any year is the same as that from 28 years earlier (e.g., 2008 and 1980 or 2009 and 2037). However, that rule holds only when there have been exactly seven leap days in a 28-year interval; years divisible by 100 but not by 400 are not leap years. Indeed, 1900 (as well as 2100, 2200, etc.) does not use the same calendar as 1872 (2072, 2172, etc., respectively) for the simple reason that 1900 is not a leap year. In 28 years, any day-of-the-week and date combination occurs exactly four times. February 29 will fall on each day of the week once.
In Jewish tradition there is a 28 year solar cycle in which the sun returns to its place in Creation every 28 solar years. This is commemorated in April every 28 years with the recitation of Birkat Hachama, the blessing of the sun.
There are 28 wheels on a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy.

28 is the common name for the parrot ‘Barnardius zonarius semitorquatus’, widely distributed in Western Australia and South Australia, because its call sounds like “wenniate”.
In neo-Nazi circles, twenty-eight indicates Blood and Honour (28 = BH – B – second letter of the alphabet and H – the eight letter).
The number of Chinese constellations, “Xiu” or “mansions” (a literal translation), equivalent to the 12 western zodiac constellations.
28 is the postal code of the province of Madrid, in Spain.
Twenty Eight is a popular game played in Kerala India.
28 is the number of the French department Eure-et-Loir.
There are approximately twenty-eight grams in an ounce, a measure frequently used in the illegal drug trade.
In horticulture the America and Cherish Roses have 28 orange pink petals; the Black Velvet Rose has 28 dark red petals; the Maestro Rose has 28 petals with a red center, pink edges and speckles; the Garden Party Rose has 28 white blend petals; and the Ophelia Rose has 28 light pink petals.

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today Number Eleven 11

November 30, 2012November 30, 2012 fasab Factoids, Numbers, Politics, Sport, Uncategorized, Unusual, War 11, 11th President of the United States, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, 9-11, Academy Awards, Ace, Air Force, Allied Pictures Corp, alphabet, aluminium, American Airlines, American football, and Washington Bullets, Andromeda, Apollo 11, Apostle Judas, apostles, apple, Aquarius, Armistice, Armistice Day, Army CID, astrology, atomic number, Atomic Weight, B-11 Gun, B.I. Shavyrin, Baltimore, Baranquilla, Barry Larkin, Basque, bassoon, BBC, Ben-Hur, Benjamin Franklin, Best Picture, Bible, Bill Clinton, blackjack, Blue Angels, Bob Davies, Book of Enoch, Boron, Brian Sutter, Brigadier General, British Spey 512, Bruges, Buffalo Sabres, California Angels, Cambodia, canada, Canadian currency, Canadian fifty-dollar bill, Canadian one-dollar coin, capital, Carl Hubbell, Chicago White Sox, Chicago's Sears Tower, Chinese Animal Zodiac, Chou En-lai, Christopher Eccleston, Cincinnati Reds, clocks, Coast Guard, Colin Baker, Cologne coat of arms, Colombia, Colt 1911, Commonwealth of Nations, Computers, computing, cricket, Crowns, Crucifixion of Jesus, curtains of goats' hair, David Tennant, DEC, Delta Force, Detroit Pistons, Detroit Tigers, diatonic scale, Digital Equipment Corporation, dimensions, disciples, Doctor Who, Doomsday clock, Edgar Martínez, Edmonton Oilers, education, Eleven pipers piping, Elevenses, Eleventh Commandment, eleventh hour, Elfmeter, Elvin Hayes, Elvis Presley, Europe, F11, fact, factoid, FBI, FBI Hostage Rescue Team, federal, first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon, Flag of Canada, flight 11, French department Aude, function key, Galilee, General Orders, Genesis, Germany, Gilbert Perreault, GMA News TV, Google Chrome, Gregorian calendar, Grumman Aircraft Corporation, Grumman F11F/F-11 Tiger, gun, gun salute, guns, Hall of Famer, hamaika, hendecagon, hijacked, Himalia, hockey, Igor Stravinsky, Internet Explorer, Isiah Thomas, J-11, J-11 Chinese Light Fighter Aircraft, James Polk, Jason Webley, Jesus, Jim Fregosi, John Browning, Jon Pertwee, Judas Iscariot, Jupiter, Kaph, kickers, King James Version, Konqueror for KDE, Korean War, Lambda, LAPD, latitude, left wing-forward, Lester del Rey, Liberia, London, longitude, los angeles, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Los Angeles Police Department, Luis Aparicio, lyrics, M11-A1, M1911 Colt, Mac OS X, Major League Baseball, maple leaf, Marine Corps, Marine Corps Special Operations Command, Mark Messier, marriage, mathematics, Matt Smith, Matthias, Messianic Kingdom, Messier object M11, midfielder, MiG-19 Farmer, Mike Gartner, Militaria, military, Minoru Yamasaki, modern string theory, Monarch, Monrovia, Moon, Moses, Mother Teresa, movies, Mozilla Firefox, Munich, music, Navy, NBA, NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, Negativland's song Time Zones, new york, New York City, New York Giants, New York Rangers, NFL, NHL, North Tower, November 11 1918, number, number 11, number 11 bus, numbers, Ocean’s Eleven, octave, Old Testament, Omar Vizquel, Opera, parable of the vineyard laborers, Patrick Troughton, Paul McGann, Paul Waner, PDP-11 series, penalty kick, Peter Davison, Phil Simms, Philippines, Phnom Penh, physics, Pittsburgh Pirates, PLAAF J-6, politics, polygon, President, President of the United States, punter, Pyramid formation, quarterbacks, Rear Admirals, religion, Remembrance Day, Rochester Royals, Roman Catholic Church, Roman numeral, rugby union, Rutherford B. Hayes, Sacramento Kings, Saint Ursula Shrine, San Francisco Giants, science, Seattle Mariners, Sentries, September 11 2001, Shenyang Aircraft Factory, Short Reset Trigger, Sig Sauer, Sig Sauer M11, Silicon, SIS, Smith & Wesson, Smith & Wesson Model 11 .38 Pistol, soccer, sodium, Sophia Loren, space, Sparky Anderson, sport, St. Louis Blues, Station of the Cross, Steel wedding anniversary, striker, sunspot cycle, SWAT, Sylvester McCoy, tabernacle, Tacoma, television, terrorist attack, Terrorists, The Doctor, the Eleven, The Grateful Dead, The Lord of the Rings The Return of the King, The Pillory by Brandon Fleming, The Rite of Spring, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Thelema, Titanic, Tom Baker, Tool's song Jimmy, twin towers, undecagon, Union, United States, Universe, Unix, US Army, USN F11F Tiger, Veterans Day, Vietnam War, Voltaire, Washington Capitals, Washington Police Department, Washington Wizards, whisper key, wide receivers, Wild Duck Cluster, William Hartnell, windows, Winston Churchill, world trade center, World War I, world war ii, WTC, X11, XI, Zodiac

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

The number for today’s Friday Factoid is eleven. If this is your lucky number, date of birth or if you are just interested in random facts, now is your chance to find out some things you probably didn’t know about the number eleven.

Enjoy!

The Number Eleven 11

In religion

The word “apple” is cited 11 times in the Bible, all in the Old Testament.
Moses was instructed to make curtains of goats’ hair to be a covering upon the tabernacle: “eleven curtains shalt thou make.” ( Exodus 26.7)
11 apostles remained with Jesus after the treason and suicide of Apostle Judas:
After Judas Iscariot was disgraced, the remaining apostles of Jesus were sometimes described as “the Eleven”; this occurred even after Matthias was added to bring the number to 12, as in Acts 2:14.
Jesus’ parable of the vineyard laborers: And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and says unto them, Why stand you here all the day idle? (Matthew 20.6)
11th Book of Enoch describes the Messianic Kingdom.
11th Station of the Cross: Crucifixion of Jesus (14 Stations of the Cross, Via Dolorosa)
11 is a spiritually significant number in Thelema.

In mathematics

If a number is divisible by 11, reversing its digits will result in another multiple of 11.
As long as no two adjacent digits of a number added together exceed 9, then multiplying the number by 11, reversing the digits of the product, and dividing that new number by 11, will yield a number that is the reverse of the original number. (For example: 142,312 x 11 = 1,565,432. 2,345,651 / 11 = 213,241.)
An 11-sided polygon is called a hendecagon or undecagon.

In computing

In Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Konqueror for KDE, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer for Windows, the function key F11 key toggles full screen viewing mode. In Mac OS X, F11 hides all open windows.
The windowing system for Unix computers is known as X11.
Computers of the PDP-11 series from Digital Equipment Corporation were informally referred to as “elevens”.

In science

11 is the atomic number of sodium.
11 is the Atomic Weight of Boron, a black and semi-metallic element, chemically closer to silicon than to aluminium.
In modern string theory physics, 11 dimensions are proposed to exist in the universe.

In space

Apollo 11 was the first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon.

The approximate periodicity of a sunspot cycle is 11 years.
Messier object M11, a magnitude 7.0 open cluster in the constellation Scutum, also known as the Wild Duck Cluster.

Messier object M11 - Wild Duck Cluster — Messier object M11 – Wild Duck Cluster

The New General Catalogue object NGC 11, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda
The 11th moon of Jupiter is Himalia.

himalia, the 11th Moon of Jupiter — Himalia, the 11th Moon of Jupiter

In politics

11th State to enter the Union is New York (July 26, 1788)
The 11th President of the United States is James Polk (1795-1849) who served (1845-1849).

James Polk 11th President of the United States of America

Polk was on the 11¢ stamp issued on September 8, 1938 in the Presidential Series.
11¢ stamps of the United States have also featured Presidents, Benjamin Franklin (issued Aug. 9, 1915) and Rutherford B. Hayes (issued Oct. 4, 1922)

In Canada

The stylized maple leaf on the Flag of Canada has 11 points.

The Canadian one-dollar coin is a hendecagon, an 11-sided polygon.

Clocks depicted on Canadian currency, for example the Canadian fifty-dollar bill, show 11:00.

Canadian fifty-dollar bill showing clock

Eleven denominations of Canadian currency are produced in large quantities.
Due to Canada’s federal nature, eleven legally distinct Crowns effectively exist in the country, with the Monarch being represented separately in each province, as well as at the federal level.

In sport

There are 11 players on a soccer team on the field at a time as well as in a cricket team.
Also in soccer, a penalty kick is referred to as “Elfmeter” because the penalty spot is approximately 11m (precisely 12 yards) from the goal line.
Historically, in the Pyramid formation that position names are taken from, a left wing-forward in football wears number 11. In the modern game, especially using the 4-4-2 formation, it is worn by a left-sided midfielder. Less commonly a striker will wear the shirt.
There are 11 players in a field hockey team. The player wearing 11 will usually play on the left-hand side, as in soccer.
An American football team also has 11 players on the field at one time during play. 11 is also worn by quarterbacks, kickers, punter and wide receivers in American football’s NFL.
In rugby union, the starting left wing wears the 11 shirt.
In cricket, the 11th batsman is usually the weakest batsman, at the end of the tail. He is primarily in the team for his bowling abilities.
The jersey number 11 has been retired by several North American sports teams in honor of past playing greats or other key figures:
In Major League Baseball: the Chicago White Sox, for Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio ( 2010 and 2011, Aparicio allowed fellow Venezuelan Omar Vizquel to wear the number); the Cincinnati Reds, for Hall of Famer Barry Larkin; the Detroit Tigers, for Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson; the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, for Jim Fregosi (who played for the team in its former incarnations as the Los Angeles Angels and California Angels, and also managed the California Angels); the Pittsburgh Pirates, for Hall of Famer Paul Waner; the San Francisco Giants, for Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell (honoring the number’s retirement when the team was known as the New York Giants); the Seattle Mariners have yet to retire any numbers, but have not issued #11 since the retirement of Edgar Martínez at the end of the 2004 season.

In the NBA: the Detroit Pistons, for Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas; the Sacramento Kings, for Hall of Famer Bob Davies (honoring the number’s retirement when the team was known as the Rochester Royals); the Washington Wizards, for Hall of Famer Elvin Hayes (who played for the team in its past incarnations as the Baltimore, Capital, and Washington Bullets);

In the NFL: the New York Giants, for Phil Simms.
In the NHL: the Buffalo Sabres, for Hall of Famer Gilbert Perreault; the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers, for Hall of Famer Mark Messier; the St. Louis Blues, for Brian Sutter; the Washington Capitals, for Hall of Famer Mike Gartner.

Oilers and New York Rangers, for Hall of Famer Mark Messier

In militaria

World War I ended with an Armistice on November 11, 1918, which went into effect at 11:00 am, the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year. Armistice Day is still observed on November 11 of each year, although it is now called Veterans Day in the United States and Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations and parts of Europe.

11 is the number of guns in a gun salute to U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps Brigadier Generals, and to Navy and Coast Guard Rear Admirals Lower Half.
11 is the number of General Orders for Sentries in the Marine Corps and United States Navy.

USN F11F Tiger
The Grumman F11F/F-11 Tiger was a single-seat carrier-based United States Navy fighter aircraft in operation during the 1950s and 1960s. Originally designated the F11F Tiger in April 1955 under the pre-1962 Navy designation system, it was redesignated as F-11 Tiger under the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system.
The F11F/F-11 was used by the Blue Angels flight team from 1957 to 1969. Grumman Aircraft Corporation made about 200 Tigers, with last delivered 23 January 1

J-11 Chinese Light Fighter Aircraft
The J-11 designation was originally applied in the design Shenyang Aircraft Factory in response to a 1968 requirement for a replacement PLAAF J-6 (MiG-19 Farmer). Shenyang’s proposal was triggered by a British Spey 512 afterburning turbofan engine and followed a conventional light fighter design, with wings swept back and side of the fuselage assembly entries.
The J-11 was a sophisticated design for its time, but the British Spey-512 engines proved “difficult” for Communist China to obtain at that time. Shenyang factory was ordered to concentrate their energies in the J-8, and J-11 never went beyond the planning stage.

The B-11 Gun
The B-11 gun is designed by the Design Bureau under guidance of B.I. Shavyrin. Its barrel consists of a smooth-bore tube, chamber, breech and breech mechanism. It is fixed on a tripod mount consisting of frame and boom. In firing position, the gun rests on the tripod mount and the wheels are elevated above ground level. The gun is transported by means of a prime-mover.
The gun can be transported in a truck body together with crew and ammo load. The gun can be also dropped by parachute.

Colt 1911
Designed by John Browning, the M1911 Colt is arguably the most well known pistol in the world. It is a single-action, semi-automatic, magazine-fed, recoil-operated handgun chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. It served as the standard-issue side arm for the United States armed forces from 1911 to 1985 and was widely used in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
The M1911 is still carried by some U.S. forces. Its formal designation as of 1940 was Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911 for the original Model of 1911 or Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911A1 for the M1911A1, adopted in 1924.
In total, the United States procured around 2.7 million M1911 and M1911A1 pistols in military contracts during its service life. The M1911 was replaced by the M9 pistol as the standard U.S. sidearm in the early 1990s, but due to its popularity among users, it has not been completely phased out. Modern M1911 variants are still in use by some units within the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.
Many military and law enforcement organizations in the United States and other countries continue to use (often modified) M1911A1 pistols including Marine Corps Special Operations Command, Los Angeles Police Department S.W.A.T. and L.A.P.D. S.I.S., the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, F.B.I. regional S.W.A.T. teams, and 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta (Delta Force). The Tacoma, Washington Police Department selected the Kimber Pro Carry II or Pro Carry II HD as optional, department supplied weapons available to its officers

Sig Sauer M11-A1
Two of the most watched shows on television are NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. The 2nd spinoff show, NCIS: LA features covert NCIS agents based out of Los Angeles investigating things that have nothing to do with NCIS and regularly getting into gunfights and leaving bodies all over LA. And each week, they’re correctly depicted using the Sig Sauer M11, the standard issue pistol for NCIS, Army CID, and a number of other special units of the US military.
The Sig Sauer M11-A1 is a commercially available version of the military sidearm; upgrading the slide to stainless steel and adding Sig’s excellent Short Reset Trigger. The Sig M11-A1 comes standard with three 15-round magazines, and SigLite night sights.

Smith & Wesson Model 11 .38 Pistol
The American Smith & Wesson .38 Model 11 Revolver was supplied to British Commonwealth countries 1950s – 1970s for Police use. A standard 6-shot hand ejector with 4” barrel, ‘Mod 11’ marking and flared chequered walnut grips.

In music, movies and television
The interval of an octave and a fourth is an 11th.
A complete 11th chord has almost every note of a diatonic scale.
The number of thumb keys on a bassoon, not counting the whisper key. (A few bassoons have a 12th thumb key.)
In Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, there are 11 consecutive repetitions of the same chord.
In Tool’s song Jimmy, and in Negativland’s song Time Zones the number 11 is heard numerous times in the lyrics.
“Eleven pipers piping” is the gift on the 11th day of Christmas in the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
The Eleven is a song by The Grateful Dead.
Eleven Records is the record label of Jason Webley, and many of Webley’s works feature the number 11.
Three films, Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), have each won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture of their respective years.

Ocean’s Eleven is the name of two American films.
The Eleventh Commandment is a feature length film by Allied Pictures Corp. (1933) adapted from the story The Pillory by Brandon Fleming.
The Eleventh Commandment (1962) is a science fiction novel by Lester del Rey (USA). In a heavily overpopulated future, the Roman Catholic Church continues to encourage people to be fruitful and multiply. But there is a scientific reason behind this apparent madness.
The number of incarnations of The Doctor in BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who is 11, as of 2012. (William Hartnell; Patrick Troughton; Jon Pertwee; Tom Baker; Peter Davison; Colin Baker; Sylvester McCoy; Paul McGann; Christopher Eccleston; David Tennant and Matt Smith)

The 11 actors who have played 'The Doctor' — The 11 actors who have played ‘The Doctor’

Other stuff

Cities located at 11o longitude: Munich, Germany; Monrovia, Liberia
Cities located at 11o latitude: Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Baranquilla, Colombia
The eleventh hour means the last possible moment to take care of something, and often implies a situation of urgent danger or emergency (see Doomsday clock).
11 days were lost when the British imposed the Gregorian calendar in 1752, decreeing that the day following September 2 be called September 14.
“Elevenses” is a tea or coffee taken at midmorning and often accompanied by a snack (British custom).
The number 11 bus is a low-cost way of sightseeing in London
In the game of blackjack, an Ace can be counted as either one or 11, whichever is more advantageous for the player.

11 is the number of the French department Aude.
11 is the channel assignment of GMA News TV in the Philippines (formerly ZOE-TV 11). Both owned by ZOE Broadcasting Network and GMA Network.
The Roman numeral for 11 is XI.
Steel wedding anniversary celebrates 11 years of marriage.
K is the 11th letter of the English alphabet .
Kaph is the 11th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and means “grasping hand”, with a numeric value of 20.
Lambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet, meaning service, with numeric value of 30
In Astrology, Aquarius is the 11th astrological sign of the Zodiac.
The dog is the 11th sign of the Chinese Animal Zodiac based on the lunar year. Dog-year people are honest, intelligent, and straightforward, with a deep sense of loyalty and justice. The previous dog year was Feb. 10, 1994 to Jan. 30, 1995. The next lunar dog year is Jan. 29, 2006 to Feb. 17, 2007. People born in the dog year include Voltaire, Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, Chou En-lai, Sophia Loren, Elvis Presley, and Bill Clinton.
The Cologne coat of arms depicts the two-headed Imperial eagle holding sword and sceptre. The escutcheon (shield) shows three crowns (relics of the Three Magi kept in the Cologne Cathedral). The 11 black flames stand for the Patron Saint Ursula protecting the 11,000 virgins. Hans Memling (1440-1494) painted “Saint Ursula and the Holy Virgins” (1489) on wood at Saint Ursula Shrine in Bruges. Memling reduced the 11,000 virgins to a more manageable 11.
German Rhineland carnival season begins on 11.11 at 11:11 A.M. in Cologne.

9 / 11

The twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City looked like the number 11.
It was 110 stories tall, rising 1353 feet and was the tallest building in the world, until surpassed by Chicago’s Sears Tower (1450 feet).
WTC was built in 1966-1977 by Minoru Yamasaki.

American Airlines Flight 11 was a passenger flight which was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. They deliberately crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing all 87 people aboard plus the hijackers, and an unconfirmed number in the building’s impact zone. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 767-223ER, was flying American Airlines’ daily scheduled morning transcontinental service from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California.
The second aircraft, a United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767–222, scheduled to fly from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California, hit the South Tower at 09.03.

After the World Trade Center was demolished by terrorist attack on 9/11/2001, ceremonies were held on subsequent 9/11 dates near the site showing “Tribute in Light”— twin beams of light that resemble the number 11 projected to the sky.

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