Did You Know? – Flags, Cobble Stones And Blimps, Just Some Of Today’s Facts.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Talk about random. Today’s selection certainly lives up to that description.

Hope you can find at least a few facts in this lot that you like.

Enjoy.

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The Swiss flag is square.

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All of the cobble stones that used to line the streets in New York

were originally weighting stones

put in the hulls of Belgian ships to keep an even keel.

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There are only thirteen blimps in the world.

Nine of the thirteen blimps are in the United States.

The existing biggest blimp is the Fuji Film blimp.

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If you come from Manchester,

you are a Mancunian.

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The most remote inhabited place on Earth,  Tristan de Cunha,

a small archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean

thousands of miles from both South Africa and South America,

has a population of only  271 people and mail only arrives a few times per year.

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At the last official census,

the hottest constantly inhabited region in the world

is Dallol in Ethiopia.

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The German Kaiser Wilhelm II had a withered arm

and often hid the fact by posing with his hand

resting on a sword, or by holding gloves.

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A kind of tortoise in the Galapagos Islands

has an upturned shell at its neck

so it can reach its head up to eat cactus branches.

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The 1957 Milwaukee Braves were the first baseball team

to win the World Series after being relocated.

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The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is ‘Live Free or Die’.

Ironically these license plates are manufactured

by prisoners in the state prison in Concord.

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The common goldfish is the only animal that can

see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.

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If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat

it measures 87 feet long.

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Camel’s milk does not curdle.

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A person from the country of Nauru is called a Nauruan;

this is the only palindromic nationality.

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Hang On Sloopy

is the official rock song of Ohio.

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Did You Know? – It’s Another Fact Filled Tuesday.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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A curious mixture of facts today, or maybe they’re always hat way?

Anyway, I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

But whatever conclusion you come to I hope you enjoy.

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As with many things, Penicillin was discovered accidently

when Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming came back from vacation

and noticed that his bacteria were all being killed off by a strange fungus.

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Every two minutes, we take as many photos

as all of humanity took during the 1800s.

Smile please!

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If you think no one cares if you’re alive,

try leaving some debts unpaid.

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In 1942 Dr. Harry Coover found that a substance he created,

cyanoacrylate, was a failure.

It stuck to everything it touched just a little too well.

So he invented Super Glue.

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When Warner Brothers formed,

the Ottoman Empire was still in being.

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John Pemberton didn’t start out wanting to be a successful businessman.

He just wanted to cure headaches.

His recipes consisted of two things – coca leaves and cola nuts.

When his lab assistant accidentally mixed the two with carbonated water

Coke was born.

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The oldest living person’s birth

is closer to the signing of the US Constitution

than present day.

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John Tyler, America’s 10th President,

has two living grandchildren.

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The last time the Chicago Cubs won a World Series,

women were not allowed to vote.

(Sorry for reminding you Cubs fans.)

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If it weren’t for the last minute

nothing would ever get done.

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While building an ocillator to record heart beat sounds in animals

at Cornell University Wilson Greatbatch accidentally grabbed the wrong transistor.

After switching on the device he found it to have

a very familiar rhythmic pulsing sound, very similar to a human heart.

So now we have Pacemakers!

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Basque, a language spoken in the

mountains between France and Spain

is the only European language

not related to any other known language.

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President Kennedy was the fastest

random speaker in the world

with upwards of 350 words per minute.

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Sometimes your mouth is like a zipper,

by the time you realize it’s open

it has already embarrassed you.

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The bagpipe was originally made

from the whole skin of a dead sheep.

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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

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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

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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;

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

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• 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.

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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);

• 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

• 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);

• 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)

• 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).

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

• 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)

• 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.

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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.

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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.

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• 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.

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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.

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• 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.

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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 27^th year, on March 2, 1796;

• 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;

• 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”.

• 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.

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today The Number Twenty-Three 23

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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They’ve been ‘beautiful’,  they’ve been ‘big’  and they’ve been ‘unusual’.  Today we have ‘significant’ number, twenty-three, 23, so-called because of its use and the beliefs surrounding it.

Enjoy.

 

Twenty-three

Until the recent Jim Carey movie that highlighted the Discordian fascination with the idea that everything that happens on earth and in all of existence is somehow related to the number 23, that number was really only of significance to a few conspiracy theorists.

Discordia is a rather rare belief that is based on the study of random events and numbers. The number 23 is sacred because it belongs to a Greek Goddess named Eris. She is the Goddess of Chaos and her followers practice a form of ritual worship called chaos magic.

 

In Religion

• Although the Old Testament is unspecific, it is widely held that Adam and Eve had 23 daughters;
• The 23rd verse of the first chapter of Genesis brings the act of creation to a close;
• the 23rd chapter of the book of Genesis deals entirely with death, namely that of Abraham’s wife, Sarah;
• The 23rd Psalm alao known as ‘the psalm of David’, and even better known to many by its first line ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’ is the most famous and most quoted of the Psalms;
• The Ancient Egyptians hailed the New Year on July 23 – the day Sirius rises behind the sun;
• According to ancient Mayan prophesy on December 23, 2012 the world will end;
• In Islam, the Qur’an was revealed in a total of 23 years to Muhammad;
• Muslims believe the first verses of the Qur’an were revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, on the 23rd night of the 9th Islamic month.

 

 

In Maths

• 23 is the lowest prime that consists of consecutive digits that are also primes;
• Prime numbers have been described as being the building blocks of the world of numbers and therefore also the building blocks of the reality that we experience;
• The Birthday Paradox states that a group of 23 randomly-selected people is the smallest number where there will be a probability higher than 50 per cent that two people will share the same birthday.

 

Graphical representation of the Birthday Paradox

In Metaphysics

• The number 23 has also been studied by many great metaphysicists, including Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson who wrote three books about the number. The number is seen by these authors as being the key to illumination and they also claim that major shifts in collective consciousness and world events can be seen in each cycle of 23 years.

 

In Love

• Twenty three is also a significant number in love. This is because in ancient China, the number two was assigned a feminine role and the number three was given a masculine role. The number 23 then became to symbolize marriage, procreation, and progeny.

 

In Psychology

• The great psychologist and anthropologist Carl Jung also thought that the number 23 was special and defined it as a number of synchronicity.

 

In Politics

• The 23^rd President of the United States was Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901). Served as President from March 4, 1889 to March 4, 1893.   Party – Republican.  VP – Levi P. Morton;

Benjamin Harrison 23rd President of the United States of America

•  The Twenty-third Amendment (Amendment XXIII) to the United States Constitution permits citizens in the District of Columbia to vote for Electors for President and Vice President. The amendment was proposed by Congress on June 17, 1960, and ratified by the states on March 29, 1961. The first Presidential election in which it was in effect was the presidential election of 1964. Prior to the passage of the amendment, residents of Washington, D.C. were forbidden from voting for President or Vice President as the District is not a U.S. state. However, they are still unable to send voting Representatives or Senators to Congress.

 

In Space

• The tilt of Earth’s axis is roughly 23o accounting for the changing seasons and the procession of the Zodiac;
• The first Apollo landing on the moon was at 23.63 degrees east; the second was 23.42 degrees west;
• On July 23, 1996 the “Mysterious Eyes” of comet Hale-Bopp are first sighted.

 

In Militaria

• The most famous aircraft with the 23 designation is the Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 also known by the NATO reporting name ‘Flogger’.
• It is a third generation variable-geometry fighter aircraft, and was the first attempt by the Soviet Union to design look-down/shoot-down radar and one of the first to be armed with beyond visual range missiles. It was also the first MiG production fighter aircraft to have intakes at the sides of the fuselage.
• Production started in 1970 and reached large numbers with over 5,000 aircraft built. Today the MiG-23 remains in limited service with various export customers.

Mig-23

• In America, the Northrop YF-23 or Northrop–McDonnell Douglas YF-23 was a less commercially successful single-seat, twin-engine fighter aircraft designed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The design was a finalist in the USAF’s Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) competition, battling the Lockheed YF-22 (developed by Lockheed, Boeing and General Dynamics) for a production contract. Two YF-23 prototypes were built with the nicknames “Black Widow II” and “Gray Ghost”.
• Although the YF-23 was stealthier and faster, but less agile than its competition. After a four-year development and evaluation process, the YF-22 was announced the winner in 1991 and entered production as the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.
• The U.S. Navy considered using the production version of the ATF as the basis for a replacement to the F-14, but these plans were later canceled. As of 2009, the two YF-23 prototypes were museum exhibits.

Northrop–McDonnell Douglas YF-23,  nicknamed Gray Ghost (foreground), with YF-23 Black Widow II

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• On the ground the Soviet ZU-23-2 anti-craft gun was developed in the late 1950s. It was designed to engage low-flying targets at a range of 2.5 km as well as armoured vehicles at a range of 2 km and for direct defense of troops and strategic locations against air assault usually conducted by helicopters and low-flying airplanes.
• In the Soviet Union, some 140,000 units were produced. The ZU-23 has also been produced under licence by Bulgaria, Poland, Egypt and the People’s Republic of China.
• Development of this weapon into a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG) led to the ZSU-23-4 Shilka. (see below)

The ZU-23-2 in Saint Petersburg

• However, the best known piece of ground militaria is probably the  ZSU-23-4 “Shilka” is a lightly armored, self-propelled, radar guided anti-aircraft weapon system. The acronym “ZSU” stands for Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka, meaning “anti-aircraft self-propelled mount”. The “23” signifies the bore diameter in millimeters; the “4” signifies the number of gun barrels.
• It is named after the Russian Shilka River. Afghan soldiers nicknamed it maszyna do szycia (sewing machine) due to the sound of firing guns and because of the similarity of the name “Shilka” to the Russian word meaning “to sew”). It is also referred to by its nickname of “Zeus”.

The ZSU 23-4 Shilka

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In Sport

• The New York Yankees won the World Series 23 times;
• Devin Hester, whose jersey number is 23, becomes the first person to return the opening kickoff for a touchdown in a Super Bowl ( XLI );
• Basketball legend Michael Jordan wore 23 for the Chicago Bulls; his dad was also murdered on July 23, 1993, during a botched robbery;
• World record-breaking basketball boy wonder LeBron James also wears the number 23 shirt;
• English soccer star David Beckham took the number 23 when he joined Real Madrid; he said it was in deference to Jordan;
• 23 was the shirt number worn by tragic soccer player Marc-Vivien Foe when he was at Manchester City; the Cameroon international died after collapsing on the pitch during a Confederations Cup semi-final;
• In darts, 23 is the lowest score that cannot be gained with the throw of a single dart.

 

Michael Jordan action shot in the famous # 23 shirt

 

In Movies and TV

• In the film Airport, the mad bomber has seat 23;
• In the film Airplane II, the name of the spaceship is XR-2300;
• The original Star Trek, as well as Babylon Five are set in the 23rd century;
• In Star Wars Princess Lea was held in cell AA-23;
• The German movie 23 explored an obsession with the number, based on a real-life story;
• In the Beatles film Yellow Submarine, The Butterfly Stomper, who destroys all things of beauty, wears a shirt with the number 23;
• In Die Hard III the train derails in subway station 23.

 

 

The Darker Side

• In the Kaballah, the Hebrew studies of gematria, the number means severity or judgment. It is associated with apocalypse. In fact, the date to beware of in the future would be the year 2023, according to that system of predictive numerology;
• Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times when he was assassinated;
• 230 people died in the conspiracy plagued TWA flight 800 disaster;
• There are 23 chapters of the Cult Awareness Network;
• THE average smoker gets through 23 cigarettes a day;
• The Hiroshima bomb was dropped at 8.15am (8+15= 23);
• The United States set off 23 atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific;
• The Unibomber killed or wounded 23 people;
• Rock star Kurt Cobain was born in 1967 and died in 1994. Both years bizarrely add up to 23 if counted as individual digits: 1+9+6+7=23. 1+9+9+4=23;
• The date of the terrorist attacks on America on 11 September 2001 (9+11+2+0+0+1) add up to 23.

 

9/11 Memorial (AP photo by Mark Lennihan)

 

Other things about 23

• Homo sapiens are given 46 chromosomes from their parents, 23 male and 23 female;
• The human Biorhythm cycle is 23 days;
• It takes 23 seconds for blood to circulate through the human body;
• There are 23 joints in the human arm, and 23 vertebrae in the human body;
• A full turn of the DNA helix occurs every 23 angstroms;
• The first Morse code transmission is reported to have been “What hath god wrought?”, a Biblical quote from Numbers 23:23;
• In telegraphers code 23 means “break the line”;
• There are exactly 23 characters, numbers and letters, on the face of all U.S. coins;
• Every 23rd wave crashing on a beach averages twice the size as normal;
• The Latin alphabet has 23 letters;
• Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859 – 1+8+5+9 = 23;
• AOL chat rooms only allow 23 people at a time;
• The address of the Freemasons lodge in Stafford, England, is 23 Jaol Road. In New York City it’s on 23rd street;
• The letter ‘W‘ is the 23rd in the alphabet and has 2 points down and 3 points up;
• US Cavalry legend General Custer was promoted to the senior military rank at the age of 23;
• William Shakespeare was born on April 23,1556 and died on April 23, 1616; the two 23’s obviously equals 46 which was Shakespeare’s age when the KJV was published; in Psalm 46 in the KJV Bible count 46 words and you arrive at the word ‘shake’; count 46 words backwards from the end of the chapter and you end on is ‘spear’;
• The author William Burroughs was obsessed with 23. While living in Tangiers, he met a Captain Clark who ran a ferry between Spain and Morocco. One day, Clark told Burroughs that he had been doing the route for 23 years without incident. Later that day, the ferry sank, killing the captain. While Burroughs was thinking about the incident, a radio bulletin announced the crash of a Flight 23 on the New York-Miami route. The pilot was another Captain Clark. The events prompted an obsession which saw Burroughs record every occurrence of the number 23 for the rest of his life.

 

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