Did you know that...

[Swatopluk]

Did you know that there is a region in East Anglia where no driving licences can be issued beause there is not a single hill where hill-starting can be practiced or tested in the exam?

[Lindorm]

For similar reasons (rather: To avoid similar problems), quite a few small municipialities here in Sweden have one light-signalled crossing in the local village, whether it is needed for traffic purposes or not. 

[Swatopluk]

Did you know that Kellogg's cornflakes were originally intended as an antiaphrodisiac to control the dangerous sexual drive of the lower classes?
It failed because the brother of Dr.Kellogg insisted on adding sugar.

[Griffin NoName]

DYKT the works of Aristotle were translated Greek -> Arabic -> Latin -> English

If they used Babel fish goodness knows what he actually wrote.

[Swatopluk]

There is actually a step missing: Aristotle talking - Student writing it down. Anything that Aristotle wrote himself seems to have been lost.

Did you know that the Roman historian Livy reports that he witnessed an ox falling from the fourth floor of an apartment block in ancient Rome and that we know from a letter found that those buildings must have had 8 storeys or more?

[Griffin NoName]

Did you know that the Roman historian Livy reports that he witnessed an ox falling from the fourth floor of an apartment block in ancient Rome and that we know from a letter found that those buildings must have had 8 storeys or more?

Sounds like a tall story to me

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

It's possible, aren't cows the ones that can go upstairs but not downstairs?

[Swatopluk]

It's possible, aren't cows the ones that can go upstairs but not downstairs?

I thought that was donkeys.
---

Did you know that there is a variant of the Mandelbrot set known as Buddhabrot]/url]?
In some areas of Germany that would be bread and butter

[Pachyderm]

DYTK I am spending tonight doing bat surveys and poking around in the roofspace of a haunted, disused stately home?

[Swatopluk]

We have a castle quite near for that
http://www.berlin-motive.de/Spandau/fotos/Zitadelle_NEU_Plan/Haus4_Fledermaus/zitadelle.htm

[Swatopluk]

Did you know that German colleagues honoured Einstein stealthily by use of a visual pun during the Nazi era?

At the Einsteinturm in Potsdam staffers removed and hid the Einstein bust in order to save it from destruction by the Nazis in 1933. they replaced it with a single stone (German: ein Stein). The tradition is kept up (although the bust is again at its proper place) but the stone is regularly stolen and has to be replaced.

[Sibling DavidH]

Did you know that Schindler's Lift really exists and that I have been in it?



(Ibis Aero Hotel, Budapest.  Sorry about the bad photo - I kept getting disturbed by these silly people who for some reason wanted to go up and down in it.)

[Griffin NoName]

 

[Swatopluk]

Did you know that there is an actual 3D disease?

Pellagra is classically described by "the three D's": diarrhea, dermatitis and dementia.
No, this is not about trying to stop smoking.

[Lindorm]

Did you know that Schindler's Lift really exists and that I have been in it?



(Ibis Aero Hotel, Budapest.  Sorry about the bad photo - I kept getting disturbed by these silly people who for some reason wanted to go up and down in it.)

Though the elevator-and-escalator Schindlers are not related to the Subject-of-Spielberg-Movie Schindlers!

The elevator guys are a Swiss-based company, started in Luzern in 1874 as Schindler & Villiger. The Schindler's List Schindlers were germans, owned a company manufacturing farm equipment that went bust during the great depression, and the enamelled goods factory that Oskar Schindler owned and operated was a new aquisition, gotten through the "arisation" of the german economy during the 1930'ies. Oskar Schindler was in a position to buy the formerly jewish-owned factory largely through his excellent political connections from his work for the Abwehr, the german military intelligence department.