Mildly interesting
-
One hundred thousand pounds in legal tender bills were issued on April 25, 1759, to be valid until March 1, 1767. This was later extended until October 15, 1769. The Penn family's coat of arms appears on the front of the bill and a nature print is on the back. Benjamin Franklin and David Hall printed the bills in Philadelphia. The spelling of "Pennsylvania" differs on most of the denominations of the notes, and it is thought that Franklin purposely did this to deter counterfeiting.
-
Excerpted from Wiki: "The Carrière Wellington is a museum in Arras, northern France. It is named after a former underground quarry which was part of a network of tunnels used by forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the First World War. Opened in March 2008, the museum commemorates the soldiers who built the tunnels and fought in the Battle of Arras in 1917.
"From the Middle Ages through to the 19th century, the chalk beds underneath Arras were extensively quarried to supply stone for the town's buildings. The quarries fell into disuse by the start of the 20th century. In 1916, during the First World War, the British forces controlling Arras decided to re-use the underground quarries to aid a planned offensive against the Germans, whose trenches ran through what are now the eastern suburbs of the town.
"Thousands of soldiers were billeted in the tunnels for eight days prior to the start of the Arras offensive on 9 April 1917. At 05:30 that morning, exits were dynamited to enable the troops to storm the German trenches. The Germans were taken by surprise and were pushed back 11 km (6.8 mi). This counted as an extraordinary success by the standards of the time. However, the offensive soon bogged down and it was eventually called off after casualties reached 4,000 a day."
For more interesting details about the tunnels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrière_Wellington
-
-
@mark That was very cool
-
-
@bachophile Holy Cow. Can't even imagine the pain if he'd hit his kneecaps with the barbell.
-
A powerful stellar explosion from a nearby star propelled Zeta Ophiuchi about 100,000 mph (160,934 km). Data from Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a bubble of X-ray emission (blue) surrounding the star is produced by gas that has been heated to tens of millions of degrees: https://go.nasa.gov/3PYLyWo
-
-
