Fact Of The Day

[Chase]

The Roman Emperor Nero actually had a young man selected whom he then had castrated and dressed as his wife.
From surviving historical records, which historians treat with scrutiny do to the evidenced propaganda likely to have been spread by the SPQR, Nero in one his psychotic episodes kicked his pregnant wife to death. He also ended up later killing his husband too. Nero owed his throne to his mother, who murdered to get him in power, and after that Nero tried some rather interesting attempts to murder his mother, including sending her on a luxurious cruise (a Roman yacht with works - it even had a pool) that he planned on having an "accident" - which she escaped from. It is said Nero felt remorse after murdering his mother in cold blood, and there are some priceless paintings in museums of the young Nero lamenting over his guilt.
Nero had plans on building what we might call an amusement park, a summer house, with gardens and mazes open to the public. A fire burned broke out and burned down an entire section of the city of Rome, and supposedly it was said Nero started the fire and playing an instrument he sung The Fall of Troy watching the fire from his balcony. This probably spread later, after his assassination, as Nero blamed the early Christians for starting the fire, expelled them from the city, and began to have them arrested. There may be some truth to it being on the Christians however, as early records showed the early Christians were more divided then they were today, ranging from thinking the man-god Jesus was merely a sage to thinking he was an entirely different god than the god of the Old Testament and came to defeat it.
Historians doubt the actual psychopathy of the young emperor Nero, as some reports sound rather silly, such as how Nero would play instruments horribly at theaters and the audience would rain down in applause in fear.

[monk]

Albert Einstein never learned how to drive a car.

[Rainbowmum]

During the plague in the Middle Ages, some doctors wore a primitive form of biohazard suit called “plague suits” The mask included red glass eyepieces, which were thought to make the wearer impervious to evil. The beak of the mask was often filled with strongly aromatic herbs and spices to overpower the miasmas or “bad air” which was also thought to carry the plague.

[monk]

There are more miles of canals in Birmingham UK than in Venice.

[Rainbowmum]

The real-life Dracula might not have sucked blood out of his victims’ necks, but he still drank it in a different way: by dipping chunks of bread into buckets of blood drained from the people he killed.

[monk]

The creepy Mrs Danvers (from "Rebecca"):



ended up as a Vulcan High Priestess:



Both played by the wonderful Dame Judith Anderson.

[Rainbowmum]

Wow I never knew that. Thank you.

The model for Uncle Sam on the famous 1917 post “I want you” is the face of the painter, James Montgomery Flagg. For effect he aged his own portrait and added the goatee beard. Flagg used his own picture in order to avoid the need to find a model.

[monk]

Wow I never knew that. Thank you.

And she was Australian - born in Adelaide.


Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

[Rainbowmum]

Sinister Left-Handed People

Left-handed people have gotten a bad rap all throughout history. Early Europeans used the term left-handed to refer to homosexuals. In Ghana if you point with your left hand it’s considered an offense, and in ancient Rome left-handed people were considered unlucky and untrustworthy. The word sinister actually comes from the original Latin meaning for left, and over time the negativity associated with left-handed people pushed the meaning more towards evil.


I knew that she was Australian.

[monk]

An Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer who fought in World War II, Hiroo Onoda, did not surrender in 1945. In 1974 his former commander traveled from Japan to personally issue orders relieving him from duty. Onoda had spent almost 30 years holding out in the Philippines.