This is the April 2023 edition of the fascinating facts Newsletter, which includes a broad range of interesting topics. This includes Some April thoughts, voyager in space, crisps and the dead sea scrolls. I also feature Dr Edward Jenner, the father of vaccination.
Fascinating Facts April 2023 Contents
You can download the full newsletter to read HERE, however some snippets are listed below.
Some April thoughts
April might start with pranks, jokes, and humour. But it is also an excellent time to spread kindness when things cool down. Spring gives the world a makeover. And it’s the perfect time to do the same for yourself. Refresh your mind with gratitude, kindness, motivation, and love. And it will set a positive tone for the rest of the year. Read Full Article…
Voyager The Golden Disk in Space
Ever since humans have inhabited this lump of rock, spinning in space, there has always been the question of where and why. Where did we come from and why are we here? The ancients worshiped many gods. Now today, most humans believe in one God. But there is still the question of what is out there. The suggestion has been we should try to contact, if there are any, other life forms called planetary habitability. So far the Kepler mission, identified over 2,800 confirmed exoplanets, with several thousand more candidates waiting to be confirmed. So far, researchers have identified several hundred planets in the habitable zone of the star in Kepler data. It could take time to find 300 million! Read Full Article…
Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls
In late 1946, a Bedouin boy of the Ta’amireh tribe found a cave while searching for a lost animal. When he entered the first cave, he found the scrolls dating back two thousand years. The scrolls were taken back to their encampment and eventually shown to Mar Samuel of the Monastery of Saint Mark in April 1947. This was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. But they did not reveal the location of the cave for another 18 months and eventually a joint investigation of the cave site took place in 1949. Interest in the scrolls, with the hope of money from their sale, initiated a long area-wide search by a local tribe to find more such scrolls. Read Full Article…
Crisps
The first known reference to a food similar to the modern crisp was in 1817 in a recipe book, The Cook’s Oracle, by William Kitchiner, which referred to “Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings”. Sprinkled with “a very little salt. Kitchiner’s book was a best-seller and during the following decade, his recipe was referenced in many recipe books. He became a celebrity chef of his day. Read Full Article…
The Mystery of The Voynich Manuscript
An illustrated manuscript of the Voynich manuscript is an illustrated hand written codex in’ Voynichese’. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to between 1404–1438, while the stylistic analysis indicates it may have been composed in Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The origins, authorship, and purpose of the manuscript are debatable with various suggestions which suggest that it is an otherwise unrecorded script for a natural language or constructed language; an unread code, cypher, or other form of cryptography; or simply a meaningless hoax. It consists of around 240 pages, but there is evidence that there some are missing. Most of the pages contain fantastical illustrations or diagrams, some crudely coloured, with sections of the manuscript showing people, fictitious plants, astrological symbols, etc. The text is written from left to right. Read Full Article…
Oberammergau Passion play
I have seen the Oberammergau Passion play, which covers the short last period of Jesus’s life, from his last visit to Jerusalem, to his crucifixion, twice. It takes place in a specially built wooden structure, where the stage is open and one can see the mountains beyond. The theatre accommodates an audience of 4,700 people. One thing that struck me was the simple way the hall complied with fire regulations. The solution was a platform at the rear on each side on which stood a fireman with a powerful water cannon! With a new audience every day, the traffic system worked fantastically well with no traffic problems. Read Full Article…
Dr Edward Jenner The Father of Vaccination
Edward Jenner’s dream was for the worldwide eradication of smallpox. A dream which became reality 56 years after his death, when the World Health Organisation declared smallpox an eradicated disease. But his legacy is more than that. He was the father of vaccination, which was not a medical procedure before his ground-breaking concept, which he proved by vaccinating 8-year-old James Phipps with cowpox on May 14th 1796. The son of a vicar, he was born in 1749 and became an English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccination, which is now a common medical treatment. A word derived from Variolae vaccinae (‘pustules of the cow’), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. Read Full Article…
Schwerer Gustav & Dora The Worlds Largest Guns
Schwerer Gustav – Heavy Gustav was a German 80-centimetre railway gun developed in the late 1930s by Krupp as siege artillery for destroying the forts of the French Maginot Line. The fully assembled gun weighed 1,350 tons and fired 7 ton shells, as below, a distance of 29 miles. Designed in preparation for the Battle of France, it was not ready when that battle began, and the Blitzkrieg offensive rapidly outflanked the Maginot Line’s static defences. They later deployed Gustav to the Soviet Union during the Battle of Sevastopol, part of Operation Barbarossa, where it destroyed a munitions depot 98 ft below ground. Read Full Article…
