This is the July 2024 edition of my fascinating facts newsletter, which includes a range of interesting topics. This includes writeups about the three types of military hat, inventors that killed their inventions and some good old paper folding.
Fascinating Facts July 2024 Contents
You can download the full newsletter to read HERE, however some snippets are listed below.
Cockades, Hackles or Plumes
This article was particularly difficult to research as there were no clear definitions of Cockade, Hackle or Plume, so I referred to the UK Army Dress Regulations (All Ranks) which state the following. Plume: White swan feathers, drooping outwards, 10 inches long. This may include hair as well in both upright and falling styles. Hackle; a form of plume, generally short, made of cut feathers. Cockade; typically consists of a disc or fan of (often simulated) crimped, coloured ribbon. Read More…
Can You Really Fold Paper 42 Times To Reach The Moon?
In short, yes. If it were possible to fold a massive piece of thin paper 42 times, it would stretch all the way up to the moon. But the number of time varies with the thickness of the paper. Also, one doubts the massive size of the piece of paper to start with, which would be equal to 384,400,000,000,000 sheets of A4 paper. Folding forty-two times doesn’t sound like a lot of folds. But basically try folding a sheet of paper and it is near impossible to get to more than seven times then you have done well. So how the heck will it possibly reach the moon? That is where the power of exponential function comes in. What’s exponential function, you ask? It’s a mind bending mathematical theory based on the power of exponential function (repeated multiplication). Read More…
Military Hat – The Tricorne
The origin of the tricorne hat originated in Spain as a consequence of the 1668 War of Devolution when soldiers, wearing broad-rimmed hats. Because the wide floppy brim of their hats interfered with cocking their muskets, they pledgee or pinned the front and then sides up. Read More…
GRINLING GIBBONS THE PEA POD CARVER
Widely regarded as the finest wood carver working in England, very little is known about his early life except that he was an Anglo-Dutch sculptor and wood carver Gibbons born in Rotterdam, where he was educated, to English parents. In 1667, one year after the Great Fire of London and two years after the outbreak of the plague. The son of an English draper who had been admitted to the freedom of the Drapers’ Company in London in 1638, and Elizabeth (nee Grinling – hence her son’s unusual first name) the daughter of an English tobacco merchant living in Rotterdam. Read More…
It is thought that Gibbons was either apprenticed to Artus Quellinus the Elder who had a workshop in Amsterdam or to his cousin, Artus Quellinus the Younger in Antwerp. Grinling certainly had a close connection with the Antwerp cousin, as his son. Also, Artus worked with Gibbons in England from 1680 until his death in 1686. Read More…
Chillianwalla Memorial
Standing proudly in the south grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea is an impressive military memorial commemorating members of the 24th Regiment of the Foot killed at the 1849 Battle of Chillianwalla to which officers of the regiment contributed £600 (£62,700 in 2024) towards its erection. The memorial broke the established world tradition that only officers’ names plus the number of other ranks were included on a memorial.. The Chilianwalla memorial contains the names of 255 officers and other ranks who were killed. Read More…
THREE OF THE WORLD’S MOST ARTISTIC UNDERGROUND STATIONS
London Underground was the World’s first. Opened in 1863, it was electrified in 1890. The Beijing 507 mile subway is the world’s longest while the Shanghai Metro, with 2.83 billion annual trips, is the most passengers. The New York City Subway has the greatest number of stations, with 472. Read More…
