Fact of the Day

Until the 1880s, there was another, fundamentally different kind of zebra: the Quagga. It is said that it was extraordinally beautiful and majestic, as well as being black with white stripes. Their stripes were also very variable, sometimes covering most of their body, but sometimes just their neck. They were also more docile than other zebras, making people theorize that they could be domesticated. However, this never happened as they were hunted in huge amounts, as colonialist farmers wanted more places for their cattle to graze, but also for their meat. The last quagga died in a zoo in amsterdam in august 1883, but noone knew it was now extinct. They just asked hunters to bring them another one, but they couldn't find one.

Today, there is a very small amount of remaining evidence about them. Just one individual was ever photographed (in London of all places) and there are only 23 verified skins of them.

Giraffes have the exact same number of neck vertabrae as humans, despite their neck reaching lengths of up to 2.4m (8ft).

In the early 1900s, runways for big planes didn't really exist and weren't seen as economically viable. Instead, planes with hydrodynamic hulls, so called "flying boats" were the norm. They would land on the ocean and transfer passengers and goods in harbours, docked like a normal boat.

My favourite example is the boeing 314. They were used for passenger transport, offering luxourious routes across the oceans. During the second world war, they were seized by the US military and used as transport planes. One was damaged while it was towed by a tugboat to the point that it was beyond repair, so the navy decided it needed to be sunk. They shot at the plane for half an hour, hitting it with over 1200 rounds of 20mm ammunition until it finally disappeared below the water. (citation) All examples of this beautiful plane have sadly been lost to history.

Their popularity declined after the war ended, during which a lot of runways were built to handle the huge traffic of heavy bombers, making them obsolete.

Until the 1940s, t-shirts were seen as a piece of underwear and as unacceptable to wear on their own. This only changed in ww2, when american soldiers ditched the clothes meant to wear over them and just wore them on their own to handle the heat better. Through propaganda and the embracing of military culture, it became a part of american culture, which then spread around the world.

Imagine if tank tops had been the military underwear instead.

Most western writing systems, like english, are written from left to right, which is also called dextrograde (from latin "dexter", meaning right). Of course, there is the opposite, called sinistrograde. Examples of this include the arabic and hebrew writing systems. When the direction switches with every line, this is called bustrophedon (coming from the anchient greek words for "ox" and "turning", probably meaning "as the ox ploughs a field").

To promote both themselves and the transport system, a german circus in 1950 decided to have their young elephant ride the famous wuppertal monorail (they had done similar publicity stunts in the past). After buying five tickets (four for the elephant, one for him), they did actually manage to fit the animal into the train. However, after a short part of the ride, the elephant tried to turn around, where it got caught on the furniture and panicked and jumped out of the train through the wall and into the river (called wupper) below. Reportedly, they had to restrain the animal handler from also jumping to look after the elephant. (Btw., the animal was not seriously hurt and lived until 1989)

At some point this or next year, earth is set to gain a new country! The small island nation of Bougainville, which is currently an autonomous region under Papua New Guinea, is going to gain its independence, likely on the first of september 2027! It will be the country with the 25th least inhabitants.

This is their Flag:

When Gustave Eiffel had the names of 72 french scientists engraved on the Eiffel tower, he conveniently „forgot“ the name of french mathematician Sophie Germain, even though her research on elasticity and the resistance of materials was used to plan the tower’s design.

To spite the large number of paris' artists that protested the construction of his tower, Gustave Eiffel had the names of 72 scientists, mathematicians and engineers engraved on it. They can still be seen located just under the towers first platform.