Quirky History facts!

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by eric l

I thaught that these efforts to make Mexico start a war with the US was something from WW1 - the Zimmerman telegram and more of that (Zimmermann Telegram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

You could be right about that, it has been awhile since i saw the show and I am old. My memory could playing games with me. Actually both senerios coudhave been from ww1, makes more sense that way.

Michael

[Moontanman]

check out this steam powered airplane!

The Besler Steam Plane 1933 - the first (and probably only) plane which successfully went into the air under steam power!

[Turtle]

Naturalist David Douglas, namesake of the Douglas Fir, died at the age of 35 when, while botanizing in Hawaii, he fell into a wild-cattle pit-trap where a captured bull gored him to death. Crikey!

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Yes the Brits could have done it but they didn't

This only means they didn't decide to, presumably not deeming it necessary, and it doesn't lend support to your claims. BTW in my hurry I left out "if the Yanks could" because it still strikes me slightly anachronistic, although not quite as much as:

Originally Posted by Moontanman

We developed shells with a micro radar in the tip so they would explode from a near hit instead of actually having to hit the attacking fighter planes.

Are you sure of this, back in WW2? How small were the thermoionic valves and the power cell? Perhaps you're right about your memory playing games with you.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Actually they didn't intend to invade, they planned to blockade our harbors and attck us on the high seas if we started to supply Germany with materials.

Now this is more plausible, as a strategist's reckoning.

Something I saw in a documentary is that Britain had a just-in-case plan to land in Eire before the Nazi, if it had come to that. They had tried to reach an agreement, but Dublin kept insisting they would be able to defend themselves. There was however a serious risk of a nutcracker strategy and printed material was even prepared for the troops, a kind of tourist guide with details of how to get along with the Irish folk, and other stuff ready to help the hypothetical occupation go smoothly.

[jab2]

If I read the latest couple of posts in this thread, I get the impression that there are a little lack of knowledge with regards to the development of radar and who was responsible for the various branches and applications. I can point to a very informative book on the subject: The invention that changed the world. The story of Radar from war to peace by Robert Buderi.

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

Are you sure of this, back in WW2? How small were the thermoionic valves and the power cell? Perhaps you're right about your memory playing games with you.

To answer to the above is found on page 221 of above book and I quote:

The key to the proximity fuze was a miniature radio transmitter incorporated into the nose of the projectile. As with the cavity magnetron at the heart of the SCR-584, the basic design had arrived in the US as part of the Tizard Mission in September 1940, with the Americans picking up developement at a laboratory paid for by Vannevar Bush's National Defense Research Commitee.

The guiding light behind the proximity fuse, which also went by the name of Pozit and VT fuze, was Carnegie Institute physicist Merle Tuve(1), whose earlier ionosphere experiments with Gregory Breit had led to pulse radar.

(1) An account of the development and initial introduction of proximity fuzes is given in The Deadly Fuze by Ralph B Baldwin (UK Edition published by Janes, 1980. ISBN 0-354-01243-6. Dr Baldwin was a member of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) team headed by Merle A Tuve that did most of the work.

Hope this help.

[Qfwfq]

Reasonable if they were big enough shells but I've never thought AA of rounds being very big. I don't find any sizes in there.

Those wikis certainly suggest there wasn't much intent of US vs. UK hostility in 1940, it was the Brits that gave the Yanks a good deal of the ideas and assistance, so Michael would have to say why the Brits did this while contemplating attacking them. The Yanks certainly had a lot of steel mines and it simply made sense to cooperate with them for the hardware. Sweden was in a far more delicate situation to have been a good choice.

[jab2]

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

Reasonable if they were big enough shells but I've never thought AA of rounds being very big. I don't find any sizes in there.

5in shells and 4.5in rockets. Also see http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq96-1.htm

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

Those wikis certainly suggest there wasn't much intent of US vs. UK hostility in 1940, it was the Brits that gave the Yanks a good deal of the ideas and assistance, so Michael would have to say why the Brits did this while contemplating attacking them. The Yanks certainly had a lot of steel mines and it simply made sense to cooperate with them for the hardware. Sweden was in a far more delicate situation to have been a good choice.

I am very interested in the history of nuclear fission and has read many books on the subject by people accross the spectrum from scientists like Robert Serber and also non scientists like Gen Lesley Groves. This has led my onto the Tizard Mission and the exchange of technology (not only the cavity magnetron, but also nuclear and other knowledge) from the British to the Americans in 1940. The Tizard Mission was initiated from the British side and they first had to play most of their hand before the USA started letting them in on some of the developments they have been up too. Some technology like the Norden bomb sight was never shared by the USA. I have also never read anything about possible hostile intend towards USA by the UK, nor any subtle tones that there might have been something like this. We in SA was also for and against helping the British during WWII, depending on who you ask, so it might be that there was a faction of British that held this view, but I would also like to see any positive references to this.

It is interesting that one of the leading figures in the development of Radar, Tuffy Bowen, was not given the recognition he deserved by his home country , the UK, as he was part of the Tizard Mission, and stayed on in the States to direct Radar development after the end of the Mission. Due to his disagreement with Robert Watson-Watt's view of Watson-Watt's and his own contributions in Radar development, he elected to move to an academic post in Australia in 1943 in steed of returning home from the States. There he was instrumental in creating the science of Radio Astronomy and construction of the 210ft Radio Telescope at Parkes in New South Wales. After the release of a lot of the classified documents from WWII, it is now clear that Robert Watson-Watt's contribution in the development of Radar was a bit over inflated, partly due to self promotion on his own part and downplaying other's contributions.

[Boerseun]

You've heard of the famed idea of British Sportsmanship? Check this:
An exerpt from TIME's PARTISANS AND GUERILLAS IN WORLD WAR II:
(ISBN 7054 0538 9)

Meanwhile, to buy time for their evacuation, the British prepared for one last stand along the approaches to Athens and Southern Greece. For their delaying action, they selected a site near Thermopylae, the pass made famous in 480 B.C. by a Greek army's suicidal stand against the Persians.
Before reaching the site, however, some of the soldiers halted by the roadside, and the engineers smoothed a nearby field with their combat shovels. Then, while Lieutenant Stephanos Zotos, a young Greek temporarily attached to a unit of Royal Engineers, watched in astonishment, "twenty two men came on the field, wearing white shorts and their colourful shirts. A referee appeared, holding the prescribed whistle." And a soccer match that had been scheduled for the day went on as planned.

"The game was reaching the end of the first half-time," Lieutentant Zotos wrote, "when a dozen Stukas appeared over our heads and started strafing a convoy moving along the road, only a few yards away from the field. Nobody moved and the game continued as the players dribbled, passed and kicked the ball with unrelenting zest. Lieutenant Smith looked at the sky where the enemy planes might reappear at any moment , and I heard him whisper, "I don't understand why the umpire does not stop the match."

"There was nothing else that could interrupt the game. Only the whistle of the referee could halt what British tradition dictated."

After the game was over, the players joined the rest of the retreating column while the rear guard of of Australians and New Zealanders hastily occupied defensive positions at Thermopylae.

---- End of Exerpt ---

Now that's what I call the love of the game!

[Michaelangelica]

I recently read about the origin of the term "Freezing the Balls off a Brass Monkey" in a detective story I read.( now returned to library - sorry -no details stuck).

It surprised me, as I had quite the wrong image in my head.
BUT
There seems to be some contention about the origin of the saying on the web.
Anyone know for sure?

Subject: brass monkey

In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters
carried iron cannons. Those cannon fired round iron cannon balls. It was
necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. But how to prevent them
from rolling about the deck?

The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one
ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen.
Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area
right next to the cannon.

There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from
sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate
called a "Monkey" with sixteen round indentations. But, if this plate
was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution
to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys."

Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much
faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped
too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon
balls would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally,
"Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"

(And all this time, you thought that was a dirty expression, didn't you?)
You must send this fabulous bit of historical knowledge to at least
ten unsuspecting friends (or enemies) within thirteen and one half
seconds. If you don't, your floppy is going to fall off your hard drive and
kill your mouse. Don't send it back to me. I've already seen it.

"Freezing the balls off the brass monkey," a Navy phrase about cannon balls-Fiction!

[Boerseun]

On the eve of January 23rd, 1900, the British prepared to take a small, rocky hill outside the town of Ladysmith in Natal province, South Africa. This was to relieve the siege the Boers laid on the town in the 2nd Boer War, a small, non-descript town basically in the middle of nowhere.

Be that as it may, through a series of miscalculations the Brits lost the battle against a ragtag band of Boers, and the results of this battle reverberated around the world.

Nothing peculiar or even remotely quirky about that, but to commemorate their fallen, upon returning home the surviviors named stands at their local football grounds 'the Kop', the most famous of these being 'the Kop' at Anfield (Liverpool FC).

Okay, nothing really quirky about that, either. Football stands have to get their names from somewhere, right?

So why is this in "Quirky History Facts?"

In the battle, three very prominent 20th century leaders featured:

• A battle-weary Boer general led the fight from the Boer's side. General Jan Smuts would go on to be one of Britain's strongest allies during WW2, and would be one of the key writers of the United Nations Charter.

• A shortish non-descript Indian fellow was a stretcher-bearer in the Spioenkop battle, and ran through crossfire to pick up the wounded and get them to the field hospital. Quite a few soldiers owe their lives to him, although at the time they surely wouldn't have thought that Mohandas Gandhi would become on of the key players in 20th century politics, leading the Indian independence movement against the British Empire.

• An akward-looking British War Reporter ran around the battle, getting copy for his sponsoring newspaper in London. Having escaped from Boer custody in Pretoria just a few scant months prior to the battle of Spioenkop, Winston Churchill had no idea at the time that he was to lead Britain through the darkest days of its history against the Germans a few decades later.

These three men all featured heavily in 20th century affairs, and it would be fair to say that if a single stray bullet at the battle of Spioenkop found its mark with any one of these three, the world as we know it today would be much, much different...

Quirky, indeed!