Lobsters and crayfish evolved from the same ancestor. Lobsters live in salt water and crayfish in fresh water. Since crayfish are all over the world how did they get there without leaving fresh water. The answer is that they evolved while the continents were still one land mass and they separated by continental drift. There are small differences in the crayfish on the different continents.
(The Great Courses – Major Transitions in Evolution)
Henry the VII was the first English monarch to be called ‘Your Majesty’.
(The Great Courses – The Age of Henry VIII)
There have been five periods of mass extinctions which have been identified in the last 440 million years. These periods allow surviving species to evolve and expand. The dinosaurs evolved after the fourth of these mass extinctions.
(The Great Courses – Major Transitions in Evolution)
Henry VII and Henry VIII both loved to play tennis.
(The Great Courses – The Age of Henry VIII)
Nubia ruled Egypt for a short period of time around 2700 years ago. They were so impressed with the pyramids that we have found a royal cemetery in Sudan of about 80 pyramids up to 100 feet tall that they built . When these Nubian pyramids were built the original Egyptian pyramids were already 2000 years old.
(Magazine – Archaeology July/August 2013)
When the United States entered WWII the British sent over a high level team to the US to discuss strategy’s to win the war. It was a great advantage to not have to use interpreters during this process. Or was it????? At one point the British were considering a particular topic and told the Americans they wanted to table the discussion on that topic. The Americans vehemently protested and said they did not want to table that issue. A rather testy exchange ensued for a while before they realized they wanted the same thing. The term ‘tabling a topic’ to the British meant bringing it up for discussion while the Americans used the same term to mean dropping discussion of a topic.
(Book – The Second World War Volume III – Winston S, Churchill)
The oldest know salt production currently appears to be in the town of Provadia in Bulgaria around 5500 BCE. Salt production became necessary as people started farming and supplementing their diet with meat from domesticated animals. They used to get enough salt from eating animals they hunted but the more vegetarian diet required more salt.
(Magazine – Archaeology July/August 2013)
It appears that the Judaism changed from being strictly a race of people to becoming a ‘religion’ that people could convert to around 400-300 BCE.
(The Great Courses – The Old Testament)
Churchill had told Roosevelt that if Japan ever attacked the United States that Britain would support the United States by declaring war ‘Within an hour’. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor they also attacked several British possessions in the Far East. Britain may not have gotten Parliament together fast enough to declare war ‘within an hour’ but they did declare war BEFORE the United States did.
(Book – The Second World War Volume III – Winston S. Churchill)
Most opera composers write the music and rely on someone else to write the libretto (words). Wagner was an exception. He took total control of his operas. We would write the music and the libretto and he would control the stage direction.
(The Great Courses – How to Listen to and Understand Opera)