The Catholic actor Mel Gibson wrote directed and produced a epic biblical film describing the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus, The Passion of the Christ. He started doing research for the movie in 1992, spending 25 million dollars of his own money on developing and filming the production.
Mel Gibson could not get any studio to fund Passion of the Christ. Instead of scrapping the film, he chose to finance it all by himself, an action which analysts labelled as "idiotic".
The movie was eventually released on February 25, 2004 and was a massive box office hit despite all the dialogue being in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin.
Having self-financed the movie, Mel Gibson made more than $395 million from The Passion of The Christ.
During the filming of The Passion of the Christ, Jim Caviezel - the actor portraying Jesus - endured accidental lashings, a dislocated shoulder, pneumonia, a lung infection, persistent migraines, and was ultimately struck by lightning.
The success of The Passion of the Christ was a pointer for Hollywood of the potential goldmine of the Christian constituency, one that had been largely ignored by the secular-orientated film industry.
Theatrical release poster Wikipedia
Gibson himself is a traditionalist Catholic who believes that Vatican II corrupted the
institution of the church. He used the film's profits to build his own private "Independent" Traditional Catholic chapel in his grounds where he claimed to celebrate the Latin Tridentine Mass every day.
Gibson said about the The Passion of the Christ: "This movie is about Faith, Hope, Love and Forgiveness. Themes that are as important now as they were in Jesus' time."
After three years of public ministry, Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem totally aware that he was about to embark on the most significant event ever in human history, sacrificing himself so that the human race might be reconciled with God.
Arrested and convicted as a political rebel, our savior was crucified on a cross, a horrendously painful death. His garments were divided amongst the Roman soldiers present there and they cast lots for his clothing. His body was taken down and placed in a tomb by a rich follower of his, Joseph of Arimethea. The unknown thief on the cross next to Jesus became the first to believe that "Jesus died for me."
Crucifixion by Albrecht Altdorfer
Only a few days later Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his followers. He went on to spend 40 days training and encouraging them before ascending up to heaven. Jesus promised them that there will be a "Second Coming", when he will return to the Earth again.
By taking our sins on the cross, Jesus succeeded in reconciling all sinful beings, past, present and future, to his heavenly Father. By rising from the dead, he has given hope to all mankind that trust in him, of a life after death in the kingdom of Heaven.
The word 'Passion' is from Late Latin: passionem "suffering, enduring."
The passion fruit was so named by Spanish missionaries because they thought it symbolized the nails and thorns of the Crucifixion (or the Passion).
The passenger pigeon is an extinct long-tailed pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) from North America.
It was the most abundant bird of historical times in the US. John James Audubon reported seeing more than 1 billion passenger pigeons in Kentucky in 1813. The population conceivably exceeded 10 billion, possibly accounting for up to 40 percent of the total population of North American birds.
Live female in 1896/98, kept in the aviary of C. O. Whitman
Migrating in enormous flocks, the passenger pigeon could reach flying speeds of 100 km/h (62 mph). Passing flocks obscured the sky, literally blocking out the sun. The flocks took hours or days to pass a given point. Some accepted estimates of the number of birds in a single flock alone exceeded 2 billion.
The male pigeons were 39 to 41 cm (15.4 to 16.1 in) in length and mainly gray on the upperparts, with iridescent bronze feathers on the neck and black spots on the wings; the females were duller and browner. They looked very similar to mourning doves, a close relative that is still common.
Stuffed male passenger pigeon, Field Museum of Natural History. By James St. John
They inhabited mainly deciduous forests in eastern North America, primarily around the Great Lakes. The Passenger Pigeon fed especially upon the nuts of the beech tree and the acorns of the white-oak tree. The groves of these great trees were its nesting places.
In the 19th century, when widespread deforestation was destroying their habitat, they were commercialized as cheap food and hunted voraciously. Passenger pigeons became such an ordinary dish that many people objected to eating them.
Depiction of a shooting in northern Louisiana, Smith Bennett, 1875
The endless slaughter, combined with the cutting down of the oak forests, was disastrous. The Passenger Pigeon was hunted to extinction in the wild by 1894 and the last specimen, Martha, died in Cincinnati Zoo on September 1 1914, at 1 PM.
The Passenger Pigeon's total elimination within about 150 years is almost beyond comprehension. Eradication of the species has been described as one of the most senseless extinctions induced by humans.
When the bubonic plague gripped Europe during the Middle Ages, ships would be isolated in the harbor for forty days before passengers could go ashore. The Italian word for 40 is quaranta, hence quarantine.
The word 'coach' derives from the name of the Hungarian town Kocs, where multi-passenger wheeled vehicles first appeared around 1500.
Fairman Rogers' Four-in-hand, by Thomas Eakins, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, 1880
The first passengers in the history of aviation were a cockerel, a sheep and a duck, transported for five miles by hot-air balloon in 1783. All emerged unscathed, except for the cockerel which was kicked by the sheep shortly before lift-off.
The Scottish poet Robbie Burns was a passenger when Patrick Miller experimented with a steam-driven vessel on Dalswinton Loch in 1788. Though successful Miller abandoned the project due to the cost.
The world's first-ever railway passengers were Welsh. They travelled from Swansea to Mumbles in a horse-drawn converted truck along a specially-laid iron track in 1807.
The Clermont was the first steamboat to achieve commercial success. It carried passengers between New York City and Albany, New York along the Hudson River, making the 150-mile (240 km) trip in 32 hours.
The 1909 replica of the Clermont Steamboat
The first passenger-carrying steamboat in Europe was the Comet, designed by the Scottish engineer Henry Bell (1767-1830), which was launched in 1812 on the River Clyde. Bell initially advertised a three times a week passenger service travelling between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh. Soon afterwards the journey was extended to Oban and Fort-William, the entire voyage taking four days.
In 1817 the Black Ball Line offered the first regular passenger service with emphasis on passenger comfort running between Liverpool, England and New York City. For the first ten years the passages of the fleet averaged 23 days outward and 40 days to the westward.
The first horse-drawn omnibus service was started by a businessman named Stanislas Baudry in the French city of Nantes in 1823 using two spring-suspended carriages, each for 16 passengers.
The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway, which opened in 1830 was the first steam hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets.
The Electromote was the world's first passenger carrying electric trolleybus, The Electromote was fed through trolley poles by overhead wires and was presented to the public in 1882 in Halensee, Germany, but was dismantled in the same year after the demonstration.
World's first trolleybus, Berlin 1882
Provisions for the 2,229 passengers and crew on board RMS Titanic when she sailed in April 1912 included 200 barrels of flour, 40,000 fresh eggs, 2.75 tons of tomatoes and 100,000lb of fresh meat, poultry and game. Those in First and Second Class ate their main meal in the evening; Third Class passengers, were served their ‘dinner’ at midday.
Crosswords were so popular among U.S. commuters in the 1920s that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad provided dictionaries for passengers.
The first scheduled jet airliner passenger service began in May of 1952.with the de Havilland Comet flying between London and Johannesburg, carrying 36 passengers.
NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, made her maiden voyage in August 20, 1962.
NS (Nuclear Ship) Savannah, enroute to the World's Fair in Seattle.
In 1996, Venetian gondoliers stopped singing to their passengers to avoid a tax on musicians.
The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.
FUN PASSENGER FACTS
The Port of Miami is recognized, and has retained its status as the number one cruise/passenger port in the world since the mid-1990s. It accommodates some of the world's largest cruise ships and operations, and is the busiest port in both passenger traffic and cruise lines.
Aerial view of the Port of Miami
Airlines are said to buy 50 per cent of the world's stock of caviar for first-class passengers.
On an average day there are 1.8 million passengers in the sky over the United States.
The Beijing Subway is the world's busiest subway in annual ridership, with 3.41 billion trips delivered in 2014.
Line 2 platform at Xizhimen. By Jucember - Wikipedia
The world’s busiest railway station is Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan, with a reported 3.64 million passengers passing through its 200-odd exits every day.
The train schedule in Tokyo is so reliable that if they run more than five minutes late, they issue a note to passengers to prove to their employers that it was the train's fault they were late to work.
Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623 in Clermont-Ferrand, which is in France's Auvergne region.
Blaise Pascal Versailles. By unknown; a copy of the painture of François II Quesnel, Wikipedia Commons
He lost his mother, Antoinette Begon, at the age of three.
His father, Étienne Pascal (1588–1651), was a local judge and member of the "Noblesse de Robe," who also had an interest in science and mathematics.
Blaise Pascal had one older sister Gilberte, and two younger sisters, only one of whom, Jacqueline, survived past childhood.
Beginning in 1631, his father devoted himself entirely to the education of his son, who showed extraordinary mental and intellectual abilities, occasionally taking him along to the Academy of Science meetings.
CAREER
At the age of 16, Blaise Pascal produced a short treatise on what was called the "Mystic Hexagram", and sent it to Père Mersenne in Paris, which included some of the great mathematical thinkers of the time The hypothesis, which is known today as Pascal's theorem, states that if a hexagon is inscribed in a circle (or conic) then the three intersection points of opposite sides lie on a line (called the Pascal line).
In December 1639 the Pascal family left Paris to live in Rouen where Étienne had been appointed as a tax collector for Upper Normandy.
In 1641, while helping his father collect taxes in central France, young Pascal built a calculating machine, the Pascaline, operated by gears and wheels. Though it could only count, not multiply or divide and was not a commercial success, the Pascaline is considered a pioneering forerunner to the later development of mechanical methods of calculation, as well as the modern field of computer engineering.
In 1646, Pascal learned of Evangelista Torricelli's experimentation with barometers. The French scientist built an early form of a barometer, which instead of mercury, used red wine. As wine is less dense than mercury he had to build a tube 46 feet to accommodate the pressure rises and falls.
Pascal questioned what force kept some mercury in the tube and what filled the space above the mercury. Following more experimentation in this vein, in 1647 Pascal proved to his satisfaction that a vacuum existed above the column of liquid in a barometer tube.
The philosopher Rene Descartes visited Pascal on September 23, 1647. During his stay, the pair argued about the vacuum which Descartes did not believe in. Afterwards, Descartes wrote a letter to Huygens in which he said that Pascal"...has too much vacuum in his head."
Pascal replicated the experiment in Paris by carrying a barometer up to the top of the bell tower at the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, a height of about 50 metres. The mercury dropped about two lines. The fact-finding mission was vital to Pascal's theory concerning the cause of barometrical variations and paved the way for further studies in hydrodynamics and hydrostatics.
Pascal also paved the way for the invention of the hydraulic press by Joseph Bramah in 1795. The instrument was based upon the principle that became known as Pascal’s law which stated that the pressure in a fluid contained in a vessel remains the same in all directions regardless of the area to which the pressure is applied.
The Pascal, a SI unit of pressure, was named after Blaise Pascal in honor of his contributions to science in 1971. The Pascal is used to quantify internal pressure, stress. Young's modulus and ultimate tensile strength. It is defined as one newton per square meter.
In 1654, Pascal was approached by a friend, an aggravated gambler called the Chevalier de Mere, who couldn't understand why he always lost when betting on the appearance of certain combinations in the fall of dice. Prompted by his friend, Pascal corresponded with the mathematician Pierre de Fermat on the subject of gambling problems. Their collaboration led to the development of the mathematical theory of probabilities, which helped de Mere calculate the odds on dice throws and win some money.
The important groundwork laid by Pascal and de Fermat proved to be instrumental in Gottfried Leibniz's formulation of calculus.
In 1661 Pascal proposed a public bus system in Paris and its suburbs. The eight seater coaches went into service the following year. They ran every eight minutes, but were not a success, finding it hard to negotiate the crowded medieval streets. The vehicles were also too small to arouse the public interest after an initial attraction. The company went into liquidation in 1676.
Roulette was invented by Pascal. It was a by-product of his experiments with perpetual motion.
BELIEFS
In 1646, Pascal and his sister Jacqueline started identifying with the religious movement within Catholicism known by its detractors as Jansenism. Initiated by Cornelius Jansen, the former Bishop of Ypres, the Jansenism movement aimed at reforming the French Roman Catholic Church from within.
Portrait of Pascal
Pascal's interest in Jansenism was prompted by an incident one icy January day in 1646, when his father rushed out to prevent a duel from taking place. He slipped on the frozen ground, fell hard and dislocated his hip. Two devout Jansenists treated Étienne Pascal, curing him. As a result Blaise Pascal and his sister were drawn to the Scriptures and devoted many hours to the study of God's word.
Despite living in a fine mansion and mixing with high society, Pascal was unhappy and unsatisfied. In desperation he turned to his Bible and in the late hours of November 23, 1654, after reading the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John he had a profound mystical vision.
After his conversion experience, Pascal inscribed his testimony on a piece of parchment which he sewed onto his coat. For eight years Pascal hid this story of his salvation sewing and unsewing as he had need. After he died a servant found it. The parchment in his jacket read:
"The year of Grace 1654, Monday Nov 23rd... from about half past ten in the evening until half past 12, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the Philosophers and Scholars. Certainty, feeling, joy and peace God of Jesus Christ... I have separated myself from him, I have fled from him, renounced him, crucified him, may I never be separated from him... renunciation total and sweet. "
Pascal used to drive around Paris in a magnificent four horse drawn coach. In 1654 he was involved in an accident at the Neuilly bridge where the horses plunged over the parapet but the carriage survived. This near death experience is thought to have influenced his conversion.
After his mystical experience, Pascal took refuge in the Jansenist Catholic Monastery of Port Royal under the influence of his sister.
Blaise Pascal wrote Lettres Provincales under the pseudonym of Louis de Montalte –The first of the lettres was published on January 23, 1656.
Lettres Provincales is made up of 18 letters and pamphlets that were written in an ironic and humorous style in which he attempted to bring deep theological matters to the attention of the masses. In his 18-letter series Pascal criticized the Jesuits, promoted Jansenist teaching and put forward the argument that whilst true faith only belongs to the morally upright God's grace is sufficient for all. "There is a God shaped vacuum in every heart," he wrote.
The traditionally Catholic Louis XIV was incensed about this pro-Jansensist work. The French king ordered that the book be shredded and burnt in 1660.
Pascal had poor health, especially after the age of 18, and by the 1650s he was becoming ill from overwork.
In June 1662, Pascal was seized with a violent illness, probably stomach cancer, and after two months of agony, he realized he didn't have much longer to live and requested he could die with the poor in the hospital for incurables. His last words were "My God, Forsake me not.”
Pascal died on August 19, 1662 just two months after his 39th birthday. He was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.
Pascal's epitaph in Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, where he was buried
In 1972 a biopic titled Blaise Pascal was shown on French TV, The seemingly uninspired director Roberto Rossellini said it was about, "A very boring man."
The Greek philosopher Socrates had a large capacity for alcoholic beverages, and at drink and conversation get-togethers called symposium he astounded all who know him with his capacity for remaining sober, even after everyone else in the party had become thoroughly inebriated.
Plato's Symposium, depiction by Anselm Feuerbach
The oldest known party invitation was sent by the Roman Claudia Severa for her birthday party in Northumberland, England around AD100. The Deipnosophistae ("The professors of dining") is an early 3rd-century AD work by Greek gourmet Athenaeus. This composition on food and food preparation is in the form of an aristocratic dinner party in which a number of learned men, some bearing the names of real persons, such as the famous physician Galen, meet at a banquet and discuss for days food, drink, literature and other subjects. They relate recipes for dishes such as stuffed vine leaves and several varieties of cheesecakes.
FAMOUS PARTIES IN HISTORY
Roller-skates made their first recorded appearance at a party in Carlisle House, London in 1760. Belgian inventor Joseph Merlin rolled into the party while playing the violin wore these first roller skates. It was not a successful introduction as the violinist crashed into a large mirror causing nearly a thousand dollars worth of damage.
At George Washington's 1787 farewell party, 56 people drank 60 bottles of claret, 54 bottles of Madeira, 8 bottles of hard cider, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of porter, and 7 large bowls of alcoholic punch; the bar tab cost $15 000 in today's money.
Isambard Brunel staged a dinner party in the Thames Tunnel at Rotherhithe for businessmen in 1827 wearing full evening dress.
The sport of badminton derives its name from around 1870, when it was played at a party given by the Duke of Beaufort at Badminton, his estate, and became known as "the Badminton game."
Badminton House in the 19th century.
'Field Tennis' was played in the 18th century, but the game similar to the modern game of lawn tennis was introduced by Major Walter Wingfield at a Christmas party at Nantclywd, Wales, in 1873. His game was called sphairistike.
In 1886 the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII of the United Kingdom) appeared at a dinner party in New York in a short black coat rather than a tailcoat. One of the other guests took the fashion back to Tuxedo Park, an upstate New York countryside enclave for Manhattan's wealthiest citizens. There, the trendy men about town started chopping of their tailcoats, which became known as tuxedos.
The Khodynka Tragedy was a human stampede that occurred on May 30, 1896, on Khodynka Field in Moscow, Russia during a coronation party following the crowning of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II. 1,389 people were trampled to death in a stampede caused by rumors of beer and pretzels at the festivities.
A victim of the stampede
The first ever cocktail party in England was hosted by noted war artist Christopher R.W. Nevinson on April 26, 1924. Within two years, cocktail parties had changed the English cultural landscape becoming a byword for everything the old disapproved of and the young aspired to.
By takomabibelot - Cocktail Party At The Imperial Hotel: March 13, 1961
In response to critics calling him a "dictator," Franklin D. Roosevelt once threw a toga party where he played Caesar.
The American Hormel Foods Corporation started marketing Hormel Spiced Ham in the mid 1930s. As it didn't stand out from other brands Jay C Hormel asked his New Year's Eve party guests to help and a Kenneth Daigneau came up with the succinct "spam."
The first Christmas party held at the US Embassy in the USSR in 1934 featured three performing seals, who came into the room balancing a Christmas tree, a tray of glasses, and a bottle of champagne. When the performance ended, the seal's trainer, who was drunk, passed out, and the seals galloped free throughout the house.
One of most famous parties of the 20th century, Truman Capote’s Black & White Ball was held at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on November 28, 1966. The masquerade ball was held in honor of The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham and cost Capote a total of $16,000. The Black and White Ball was credited with starting an immediate upsurge in masquerade and costume parties.
During the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, to help USA/USSR relations, astronauts and cosmonauts played smuggled audio recordings of glasses clinking, laughter, and many female voices. Houston radioed to ask what’s going on. "Oh nothing,” they said. “We finished work, just having a party up here." Actor Will Smith also had a successful career as a rapper under the pseudonym, "The Fresh Prince" as part of a duo with Jeffrey "DJ Jazzy Jeff" Townes. The pair met in 1985 when Townes, who was performing at a house-party near Smith's house, needed a hype man, as his normal guy hadn't shown up. Smith, who was only 17 years old at this point, happily filled in.
The actor Leonardo DiCaprio's face was severely injured when model Aretha Wilson hit him over the head with a broken bottle at a Hollywood party. After pleading guilty in 2010, Wilson was sentenced to prison for two years.
Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had a volcano built at his 148 acre estate in Porto Rotondo, Sardinia, in 2006. With fireworks and a small earthquake, it was intended as a surprise at a party. Neighbors, unaware, called out he local fire fighters.
Stephen Hawking once tried to lure time travellers to his house by throwing a party then sending out invitations later. Nobody showed up. The party was a simple affair, with champagne, canapes, and balloons. Hawking himself was there, sitting in his wheelchair and wearing a tuxedo. He even had a banner made that said "Welcome Time Travelers."
FUN PARTY FACTS
The word ‘party’ meaning a part or division, or one side in a dispute dates back to about 1300.‘Party’ was first used for a social event, with food, drink and fun, in the early 18th century.
The term "housewarming" is descended from medieval times when they were thrown for people moving into their new home. Each guest would bring firewood, and build fires in all the available fireplaces, offering firewood as a gift.
In the Lonely Planet "1000 Ultimate Experiences" guide of 2009, Belgrade was placed at the 1st spot among the top 10 party cities in the world.
Over two million people gather on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro on the night of 31 December, making of it the world's largest New Year's Eve party.
Rio New Year fireworks
During the reign of Catherine I of Russia, the rules for parties stipulated that no man was to get drunk before 9 o'clock and ladies weren't to get drunk at any hour. Jane Austen was the earliest known writer to use the expression 'dinner-party' in Emma. She wrote in her 1816 novel. "Dinner-parties and evening-parties were made for him and his lady; and invitations flowed in so fast that she had soon the pleasure of apprehending they were never to have a disengaged day."
Six weeks before the Battle of Trafalgar, Lord Nelson spent an exorbitant £308 (about $550) on port as he was planning a monumental party to mark his forthcoming victory.
J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis once showed up at a party dressed as polar bears—it wasn't a costume party.
The singer Taylor Swift was born on December 13, 1989. She has a Christmas-themed birthday party every year.
Taylor Swift has trademarked the phrase," "party like it's 1989."
World Party Day designated as a universal day of coordinated events celebrating "universal human right to fun, peace and life" occurs on April 3rd each year. The inspiration is the novel Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel, by Vanna Bonta published in 1995, which concludes with a synchronized worldwide celebration that occurs on April 3, 2000.
Americans will hold more parties in their homes on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year.
The Parthenon is the principal building of the Athenian Acropolis, a Doric temple of Pentelic marble dedicated to Athena Parthenos ('the Maiden').
Parthenon, Athens Greece. Photo taken in 1978 by Steve Swayne posted to Flickr
The Athenians begin building the Parthenon in 447 BC, for the political leader Pericles and completed it by 438BC.
The Parthenon was designed by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates under the supervision of Phidias, the Greek sculptor responsible for its 9 m / 30 ft-high gold and ivory cult statue.
The building was constructed using limestone foundations and 22,000 tons of marble. It has 46 Doric columns which support the roof, with 8 across the front and back, and 17 on each side.
Reconstruction of the Acropolis and Areus Pagus in Athens, Leo von Klenze, 1846
What is unique about the Greek temple is the conscious adjustment of these orders by Greek architects for purely aesthetic effect. For the first time in history, architects, not priests, directed these building projects.
One the most famous and beautiful sculptures of all time are those of the horses that form part the great sculpted frieze around the Parthenon. These sculptures, done by the artist Phidias, express the Greek idea of perfection. They show horsemen riding bareback on graceful horses that are portrayed at all gaits as well as performing dressage movements or being "parked up."
Cavalry from the Parthenon Frieze, West II, 2–3, British Museum.
The accounts from the building of the Parthenon were inscribed in stone so they were available to the public. Surviving fragments indicates the budget could have been as much as 800 'talents' - equivalent to 16 million pound today
Converted subsequently into a church, then a mosque, the Parthenon was reduced to a shell by explosion on September 26, 1687 while housing a powder magazine during the Turkish-Venetian war.
Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin took the some of the sculptures, now called the Elgin Marbles, from the Parthenon in 1759. They have been on display in London's British Museum since 1816.
The world's only exact replica of the Parthenon resides in Centennial Park, Nashville and contains the western hemisphere's largest indoor statue.
Today the Parthenon is a World Heritage site.
Europress Family Encyclopedia 1999, Comptons Encyclopedia
There are 402 species of parrots, including cockatoos, lovebirds and budgerigars. Of the known parrot species, 387 are extant; the remaining extinct species all went extinct after 1500 AD.
RELATIONSHIPS WITH HUMANS
The parrot has been a popular pet in the Western world for more than two millennia. Alexander the Great was the first to introduce the bird. He brought it home from India, as a gift for his teacher, the philosopher Aristotle.
Pope Martin V, the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1417 to 1431, had a special room in the Vatican for his parrots.
King Henry VIII owned a pet African grey parrot, which he kept at Hampton Court Palace. It amused itself by calling across the River Thames to boatmen, who then had to be paid for their journey.
Parrots kept as pets will go through severe emotional trauma when they're given away, sold, or abandoned, developing destructive behaviors like screaming, aggression and self mutilation, plucking out their feathers.
Parrots have featured in human writings and media for thousands of years. From Aesop's fable The parrot and the cat to Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch and movies such as Rio.
ANATOMY
Like most other birds, parrots have four toes per foot. But instead of the usual three-in-front-one-behind arrangement, parrot toes are configured for maximum grip: two in front and two behind, like two pairs of opposable thumbs.
The tiny buff-faced pygmy weighs a mere ounce and is about the size of an adult human’s finger.
buff-faced pygmy parrot
The world’s longest parrot is the hyacinth macaw, checking in at 100 cm (3.3 ft) from tip to tail.
BEHAVIOR
The Australian parrot Barnardius zonarius semitorquatus is commonly known as 28 because, spoken in an Antipodean accent, its call — ‘wenniate’ — sounds like the number.
The diet of parrots consists of seeds, fruit, nectar, pollen, buds, and sometimes arthropods and other animal prey.
Macaws can eat foods containing substances that are toxic to other animals. Amazon Basin macaws purportedly neutralize toxins by eating the clay from exposed river bank.
In the wild parrots are extremely social and often mate for life.
In captivity parrots can live to at least 60 years.
INTELLIGENCE
A parrot's vocabulary is generally no more than twenty words.
African greys associate words with meanings and have a gasp of shape, color and number.
African greys are the best mimics of all parrots. They will imitate doorbells, microwave beeps, telephones and even a smoker's cough,
The first and only non-human animal to ask an existential question was an African Grey parrot named Alex. He asked what color he was, and learned that it was "grey". Apes who have been trained to use sign-language have so far failed to ever ask a single question.
Alex died of natural causes aged 31 on September 6, 2007. His last words were, "You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you."
Brazilian pоlÑ–ce seized a parrot on April 22, 2019, who had been taught to alert criminals to pоlÑ–ce operations. The bird had been taught to alert criminals in Vila Irmã Dulce in the Piauà state, by shouting: “Mum, the police!” After being seized, the parrot didn't cooperate with the pоlÑ–ce, staying completely silent and not saying anything
The Korea Central Zoo in North Korea is home to a Parrot than can squawk 'Long live the Great Leader, Comrade Kim Il-sung' in English.
Queen Victoria had a parrot called Coco which was taught to sing "God Save The Queen."
A certain parrot was a regular of the Cheshire Cheese pub just off Fleet Street in London at the time of World War I. On Armistice night it repeated some 400 times its trick of imitating the pop of a champagnecork, before collapsing from temporary exhaustion.
Willie a Quaker parrot, alerted its owner, Megan Howard, when Hannah, a toddler she was babysitting one November day in 2008 in Denver, Colorado, began to choke on her breakfast. Megan was in the bathroom, the parrot began screaming "mama, baby" while flapping its wings as Hannah turned blue. Megan rushed over and performed the Heimlich, saving the girl's life.
The oldest living parrot is thought to be Poncho, a green-winged macaw who turned 90 in October 2015 and who retired to Shrewsbury, England after a career in Hollywood. She celebrated with a walnut-stuffed cake.
Puck, a cheery blue parakeet, landed in the 1995 Guinness Book of World Records for his vocabulary skills, with a recognized set of 1,728 words.
Cookie (June 30, 1933 – August 27, 2016) was a male Major Mitchell's cockatoo residing at Brookfield Zoo, near Chicago, United States. He was believed to be the oldest member of his species alive in captivity, at the age of 82 in June 2015, having significantly exceeded the average lifespan for his kind. Cookie was one of the longest-lived birds on record and was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the oldest living parrot in the world
FUN PARROT FACTS
There are an estimated 550 wild parrots living in New York City that were accidentally released from a shipment at JFK airport in the late 1960s.
Veterinarians say obesity is the most common health problem they see in pet parrots today.
The word "parliament" meaning a legislative, elected body of government, comes from the French word parler, which means a talk.
The Althing of Iceland is the oldest parliament in the world. The first althing met near Reykjavik in AD 930. Its convening is taken as the founding date of the Icelandic commonwealth, which survived for more than three centuries until 1262. After Iceland's union with Norway, the Althing still held its sessions apart from a gap of 45 years in the first half of the 19th century. The present parliament building, the Alþingishús, was built in Austurvöllur, ReykjavÃk in 1881, of hewn Icelandic stone.
Iceland's parliament House, at Austurvöllur in ReykjavÃk, Wikipedia Commons
The first Parliament in England was summoned by baronial leader Simon de Montfort, then in rebellion against Henry III. It was attended by elected knights of the shires and burgesses plus archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and barons between January 20, 1265 until mid-March the same year. The meetings were held in the Palace of Westminster, now also known colloquially as the "Houses of Parliament".
Thirty years later, Edward I adopted de Montfort's ideas for representation and election in the so-called "Model Parliament" in 1365.
When Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England in 1653, he set up the "Barebones" Parliament, which was made up of Non-conformist churchmen and army officers. It was named "Barebones" after one of the members "Praise God Barebones", a Fleet Street Leatherseller.
The Parliament of England met until it merged with the Parliament of Scotland under the Acts of Union. This union created the new Parliament of Great Britain which first met in 1707.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is split into three separate parts, the House of Commons (the lower house), the House of Lords (the upper house) and the Monarch. Most legislative power is concentrated in the House of Commons.
The British Houses of Parliament, London
England is often referred to as the 'mother of parliaments' (a phrase coined by John Bright in 1865).
Members are forbidden from eating and drinking in the British Parliamentary chambers with only one exception. The Chancellor of the Exchequer may have an alcoholic beverage while delivering the Budget statement.
The first parking summons in Britain was issued against a man named William Marshall on November 25, 1896. His summons was later dropped, as people were unsure of the regulations governing "horseless carriages".
The world's first multi-storey car park was opened at 6 Denman Street, central London by The City & Suburban Electric Carriage Company. The car park had seven floors, space for 100 vehicles and an electric elevator to move the vehicles between floors.
The earliest known multi-storey car park in America was built in 1918 for the Hotel La Salle at 215 West Washington Street in the West Loop area of downtown Chicago.
In 1927 Colonel Frederick Lucas and his wife rented some land near White City, London and begun operating a car park. The venture was the foundation of his company, National Car Parks.
The international parking sign was first designed for the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam.
The underground car park has now been a part of the British way of life ever since the South Coast resort of Hastings built the first one in 1931.
The world’s first parking meter, Park-O-Meter No. 1, was installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on July 16, 1935. It was designed by Oklahoma State University engineering professors Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale who had begun working on the device two years earlier at the request of Oklahoma City, lawyer and newspaper publisher Carl C. Magee.
Parking meter ca. 1940
In 1960, New York City hired its first crew of "meter maids"; all were women. It was not until 1967 that the first man was hired.
The first traffic wardens in the UK hit the London streets on September 19, 1960 and had the power to issue £2 fines. The first ticket issued was slapped on a Ford Popular belonging to Dr Thomas Creighton, who was answering an emergency call at a West End hotel. The ticket was subsequently cancelled.
A total of 344 parking tickets were issued by London’s traffic wardens on their first day of operation in 1960 — each for £2.
"Meter maid" in Stockholm,
In 1983 a Mercedes in Sloane Street became the first illegally parked car to be clamped in central London.
In 2008, the city of Chicago entered into a 75-year lease agreement with a private company called Chicago Parking Meters LLC (CPM), which is owned by a consortium led by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and includes Allianz Capital Partners and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. CPM paid the city a lump sum of $1.2 billion for the rights to collect revenue from the city's 36,000 parking meters. These parking meters generate about $200 million in revenue annually.
In 2009, Seoul, South Korea, implemented parking spaces reserved for women to make the city more "lady-friendly."
FUN PARKING FACTS
You can squeeze eight motorbikes in the same parking space as a car.
Lotta Sjolin, a Swede who collects parking meters, was last recorded as owning 292 meters from around the world.
UPS trucks get about 15,000 parking tickets a month in New York City.
North Korea's diplomatic mission to the UN has 1,300 unpaid New York City parking tickets going back to the 1990s, owing more than $156,000.
The city of Houston, Texas has a program where they train citizens to write tickets for handicap parking violations. After taking a course in proper procedure, you are given the authority to ticket anyone you see parked in a handicap spot without a placard.
Drivers in New York City spend an average of 107 hours per year searching for parking at a cost of $2,243/driver in wasted time, fuel and emissions.
The US parking spaces take up about 25,000 square miles of land nationwide, an area roughly the size of the state of West Virginia.
n the United States, there are as many as six parking spaces for every car.
In China some parking lots have spaces reserved for female parking. These spaces are wider and make parking easier and reduces accidents.
