Thousands of years ago the Hebrew farmer Noah was the only person left who remembered God and his creation. The world was flooded with evil and God's response to the severe situation was to have Noah and his family build an ark that enabled them to survive a widespread flood over the Earth. The rest of humanity was wiped out.
According to Book of Genesis, the Ark was 450ft by 75ft and 45ft high- that is taller than a three-storey building and with a deck size of 36 tennis courts.
Noah was the first great ship builder and his ark was constructed out of cypress wood.
The Building of Noah's Ark (painting by a French master of 1675).
On board his ark Noah included at least one pair of every kind of animal, (seven pairs of every type of clean animal, which was used for sacrifice.) Noah needed around 40,000 animals to represent every kind of creature.
Biblical scholars have long asserted November 25, 2348 to be the day of the Great Deluge, or Flood.
After the Great Flood the Hebrew Noah landed his ark on the summit of the Ararat mountain range - the highest part of the Caucasus, where grapes originated. He alighted from the ark, planted a vineyard and got drunk on some of its wine.
After the great flood it is said that Noah made a pudding with all the food remaining on board: beans, chickpeas, dried fruits, nuts, rice and wheat.
The name Noah means 'rest'.
A group of fourth year master's students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester calculated that Noah's ark, built to accommodate at least two of every animal species, would have floated using the dimensions ordained in the Bible.
Various replicas of the Ark exist. The one at Johan's Ark in Dordrecht, Netherlands is the only full-scale Ark interpretation that is actually floating and mobile.
Replica of Noah's Ark in Dordrecht, Netherlands. By Ceinturion - Wikipedia
OTHER ACCOUNTS OF THE GREAT FLOOD
Other people groups recount similar stories such as the Babylonian flood tale from the Epic of Gilgameash.
The Bakossi people of the Mungo River in Cameroon have a legend that their ancestor Ngoe built an ark to save his family and many animals from a great flood.
Noah, or Nug, is one of the main prophets of Islam. In the Quran, his wife is said to drown in the flood.
An Islamic depiction of Noah in a 16th-century Mughal miniature.
Richard Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California to Francis "Frank" Anthony Nixon and Hannah Milhous Nixon.
He was named after the medieval English king Richard the Lionheart.
The Nixon family ranch failed in 1922, and the family moved to Whittier, California where Frank Nixon opened a grocery store and gas station.
His mother was a devout Quaker and Richard's upbringing was marked by Quaker observances of the time, such as refraining from alcohol, dancing, and swearing.
Herbert Hoover was the only other United States President to belong to the Quaker faith.
Richard had four brothers: Harold (1909–33), Donald (1914–87), Arthur (1918–25), and Edward (born 1930).
Two of his brothers died of tuberculosis and at the age of twelve, Richard was found to have a spot on his lung. Eventually, the spot was found to be scar tissue from an early bout of pneumonia.
He went to local public schools. Richard graduated from Whittier High third in his class of 207 students in 1930.
Nixon at Whittier High School in 1930.
He attended Whittier College from 1930-34 and graduated with a history degree.
Nixon graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937, returning to California to practice law.
EARLY CAREER
Nixon began practicing law in 1937. He tried his hand at owning a business which failed.
He served in the United States Navy during World War II, rising to become a lieutenant commander before resigning in March 1946.
Nixon could have used his birthright as a Quaker to avoid the draft, but chose to enlist anyway.
RISING POLITICIAN.
Richard Nixon first entered politics after answering a newspaper ad from a wealthy Republican group of businessmen seeking a new inexperienced candidate to finance and support.
In 1947, Nixon was elected a U.S. Representative. Then, in 1950 he became a U.S. Senator.
Nixon campaigns for the Senate in 1950
When in the House, he was a member of House Un-American Activities Commission, a group of Congressmen that tried to expose people in the United States who might have been Communists.
Nixon's pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence.
He served in that capacity until being elected Vice President under Dwight Eisenhower in 1953.
People accused Nixon of receiving illegal money contributions to his Republican vice-presidency campaign. On September 23, 1952, in one of the first political uses of television to appeal directly to the populace, Richard Nixon delivered the "Checkers speech", refuting accusations of improprieties with contributions to his campaign. Nixon said the family Cocker Spaniel, Checkers, was the only gift he'd received. "The kids love that dog, and I want to say right now that regardless of what they say, we're going to keep it," he declared.
Nixon served for eight years as vice president, from 1953 to 1961.
Nixon waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy.
Nixon's presidential campaign wasn't helped by his appearance during their TV debates. Whilst Kennedy looked tanned and good-looking, Nixon unwisely refused to use any TV make up and looked tired and haggard in comparison, which didn't help his cause.
In 1962, Nixon lost the election for governor of California to Pat Brown. After losing, Nixon said "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore", leading many experts to say that Nixon's political career was over.
PRESIDENCY
In 1968, Richard Nixon became the Republican candidate for President with Spiro Agnew as his Vice President. He defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey and American Independent George Wallace. Nixon received 43% of the popular vote and 301 electoral votes.
Richard Nixon chose the Wilson desk as his Oval Office desk because he believed it was used by Woodrow Wilson, but it was actually used by Henry Wilson, Vice President under Ulysses S. Grant.
Richard M. Nixon
Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972 opened diplomatic relations between the two nations.
Nixon initially escalated the Vietnam War, but ended US involvement in 1973.
Though he presided over Apollo 11, he scaled back manned space exploration.
In 1972, Nixon was the obvious choice for renomination with Agnew as his running mate again. He was opposed by Democrat George McGovern. He won with 61% of the vote and 520 electoral votes.
Richard Nixon is the only person in US history to be elected Vice President twice and President twice.
A scandal called "Watergate" in which Nixon attempted to protect men ordered to burglarize the Democratic National Headquarters cost him much of his political support in his second term. On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon announced he was resigning — the first USA President to do so — in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
Nixon announces the release of edited transcripts of the Watergate tapes, April 29, 1974.
Richard Nixon was the first President to visit all 50 states.
Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second was William Jefferson Clinton.
When Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency on August 9, 1974, no former US presidents were still alive: Harry S. Truman had died on December 26, 1972 and Lyndon B. Johnson on January 22, 1973.
PERSONAL LIFE
Richard Nixon was an excellent poker player. He was so good that his first campaign for the House of Representatives was mostly funded by $,6,000 poker winnings from his time in the navy.
Nixon was an accomplished pianist. He wrote his own concerto, aptly titled "Richard Nixon Piano Concerto #1," which he played on primetime TV's Jack Paar Program in 1963.
Nixon showcased his pianist skills at other various events including playing "God Bless America" on the Grand Ole Opry stage and accompanying singer Pearl Bailey in a performance at the White House.
Richard Nixon first became acquainted with red haired Pat Ryan at a Little Theater group when they were cast together in The Dark Tower. He asked Pat Ryan to marry him the first night they went out.
Nixon courted the redhead he called his "wild Irish Gypsy" for two years and they married at the Mission Inn in Riverside, California, on June 21, 1940.
They had two daughters, Patricia, known as Tricia, and Julie.
Julie ended up marrying Dwight D. Eisenhower's grandson, David, in 1968. They had three children and are still married to this day.
Nixon was very fond of his wife's home-made meatloaf and had a liking for the curious combination of cottage cheese and ketchup.
Although Pat Nixon was a Methodist and Richard Nixon was a Quaker, they attended whichever Protestant Church was nearest to their home, especially after moving to Washington.
Photo of First Lady Pat Nixon
During his time at the White House Nixon had as pets Vicky, a French poodle, Pasha a terrier, and King Timahoe, an Irish setter.
LAST YEARS AND DEATH
After Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, he retired to San Clemente, California.
After his downfall, Nixon submitted to a series of interviews by David Frost, which later became a play and movie, Frost/Nixon.
In retirement, Nixon's work as an elder statesman, authoring several books and undertaking many foreign trips, helped to rehabilitate his public image. In 1986 he was ranked by Gallup as one of the ten most admired men in the world.
Nixon died of a stroke on April 22, 1994 ten months after his wife Pat passed away.
Nixon's funeral took place on April 27, 1994 in Yorba Linda, California. In attendance were current President Bill Clinton and former Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, all with their wives.
Five U.S. presidents attend the funeral of Richard Nixon
Nitrogen is a common element in the universe, estimated at about seventh in total abundance in the Milky Way and the Solar System.
Only one-fifth of the Earth's air is oxygen. Most of the rest is nitrogen.
Nitrogen is a very important element and needed for the production, growth, and decomposition of every living thing.
Lightning plays an important part in the Earth's nitrogen cycle by breaking down nitrogen molecules in the air, so they can be dissolved by rain, and then carried down to Earth.
Nitrogen was discovered by Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford (November 3, 1749 – November 15, 1819) in 1772, who called it noxious gas or fixed gas.
Scan of an old picture of Daniel Rutherford
Rutherford was the uncle of the novelist Sir Walter Scott.
The English word nitrogen entered the language in 1794. from the French nitrogène, coined in 1790 by French chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal from the French nitre (potassium nitrate) and gène, (producing). Chaptal's meaning was that nitrogen gas is the essential part of nitric acid, which in turn was produced from niter.
In 1910, English physicist Lord Rayleigh found out that when a spark was passed through nitrogen, it made a reactive form of the element. This nitrogen reacted with many metals and compounds, and produced explosive mercury nitride when reacted with quicksilver.
The extra air in potato chip bags that we whine about, really serves a purpose. It's nitrogen and avoids the chips from breaking.
To make liquid nitrogen, the gaseous nitrogen is first cooled to a temperature of -320 degrees Fahrenheit (-195 degrees Celsius) and then pressurized, which causes it to condense into a liquid. The process of making liquid nitrogen is usually carried out in an industrial setting, using specialized equipment such as cryogenic distillation columns.
Liquid nitrogen has long been used to treat verrucas and warts but scientists recently discovered that covering them with duct tape for two months is more effective than six freezing treatments.
Liquid Nitrogen By Cory Doctorow aka gruntzoki on Flickr Wikipedia
It's okay to urinate in the ocean, since 95% of urine is water and the nitrogen in urea is used to feed ocean plants.
Snow traps atmospheric nitrogen, then releases it into the ground when it melts, acting as a "poor man's fertilizer."
We cannot breathe pure nitrogen by itself, because it does not have the oxygen that we need to live. Anyone that inhales pure nitrogen will just pass out.
Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) was founded on September 23 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda.
No one, including late Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, knows what the name "Nintendo" means.
Former headquarters plate, from when Nintendo was solely a playing card company
Nintendo still manufactures playing cards in Japan and organizes its own contract bridge tournament called the "Nintendo Cup."
Nintendo's first electronic product was a children's walkie-talkie set, which they sold in the mid 1960s. Built in conjunction with Sharp, the package included two handsets. The Nintendo Companion wasn't produced in large numbers, making it very rare today.
The Love Tester, created in 1969, was the first product by Nintendo to use real electronic components.
Nintendo's first venture into the video gaming industry was securing rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey video game console in Japan in 1974.
Nintendo began to produce its own hardware in 1977, with the Color TV-Game home video game consoles. Four versions of these consoles were produced, each including several variations of a single game.
The first Nintendo console had over twice the computing power of the first lunar lander.
Game & Watch was a line of handheld electronic games produced by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991. Each Game & Watch featured a single game to be played on an LCD screen in addition to a clock, an alarm, or both. It was the earliest Nintendo product to garner major success.
Ball, the first title of the Game & Watch series.By ThePViana -Wikipedia
In 1981 the landlord, Mario Segale, visited the warehouse of Nintendo of America to collect overdue rent and berated the president, Minoru Arakawa, in front of employees. The new game, Donkey Kong, was about to be released and the developers immortalized Segale by renaming the star of Donkey Kong, previously known as "Jumpman", to "Mario."
Nintendo released the arcade game Donkey Kong on July 9, 1981 which featured the debut of Mario, one of the most famous characters in video game history.
Japanese video game designer and producer Shigeru Miyamoto believed "donkey" meant "stupid" in English, and assumed the name Donkey Kong would convey the sense "stupid ape" to an American audience. When he suggested this name to Nintendo of America, he was laughed at, but the name stuck.
Nintendo trademarked the phrase, "It's on like Donkey Kong."
In 1982, Universal Studios sued Nintendo on the grounds that Donkey Kong was an exact copy of Universal-alleged owned King Kong. The judge ruled that Universal acted in bad faith by threatening Nintendo's licensees and it had no right over King Kong due to being in public domain.
By original photo: Joshua Driggs (ZapWizard Wikipedia)
Mario was named after the Italian landlord of Nintendo’s U.S. office, Mario Segale, to whom he bore a striking resemblance.
Nintendo's Mario has held at least 20 different jobs besides plumber, including Olympic athlete, and typing instructor. In Mario's first appearance in Donkey Kong, he was portrayed as a carpenter.
The Thwomps and Whomps of the Mario universe were inspired by Japanese nurikabe spirits that are said to appear to block a traveler’s way.
Shigeru Miyamoto—maker of Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong—is not allowed to cycle to work because his safety is too important to Nintendo.
Gameplay of Donkey Kong in the first level, with Mario holding a hammer.Wikipedia
The 8-bit handheld video game Game Boy device was developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989 and in the rest of the world later in the year.
The Nintendo character Kirby first appeared in 1992 in Kirby's Dream Land for the Game Boy. He was named after John Kirby, a lawyer who successfully defended Nintendo when Universal sued them for stealing the idea of Donkey Kong from the King Kong franchise.
While developing the 1994 hit game Donkey Kong Country, programmers found that real-life gorillas moved too slow for a fast-paced game. Instead, Donkey Kong's movements were based off a horse's gallop.
The iconic 1997 Goldeneye 007 game for the Nintendo 64 was created by only nine people.... and eight of them had never once worked on a video game before!
Before the internet, Nintendo had "game counselors" - whom you could call if you were stuck in a game and they would coach you through it.
During the peak of Nintendo's success in the video game industry in the 1990s they pushed usage of the term "game console" so people would stop calling products from other manufacturers "Nintendos", otherwise they would have risked losing their trademark.
The GameCube was released in 2001, in Japan and North America, and in 2002 worldwide. The sixth-generation console it was the successor to the Nintendo 64.
The GameCube was Nintendo's first home console to use optical discs as a primary storage medium.
The Gamecube was the first major console in Nintendo's history to not launch with a game where Mario is the protagonist.
The GameCube
The Nintendo DS was the first video game console to make it to the top of Mt. Everest. Back in 2005 an expedition led by Neal Mueller took a bunch of electronics up to the summit of the world's tallest mountain. The Nintendo DS was the only piece of electronic equipment that didn't fail due to the harsh conditions.
The Wii home video game console released was first released by Nintendo in North America on November 19, 2006. It sold at $249.99.
It uses a controller, called the Wii Remote, that is very different from the controllers of other video game consoles. It can be held with just one hand, and uses technology that senses the player's movements.
Nintendo's spelling of "Wii" (with two lower-case "i" characters) is intended to resemble two people standing side-by-side.
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom is a big fan of Wii. After watching her grandson play it during Christmas one year, she asked if she could have a go. Apparently she was a "natural" at Wii Bowling, and she became quite fond of the console.
As of 31 March 2016, Nintendo reports sales of 101.63 million Wii hardware units and 914.28 million Wii software units worldwide, making it Nintendo's best-selling home video game console.
Wii with Wii Remote
Nintendo banked so much money during its successful run that it could lose $250 million every year and still survive until 2052.
Nintendo coats their Switch game cartridges with denatonium benzoate (a non-toxic agent) to cause a bitter taste as a deterrent for children putting the games in their mouth.
Nintendo's head office is located in Minami-ku, Kyoto, Japan.
At 4,145 miles, the Nile River is the longest in the world.
The Nile got its name from the Greek word ‘Neilos’, which means ‘valley’.
The River Nile has fed waterways to maintain life in Egypt since the earliest times. By 3000 BC aided by advances in irrigation techniques, the Nile's floodwaters were ensuring that the land along its banks was very fertile. The Ancient Egyptians cultivated and traded wheat, flax, papyrus and other crops around the river.
Ancient Egyptians believed that the Nile was a causeway from life to death to afterlife as they thought people’s spirit traveled down the Nile after they perished.
In Ancient Egypt, the tax system was linked to water levels of the River Nile. It was used to predict farmers' wealth each year.
Despite many years of speculation, the source of the river still remains a mystery. Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda have been touted as possible sources.
The River Nile flows north.
The river and its basin supports half of Egypt's 80 million population as it is heavily used for irrigation for farming and fishing.
Rover Nile at Aswan, Egypt
It is popular with white water rafters and adventure travelers in Uganda where the Nile becomes a roaring rush of water.
People who live near the River Nile consider flooding to be a blessing as the flooding of the river means that crops and riverbeds can finally be cultivated after a long dry spell.
Nike was founded on January 25, 1964 by University of Oregon track athlete Phil Knight and his celebrated track and field coach Bill Bowerman.
When Nike was founded, it was known as Blue Ribbon Sports and operated as a distributor for Japanese shoe maker Onitsuka Tiger (now ASICS),
The first Nike store opened under the moniker Blue Ribbon Sports in Santa Monica, California, in 1967.
In 1971 Blue Ribbon decided it wanted a name change. Knight wanted to call the company Dimension 6, while others favored Bengal. Employee Jeff Johnson preferred Nike, a name which had come to him in his sleep.
Blue Ribbon officially became Nike, Inc. on May 30, 1971. They decided on their new name in honor of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, either in war or in an athletic contest. She is the frequent subject of sculpture, often shown as a winged figure, as in Nike of Samothrace.
The Nike "swoosh" logo was created in 1971 by a graphic design student Carolyn Davidson and was purchased by Blue Ribbon for $35. The intention was to convey motion in its design. The Swoosh was first used by Nike on June 18, 1971.
A waffle iron was behind Nike's first major innovation; the soles on one of Nike's first shoes were made using Bowerman's wife's waffle iron in 1974, after Bowerman was inspired at the breakfast table.
Early in his career, NBA Legend Spencer Haywood chose $100,000 upfront over a 10% stake in Nike. Had he accepted the original offer, his holdings in Nike would be worth a whopping $8.62 billion.
In 1992, Nike made a Super Bowl commercial where an animated Bugs Bunny played basketball with a real-live Michael Jordan. The ad was so successful that Warner Brothers decided to turn it into a whole movie (Space Jam).
Nike has been criticized for contracting with factories (known as Nike sweatshops) in countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Pakistan. A 1997 report from America revealed that factories in Vietnam making Nike brand shoes paid their workers an average of only $US1.60 per day and that working conditions are appalling.
During the 1990s, Nike faced criticism for the use of child labor in Cambodia and Pakistan in factories it contracted to manufacture soccer balls.
In 1998 a group of Californian lawyers filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court accusing Nike of wilfully misleading the American public about working conditions in the Asian factories producing the footwear. Responding to charges that it exploits its Asian employees, Nike Inc., announced improved working conditions for the 500,000 people who at the time made its products. Nike added it would raise the minimum age of footwear and clothing workers to 18 and 16 respectively.
Nike's first "Just Do It" advertisement debuted on July 1, 1988. Nike ad agency executive Dan Wieden credits the inspiration for the slogan as being the last words spoken by convicted murderer Gary Gilmore before being shot to death by a firing squad in Utah in 1977.
NIKE TODAY
Nike is the world's biggest brand of sports shoes, clothes and equipment.
Nike has approximately 62,600 employees worldwide as of 2015.
Nike's World Headquarters are in Beaverton, Oregon.
Nike sells its products under its own name as well as Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Nike+, Air Jordan, and Team Starter.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
A pair of Nike Air Jordan I basketball shoes. By Trios2007 - Wikipedia
Nike also owns the brands Bauer, Cole Haan, Hurley International, and Converse.
The world's largest Nike store is in Oxford Street, London; it's got three floors of athletic apparel and measures about 42,000 square feet.
Nihilism is a negative existentialist philosophy that believes in ultimate nothingness –life having no intrinsic meaning or value
The term was coined by Obereit in 1787 and popularized by the German theologian Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (January 25, 1743 – March 10, 1819), who promoted it as the prime fault of Enlightenment thought.
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
Nihilism was the basis of much revolutionary terrorism in 19th century Russia. Dostoyevsky was a member of a nihilist group in his 20s and served ten years in exile as a consequence.
Its widespread usage began with the 1862 novel Fathers and Sons by the Russian author Ivan Turgenev. Bazarov, the hero of his story, was a nihilist.
The term was subsequently adopted in Russia by the Nihilist anarchist movement who protested against conventional and established values. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, they called themselves nihilists because" nothing that then existed found favor in their eyes".
The assassination of Alexander II, drawing by G. Broling, 1881
Nihilism is often associated with the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche because he said that morals were invented. But in his writings, Nietzsche said that people needed to create their own morals to get over nihilism.
The Joker is portrayed as a nihilist in the Batman movie The Dark Knight, describing himself as "an Agent of Chaos"
Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820 into a rich, upper-class, well-connected British family at the Villa Colombaia, near the Porta Romana, in Florence, Italy. She was named after the city of her birth.
Her elder sister, Frances Parthenope Nightingale, was born in Parthenopolis, a region of Naples.
In 1821 The Nightingale family returned to England and tried to settle down in Florence's father's inherited property in Derbyshire. The Derby county property had an active lead smelter (1760-1935) which her father managed and owned.
William Nightingale had a new house built for the family in the village of Lea near Cromford, Derbyshire and the family lived there until 1823. The home was called Lea Hurst and served as a summer home to the Nightingales for the rest of Florence's life.
In 1825 The Nightingales moved to a 14 bedroomed mansion named Embley Park in the parish of Wellow, in Hampshire. It came in a 3,700-acre estate. This became the family's main home with Lea Hurst as a summer home.
Florence was educated largely by her father. She had exhibited a gift for mathematics from an early age, and excelled in the subject under the tutorship of her father.
EARLY NURSING CAREER
Florence had a strong desire to devote her life to the service of others from her late teens but at first she was respectful of her family's opposition to her working as a nurse, only announcing her decision to enter the field in 1844.
Young Florence Nightingale
When Florence announced that she wanted to work and train at nearby Salisbury Infirmary her parents were horrified, as a respectable lady did not enter in hospital work. However Florence was determined, she felt she was called by God to serve him in this manner.
After her parents refused her request to study nursing at a hospital, Florence was persuaded to study parliamentary reports. Within three years she was an expert on public health and hospitals.
In 1847 Florence helped to nurse victims of a cholera epidemic at a Middlesex hospital.
At the age of 30 she went first to Paris, then to the Kaiserwerth Institute, near Dusseldorf, a hospital in Germany to learn nursing.
In 1853 Florence went into residence in her first "situation" as superintendent of An Establishment for Gentlewomen During Illness at no. 1 Upper Harley Street, London.
That same year, Florence's father gives her a yearly allowance of £500 ($40,000-50,000 by today's standards.)
CRIMEAN WAR
In 1854 Florence Nightingale took a team of nurses to Scutari in the Crimea, as a result of Times' War Correspondent, William Russell's scaving reports of the conditions. There she worked up to twenty hours a day; and succeeded, despite the opposition of the military leadership, in radically improving the hospital's condition. She brought the death rate down twenty times within a space of a few months.
Florence spent £30,000 raised by the Times in the Constantinople bazaars on clothes and food for the British army.
When she first arrived in the Crimea, Florence traveled on horseback to make her inspections, she then transferred to a mule cart, and was reported to have escaped serious injury when it was toppled in an accident. Following this episode she used a solid Russian-built carriage, with waterproof hood and curtains.
Her nurses, in addition to their pay of 12 shillings, get a pint of port for dinner and a glass of sherry for supper.
Florence Nightingale's own trademark "look" was a simple black bodice and matching skirt with non-matching cuffs and collar of white lace.
Florence walked around with a linen Turkish army lantern, which was a candle inside a collapsible shade, crinkled like a Chinese lantern.
The Lady with the Lamp. Reproduction of a painting of Nightingale by Henrietta Rae, 1891.
By 1856 The Crimean War had ended and 19,600 Britons had died of which 15,700 were due to disease. The British Army lost ten times more troops to dysentery than to battle wounds. However by the end of the war, Florence Nightingale had succeeded in reducing the Crimean War Hospital death rate from 42% to 2%.
Florence was a heroine to the troops and public back home. She was the subject of songs and poems including the famous poem in which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow coined the term "lady with the lamp".
LATER CAREER
On returning home Florence threw herself into a campaign to improve British army health and living conditions.
Florence was fascinated by statistics, mortality rates and other data relevant to her works. She included a lot of statistical input in her reports and was a pioneer in the visual presentation of information.
"Diagram of the causes of mortality in the army in the East" by Florence Nightingale.
The nursing pioneer invented a graph that she called the coxcomb or polar area chart to depict changing patient outcomes in the military field hospital she managed. Florence made extensive use of this predecessor to the pie chart to present reports on the nature and magnitude of the conditions of medical care in the Crimean War to MPs and civil servants who would have been unlikely to read or understand traditional statistical reports. This had never been done before and is common practice now. As such, she was a pioneer in the visual presentation of information.
Florence eventually became a member of the Institute of Statisticians.
By 1859, Florence had £45,000 at her disposal from the Nightingale Fund to set up the Nightingale Training School (now called the Nightingale School of Nursing) at St Thomas' Hospital.
Nightingale Training School for Nurses opened at St. Thomas Infirmary on July 9, 1860 with Mrs. Wardroper as its head. Florence paid very close attention to every detail
Florence Nightingale (middle) in 1886 with her graduating class of nurses from St Thomas'
Three years after Crimea, her Notes on Nursing was published in 1859. A slim 136-page book that served as the cornerstone of the curriculum at the Nightingale School and other nursing schools established, Notes on Nursing also sold well to the general reading public and is considered as a classic introduction to nursing.
Notes on Nursing was expanded and published again in 1860 and in 1861.
The only "wage" she ever earned in her life was the many royalties she received from her Notes on Nursing.
In her life time Florence never kept within her budget and relied on her father and others helped pay for her very expensive projects and good works.
Florence disliked the fame her work bought her. She never made a public statement and was never seen in public.
"Once or twice a year perhaps but nobody could be quite certain, in deadly secrecy, she went out for a drive in the park, unrecognised, the living legend flitted for a moment before the public gaze." (Lytton Strachey Eminent Victorians)
APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER
Florence was tall, with chestnut colored hair. As a young woman, Nightingale was described as attractive, slender and graceful.
Three Quarter length portrait of Florence Nightingale
She gave her name to a flannel scarf with sleeves for the benefit of invalids sitting up in bed, known as a Nightingale.
Florence was rousing, warm and private .While her demeanor was often severe, she was said to be very charming and possess a radiant smile.
The Times said in her 1910 obituary: “Her zeal, her devotion and her perseverance would yield to no rebuff and to no difficulty”.
BELIEFS
Florence was raised as a Unitarian and was a devout Christian. On February 7, 1837 the 16-year-old heard the voice of God telling her that she had a mission. Quite what that mission entailed at that stage she didn't know.
Florence came to realize that God was calling her to devote her life to the service of others. She came to realize it was to be in the form of nursing, but acknowledged the difficulties this entailed in the climate of her era where the respectable lady's place was thought to be at home.
Painting of Nightingale by Augustus Egg, c. 1840s
In 1850, she visited the Lutheran religious community at Kaiserswerth-am-Rhein in Germany, where she observed Pastor Theodor Fliedner and the deaconesses working for the sick and the deprived.
RELATIONSHIPS
In 1837, the 17-year-old Florence Nightingale met and fell in love with her first cousin, John Smithurst. However, their parents forbid them to marry due to their family connection. The heartbroken Smithurst, (a devout Christian) mooched off to Canada to be a missionary to the Indians.
12 years later Smithurst returned and proposed but both sets of parents again refused so he returned to Canada frustrated.
Her most persistent suitor was the politician and poet Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, but after a nine-year courtship she rejected him against her mother's wishes. Florence concluded that she could not have "work" of her own if she chose to follow her heart into this society marriage. Marriage would destroy her chance of serving God's call.
Baron Houghton
Milnes remained one of Florence's staunchest supporters throughout her career.
By 1847, Florence was approaching a mental breakdown precipitated by a continuing crisis of her relationship with Milnes. Her friends, the Bracebridges took her to Rome with them.
While in Rome, Florence met Sidney Herbert, a brilliant politician who had been Secretary at War (1845-46), a position he would hold again (1852-1854) during the Crimean War. Herbert was already married but he and Nightingale were immediately attracted to each other and they became life-long close friends. Herbert was instrumental in facilitating her pioneering work in Crimea and in the field of nursing, and Nightingale became a key adviser to Herbert in his political career.
In 1857 Sir Harry Verney 2nd Baronet, an MP for Buckingham, proposed to Florence, but she declined. He then proposed to Parthenope, who accepted, and they married on June 24, 1858.
HOBBIES AND INTERESTS
Florence Nightingale advised nurses that a little light music soothed the sick and restored the soul. In her Notes On Nursing Florence wrote that the human voice can be therapeutic on its own, but when a patient is unable to speak, frightened, or injured, music can make an immediate connection with the emotions they cannot put into words.
Florence Nightingale made a recording on July 30, 1890 to raise money for the impoverished veterans of the Charge of the Light Brigade. The recording was made on a wax cylinder by Colonel Gouraud, Thomas Edison's representative in Britain. The recording is now very difficult to hear, but the transcript of the recording says:
"When I am no longer even a memory, just a name, I hope my voice may perpetuate the great work of my life. God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava and bring them safe to shore. Florence Nightingale."
The recording was released commercially as a 78rpm disc in 1935, twenty five years after Nightingale's death. It is the only known recording of Nightingale's voice.
During the early 1850s Florence had a pet owl called "Athena" who she carried in her apron pocket. She had to leave her feathered friend behind to reside in her attic when she departed for the Crimea.
Athena, can be seen today at London’s Florence Nightingale Museum.
In her life time Florence owned around 60 cats including large Persian moggies called Bismarck, Disraeli and Gladstone, and she refused to travel without taking them.
HOMES
On her return from the Crimea Florence took an hotel room in London which became the centre for her campaigning.
At the time of the 1861 census she was living at the Burlington hotel in Piccadilly, London.
In 1865 Florence Nightingale moved to 10 South Street, Park Lane where she lived for the rest of her life.
HEALTH
In the Crimea, Florence suffered from Crimean fever which she possibly contacted from drinking contaminated goat's milk. She nearly died, but refused to return to England.
On returning home the "lady of the lamp" was convinced that she had terminal heart disease. Prostate and apparently helpless on a couch in her London home, she conducted a huge correspondence and received many dignities, ambassadors and politicians. In reality she probably had been weakened by the Crimean fever she'd contacted.
By 1896 Florence was confined to her bedroom permanently.
DEATH AND LEGACY
Florence died of heart failure on August 13, 1910. The offer of burial in Westminster Abbey was declined by her relatives, and she is buried in the graveyard at St. Margaret Church in East Wellow, England, next to her parents.
The grave of Florence Nightingale in the churchyard of St Margaret's Church. By Dmartin@ukonline.co.uk,
Six British army sergeants bore her coffin to the family group grave in St Margaret's churchyard.
The "Florence Nightingale Effect" is a term used to describe the phenomenon of caregivers falling in love with their patients. It is thought that this can happen because caregivers spend a lot of time with their patients, and they develop a close bond with them. Additionally, caregivers may feel protective of their patients, and they may see them as being vulnerable and in need of care.
While there is no evidence that Florence Nightingale herself ever experienced the "Florence Nightingale Effect," her work as a nurse has inspired countless others to care for the sick and injured. Her legacy is one of compassion and service, and she is remembered as one of the greatest nurses who ever lived.
'Florence Nightingale' is an anagram of 'Flit on, cheering angel' or 'Going? Then clean rifle.' or ‘Reflecting on healing’ or ‘No lice, filth, gangrene’.
The Night of the Long Knives is a descriptive phrase that was applied to the night of June 30 - July 1, 1934 when Hitler, assisted by Heinrich Himmler's SS, carried out a series of political murders, executing at least 85 people. Many of those killed were leaders of the SA, the paramilitary Brownshirts. The best-known victim was Ernst Röhm, the SA's leader and one of Hitler's longtime supporters and allies.
Ernst Röhm with Kurt Daluege and Himmler
During the Night of the Long Knives, the Nazis accidentally killed a music critic called Willi Schmid, when their intended target had been someone with a similar surname. A few days after his death, Rudolf Hess visited Willi’s widow and apologised for the mistake, and offered her a pension.
The term has its antecedents. The apocryphal treacherous killing of native British chieftains by Anglo-Saxon mercenaries on Salisbury Plain in AD 472 was named "The Treachery of the Long Knives" by Geoffrey of Monmouth and became a prominent symbol of Saxon betrayal.
The term Night of the Long Knives is now applied to any treacherous massacre or betrayal. For instance, in July 1962 UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan shocked the nation by sacking seven ministers in what became known as the 'Night of the Long Knives'.
In the 16th century, Spanish and Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin significant, direct trade with peoples of the land now called Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos.
Coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade. Many people from modern-day Nigeria were taken away and turned into slaves by Europeans, and sent to work in the Americas.
With rising anti-slavery sentiment at home and changing economic realities, Great Britain outlawed the international slave trade in 1807.
In Nigeria the Reverend Samuel Crowther, a former slave, became the first black Anglican bishop in 1865. Crowther was also leader of the Niger Mission whose employees were all African as he believed that the evangelization of inland Africa must be carried out by Africans rather than Europeans.
The British conquest of Nigeria was completed in 1904. 500,000 square miles was controlled by the U.K.
Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom as a Commonwealth Realm on October 1, 1960.
The flag of Nigeria was first officially hoisted on October 1, 1960. The two green stripes represent Nigeria's natural wealth, while the white band represents peace.
The former flag of Nigeria features a Jewish Star of David.
Former UK Prime Minister Sir John Major lost one of his kneecaps in the late Sixties during a car crash in Nigeria, where he was working for the Standard Chartered bank.
Nigeria was plunged into a civil war for 30 months between 1967 and 1970. The conflict was caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra by the Christian Igbo people.
The Republic of Biafra in June 1967, when it declared its independence. By Eric Gaba
The Civil War kicked off when the official Nigerian government attacked Biafra on July 6, 1967 at Garkem. The conflict, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended when the remaining Biafran military officers formally surrendered to the Nigerian federal government on January 15, 1970.
It was the first modern war between black Africans and left the Nigerian economy greatly weakened.
Since 2002, Nigeria has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, an Islamist movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish Sharia law in the country.
276 schoolgirls were abducted by Islamists Boko Haram (meaning ‘Western education is forbidden’) in Chibok, Nigeria on April 14, 2014.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan estimated in May 2014 that Boko Haram attacks left at least 12,000 people dead and 8,000 people crippled.
In May 2014 Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger joined Nigeria in a united effort to combat Boko Haram in the aftermath of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls. However, despite the international campaign, Amnesty International reported in April 2023 that 98 girls were still missing.
Nigerian states that implement some form of sharia law (in green) By Bohr -
According to the Open Doors USA 2023 World Watch List, Nigeria is the country where Christians face the most persecution in the world. In 2022, an estimated 60,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria, making it the deadliest year on record for Christians in the country. The violence is largely being carried out by Boko Haram and other Islamic extremist groups.
Other Islamic extremist groups that are targeting Christians in Nigeria include the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and the Ansaru group. These groups have also carried out numerous attacks on Christians, killing and displacing thousands of people.
FUN NIGERIA FACTS
Nigeria has a population of 182,202,000, which is more than any other country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world.
On current trends, by 2050 Nigeria will account for almost 10% of all births in the world, and its population would have overtaken that of the US, despite being one-tenth the size of America.
Nigeria has the highest rate of twin births in the world.
Nigerians are from Nigeria and Nigeriens are from Niger. Niger was colonized by the French so it gets the en ending, Nigeria was colonized by the British, so it gets the an.
Nigeria is viewed as a multinational state, as it is inhabited by over 500 ethnic groups, of which the three largest are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba
In Nigeria, there are almost equal amounts of Muslims and Christians. Most of the Christians live in the south, and most of the Muslims live in the north.
A goat was arrested in Nigeria in 2009 after being taken to the police and accused of being an armed robber who used black magic to transform himself into a goat after trying to steal a car.
It is estimated that the entire power supply of Nigeria generates only enough electricity to power a single toaster for every 44 people. Association football is Nigeria's national sport. The national team won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994 and 2013. The country also won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including Afrobeat, which fuses native rhythms with jazz, highlife music and chanted vocals.
The most famous Afro-beat performer was the controversial Nigerian singer-saxophonist Fela Anikulapo Kuti, whose huge band sometimes included his 27 wives. His political songs led to his spending much time in jail.
The Nigerian film industry, or Nollywood, is second largest in the world in terms of numbers of movies produced.
Cassava is the third largest source of food carbohydrates in the tropics, after rice and maize. Nigeria is the world's largest producer of cassava.
About 60% of Nigerians work in the agricultural sector.
A farmers market in Nigeria.
Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner. Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.
