Soap opera

The Smith Family introduced the soap opera format on radio in 1925 when Chicago's WENR premiered the comedic serial presented one night weekly featuring Jim and Marian Jordan.

Painted Dreams was the first daytime radio soap opera program in the United States. A 15-minute daily show that followed the relationship of Irish-American widow Mother Moynihan and her unmarried daughter, it debuted on October 20, 1930 on Chicago radio station WGN.

The first nationally broadcast radio soap opera was Clara, Lu, and Em, which aired on the NBC Blue Network at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time on January 27, 1931. The storylines centered on three women who lived in a small-town duplex and the programs were sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive.

Advertisement for Clara, Lu, and Em Wikipedia

As radio became more popular in the 1920s and 1930s, Proctor and Gamble sponsored a number of radio programs. They produced and sponsored the first radio serial drama in 1932. As the company was known for detergents, the serials became commonly known as "soap operas."

The first TV daytime soap opera, These Are My Children, was telecast from NBC in Chicago in 1949. The show's creator, Irna Phillips, would later produce As the World Turns and The Guiding Light.

The first successful daytime drama on television was Search for Tomorrow, which debuted on the CBS network in 1951 and ran until 1986. The series was sponsored by Procter & Gamble.

As the World Turns and The Edge of Night premiered on CBS-TV in 1956. The two soaps become the first daytime dramas to debut in the 30-minute format.

Britain's first television soap opera, Emergency Ward 10 was launched in 1957. It ran on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Coronation Street is the world's longest-running television soap opera. It was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on December 9, 1960.

The actor, William Roach, who was born in Nottinghamshire, England, on April 25, 1932, is the world’s longest-serving soap star, having debuted as Ken Barlow in episode one of Coronation Street in 1960. Nicknamed the ‘Lothario of the cobbles’, he has refused to deny having slept with a thousand women during the swinging sixties.

America's highest-rated soap opera, The Young and the Restless, aired its first episode on March 26, 1973. It is the only remaining daytime drama that is partially sponsored by Procter & Gamble.

On November 16, 1981 About 30 million people watched the fictional couple Luke Spencer and Laura Webber marry on the television show General Hospital. It was the highest-rated hour in American soap opera history.

The first episode of the Australian soap opera Neighbours was broadcast on the Seven Network on March 18, 1985. The show was created by Reg Watson and became an instant hit in Australia, eventually becoming the longest-running drama series in Australian television history. The show has also been successful internationally, airing in more than 60 countries and launching the careers of many Australian actors, including Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, and Margot Robbie.

The 1986 Christmas Day EastEnders episode was watched by 30.15 million viewers in the UK. The story, in which Den Watts served his wife Angie with divorce papers (see picture below), was the highest-rated soap episode in British history, and the highest-rated program in the UK during the 1980s.

Wikipedia

Brad Pitt's television debut came in May 1987 with a two-episode role on the NBC soap opera Another World.

In 2002, on a summer break from Northwestern University’s prestigious theater program, Meghan Markle got her first acting job when was cast in a small role as a nurse called Jill on the soap opera General Hospital. Casting director Mark Teschner said he could tell she was very serious about acting as a career.

The 72 year run of the soap opera The Guiding Light ended on September 18, 2009 as its final episode was broadcast. It is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running television drama in American history. It began on radio in 1937, before transitioning to television in 1952.

As the World Turns was an American television soap opera that aired on CBS for 54 years from April 2, 1956, to September 17, 2010. It had the longest total running time of any TV show, with 13,763 hours of total narrative. If you binged it for 8 hours a day, it would take you 4 years and 8 months to finish it all.

Soap

Soap is a chemical compound used in washing. It is a mixture of the sodium salts of various fatty acids.

Soap

Soap-like material found in clay cylinders during the excavation of ancient Babylon is evidence that soapmaking was known as early as 2800 BC. Inscriptions on the cylinders say that soap was being made by boiling fats with ashes, but do not refer to the purpose of the "soap."

Records show that the ancient Egyptians bathed regularly. The Ebers Papyrus, a medical document from about 1500 BC, describes combining animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to form a soap-like material used for treating skin diseases, as well as for washing.

It is recorded that soap was known to the Phoenicians around 600 BC. These early references to soap and soap making were for the use of the cleaning of textile fibers such as wool and cotton in preparation for weaving into cloth.

Soap was brought by Phoenician seafarers to Southern France. By the 6th century BC its had spread to central Europe. This soap was made with goat's fat and wood ashes.

The Bible, at least in its Authorised Version, mentions soap. But the prophet Jeremiah refers to it only as a cleansing agency for clothes. The passage speaks of washing-soda and potash. True soap was unknown to ancient Palestine. However the Jews did use a soap-like product of tree bark ashes as a cleansing agent when they needed to purify themselves.

The early Greeks bathed for aesthetic reasons and apparently did not use soap. Clothes were washed without soap in streams.

The ancient Germans and Gauls are credited with discovering a substance called soap, made of tallow and ashes. They used it not for washing but as a pomade to give an extra shine to the hair and to tint it red.

According to the Romans, soap got its name from Mount Sapo, where animals were sacrificed. There. the rain washed a mixture of melted animal fat, or tallow, and wood ashes down into the clay soil along the Tiber River. Women found that this clay mixture made their wash far cleaner with much less exertion required.

The first mention of real soap occurs in the writings of Pliny the Elder (23 AD – 25 August 79 AD). He referred to it explicitly as an invention of the barbarian Gauls. They made it from goat's tallow and beech ashes, which were the ancient equivalent of modern palm oil and caustic.

It was only in the 4th century BC that the Romans started using soap in the bath. Indeed, a physician in 385 AD recommended it as good for shampooing.

The English began making soap during the 12th century. Wealthy ladies of the Tudor period (1485-1603) used an expensive scented toilet soap made with olive oil for their daily washing.

Marseille soap or Savon de Marseille is a traditional hard soap made from vegetable oils that has been produced around Marseille, France, since about 1370. The soap is made by mixing sea water from the Mediterranean Sea, olive oil, and the alkaline chemicals soda ash (sodium carbonate) and lye (sodium hydroxide).

Marseille soap Wikipedia

Commercial soapmaking in the American colonies began in 1608 with the arrival of several soapmakers on the second ship from England to reach Jamestown, Virginia.

The transformation of soapmaking from a handicraft to an industry was abetted by the discovery of French chemist Nicolas LeBlanc (December 6, 1742 –January 16, 1806) in about 1790 of a process for manufacturing soda ash from brine (a form of salt). Soda ash is the alkali obtained from ashes that combines with fat to form soap. The Leblanc process produced quantities of cheap but good quality soda ash.

LeBlanc devised his method of producing soda ash to win a prize offered by the French Academy of Sciences, but the Revolutionary government merely granted him a patent.

Modern soapmaking was born in 1811 with the discovery by Michel Eugene Chevreul, another French chemist, of the chemical nature and relationship of fats, glycerine and fatty acids. His studies established the basis for both fat and soap chemistry.

Soap in colonial America soap had been sold door to door. By the late 1830s it was being distributed in general stores, where it was sold from huge blocks. Store customers showed how much they would like and the shopkeeper chopped of the required amount and wrapped it for taking home.

In Britain for centuries, washing with soap was something only the wealthy could afford, in part because since 1712 soap had been taxed to raise revenue. Because of public pressure, in 1853, the Chancellor of Exchequer William Gladstone abolished this tax on cleanliness.

William Shepphard of New York patented liquid soap on August 22, 1865. The product was made by dissolving one pound of solid soap in water, and then adding 100 pounds of spirits of ammonia or hartshorn until the liquid thickened to the consistency of molasses.

Ivory Soap was originally named P&G White Soap. In 1879, Harley Proctor found the new name during a reading in church of the 45th Psalm of the Bible: "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad."

By Procter and Gamble Heritage Center 

Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over mixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.

In 1898, B.J. Johnson developed a soap derived from palm and olive oils; his company, the B.J. Johnson Soap Company, introduced "Palmolive" brand soap that same year. It was so successful that that the B.J. Johnson Soap Co. changed their name to Palmolive in 1917.

Wikipedia

Redd Foxx, the renowned comedian, dodged the draft during World War II by eating half a bar of soap before his physical. This unconventional and unwise tactic caused him to experience heart palpitations, which led to a rejection from the military.

In 1999, US soap maker Casey Makela published a recipe for making soap out of human breast milk.

Millenials are responsible for the decline in the bar soap industry. They prefer liquid soap because bar soap is deemed "dirty" and for old people.

Global Handwashing Day occurs on October 15 each year. The global campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of handwashing with soap as a key factor in disease prevention. Respiratory and intestinal diseases can be reduced by 25-50%.

Global Handwashing Day was initiated by the Global Handwashing Partnership (GHP) in August 2008 at the annual World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden with the first Global Handwashing Day took place on October 15, 2008. The date was appointed by the UN General Assembly. 

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers are more effective at battling some bacteria, like those causing staph infections. However, other bacteria are becoming more tolerant of such sanitizers, and regular hand washing with simple soap and water is the best solution for them. “It's the physical action of lifting and moving them off your skin, and letting them run down the drain.” said Lance Price, a professor at the George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health to NPR,

Microbeads, the little abrasive beads in found in soap products, are so dangerous to the environment they've been banned in the US.

Sources Comptons Encyclopedia, Europress Enyclopedia, Daily Express

Snowflake

ETMOLOGY

The word 'snowflake' dates back to 1734.

The English have had at least six words for snowflake: flaughen, flaw, flight, flother, snowblossom and snowflake itself.

Freshly fallen snowflakes By Jason Hollinger 

The first time “snowflake” was used in its current form to describe someone sensitive, fragile, and needing to be coddled was in the 1999 movie Fight Club.

COMPOSITION

The most basic snowflake is a six-sided ice crystal. Tiny ice crystals fall and join with others to form a snowflake.

Broadly, snowflakes are not unique. Most snowflakes have six sides because the molecules that make them up are hexagon-shaped.

The characteristic six branches of a snowflake. By Charles Schmitt

Snowflakes come in one of 35 general shapes according to temperature and humidity. Some of their different shapes are called hexagonal plate, irregular column, stellar plate or spatial dendrites.

According to physicists, it's actually true that no two snowflakes are alike when it comes to complex snowflakes. The temperature greatly affects how the snowflake forms, so while the simplest hexagonal crystals may look alike, more complicated beauties each have their own unique shapes.

Two snowflakes can be atomically identical, but the number of possible snowflake structures exceeds the number of atoms in the universe, so we say the odds are virtually zero.

Snowflakes are not at all white. They are actually translucent, where light is reflected rather than passed through. Because of the snowflake's tiny surface, the light scatters in so many directions that it can't absorb or reflect consistently, and the color comes back as white.

Snow is also made of sleet, which is created when snowflakes pass through the atmosphere and melt a little by the time they hit the ground.

The size of a snowflake depends on how many crystals hook together. Most snowflakes are about 1/2-inch across.

When coal heated homes and factories, coal dust in the air was absorbed by clouds and led to gray snow.

Almost every snow crystal has a tiny mote of dust at its center which can be anything from volcanic ash to a particle from outer space.

Snowflakes often look pink in Prince Edward Island, Canada, thanks to the red clay.

Snowflakes fall at about 1.5 mph (2.4 kph) and take roughly an hour to reach the ground.

HISTORY

The first known photograph of a snowflake was taken on January 15, 1885, by Wilson Bentley, a farmer and self-taught meteorologist from Vermont. He ingeniously combined a bellows camera with a microscope to capture the intricate details of these fleeting ice crystals. Initially, his photographs were met with skepticism, but over time, Bentley amassed over 5,000 images, revealing the astounding variety and unique nature of every snowflake. 

A picture of a Snow Crystal taken by Wilson Bentley, "The Snowflake Man."

The world's largest snowflakes were reported during a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana on January 28, 1887. They were 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick. This event was recorded by a rancher and Fort Keogh's official weather observer, Captain J. P. Finley. The snowflakes were described as being "larger than milk pans" and "as large as a big saucer." 

1 million billion snowflakes fall on the planet every single second.

Sources Heraldnet, ABC7NY

Snow White

The German fairy tale Snow White was first printed in Giambattista Basile's 1634 Pentamerone. It was later included in J. K. Musäus's German Folktales (1782).

The Brothers Grimm recorded a version called Little Snow White (German: Schneewittchen) in 1812 in the first edition of their Children's and Household Tales.

Schneewittchen; Darstellung von Alexander Zick (1845 - 1907)

Story No 53 in the Grimms' collection, Schneewitchen, is no fairy tale. In it the wicked stepmother, having failed to murder the enviable beauty Snow White is forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she drops dead.

Walt Disney's 1937 animated film of the story won an Oscar. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs was a big favorite of Adolf Hitler, who loved the movie so much that he kept a copy at his home theater.

Walt Disney took out multiple loans to finance Snow White, even mortgaging his own home to pay for it. At the time, insiders in the film industry thought the film would bomb and called it “Disney’s Folly”. Even Walt’s wife, Lillian, thought it would bomb.

19-year-old Adriana Caselotti, was only paid $970 ($16,000 today) to voice Snow White in the 1937 film.

Walt Disney was so keen on maintaining his brand that Adriana Caselotti received no credit. She was also contractually prevented from appearing in anything else, including radio shows, virtually ending her career. Caselotti died in 1978 still trying to cash in on her moment of glory.

Snow White in the trailer of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 

While making Snow White, Walt Disney paid his employees five dollars for every successful sight gag that could be used in the film.

Snow White's dwarfs had no names until Disney came along. Among the over 50 names he rejected were Awful, Baldy, Biggo-Ego, Dirty, Dumpy, Flabby, Gloomy, Hickey, Nifty, Shifty and Scruffy.

Six of the dwarfs have eyebrows based on Disney’s. Only Happy has white bushy eyebrows.

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs was the first American movie to have a soundtrack album released with the feature film.

The score was composed by Frank Churchill (1901-42) with lyrics by Larry Morey (1905-71). The most famous song "Heigh-Ho" is sung by all seven dwarfs on their way to work.

The British Board of Film Censors thought Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs scary enough to allow under-16s only accompanied by an adult.

Walt Disney was presented with one normal sized honorary Oscar and seven little Oscars for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1938.

Source Daily Express

John Snow

John Snow was born on March 15, 1813 in York, England.

He was the first of nine children born to coal laborer William and Frances Snow in their North Street home.

In 1827, when he was 14, Snow obtained a medical apprenticeship with William Hardcastle in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Dr. John Snow (1813-1858), British physician.

As a very young medical apprentice Snow was sent to Killingworth, a coal-mining village to work on victims of England's first cholera epidemic in the early 1830s. Snow treated many victims of the disease and gained a lot of experience.

In 1837 Snow began working at the Westminster Hospital. Admitted as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on May 2, 1838, he graduated from the University of London in December 1844 and was admitted to the Royal College of Physicians in 1850.

Only a year after the anesthetic ether was introduced to Britain, in 1847, Snow published a short work titled, On the Inhalation of the Vapor of Ether, which served as a guide for its use. It remained a standard reference until well into the 20th century.

Snow devised an apparatus for the use of ether, which gave proper control. By 1848, Snow was considered the most accomplished anesthetist in Britain and London’s principal surgeons all wanted his assistance.

Dr. Snow also was an expert operator of chloroform, which had been introduced in 1847 by James Young Simpson, a Scottish obstetrician. Between 1847 - 58 he administered chloroform 4,000 times.

Antique bottles of chloroform. By Kevin King - Flickr:

In the early 1850s there was strong opposition to chloroform from Calvinist churchmen as they reasoned that in the third chapter of Genesis in the Bible, Eve was told "in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." It became an established means of anesthesia after Queen Victoria allowed herself to be chloroformed by Dr John Snow to diminish the pains while giving birth to Prince Leopold in 1853. Afterwards, the religious objections quietened.

In 1854 London witnessed a severe outbreak of cholera. The area around Soho was particularly struck and, in a matter of weeks, over five hundred people had died. At the time doctors believed that cholera was caused by bad air or pollution, which was common in such an overpopulated place. However, Snow had formulated his own conclusions that cholera was carried by an infectious organism in faeces-contaminated drinking water. He believed that the polluted Thames water was a major culprit.

In Broad Street, Soho, which was in Snow's locality there was a pump where a sewer pipe passed particularly close to its well. As this was an especially cholera-prone neighborhood of London he decided to demonstrate his viewpoint by removing the handle from the water pump. When the numbers of fatalities in the area dropped significantly, contamination of water by excrement was agreed to be a key factor in the spread of cholera.

John Snow memorial on Broadwick Street (formerly Broad Street), Soho. Wikipedia

The adoption of Snow's recommended sanitary precautions such as boiling all drinking water eliminated cholera from entire communities in England.

Snow was a bachelor who lived alone on Sackville Street in Soho, London. He suffered a stroke while working on his magnum opus, On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics in his London office on June 10, 1858.

Snow never recovered, and died aged 45 at 3 pm on June 16, 1858 attended by his brother Thomas. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery.

Snow

ETYMOLOGY 

Snowstorms with 35 mph or more winds, visibility 1/4-mile or less and last at least three hours are called blizzards. Anything less is a just a snowstorm.

The word 'snow' dates back to the 9th century, 'snowball' originated around 1400, while 'snowflake' (1734) came over three centuries later. “Snowman” arrived in 1827, which means we threw snowballs for 400 years before making a snowman.

Pixiebay

It is a myth that the Inuit Eskimos have 50 words for snow. Whilst the Inuit did have about as many words for snow as the English, the Sami in Finland have in excess of 50.

Skiers and snowboarders have nonscientific words for snow that nonetheless convey their message. They include: Cascade mud, cauliflower, champagne snow, corduroy, mashed potatoes and pow pow.

Snow on top of a glacier that has not yet turned to ice is called “firn”. It has the appearance of wet sugar, but has a hardness that makes it extremely resistant to shovelling.

Firn—metamorphosed multi-year snow. By Doronenko 

HISTORY 

The Great Snow of 1717 dropped about 3 to 4 feet (0.9 to 1.2 meters) on Boston inhabitants, with some drifts reaching 25 feet (7.6-m), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

When coal heated homes and factories, coal dust in the air was absorbed by clouds and led to gray snow.

Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley  (February 9, 1865 – December 23, 1931) was one of the first known photographers of snowflakes. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they either melted or sublimated. Wilson Bentley took the first ever photograph of a snowflake in 1885.

Snowflake photos by Bentley, circa 1902

General Electric scientists first produced man-made snow on November 13, 1946. By 1952 the first snowmaking machinery was in regular use at a Catskill ski resort. Today, virtually every American ski area produces artificial snow.

The "Storm of the Century", a violent snowstorm, paralyzed the northeastern United States and the Appalachians in 1950, bringing winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures. Pickens, West Virginia, recorded 57 inches of snow. 323 people died as a result of the storm.

On January 19, 1977, snow fell in south Florida and the Bahamas, and the Florida citrus industry was "nearly wiped out".

COMPOSITION

Snow is a mineral, just like diamonds and salt.

Fresh snow is 90 to 95 per cent air.

Fresh snow absorbs sound, lowering ambient noise over a landscape because the trapped air between snowflakes attenuate vibration. That’s why it gets so quiet when it snows

Snowflakes come in one of 35 general shapes according to temperature and humidity, contrary to the old claim that they are as unique as fingerprints.

At the center of almost every snow crystal is a tiny mote of dust, which can be anything from volcanic ash to a particle from outer space.

Freshly fallen snowflakes By Jason Hollinger 

Although falling snow has been recorded at minus-41 Celsius (-41.8 Fahrenheit), it can be too cold to snow if there's not enough moisture in the air.

When it melts, one inch of fresh snow may produce less than a 10th of an inch of water.

Dirty snow melts faster than white snow because it is darker and absorbs more heat.

FREQUENCY

Around 12 per cent of the earth's surface is permanently covered in snow and ice.

Pixiebay

Two-thirds of the people on Earth have never seen snow.

New York gets 15 times as much snow as the South Pole.

RECORDS 

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest recorded snowflakes were 15 inches across and 8 inches thick, and fell at Fort Keogh, Montana, in 1887. A rancher described the flakes as "larger than mild pans."

The worst avalanche in United States history took place in 1910. It buried a Great Northern Railway train in northeastern King County, Washington, killing 96 people.

The record for the most snow ever recorded in a single day belongs to Silver Lake,  Colorado, where a whopping 6.3 feet (75.8 inches) of snow fell on April 14-15, 1921. This location sits at an elevation of 10,220 feet in the Rocky Mountains, creating conditions conducive to this extreme snowfall event.

On March 5, 2015, Capracotta, a small town in Italy received a staggering 8.4 feet (256 cm) of snow in 18 hours. This amount would be a new world record if official. However, verification of the record proved challenging. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) requires strict guidelines for record-keeping, including specific measurement methods and equipment placement. While local weather stations reported the 8.4 feet of snow, it wasn't officially recognized by the WMO due to possible inconsistencies. Therefore, Silver Lake, Colorado, with its 6.3 feet (75.8 inches) of snow, remains the official record holder. 

The greatest snowfall ever in a single storm was 189 inches at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl in California in February, 1959.

The first day of the seven-day 1972 Iran blizzard, which would kill at least 4,000 people, was the deadliest snowstorm in history.

The highest snowfall recorded in a one-year period was 1,224.5 inches (102 feet) between February 19, 1971, and February 18, 1972, at Mount Rainier Park in Washington, United States.

Aomori City in northern Japan gets the heaviest annual snowfall of any major city on Earth, with  an average 312 inches during a normal winter.

FUN SNOW FACTS 

An average snowflake falls at 3.1 mph, which is leisurely walking speed. Billions fall during a short snowstorm.

At least 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1 septillion) ice crystals fall from the sky in the U.S. alone.

The UK experienced a significant snowfall event on February 2, 2009, often referred to as the "Big Freeze" due to its widespread impact and disruption. A playful claim was made that enough snow fell  for every Brit to make 251,800 snowballs each.

One inch of snow makes about 1/10 of an inch of water. And it's all drinkable.

At least 80 percent of freshwater is frozen, made of either ice or snow.

Shoveling snow is a known cause for heart attacks - the increase in blood pressure combined with cold air constricting arteries creates the right environment for it to happen.

The fear of snow is called chionophobia.

Sources Daily Express, Heraldnet, Huffington Post

Snoring

'Snore' once meant the same as 'snort' and was applied to animals. William Shakespeare was the first to use the verb for human snoring.

About 45% of adults snore at least occasionally and 25% snore habitually.

Men are twice as likely to snore as women.

The noise of a really rasping snore can register 69 decibels. A pneumatic drill is 70-90 decibels.

President Theodore Roosevelt was such a loud snorer that during some overnight stays at the Washington hospital, they provided him with his own floor so the other patients could sleep. 

The loudest snore ever recorded was measured at 112 decibels — equivalent to live rock music and almost as loud as a jet engine. Grandmother Jenny Chapman, 60, from Deeping St James, Cambridgeshire, England was recorded during a trial of natural snoring remedies in 2009. Her husband Colin said: "It could be worse, she could be a sleepwalker."

A survey found that 23% of married or cohabiting couples slept separately on a regular basis, mostly due to snoring.

Bed partners of snorers visit their doctor more frequently than bed partners of non-snorers.

In a 1997 divorce case in Iran, a woman admitted drugging her husband early in the marriage so that he would not hear her snoring.

The European Patent Office lists more than 2,000 devices to alleviate, treat or prevent snoring.

In 2005, the British Medical Journal published a paper reporting that playing the didgeridoo can help people with sleep disorders including snoring.

One folk remedy for snoring advises pinching the big toe of anyone who snores.

In Massachusetts, snoring is banned unless all bedroom windows are closed and securely locked.

You cannot snore and dream at the same time. People normally snore when in deep sleep and at the same time we dream when sleeping soundly but still snoring and dreams do not go hand in hand.

Source Daily Express

Snooker

Snooker is a cue sport for two players which is played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth, or baize, with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side.

Snooker is popular in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and parts of Asia.

HISTORY

Snooker can be traced back to the game of ground billiards, played on a lawn with hoops and mallets.

Ground billiards in England c1300

When Colonel Neville Chamberlain was serving as a young subaltern in the 11th Devonshire Regiment in India, during the long rainy season many of the officers whiled away their spare time playing billiards in the mess. For variety, Chamberlain introduced balls of different colors and values, combining the rules of two pocket billiards games, pyramid and life pool.

Chamberlain is also credited with naming the new game. "Snooker" was derogatory slang for first-year cadets studying at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich.

Colonel Neville Chamberlain later finalised Snooker's first set of rules in 1884.

David Attenborough commissioned snooker series Pot Black when head of programming at BBC 2 in 1969. The game was seem as a way of highlighting new color TV technology.  The series helped transform snooker from a minority sport played by just a handful of professionals into one of the most popular sports in the UK.

The 1985 World Championship final, in which he Steve Davis lost to Dennis Taylor on the final black, attracted 18.5 million viewers — BBC2’s largest ever audience.

SNOOKER PLAYERS

Joe Davis (April  15, 1901 – July 10, 1978) won every snooker world championship from 1926 until 1946 when he retired.

In 1955 Joe Davis became the first man to compile an officially recognized maximum snooker break of 147. He achieved the feat in an exhibition match at Leicester Square Hall.

Joe Davis created a variation on the normal game of snooker with two extra balls, purple and orange, which meant the maximum break rose from 147 to 210. It was launched in 1959, but never took off.

Ronnie O'Sullivan (born December 5, 1975) considered one of the greatest snooker players of all time, once purposely missed a maximum score of 147 by one point because he didn't think the £10,000 prize was high enough.

Ronnie O' Sullivan's 147 against Mick Price at the 1997 World Championship took him just 320 seconds. It is the fastest maximum in history.

Ronnie O'Sullivan was accused of disrespect by an opponent for using his opposite hand to take a shot. To prove he wasn't bringing the game into disrepute, he played three frames with his left-hand against a former world championship runner-up, winning all three.

O'Sullivan became the first snooker player to make 1,000 competitive century breaks, when he compiled his one thousandth in the winning frame of the 2019 Players Championship final against Neil Robertson, in March 2019.

Ronnie O’Sullivan playing in 2012 German Masters final. By DerHexer

Neil Robertson became during the 2013/2014 season the first player to make 100 centuries in a single season.

Snooker player Bill Webeniuk was famous for his drinking ability. He once drank 76 cans of beer during a match. At one point of his career Werbeniuk was ranked #8 in the world.

Former snooker world champion Peter Ebdon is color blind - not ideal given his profession. He has wrongly potted the brown on several occasions thinking it was red.

FUN SNOOKER FACTS

Under the official rules of snooker, the referee shall, if a player is color blind, tell him the color of a ball if requested.

Breaks greater than 147 are possible if there is a foul by the opponent leaving a free ball before any of the reds have been potted. Only one break of over 147 has occurred in professional competition, when Jamie Burnett made a break of 148 in the qualifying stages of the 2004 UK Championship

The children's author Roald Dahl was buried with his snooker cues.

Sniper

The term "sniper" comes from how hard it is to shoot the snipe bird.

German sniper in Stalingrad, Soviet Union (1942). By Bundesarchiv, Bild 

Jack Hinson was a Civil War sniper who slayed over 100 Union soldiers, taking down whole gun boats and battalions by himself.

Canadian Indigenous soldier Francis "Peggy" Pegahmagabow was the most effective sniper of World War I, with a kill record of 378 Germans. He volunteered for service despite the Canada government's exclusion of minorities in the army. Peggy once ran into No-Mans Land to retrieve ammo when his company ran out. He remains the most decorated Indigenous soldier in Canadian history.

German Snipers in World War I had excellent observational training and killed hundreds of enemy officers. They could identify British officers at hundreds of yards simply by the cut of their breeches.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko (July 12, 1916 – October 10, 1974) of the Soviet Union was the most successful female sniper in history with 309 credited kills during World War II. Pavlichenko, couldn't pull the trigger on her first kill, until she saw a German shooting a young Russian soldier.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko toured the US in 1942 to gain support for a second front in Nazi-occupied Europe; the press was more interested in her appearance and if she wore make-up on the front lines.

When she was a young woman, sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer once lived in Israel. There, she was a trained sniper. She was so adept at handling a Sten gun — a British submachine gun — that she could quickly assemble one while blindfolded.

In 2014 a British sniper in Afghanistan killed six insurgents with a single bullet after hitting the trigger switch of a suicide bomber whose device then exploded.

A sniper and spotter team in Afghanistan

The longest confirmed sniper kill in combat was achieved during the Iraq Civil War by an undisclosed member of the Canadian JTF2 special forces in June 2017 at a distance of 3,540 m (2,21 miles).The bullet took over 9 seconds to reach its target.

Sniper schools use brain games such as ‘Kim's Game’ where items on a tray are memorized for one minute, covered and recalled to train their situational awareness skills.

Sneeze

A sneeze is a convulsive expulsion of air from the lungs through the nose and mouth, usually caused by irritation of the nasal mucous membrane.

A man mid sneeze

Sneezing may be linked to sudden exposure to bright light, sudden change in temperature, a particularly full stomach, an allergy or viral infection, and can lead to the spread of disease.

HISTORY

There are two mentions of sneezing in the Bible. 2 Kings 4:35 "The boy sneezed seven times then opened his eyes. Job 41:18 "Light flashes when he sneezes."

Pope Gregory the Great originated the usage of the phrase "God Bless You", when someone sneezes, at a time when coughing was a mortal symptom because of the plague. It was on February 16, 600, that he declared "God bless you" to be the correct response to a sneeze.

On February 13, 1981, 11-year-old Donna Griffiths of Pershore, England, caught a cold and started sneezing. She carried on sneezing about every 30 seconds and surpassed the previous duration record of 194 days on July 26, 1981. It was estimated that she sneezed a million times in the first 365 days. Donna finally achieved her first sneeze-free day on September 16, 1983, 978 days later. It's still the world sneezing record.

FUN SNEEZING FACTS

The spit particles in a sneeze can reach up to 100mph.

If you keep your eyes open by force when you sneeze, you might pop an eyeball out.

Halting sneezing via blocking the nostrils and mouth is a dangerous manoeuvre. It may lead to numerous complications, such as perforation of the tympanic membrane (perforated eardrum), pneudomediastinum (air trapped in the chest between both lungs), and even rupture of a cerebral aneurysm.

About twenty-five percent of the human population sneeze when they are exposed to light. This trait is inherited.

Japanese and Cantonese are the only two languages where it's customary to apologize after sneezing.

The “ah-choo” sound people make when sneezing is a cultural learned behavior. For example, in the Philippines they instead say “ha-ching”, the Japanese say “hakashun”, and deaf people don’t add any sounds at all.

Languages have onomatopoeic words for sneezing:
English: ahchoo or achoo
Bengali: hachi
Cantonese: hat chi
Mandarin: ati
French: atchoum
German: hatschi
Greek: apsu

Between 15% and 30% the world's population have the photic sneeze reflex, which causes them to sneeze when exposed to bright light, such as sunlight. The exact cause of the photic sneeze reflex is not fully understood, but it is thought to be related to the trigeminal nerve, which is responsible for sensation in the face, including the eyes. Its more formal name is Autosomal-dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome, which abbreviates to ACHOO. 

People don't sneeze when they are asleep because the nerves involved in the sneeze reflex are also resting.

Sneezing is not confined to humans. Many animals including cats, dogs, horses, chickens and iguanas sneeze.

African wild dogs use sneezing as a form of communication, especially when considering a consensus in a pack on whether or not to hunt.

Snake

There are over 2,900 species of snakes ranging as far northward as the Arctic Circle.

Pixiebay

Snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica, and many smaller land masses. There are some larger islands from which snakes are absent, such as Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Hawaii, and New Zealand.

SNAKES IN HISTORY

After being kept captive at Caesarea for two years, Saint Paul had appealed to Nero Caesar, and been sent to Rome. En route to the Roman city with other prisoners the Christian apostle was shipwrecked on the island of Malta. He gathered a pile of brushwood and as he put it on the fire, a poisonous viper driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand. Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. When the superstitious local population saw that Paul was unhurt, they decided he was a god.

For 40 days St Patrick had been on the Crough Patrick mountain, weeping, fasting and praying that Ireland might be delivered from the hands of the pagans. Every night an angel appeared to him bringing along a list of God's promises. Patrick stubbornly refused to leave the mountain top until the Lord promised him one more thing, that at the last judgement it would be Patrick who pronounced sentence on the Irish people. At last he obtained the promise and Patrick descended the mountain only to cast all snakes out of Ireland.

Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice had a pet snake named Emily Spinach. She liked to carry it around the White House in her purse and take it out at unexpected moments.

A number of snakes that had disappeared from London Zoo were found by police in the cellar of a North London house on March 21, 1967. A 16-year-old boy was charged with stealing 24 snakes and a snake bag. Eight poisonous reptiles and one harmless sand boa were found dead. An official said: "Whoever handled the snakes is the luckiest person in London tonight."

In the 1970s shock rocker Alice Cooper's stage act featured a boa constrictor hugging him on-stage. Sadly in 1977, the singer's snake was bitten by a live rat as it was being fed for breakfast and the boa constrictor died.

ANATOMY 

The legless reptiles range in size from the tiny, 10.4 cm (4 inch)-long thread snake to the reticulated python of 6.95 meters (22.8 ft) in length. The latter is the longest snake in the world and can be found in South Asia.

Reticulated python By Mariluna, 

Medusa - the longest snake ever living in captivity - was measured and found to be 7.67 m (25 ft 2 in) long on October 12, 2011.The reticulated python is owned by Full Moon Productions Inc. in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

Snakes have no ears so they flick their tongues in and out to pick up sound waves.

Snakes have forked tongues to be able to smell in three dimensions. By picking up odors from slightly different locations they are able to tell the direction and source of the smell.

Snakes have transparent eyelids, which means even when the reptile has its eyes closed, it can still see through its eyelids. This means snakes can't blink and they must sleep with their eyes still seeing.

Rattlesnake Pixiebay

Snakes can open their mouth up to 150 degrees.

BEHAVIOR 

Because they are cold-blooded, snakes do not have to eat so regularly as mammals. Some snakes can go as long as six months without a good meal.

Snakes swallow their food whole, and they cannot chew.

Neonate queen snake eatimg a crayfish | by Pete & Noe Woods

Snakes yawn regularly as a way of keeping their jaws limber or adjusting their bite after they’ve swallowed a large meal.

A garter snake can give birth to 85 babies.

When you put a snake into space, some tie themselves in knots while others attack themselves.

The puff adder is the first terrestrial snake observed using "lingual luring"—it tricks frogs into thinking its tongue is food.

FUN SNAKE FACTS

A collar and lead to enable snake owners to take their pet for walks was patented in the US in 2002.

The fastest moving land snake is the Black Mamba. They can reach top speeds of 10-12 mph in short bursts over level ground.

Only about two per cent of the world’s snakes are poisonous.

Australia is the only continent with more venomous snakes than there are non-venomous ones.

The Inland Taipan or "fierce snake", which is endemic to semi-arid regions of central east Australia, is the most venomous snake in the world. However, because of its shy nature and timid nature there has never been a recorded death caused by its bite. The word "fierce" describes its venom, not its temperament.

The original "Snake Oil Salesman" wasn't convicted of selling snake oil, he was convicted of selling FAKE snake oil. Oil from Chinese Water Snakes was considered a legit medicine at the time, but Clark Stanley was convicted in 1917 of selling fake snake oil.

Ophidiophobia (phobia of snakes) is one of the most common and intense phobia among the general population. A study reported that around 50% of people experience dreams about snakes.