Spice

The term spice means any aromatic vegetable substance that is used as a condiment and for flavoring food. Spices are obtained from tropical plants and include cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pepper and turmeric.

The difference between herbs and spices is that herbs come from the leaf of a plant, while spices come from other parts such as roots, bark and seeds. So cilantro is an herb (coriander leaf) while coriander is a spice (coriander seed).

Pixabay

The spice trade first developed throughout South Asia and Middle East around 2000 BC. Indonesian merchants traveled around China, India, the Middle East, and the east coast of Africa. Arab merchants facilitated the routes through the Middle East and India.

The Egyptian port city of Alexandria was the main trading center for spices in ancient times. As a result of its prosperity it become the largest city in the world and, for some centuries more, was second only to Rome.

Juniper berries, the only spice to come from coniferous trees, were found in Tutankhamun's tomb.

As their empire grew to dominance, the Romans started sailing from Egypt to India to trade spices. At first it was a difficult two-year voyage across the Indian Ocean to get cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and pepper.

A Greek merchant sailor, Hippalus, noticed around AD 45-47 that the changing winds of the monsoons blew south-west from April to October and north-east from October to April. Rather than fighting the winds, traders began waiting until the flow of wind and current was favorable for setting sail for both onward and return journey, thus shortening their voyage to less than a year.

Following the decline of the Roman Empire, the use of oriental spices was drastically curtailed in the normal diet of Europeans north of the Alps. Ecclesiastical groups and a few merchants could obtain small amounts; For instance Gemmulus, a Roman deacon, is recorded as having sent a gift of pepper and cinnamon to Archbishop Boniface.

From the 8th until the 15th century, the Republic of Venice had the monopoly on spice trade with the Middle East, and along with it the neighboring Italian maritime republics and city-states. Cinnamon, ginger and pepper were used by the wealthy to camouflage bad flavors and odors and make food increasingly delectable. In addition such spices were believed to have a beneficial preservative action in meat and it was also believed that their consumption would prevent illness.

The control of trade routes and the spice-producing regions were the main reasons that Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sought a new route round Africa to India in the late 15th century. Having sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, he reached the city of Calicut on the southwest coast of India.

Vasco da Gama returned to his home country with cinnamon, ginger, pepper, and deals for the Portuguese to continue trade with Indian princes. By finding a new sea route to India the Portuguese explorer opened up the Oceanic spice route from Asia to Europe.

In 1503, four years after Vasco Da Gama's journey to India, 100 tons of spice arrived in Portugal. The resulting pepper sold in Lisbon was five times cheaper than in Venice.

The popularity of salt and pepper as near universal table condiments was due to Louis XIV of France who considered most other forms of seasoning a vulgar act. 

Chili sauce and hot spices were banned from prison food in Peru in 1973 on the grounds that they might arouse sexual desires.

Though spices add few calories to food, they can contribute significant portions of micronutrients to the diet.

Tree Shrews are the only other mammal besides us humans that like eating spicy foods.

Chinese researchers found that tree shrews have a mutation in their ion channel receptors that causes them to be less sensitive to heat.

Sources Spiceadvice, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Sperm

Sperm are the male reproductive cells. Most animals and plants use sperm to reproduce.

The name sperm is taken from the Greek word sperma meaning seed.

Each sperm cell looks rather like a tadpole, with a head capsule containing containing a nucleus, a middle portion containing mitochondria (which provide energy) and a long tail called a flagellum. The flagellum acts like a motor to propel the sperm cell through the female reproductive system.

For centuries, sperms were thought to move by wiggling their tails side-to-side, like eels. But recent research showed that they roll as they move forward like a spinning top.

All human sperm rotate their flagellums anticlockwise when swimming.

Human sperm stained for semen quality testing. By Bobjgalindo 7

Aristotle believed hot sperm created male babies and cold sperm created female babies.

Preformationism was a popular belief until the 19th century that sperm contained miniature humans called humonculi. Supposedly, the womb was the perfect environment for the humonculi to grow into full-size humans, explaining how babies were born.

Roald Dahl wrote a book, My Uncle Oswald, about a scheme to steal sperm from successful people and create the world's most valuable sperm bank.

For every 200 million sperm in each human ejaculation, two million make it into the cervix, one million make it into the uterus, 10,000 make it to the top of the organ, 5,000 enter the uterotubal junction, 1,000 enter the Fallopian tube, 200 reach the egg and only one enters the egg to fertilize it. 

A sperm cell attempting to enter and merge with an egg.

A single human male produces enough sperm in two weeks to impregnate every fertile woman on the planet.

One of the world's mediumst sperm banks stopped accepting donations from red-haired men due to low demand.

Sperm counts have declined by 59% in males living in developed countries over the last four decades. No single reason has been established, though fertility scientists blame stress, obesity, chemical exposure, and smoking.

Sperm is highly effective in treating wrinkles, and anti wrinkle products use similar materials to sperm because of how well it works.

Sperm contains zinc and calcium which help fight tooth decay.

Mouse sperm is mediumr than elephant sperm.

Sperm can still be harvested from men who are already deceased for 36 hours after death. The sperm can be gathered and used for posthumous fertilization.

Spelling

Written words in Old English had no standardized spelling, but were spelled phonetically.

English spelling rules developed through the work of the early printers, who had to decide how particular words would be spelled in their books. It is asserted, for instance, that the spelling of "ghost" with the silent letter h was adopted by William Caxton due to the influence of Flemish spelling habits.

Caxton's 1476 edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Folger Shakespeare Library Digital Image Collection 

The word which is "merry" today was spelled in about 30 ways in written sources from the 9th to the 16th century.

Spelling of the English language only really became standardized with the publication of Dr Johnson's Dictionary in 1755.

Thomas de Mahy, Marquis de Favras, was a French nobleman who was executed during the French Revolution. Upon reading his death sentence in 1790, he remarked to the authorities "I see that you have made three spelling mistakes".

Differences between American English and British English spelling came about mainly as the result of one man. Noah Webster (1758–1843). His American Spelling Book was the preferred English text in schools through 19th century America. Words were broken into syllables, which helped students learn pronunciation. By the end of the 19th century, it had sold 100 million.

Noah Webster's Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, a forerunner of An American Dictionary, was published in 1806. In his dictionary, he chose s over c in words like defense, changed the re to er in words like center, and dropped one of the Ls in traveler. Webster's main reason for his new spelling rules was to help children learn to read and write.

Title page of 1828 edition of the American Dictionary of the English Language By Cullen328

Although Webster is credited for introducing such distinctive American spellings as color and humor (for British colour and humour), many of his innovative spellings (including masheen for machine and yung for young) failed to catch on.

Pennsylvania is misspelled “Pensylvania” on the Liberty Bell, because that was one of several acceptable spellings of the name in the 18th century.

Before his execution in 1790, the Marquis de Favras, upon reading his death warrant stated, "I see that you have made three spelling mistakes."

Rudyard Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads were written in the ordinary soldiers language and slang. They featured deliberate spelling and grammar mistakes. "adn't none." and "wot makes im to perspire." It was a shot by Kipling at the convention that the standard poetic language should always be used.

The last name of How to Win Friends and Influence People author Dale Carnegie was not originally named Carnegie - in an example of how to influence people, he changed the spelling from Carnegey to resemble the name of the more influential Andrew Carnegie.

BBC radio's first quiz show, broadcast on November 25, 1937 at 5.30pm, was an inter- regional spelling competition. A one-off radio contest for children, it gave rise to a long-running quiz series, Regional Round.

George Bernard Shaw was concerned about the inconsistency of English spelling and backed the idea of a new phonemic alphabet. He illustrated his campaign for spelling reform by using the word "ghoti" as a respelling of "fish." "Gh" (f) as in cough, "o"(i) as in women, "ti" (sh) as in nation. Shaw willed a portion of his wealth aid the cause.

J.R.R. Tolkien didn't mean to change the spelling of "Dwarfs" to "Dwarves" in Lord of The Rings. He said it was a mistake that neither him nor his editors spotted.

The now-accepted spelling of "donut" did not overtake the more traditional "doughnut" in America until Dunkin Donuts stores dotted the nation a few decades ago. According to Grammarist, only one-third of American writers use "donut," with most preferring "doughnut."

In 2016, a group of hackers nearly stole $1 billion from the New York Federal Reserve but were discovered when they misspelled "foundation" as "fandation" in money request transcripts. However, they still managed to get away with $81 million.

'Misspell' is one of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language.

Misspelling occasions

The most misspelled word in English is 'separate'.

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable".

The highest number that can be spelled out without using any letter more than once is five thousand. The next highest is eighty-four.

Speedway (motorcycle)

Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving usually four riders, who compete over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. A series of heats make up a match or competition.

The motorcycles are specialist bikes which use only one gear and have no brakes.

Finnish speedwayriders in Speedway Extraliiga competition. By kallerna

A type of speedway motorcycle racing, or dirt-track racing was practiced in the USA before the First World War and in Australia in the late 1910s and early 1920s.

The first organized speedway was created at Maitland, New South Wales, Australia on December 15, 1923 when New Zealand-born rider "Johnny" S. Hoskins organised a sports charity carnival called the Electric Light Carnival, staged on the Maitland Showground. Hoskins suddenly realized that there was a gap in the program of events and a couple of young, local motorcyclists told him that they were prepared to fill the gap by racing around the show ground's grassy track. However, they found that the surface was much too slippery and caused their bikes to skid dangerously, so the cyclists covered a nearby slag-heap with a coat of cinders and all was ready for the world's first dirt-track race on a short circuit.

Hoskins quickly realised at once the great potential of the new sport and ran speedway at Maitland for two years before moving on to Newcastle in New South Wales.

The first permanent dirt-track was laid in 1926 at the Sydney Show Ground. Hoskins promoted speedway during the first season of racing there in 1926–1927, but a very wet summer made the venture a flop and almost bankrupted him. Hoskins then moved on to Western Australia, where he was more successful.

The first Australian Individual Speedway Championship was held at the Newcastle Showgrounds  and was won by American rider Cec Brown. It is the oldest continuously running national speedway championship in the world having been run since 1926 with the exception of 1942–1945 when racing was suspended during World War II, and 1955–1961 when the championship was not held.

In the 1928/29 season at the Melbourne Exhibition Speedway, Australian Colin Stewart won the prestigious Silver Gauntlet, which required the rider to win the feature race 10 times in one season. He won it 12 times in total.

Col Stewart races his speedway motorcycle . Photo taken 1930. Wikipedia

In 1928 Hoskins himself and A. J. Hunting, a Queenslander, went to England with their teams to establish the sport there and became its successful promoters.

The first speedway meeting in the UK to feature bikes with no brakes and broadsiding round corners on loose dirt was the third meeting held at High Beech, a village inside Epping Forest on April 9, 1928, where Colin Watson, Alf Medcalf and "Digger" Pugh demonstrated the art. Two Australians Billy Galloway and Keith McKay there to promote the sport also featured.

A crowd of 5,000 watched the first ever organised speedway meeting in Britain at Celtic Park, Glasgow on April 28 1928. Celtic Park was used 12 times as a speedway venue from April to late July 1928.

The world's first dirt-track championship was held in Wembley, London, in 1936, and was won by Van Praag, the "master of the cinders," in the presence of 75,000 spectators.

The first speedway meetings in Poland were held in the 1930s and league racing began in 1948. Speedway is one of the most popular sports in Poland and The Polish Extraleague has the highest average attendances for any sport in the country.

Łukasz Sówka, speedway rider from Poland.By Wisniowy

Source Europress Family Encyclopedia 1999. Published by Webster

Speed

HISTORY

Descriptive speed limits (e.g. "galloping pace" "walking pace") date back as far as the 1600s.

The first maximum speed limit was the 10 mph (16 km/h) limit introduced in the United Kingdom in 1861. Four years later it was reduced to 2 mph (3 km/h) in towns and 4 mph (6 km/h) in rural areas by the 1865 'red flag act' with men with red flags walking ahead of horse-less vehicles.

President Ulysses S. Grant was once stopped for speeding in his horse-drawn buggy. When the Washington police officer realized who his suspect was, he offered to forget about it, but Grant insisted on paying the fine.

The speed limit in New York City was 8 miles per hour in 1895.

Historic New Hampshire speed limit sign. By Jayron32 -

Mr Walter Arnold of East Peckham, in South East England became the first person to be fined for speeding on January 28, 1896. He was fined 1 shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thus exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h). He was also fined for using a locomotive without a horse and not having his name and address on the vehicle. Arnold had been arrested by a policeman who'd chased him on his bicycle.

The speed limit for horseless carriages in Britain was raised from 4mph (2mph in towns) to 14 mph (23 km/h) (the estimated speed of a horse being driven 'furiously') on November 14, 1896. The increase in the speed limit is celebrated to this day by the annual London to Brighton Veteran Car Run.

French aristocrat and race car driver. Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat set the first official land speed record on December 18, 1898. He averaged 63.15 km/h (39.24 mph) over 1 km (0.62 mi) in Achères, Yvelines, France using a Jeantaud electric car. 

The first speeding infraction in the U.S. was committed by New York City taxi driver Jacob German in an electric car. German was caught driving his taxi on May 20, 1899 at a blistering 12 MPH (19.3 km/h) down Lexington Street in Manhattan.

The speed of 100km/h was first reached by a car in 1899. It was a Belgian electric vehicle with a light alloy torpedo shaped bodywork and batteries.

Connecticut became the first US state on May 21, 1901 to pass a law on regulating vehicle speed. 12 mph in cities, 15 mph on country roads.

The first recorded written speeding ticket in the United States was for Harry Myers in 1904. He was ticketed for traveling at a speed of 12 mph on West Third Street in Dayton, Ohio.

Boxer Jack Johnson was once pulled over for a $50 speeding ticket. When he handed over a $100 bill, the officer protested that he couldn't make change for that much, Johnson told him to keep the change as he was going to make his return trip at the same speed.

The 30mph speed limit for motor vehicles in built-up areas in Britain came into force on March 12, 1935. When the first new 30mph speed limit signs first appeared, many were removed by angry motorists — eight were thrown in ponds.

On January 28, 1938, a new World Land Speed Record on a public road was set in Germany at 268.9 mph. That record, set by Rudolf Caracciola in a Mercedes-Benz, remained the fastest ever officially timed speed on a public road until broken on November 5, 2017 by Koenigsegg in an Agera RS driven by Niklas Lilja, achieving 445.6 km/h (276.9 mph) on a closed highway in Nevada. 

The existing World Land Speed Record on a public road is claimed to be held by a production car, built by SSC North America and called a 'Tuatara." The car driven by Oliver Webb averaged 316 mph (579 km/h)  during two runs on highway 160 in Southern Nevada between Las Vegas and Pahrump on October 10, 2020. Following an online controversy over the accuracy of the claimed speeds, SSC have stated that they will re-run the record attempt.

Because of the blackouts during World War II, a 20mph speed limit in darkness was introduced in the UK an attempt to combat the high number of road accidents. Also road signs were removed due to the threat of enemy invasion.

The US implemented a nationwide "Victory Speed Limit" of 35 mph during World War II to conserve gasoline and rubber for the war effort.

Barbara Castle's first act on becoming UK Transport Minister in 1965 was to introduce on December 22, 1965 a 70 mph speed limit to all rural roads including motorways. The 70 mph speed limit on UK motorways was a supposedly temporary measure, Previously, there had been no speed limit.

The three-man crew on Apollo 10 reached the highest speed ever achieved by humans in 1969 when they hit 24,791mph on their way back to Earth, having circled the Moon.

The record surface speed on the moon is 10.56 mph. It was set with the lunar rover.

Eugene Cernan test drives the Apollo 17 lunar rover Wikipedia

Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act on January 2, 1974, requiring all states to lower the maximum speed limit to 55 MPH. The law was intended to conserve gasoline supplies during an embargo imposed by Arab oil-producing countries.

The water speed record is one of the deadliest competitions with an 85% fatality rate. The current record of 317.60mph was set on October 8, 1978 by Ken Warby at Blowering Dam, Australia, using a vessel built in his backyard with an engine purchased for $69.

In 1989 various US states began to increase the speed limit on interstate highways in limited areas from 55 to 65 miles per hour

The first 75-mile-an-hour speed limit signs were erected in Montana and Wyoming in 1995.

The first supersonic land speed record was set by Andy Green in ThrustSSC (United Kingdom) in 1997, exactly 50 years and 1 day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Earth's atmosphere.

FUN SPEED FACTS

The highest posted speed limit in the world is 160 km/h (99 mph), which applies to some motorways in the United Arab Emirates.

Many autobahns in Germany have no speed limit, though there is a speed recommendation of 130 km (80.8 mi) per hour. Drivers going faster than 130km/h can be made responsible for an accident that they are involved in.

Scottish engineer and inventor Robert Watson-Watt, who developed Radar in the 1930s, was caught speeding with a Radar gun. He reportedly said "If I'd known what they were going to do with it, I'd have never have invented it!'"

The fastest speeding ticket ever issued was in May 2003 for a Swedish-built sports vehicle. The motorist was operating a Koenigseggs CCR, and was allegedly going 242 mph (389 km/hr) in a 75 mph zone.

The largest speeding fine ever levied was a €650,000 ($1,000,000) given to a Swedish motorist caught driving a a Mercedes-Benz SLR at 300 kmh (186 mph) on a Swiss motorway. The fine was so high because in Switzerland speeding fines are worked out using a formula based on the income of the motorists and the severity of the speed.

The unconfirmed record for fastest moving manmade object is a manhole cover propelled by a nuclear detonation. A high-speed camera trained on the lid caught only one frame of it moving upward before it vanished—which means it was moving about 125,000 miles per hour - 0.02% the speed of light.

Humans can break the sound barrier by jumping from an altitude of more than 127,000 feet, since the atmosphere has thinner gravity.

There's a speed camera lottery in Stockholm, Sweden where drivers who drive at or under the speed limit are entered to win money. The prize fund comes from the fines paid by people who were speeding.

In Finland, the cost of a speeding ticket is determined by your income. In 2002, a Nokia executive got a ticket for $103,000 for going 45 in a 30 zone.

Students at the University of Leicester found that you’d have to drive at 119 million mph to evade a speed camera. That’s a sixth of the speed of light.

Japan has a network of roads that play music as you drive over them at the correct speed.

In Stringtown, Oklahoma, population 400, 76 percent of the town's 2013 budget came from traffic tickets. After a state investigation into excessive speed trapping the town's police department was disbanded.

Mississippi once set a speed limit of 80 miles per hour on toll roads, despite the fact there are no toll roads in Mississippi.

The world's fastest land animal was a South African cheetah named Sarah who, at age 11, ran 100m in 5.95 seconds (or 61 mph). She lived in the Cincinnati Zoo and passed away at 15 years of age in 2016.

If you accelerated to 1% the speed of light in one second, you'd instantaneously be killed by the G-forces.

Speech

The Roman world's greatest orator Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government. Following Julius Caesar's death, he launched a series of attacks on Mark Antony in a series of speeches in the ensuing power struggle. Mark Antony had him beheaded in 43 BC.

The four gospels record several of Jesus' speeches The Sermon on the Mount is the longest continuous section of Christ speaking found in the New Testament. A collection of sayings and teachings of Christ found in the Gospel of Matthew it takes place relatively early in the Ministry of Jesus after he has been baptized by John the Baptist and preached in Galilee. It contains many of the basic tenets of the Christian faith including the Lord's Prayer.

Sermon on the Mount by Carl Bloch

Wearing a silver breastplate over a white velvet dress, Queen Elizabeth I addressed her troops preparing to face the Spanish Armada on August 5, 1588 at Tilbury. In one of her most famous speeches she declared "I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm."

The great anti-slave-trade campaigner William Wilberforce failed to end his most famous anti-slavery speech – "Let us put an end to this inhuman traffic. Let us stop this effusion of human blood" – on a flourish, instead getting bogged down in a mire of statistics.

Though Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is now seen as one of the key moments in the history of democracy, at the time he thought it was a failure. Before Lincoln arrived onstage, the audience had been obliged to stand through a dull two-hour oration from the politician Edward Everett. Prayers and music took up a further two hours. Lincoln then spoke for just two minutes, so quietly that he was barely audible. Many in the audience felt short-changed, and had no idea that they would one day be considered witnesses to history.

The most famous phrase in Lincoln's 272 word speech – "government of the people, by the people, for the people" – was in fact several centuries old, and seems to have been pinched from the Prologue to John Wycliffe's 1384 English translation of the Bible.

1 of the 2 confirmed photos of Lincoln (center, facing camera) at Gettysburg

During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson recruited "Four Minute Men" - 75,000 volunteers who gave 4-minute public speeches nationwide to encourage patriotism and participation in the war effort. An estimated 7.5 million talks were given to over 300 million listeners in just 18 months.

Winston Churchill, would spend weeks polishing up particular phrases for his speeches. He would write while on the telephone or propped up in bed, but perhaps Churchill’s favorite location for writing was the bath.

The final speech by Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird was done in one take.

Dr Martin Luther King had been preaching about dreams since 1960, when he gave a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called "The Negro and the American Dream". He included a passage that started with "I have a dream" in his original text for a speech he was due to deliver at the march on Washington on August 28, 1963. However, one of his top aides, Wyatt Walker, strongly advised him to get rid of that particular section, which he considered overused and banal. So King cut the offending lines.

The next day, King started delivering his rather over-written text to a rather muted response. However, when the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was standing behind him cried out: "Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!," King put his notes aside, and started "preaching" improvisationally, punctuating his points with "I have a dream."

King's speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of scholars of public address. 

In 1987 President Reagan was to deliver one of his most memorable speeches, beside the Berlin Wall. Yet the most famous phrase in it – ‘Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’ – was almost abandoned before delivery. White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker objected, saying it sounded "extreme" and "unpresidential", and Deputy US National Security Advisor Colin Powell agreed. At first, Reagan acquiesced. On the way to the Brandenburg Gate he changed his mind. "The boys at State are going to kill me," he said. "But it is the right thing to do." The speech received relatively little coverage from the media at the time and wasn't really known until 1989, after the wall came down but the phrase came to crystallize a defining moment in history.

Source When They Go Low, We Go High: Speeches That Shape The World And Why We Need Them by Philip Collins

Spectacles or eyeglasses

Spectacles (UK) or eyeglasses (US) are a pair of lenses fitted in a frame and worn in front of the eyes to correct or assist defective vision.

The first spectacles were worn by short-sighted people in Nineveh in around 600BC. They were magnifying lenses which were made not of glass, but of polished rock crystal, which were an inch and a half in diameter.

The near-sighted Roman emperor Nero used a form of glasses (a jewel with curved facets) to get a closer view of gladiatorial exchanges.

The friar, Roger Bacon may have been one of the first Westerners to uses lenses to help him see more clearly. Part five of his famous treatise Opus Majus (1267) was solely dedicated to optics. He discussed and contemplated the anatomy of the eye and brain, and the physiology of eyesight as well as the factors affecting sight. Bacon also wrote about the effects that lenses had on magnifying objects. In part six of his work the friar foresaw inventions such as spectacles, telescopes and microscopes.

The first known eyeglasses were being made in Northern Italy by the late 13th century (the inventor is unknown). These first spectacles were for correcting farsightedness and were held in the hand.

The Glasses Apostle by Conrad von Soest (1403)

Friar Alessandro della Spina of Pisa (d. 1313) was the first known European to wear and make eyeglasses. The Ancient Chronicle of the Dominican Monastery of St. Catherine in Pisa records: "Eyeglasses, having first been made by someone else, who was unwilling to share them, he [Spina] made them and shared them with everyone with a cheerful and willing heart.

The earliest pictorial evidence for the use of eyeglasses is Tommaso da Modena's 1352 portrait of the cardinal Hugh de Provence reading in a scriptorium.

 Tommaso da Modena's 1352 portrait

The invention of reading glasses combined with that of the mechanical clock had a huge impact on business. Quite suddenly, late 13th century Europeans were able to look through their glasses at the church clock and work out whether they were late for meetings-one of the reasons why the West began to power ahead of China and the Muslim world.

Early eye glasses were used by short-sighted monks used early eye glasses to read manuscripts. At first, they held the lenses in front of their eyes and the two lenses were joined by some kind of hinge. Experimentation followed regarding various methods of fixing the glasses to the head. Long strips of metal were used, leading from the bridge of the nose over the center of the head and down to the neck, but this was found to be too unwieldy and awkward. Further attempts followed involving straps, hat attachments and chains with weights on the end. A stiffer hinge was developed enabling the lenses to rest precariously on the nose.

Spanish writer Francisco de Quevedo (1580–1645), with "nose spectacles"

Following the invention of the printing press and the increased availability of books, the demand for spectacles increased. In England a charter was granted in 1629 to a guild of spectacle makers.

It wasn't until the 1720s that the solution was found to the centuries old problem of how to attach glasses to the head - a stiffer hinge was developed enabling the lenses to rest precariously on the nose. It was English optician Edward Scarlett who first used arms to clip spectacles round the ears sometime before 1727. Soon these less cumbersome spectacles were in common use.

Eyeglass designer James Ayscough first introduced tinted spectacles in 1752. He  felt that clear glass creates a glaring light that is bad for the eyes.

The American scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin suffered from both myopia and presbyopia. Tired of constantly taking his eyeglasses on and off to read he decided to make a pair of spectacles which would let him enjoy both the beautiful scenery and his treasured books when travelling. He cut two pairs of spectacles in two and put each lens into a single frame, thus inventing the first pair of bifocal spectacles for long-sighted people.

Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton invented underwater spectacles so he could read in the bath.

William Henry "Will" White was an American baseball pitcher who played for the Cincinnati Reds in the National League (1878–1880) and the Cincinnati Red Stockings in the American Association (1882–1886). He is remembered as the first, and for many years only, major league player to wear eyeglasses on the baseball field.

Will White

Until the early 20th century spectacle wearers were stereotyped as elderly, or physically weak and passive. The stigma began to fall away when the esteemed US president Theodore Roosevelt was regularly photographed wearing eyeglasses, and the following decade when popular comedian Harold Lloyd began wearing a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles as the "Glasses" character in his silent movies.

Wearing glasses actually increases a political candidate's electoral success, despite many politicians avoiding them as they think it makes them look less attractive.

Today, an estimated 75 per cent of UK adults sports a pair of specs.

More than 100-million Americans wear glasses.

Simply washing your spectacle lenses with soapy water prevents them from fogging when you wear a face mask. This is a common technique used by surgeons and others in the operating theater.

Source Trioo

Sparrow

SPARROWS IN HISTORY

Native to Europe and Asia, the sparrow has traveled with humans to become the most widely distributed wild bird on the planet.

Pixiebay

Sparrows were associated by the ancient Greeks with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, due to their perceived lustfulness, an association echoed by later writers such as Shakespeare.

Jesus Christ used the "sparrow" as an example of divine providence "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows" (Matthew 10:29–31). This inspired later references, such as that in the early 20th century Gospel song "His Eye Is on the Sparrow."

During the awakening, Charles Wesley's most popular hymn was "Jesus Lover of my Soul", which was inspired by Wesley seeing through an open window a small bird pursued by a large hawk. Through the window fluttered the frightened sparrow into Wesley's arms.

Here is a list of songs about sparrows.

The romantic poet John Keats was very empathetic with animals. He once boasted about his capacity to enter the thought processes of a sparrow hopping on a window sill. "If a sparrow comes before my window, I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel."

Queen Victoria once asked the Duke of Wellington how to remove sparrows from Crystal Palace. He replied, ‘Sparrowhawks, Ma’am.’

The house sparrow was introduced deliberately to America in the late 19th century. It was imported by several people, including Eugene Schieffelin from New York City. He belonged to the American Acclimatization Society a group that aimed to help exchange plants and animals from one part of the world to another and wanted to introduce to America all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare.

A male House Sparrow in Victoria, Australia in March 2008. By Fir0002

Before becoming Elvis Presley's notorious manager, Colonel Tom Parker used to paint sparrows yellow and sell them as canaries.

Under Chairman Mao, every Chinese family was obliged to kill a sparrow a week to stop them eating all the rice. The project was totally ineffective because sparrows don’t eat rice and instead the culling of the birds upset the ecological balance leaving the crop-eating insects alive to gobble away the staple human food.

The number of house sparrows fell by 64 per cent between 1972 and 1996, an estimated loss of 9.6 million birds. They were once so common that trophies were offered for the most birds culled.

In Australia, there are no sparrows in Western Australia, as they have not been able to travel across the deserts that separate that state from the eastern states. The government employs people to hunt and destroy any sparrows that might arrive.

ANATOMY 

With brown-black marked plumage and black chest and eye-stripe in the male the sparrow is relatively inconspicuous.

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The sparrow is between 11.4 centimetres (4.5 in) and 18 centimetres (7.1 in) long  and can weigh between 13.4 grams (0.47 oz) and 42 grams (1.5 oz).

They have short tails and stubby, powerful beaks.

A Sparrow has 14 bones in its neck — twice as many as humans.

BEHAVIOR 

Sparrows are generally social birds, with many species breeding in loose colonies and most species occurring in flocks during the non-breeding season.

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A study revealed that male sparrows can judge if a spouse is prone to infidelity, providing less food for their brood if their partner is unfaithful.

Intelligent and adaptable, the sparrow has a cheery chirp.

The sparrow has untidy nesting habits often making their nests near houses or buildings.

They are primarily seed-eaters, though they also consume small insects.

Sparrows are quick to learn new feeding habits, soon adapting to taking food from suspended nut feeders.

Source Daily Mail

Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition was originally established in 1478 when Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile requested a papal bull establishing an inquisition in Spain in response to the Marrano Jewish population who had converted to Catholicism but returned to Judaism.

In 1483, Ferdinand and Isabella established a state council to administer the inquisition with the Dominican Friar Tomás de Torquemada (1420 – September 16, 1498) acting as its president. This branch of the inquisition was an organization of men with the authority to punish or even execute Spanish heretics.

Torquemada quickly established procedures for the Inquisition. A new court would be announced with a thirty-day grace period for confessions and the gathering of accusations by neighbors. Soon anyone who was not loyal to the Roman Catholic church was in danger of being called a heretic and being put to death by being burnt at the stake. The Inquisition swiftly became the only institution that held authority across all the realms of the Spanish monarchy.

One of the ways in which the Inquisition operated was by sending letters, known as "Edict of Grace," to people who were suspected of heresy or other offenses against the Catholic Church. These letters gave the accused 30 days' notice to present themselves to the Inquisition for questioning and possible punishment.

The Edicts of Grace were read out during Sunday Mass in local churches, ensuring that the entire community was aware of who was being targeted by the Inquisition. This public shaming was intended to deter others from committing similar offenses and to create a climate of fear and suspicion.

Inquisition Scene by Francisco Goya. 

Torquemada developed an oppressive network of spies and secret police. His courts summoned thousands of individuals, most of whom were completely at a loss as to what they were supposed to have done. One third were tortured. The methods most used were to be hung by the arms until they were pulled from their sockets; to be forced to swallow gallons of water; and to be racked. The latter, in which the limbs were slowly pulled apart, was the instrument of torture used most frequently.

During the Spanish Inquisition all torture instruments were ironically regularly dowsed with holy water.

As part of the Spanish Inquisition, close to 200,000 Jews, who refused to be baptized, were driven out of Spain. This was inspired by Ferdinand and Isabella interpreting the January 1492 fall of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold on the Iberian peninsular, as a sign that Christ’s second coming was imminent; the removal of the Jews being required before Jesus returned. The Alhambra Decree was issued on March 31, 1492, by the royal pair ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by July 31st of that year. Their departure brought great economic distress to Spain for in turning out their most talented and industrious citizens, Spain became speedily crippled economically.

Jews who refused to convert or leave Spain were called heretics and could be burned to death on a stake. A ceremony at which heretics were burnt was called an auto-da-fé.

By http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/

It was an offence under the Spanish Inquisition for believers to read the Bible. Thousands were given the choice of either confessing their heretical ways and denouncing others as a result of which they would only have to do penance which would involve the paying of fines and/or beating themselves, or denying their heresy and being burnt at the stake. It only required one denouncer for a particular "heretic" to be charged.

The Inquisition of the Netherlands was an extension of the Spanish Inquisition in the Spanish Netherlands, established during the reign of Charles V. With the rapid spread of Calvinism in the early years of the reign of his son Phillip II, a champion of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation, its scope widened vastly. In 1567 Philip II's Council of the Troubles set up the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands to crush Calvinism. This has lead to the execution of 18,000 people and another 100,000 were driven into exile.

The burning of a 16th-century Dutch Anabaptist, Anneken Hendriks

The Spanish Inquisition was still in force in the late eighteenth century, but much reduced in power. A schoolmaster, Cayetano Ripoll, was the last person to be executed by the Spanish Inquisition in 1826. He was strangled to death for allegedly teaching Deist principles in Valencia.

It has been estimated that from 1480 to 1826 around 150,000 were prosecuted for various offenses during the duration of the Spanish Inquisition, out of which between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed.

The Queen Mother Cristina officially closed down the Tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition in 1834 when she declared "that the Tribunal of the Inquisition is definitely suppressed."

Source Christianity