Sweater

A sweater is a piece of clothing worn on the upper body to keep the person warm.  Other names for sweaters are pullover, jersey, or jumper. 

Sweater from the Graham Leggate collection, Norwegian Selbu rose design

Among the many novelties the Crusaders brought back from the Orient was the sweater. Unaccustomed to the desert heat, the Crusaders sweltered inside their heavy armor, which already weighed them down. This made fighting all the more arduous. The short cotton coat their foes wore seemed, in comparison, light and cool. The obvious thing for the Crusaders to do was to adopt this jubbah, as the coat was called in Arabic. Thus they took both the garment and its name home with them to the West.

Though now a unisex sweater, totally different in cut and shape, made of wool and worn to keep warm, the jubbah - anglicized as jumper - remains a gift of the religious wars. 

A lasting legacy of the Spanish Armada is the fairisle jumper, with its distinctive bold symmetrical patterns. It was knitted by the people of Fair Isle an island north of Scotland, which lies about halfway between mainland Shetland and Orkney. On August 20, 1588 the flagship of the Spanish Armada, El Gran Grifón, was shipwrecked in the cove of Stroms Heelor, forcing its 300 sailors to spend six weeks living with the islanders. The islanders learned the design from the Spaniards wrecked on their shores.

Fair Isle knitwear in the Shetland Museum

The word 'jersey' for a woolen sweater was first recorded in 1837. Before that 'jersey' was used for any knitted item make from Jersey wool, especially stockings.

Sweaters that open in the front are often called cardigans. The cardigan was originally made to be a military jacket made of knitted wool. They are named after James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, a British general during the Crimean War, whose men wore them to keep warm. 

All of Mr. Rogers cardigan sweaters worn on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood were hand knitted by his mother, Nancy Rogers. She made him a new one every Christmas until she died in 1981. 

Fred Rogers sweater

A survey has shown blue to be the best-selling color in women's sweaters because women think men like it.

Source Europress Family Enyclopedia

Sweat

Humans are the sweatiest primates alive. We have up to five million sweat glands producing a maximum of three gallons of sweat per day. 

Pixabay

A man working in a mild climate loses up to five pints of sweat a day, but a miner working underground can lose 13 pints on a single shift.

The production of sweat glands is inversely related to the production of hair.

While women have more sweat glands than men, men's sweat glands produce more sweat.

Droplets of perspiration on the skin. By Bibikoff 

Wearing white at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships began as a way of hiding the fact that women sweat.

In 1485, a disease named English sweating sickness broke out causing people to sweat to death in a matter of hours. The disease claimed the lives of tens of thousands before mysteriously vanishing.

People with spinal cord injuries resulting in quadriplegia can't sweat.

There are more sweat glands on the soles of your feet than on any other part of your body.

Socks absorb almost a half liter of sweat a day.

Some ancient Native Americans believed licking up their sweat, swishing it around in their mouths, then spitting it out was a hangover cure.

Most Koreans do not use deodorant due to a gene called ABCC11, which prevents sweat from producing odor.

Sweat isn't inherently smelly. In fact, it's nearly odorless. The stench comes from bacteria that break down one of two types of sweat on your skin. 

Demonstration of sweat By Dogbertio 14 - Own work, 

Deodorant contains some antibacterial power to stop the stink before it starts, while antiperspirants deal with sweat directly.

Cows sweat through their noses.

Pigs can’t sweat, which is why they roll around in mud to cool off.  So why do we have the expression “sweat like a pig?” The term is derived from the iron smelting process in which hot iron poured on sand cools and solidifies with the pieces resembling a sow and piglets.

Guinea pigs and rabbits can't sweat. 

Hippo sweat has a reddish-orange coloration that acts as a natural sunblock. The sticky substance also helps regulate the hippo's body temperature and discourages bacterial infection.

Source Huffington Post

Swearing

In his letter to the Galatians, St Paul used the strongest swear word in the Greek language to denounce those who were tempting his readers to alter and/or desert the true Gospel of Christ. Paul wrote in Chapter 1:8-9: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” 

The F-word was uttered for the first time on British TV by the theater critic Kenneth Tynan in 1965 on a show about the portrayal of sex on stage.

Four-letter words used by angry footballers set a problem for the GPO in the mid 1960s. Reports on bad language offences had to go by post to the FA Disciplinary Committee. To avoid embarrassing FA secretaries, the envelopes are marked "Not to be opened by females". But the secretary of the Referees' Association said many members were worried that they were open to prosecution by the GPO, which banned obscene language in letters.

In Georgia, it is illegal to use profanity in the presence of a corpse.

In the United States, people from Ohio are the most likely to use curse words.

By Threeboy from Richmond, Canada - Jay & Trey Cartoon Swearing,

The world record for the most swear words in a television program is 201 in episode one of the comedy Strutter. The 20-minute episode, averaged out to about ten expletives every minute. Produced by Objective Productions, it starred Paul Kaye as American lawyer Mike Strutter and aired on MTV on 9 November 2006. The show was canceled after just one season.

The record for highest average number of swear words per TV episode, is topped by the HBO crime show The Wire, which accumulated around 102 in every instalment. 

In the 2013 motion picture The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo Di Caprio,  the f-word is used 506 times - an average of 2.81 times every minute. This means the film is the mainstream movie with the most swear words ever released.        
  
Analysis reveals that an average of roughly 80-90 words spoken each day are swear words.

For the most part, Japanese doesn't have a distinct group of curse words like other languages do.

You're not allowed to swear if playing at the Wimbledon lawn tennis championships. As such, line judges have to learn curse words in every language.

Will Smith doesn't curse in his raps because his grandma once told him not to.

Obscenities, profanities and vulgarities are all distinctly different from one another. Obscenity typically relates to sexual matters. Profanity relates to religious matters like blasphemy. Vulgarity is coarse language.

According to Australian Geographic, pet birds like parrots and cockatoos that have escaped from captivity are inadvertently teaching wild birds the swear words they learned at home.

Over 90% of the last word spoken by an airplane pilot just before the crash is, "s---".

Swaziland or eSwatini

HISTORY 

Swaziland is named after Mswati II who was king from 1840-1868 and greatly extended the area of the country through victories in tribal wars.

Swaziland's present boundaries were drawn up in 1881 by the European powers in the midst of the Scramble for Africa.

After the Second Boer War, Swaziland was a British protectorate from 1903, until it regained its independence on September 6, 1968.

The flag of Swaziland was adopted on October 6, 1968 after the country gained independence from the UK on September 6, 1968. Its design is based on a flag given by King Sobhuza II to the Swazi Pioneer Corps in 1941.

King Sobhuza II of Swaziland had 100 wives and more than 600 children by the time he passed away on August 21, 1982.

King Sobhuza II was the Paramount Chief and later King of Swaziland for 82 years and 254 days, making him the longest-reigning monarch in history.

Sobahuza II of Swaziland Wikipedia

On April 19, 2018, the King of Swaziland Mswati III announced that the Kingdom of Swaziland had renamed itself the Kingdom of eSwatini. The new name, meaning "land of the Swazis" in Swazi, was partially intended to prevent confusion with the similarly named Switzerland. However, the country's common name in English remains Swaziland.

FUN SWAZILAND FACTS

Swaziland is surrounded almost entirely by South Africa except for a small border it shares with Mozambique.

Swaziland is an absolute monarchy in which the king has total authority to make laws.

Swaziland is the world's smallest monarchy and the smallest country in the Southern hemisphere.

The current king, Mswati III, has ruled since 1986. He is known for his practice of polygamy and currently has 15 wives and 23 children.

King Mswati III 

The king rules the country jointly with the Queen Mother who is known as “Indlovukazi” or Great She-Elephant.

After the death of a Swazi king, his successor is decided by a special council called the Liqoqo. The Queen Mother is first chosen from among the late king's wives and she must have only one son, for the new king must have no full brothers.

Also the Great She-Elephant must be of good character and not have the maiden name of Nkhosi-Dlamini.

Under the rules of succession to the throne of Swaziland, any left-handed prince is barred from becoming king.

Swaziland has the world's highest prevalence rate for HIV/Aids with 27.7 per cent of the population estimated to be infected.

In 2001, King Mswati III imposed a rite called Umchwasho which prohibited teenage women from having sex.

When the king himself broke this law by marrying a 17-year-old, he fined himself one cow.

Since 2000 the life expectancy in Swaziland has dropped from 61 to 50.50 mainly due to AIDS. Only Afghanistan, GuineaBissau and Chad have lower life expectancies.

More than half the population of Swaziland is below the age of 21.

Children in Swaziland are considered rude if they make eye contact with adults.

Princesses are the only women in Swaziland allowed to dress in a manner showing their thighs.

Source Daily Express

Swan

The swan (Cygnini) is a large long necked water bird of the duck family. 

Pixiebay

HISTORY

Swans have a rich folklore history. In Greek myth, Apollo and Aphrodite are depicted riding chariots of swans.

Up until the 1600s, a “black swan” was a metaphor for something that did not exist. Then a group of Dutch explorers became the first Europeans to see black swans in Western Australia in 1697, and the phrase was amended to mean “a perceived impossibility that might later be disproven.”

Pixiebay

There's an old belief that swans only sing once in their lives, and that song is sung at the moment they die. It's the belief that lies behind the term "swan song", and it has also inspired many poems and musical works, including Orlando Gibbons' madrigal The Silver Swan.

During the 1800s, swan skins were used to make European ladies' powder puffs and swan feathers were used to adorn fashionable hats.

Jean Sibelius' Fifth Symphony was inspired by the sight of 16 swans. "One of the great experiences of my life," he wrote. "how beautiful."

Christopher Milne named his toy bear Winnie after a Canadian black bear he often saw at London Zoo. “Pooh” was added as the name he gave to a swan.

Winston Churchill kept black swans in his Chartwell Lake.

Petra, a female black swan, became famous in 2006 when she formed an unusual bond with a swan-shaped pedalo on Germany's Aasee lake. She remained devoted to the pedalo until it was reported she'd gone missing in January 2009. Petra was eventually found on a different lake, this time with a more traditional swan partner.

ANATOMY

The Mute Swan, Trumpeter Swan, and Whooper Swan are the largest swans. They can reach a length of over 1.5 m (59 in) and weigh over 15 kg (33 lb). Their wingspans can be over 3.1 m (10 ft).

Most swans are white. These swans are found in the Northern Hemisphere. Black swans are found in the Southern Hemisphere.

Pixiebay

The Australian black swan (Cygnus atratus) is completely black except for the white flight feathers on its wings and a red beak; the chicks of black swans are light grey.

Swan legs are normally a blackish-grey color, except for the two black South American species, which have pink legs.

Swans are the only birds with penises.

BEHAVIOR

The voice is a harsh hiss. though the mute swan (Cygnus olor) is less vocal than other swan species.

Swans feed in water and on land. In the water, their diet is composed mainly of the roots, tubers, stems and leaves of aquatic and submerged plants, although they may eat small amounts of aquatic animals. 

Swans eat an impressive 3 kg of water weeds a day, a quarter of their body weight. 

Pairing is generally for life and the young cygnets are at first grey, later brownish. 

Pixiebay

FUN SWAN FACTS

A female swan is called a pen while a male is called a cob.

The annual Swan Upping on the River Thames in London is a five-day census, which dates back to the twelfth century. During the ceremony swans and young cygnets belonging to the Queen are counted, while being observed for signs of injury or disease.

During the annual Swan Upping, the cygnets are still marked on the beak as either the property of the Crown or of the two privileged City companies, the Dyers and Vintners.

Swallowing

HUMAN SWALLOWING

It is estimated that it takes 22 muscle pairs and 7 of the 12 cranial nerves for a human to swallow.

You swallow about 600 times per day without thinking about it.

The typical person will swallow 295 times during dinner.

Up to the age of about 6 months babies can breathe and swallow at same time.

http://occlusion.be/

Pope Adrian IV the only English pope, choked to death in 1159 when he accidentally swallowed a fly.

In eighteenth-century English gambling dens, there was an employee whose only job was to swallow the dice if there was a police raid.

Princess Alexandra Amalie, the aunt of mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria, suffered from the delusion that she had swallowed a glass grand piano.

In 1843, while performing a conjuring trick for the amusement of his children, the famous English civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel accidentally swallowed a half-sovereign coin which became lodged in his windpipe. For several weeks Brunel coughed himself sick. The press issued daily reports on his predicament, and eventually it was jerked free with the help of a device designed by the engineer.

While singing in Rigoletto at Covent Garden in 1948, opera singer Walter Midgely swallowed a false mustache.

In 2010, managers at Vienna's 18 public pools asked swimmers to stop swallowing the water — after calculating they were losing 5,000 litres of pool water a day and spending an extra £1.11 ($1.46) per pool on chlorine, too.

Today, in order to become an approved member of the Sword Swallowers Association International, they require you to swallow a blade between 15 and 20 inches in length.

Space Cowboy swallowing a sword attached to a metal bar from which weights are suspended

In taste tests, children tend to prefer strawberry and blue raspberry flavored bubble gum, rejecting more complex flavors as they say these make them want to swallow the gum rather than continue chewing.

ANIMAL SWALLOWING

The fastest swallow in nature is that of the frogfish, which sucks its prey down in 0.006 seconds.

A pelican catches fish in its bill, flips it back to drain out water then swallows the fish at once.

Pelican swallowing a fish. By Dinkum - Own work,

The northern leopard frog swallows its prey using its eyes. It uses them to help push food down its throat by retracting them into its head.

Despite being the largest animal on Earth, the Blue Whale cannot swallow anything larger than a beach ball. 

Black Swallower fish are capable of swallowing prey up to ten times their weight.

In 2008, a snake in Australia that swallowed four golf balls thinking they were chicken eggs was saved by emergency surgery. The golf balls were later sold for charity for £630 in an eBay auction.

Swallow

The Swallow is an insect eating bird of the family Hirundinidae. 

The term Swallow is used colloquially in Europe as a synonym for the barn swallow, Hirundo rustica, the most widespread species of swallow in the world.

Pixiebay

The barn swallow winters in Africa and visit Europe April to September.

In ancient times it was thought that swallows hibernated in winter. In fact they migrate, flying 12,000 miles to southern Africa and back, covering 200 miles a day and crossing two continents and 14 countries.

A swallow tattoo was once popular with sailors who, traditionally, were permitted to adorn themselves with one after sailing 5,000 nautical miles and a second after 10,000 nautical miles.

In central Africa, tribes catch the migrating birds in vast nests and roast them.

In the 19th century, the French government tried to train swallows to carry messages. The experiment failed.

Steel blue above and creamy white beneath, the barn swallow has a red brown throat and deeply forked tail. 

Barn swallow By I, Malene, 

According to Spanish folklore, the red patches on the swallow's throat and face are Jesus' blood, which splashed on one as it tried to remove thorns from his head.

The swallow feeds in-flight, eating flies, moths and butterflies on the wing.

Two broods of swallows a year are reared in nests of mud and straw shaped like a half saucer and built on ledges.

Pixiebay

Outside the breeding season, some species of swallows may form large flocks, and species may also roost communally. This is thought to provide protection from predators. These roosts can be enormous; one winter roosting site of barn swallows in Nigeria attracted 1.5 million individuals.

Sushi

Sushi is a traditional food from Japan which is made with specially prepared rice mixed with vinegar, salt, and sugar. Sushi also contains raw or cooked seafood, and sometimes vegetables as well.  The term “sushi” literally means “it's sour.” 

Pixiebay

HISTORY

Sushi is thought to have originated in the rice growing regions of Southeast Asia along the Mekong River around 2,000 years ago when fermented fish was eaten wrapped in sour rice. This delicacy was known as nare-zushi ("salted fish.")

It was not until around the 8th century AD that this delicacy appeared in Japan after it had considerably spread to other parts of the world. The earliest reference to sushi in Japan appeared in 718 in the Yōrō Code. 

Bowl of Sushi (Painting by Hiroshige)

The original sushi dish, narezushi, was made with fermented fish that was stored in rice. The rice was not eaten, but it was used to help preserve the fish. The rice would absorb the juices from the fish, which would help to prevent the fish from spoiling.

Narezushi is thought to have originated in Southeast Asia, and it was brought to Japan by Buddhist monks in the 7th century. The dish was originally made with salted fish, but it eventually evolved to include vinegared rice.

Today, narezushi is no longer commonly eaten in Japan. However, it is still considered to be a delicacy, and it is sometimes served at special occasions.

In Japan a chef named Hanaya Yohei (1799–1858) conceived of the idea of fresh sliced, raw seafood, served on small fingers of vinegared rice-an instant improvement on the more traditional sushi dishes. He perfected the technique in 1824 and it caught on at once in the stall he had opened in the bustling Ryogoku district of Edo. Yohei called his sushi dish nigirizushi.

In 1923, an earthquake destroyed many of Tokyo's streets. As a result, Nigirizushi chefs were displaced from Edo throughout Japan, popularizing the dish throughout the country. 

Nigirizushi Quiethut.com

The first American sushi spot reportedly opened in the 1960s in Los Angeles, but sushi developed a bigger following stateside with the rise of the health food movement.

The advent of modern refrigeration allowed sushi made of raw fish to reach more consumers than ever before. The late 20th century saw sushi gaining in popularity all over the world.

Traditionally Japanese do not eat salmon sushi; they consider it dangerous, since Pacific salmon is prone to parasites. In the early 1980s, Norway had an abundance of salmon and Bjørn Eirik Olsen, a Norwegian businessman decided to teach Japanese consumers that Atlantic salmon was safe to eat raw.  It took ten years before Salmon sushi/sashimi finally became popular.

There are almost 4,000 sushi restaurants across the U.S. today, which bring in over $2 billion every year.

SUSHI FUN FACTS

Today, the most common sushi in Japan is nigirizushi. However, in America, Makizushi, which consists of rice rolled around fish and/or vegetables is more popular than nigirizushi. 

4 kinds of Californian Makizushi in Brussels.

Sushi is meant to be eaten upside down, so that the fish is the first thing you taste.

Some forms of sushi, notably those containing pufferfish fugu and some kinds of shellfish, can cause severe poisoning if not prepared properly. Victims who ingest pufferfish poison from wrongly-prepared sushi experience symptoms that are similar to nerve gas and die of asphyxiation.

The Emperor of Japan isn't allowed to eat pufferfish for his own safety.

Eating sushi on a Monday can be dangerous, since most fish markets are closed on Sunday, meaning your sushi is probably days old. 

In Japan, it takes up to 20 years of school to become a sushi chef, which is years longer than it takes to become a doctor.

Chef preparing sushi

Women have historically been barred from cooking sushi due to a superstition that their hands are too warm.

Pickled ginger and wasabi are more than spices to eat with your sushi; they are also a natural antibiotic. This is important in combination with raw fish because it protects your body against foodborne illnesses such as E. coli. 

If you don't eat sushi by the age of 35, there is a 95% chance you never will. As we get older, we are less open to "novelty."

The code from The Matrix movie is actually a sushi recipe the production designer, Simon Whiteley, scanned from one of his wife's Japanese cookbooks.

Source Udaipurkiran 

Surname

HISTORY

Women taking on their husband's surname began in the 9th century when females did not have legal identity and therefore took on the husband's name to be legally covered by his identity.

Until the Japanese government formalized the naming system in 1868, Japanese surnames were fluid. Names were chosen based on locations, occupations, or simply were made up, explaining why according to estimates, there are over 100,000 different surnames in use today in Japan. 

The British Royal Family changed its House and Family name from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor on July 17, 1917 during the First World War due to its German connections. Other names suggested were ‘Tudor-Stewart’, ‘Plantagenet’, ‘York’, ‘Lancaster’, ‘D’Este’, ‘Fitzroy’, and even ‘England.’

RECORDS

Li (or Lee) is the most common surname in the world. It is followed by Zhang (or Trương and Jang), Wang, Nguyễn, García, González, Hernández, Smith, Smirnov (or Smirnova), and Müller.

Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff Sr, is the abbreviated name of a man who's also known as Hubert Blaine Wolfe+585, Sr. It is a legitimate, record-holding surname with an actual meaning that tells a story of his ancestral shepherds and aliens.

SURNAMES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

The surnames "Lee" and "Zhang" belong to 13% of the Chinese population.

In China, 85% of people share the same 100 last names.

Approx. 50% of the Korean people bear the family name Kim, Lee, Park or Choi.

Nearly half of all Vietnamese people have the same last name, making it almost impossible to trace an individual's heritage further than one or two generations.

In the United States, 1,712 surnames cover 50% of the population.

The most popular surname in America is Smith, shared by 0.8% of the population.

Rank and frequency of some US surnames. By Thekohser

5,840 people in the United States have a last name that ends with their first name, with Donald MacDonald being the most common.

45,379 people in the United States have a last name that starts with their first name—more than 25% of those are John Johnson.

The surname Patel means "caretaker of land" and, oddly enough, 20% of mid-sized hotels in the U.S. are owned by people with the last name.

Martin is the most common surname in France.

The Irish surname prefix "Mac" means "son of," while "O" means "grandson of."

In Denmark, approximately two-thirds of all Danes have a surname ending in –sen.

If you live in Norway and want to change your surname to one that 200 or fewer people have, you need to ask permission from every single one of them.

German law prevents the use of surnames as first names and requires all first names to clearly indicate gender.

Suriname

HISTORY

Dutch, English, French and Spanish explorers discovered the area which contains modern day Suriname in the early 16th century. 

The name Suriname probably derives from a Taino indigenous people called Surinen, who inhabited the area at the time of European contact.

By the early 17th century, sugar plantation colonies had been established by the Dutch and English along the many rivers in the fertile Guyana plains in the Suriname area.

Disputes arose between the Dutch and the English for control of the Suriname territory. In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda, following the second Anglo-Dutch War, England traded any claims to the territory for New Amsterdam which became New York.

The first sharp prick to the British public's conscience about the horrors of the slave trade came in 1688 with the publication of Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko about the sufferings of an African prince and his loved one, transported by the English to slavery in Surinam.

During the Dutch colonial period, Suriname was primarily a plantation economy dependent on African slaves and, following the abolition of slavery, indentured servants from Asia. 

Dutch colonists 1920 By Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of World Cultures

The actress Audrey Hepburn's maternal grandfather Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra, served as Governor of Dutch Suriname from 1921 to 1928.

Suriname became independent from the Netherlands on November 25, 1975. 

The Suriname flag was adopted on November 25, 1975, upon the independence of Suriname. The star represents the unity of all ethnic groups, the red stripe stands for progress and love, the green for hope and fertility, and the white bands for peace and justice.

Flag of Suriname

FUN SURINAME FACTS

At just under 165,000 square kilometers (64,000 square miles), Suriname is the smallest country in mainland South America. 

2016 map of Suriname

Suriname has a population of approximately 558,368 most of whom live on the country's north coast, in and around the capital and largest city, Paramaribo. It is the smallest population in South America.

About half the population of Suriname live in Paramaribo, which has more people than the next nine cities put together. 

Paramaribo is located on the banks of the Suriname River, and is around nine miles from the Caribbean coast.

Dutch is still the official language of Suriname.  Over 60% of the population speaks Dutch as a mother tongue, and most of the rest of the population speaks it as a second language. Suriname is the only sovereign nation outside Europe where Dutch is spoken by a majority of the population.

The industry of the country is centered on the mining and processing of bauxite from which aluminium is extracted. This makes up 15 percent of Suriname's Gross Domestic Product and more than 70% of its exports.

Thanks to large-scale immigration to South America from Asia in the 19th century, Hindustanis form the largest ethnic group in Suriname making up around thirty-seven percent of the population. 

Immigrants from India. By Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of World Cultures

The national sport of Suriname is football. Several of the most famous Dutch footballers, including Ruud Gullit, Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink are of Surinamese descent.

Since 1960, when they first entered the Olympics, Suriname have won two medals, a gold and a bronze, both won by the swimmer Anthony Nesty in 1988 and 1992. 

They drive on the left in Suriname. The only other South American country to do so is Guyana. 

Sources Daily Express, Tripsavvy

Surgery

HISTORY

Surgery was practiced in ancient Egypt including setting and splintering broken bones. As anesthesia was little known, the patient was sometimes rendered unconscious by means of a blow on the head.

A 3600-year-old ancient Egyptian papyrus is the oldest known surgical text and contains the earliest recorded use of the word “brain” and suggests using raw meat to stop bleeding.

Ancient Egypt produced the world's first prosthetic limb, a toe composed of leather, wood and thread dated between 950 and 710 B.C.

The first recorded successful operation to remove an appendix was on December 6, 1735, at St. George’s Hospital in London, when French surgeon Claudius Amyand took out a perforated appendix from an 11-year-old boy, Hanvil Andersen. The organ had apparently been perforated by a pin he had swallowed. The patient made a recovery and was discharged a month later. 

An operation in 1753, painted by Gaspare Traversi.

American physician Ephraim McDowell performed the world's first removal of an ovarian tumor on December 25, 1809.  The tumor McDowell removed weighed 22.5 pounds (10.2 kg). The whole procedure took 25 minutes and the patient, Mrs Crawford, made an uncomplicated recovery. She returned to her home in Green County, Kentucky, 25 days after the operation and lived another 32 years. 

John Adams' daughter, Abigail "Nabby" Adams Smith, underwent a gruelling mastectomy on October 8, 1811 to treat breast cancer. The surgeon: Dr. John Warren, a prominent Boston physician, employed tools like a large fork with sharpened prongs, a wooden-handled razor, and a heated iron spatula for cauterization. No anaesthesia was available. Nabby endured the excruciating pain without any form of painkillers.

French surgeon René Leriche first started wearing blue scrubs during surgery in 1914 because he discovered it reduced eye strain for doctors working endless hours during World War I. "Ciel Blue" became standard once surgery was videotaped in the 1970s and white scrubs conflicted with the white lights.

In 1929, German doctor Werner Forssmann performed on himself the first human cardiac catheterization, which is the insertion of a catheter into a chamber or vessel of the heart. After ignoring his boss and tricking a nurse into helping him, he inserted a catheter into his right arm before calmly walking to the x-ray department. Forsmann was later awarded with the Nobel Prize.

The first human kidney transplant was performed by Dr. Richard Lawler in Illinois on June 17, 1950. The patient was Ruth Tucker, a 44-year-old woman with polycystic kidney disease.

Dr Richard H Lawler

James Brett Jnr. underwent successful hip surgery in Houston in 1960. He was 111 years old, the oldest surgical patient on record.

The first ulnar collateral ligament replacement surgery (Tommy John surgery) was performed by Dr. Frank Jobe on baseball player Tommy John on September 25 1974.
The operation, which replaced the ligament in the elbow of John's pitching arm with a tendon from his right forearm was a success. John returned to the Dodgers in 1976. His 10–10 record that year was considered "miraculous", and John went on to pitch until 1989. 

Britain's first heart and lung transplant operation was successfully carried out on Swedish journalist Lars Ljunberg at Harefield Hospital, North-West London on December 6, 1983. He did pass away 13 days later, but that was as a result of the pulmonary hypertension from which he had been suffering before surgery.

Mrs Davina Thompson created medical history on December 17, 1986 when she was given a new heart, lungs and liver. She underwent surgery for seven hours at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, UK, for seven hours by a team of 15 headed by chest surgeon Mr John Wallwork and Professor Sir Roy Calne. Mrs Thompson died at the age of 47 on 13 August 1998.

Two doctors, Angus Wallace and Tom Wong, saved a woman’s life on an airplane in 1995 by performing mid-air surgery on her with a coat hanger and silverware. They also used cognac to sterilize the equipment. The flight from Hong Kong-London couldn’t land for help, as the increase in air pressure could kill her. 

RECORDS

The longest surgery to date was a 96-hour marathon between February 4 to February 8, 1951 to remove a 300-lb ovarian cyst from Gertrude Levandowski of Burnips, Michigan at a Chicago hospital. Levandowski weighed 616 pounds before the surgery and had a girth of 9 feet. After the growth was removed, the 58-year-old weighed a more manageable 308 pounds.

James Brett Jnr. underwent successful hip surgery in Houston in 1960. He was 111 years old, the oldest surgical patient on record.

Kidneys are the most transplanted organ, with over 17,000 kidney transplants happening in the U.S. every year.

FUN SURGERY FACTS

A study in the 1990s found that patients are three times more likely to survive after surgery if they can draw strength from their religious beliefs than those who have no personal faith. The study included 232 patients who had a bypass or other heart surgery.

One in every 112,994 surgeries is performed on the wrong person or body part.

Surgeons repairing a ruptured Achilles tendon on a man

The game Operation has inspired a real-life buzzer for operating rooms that goes off if a surgeon touches a nerve with a probe.

 "The Great Impostor" Ferdinand Demara, masqueraded as Cyr, working as a trauma surgeon aboard HMCS Cayuga, a Royal Canadian Navy destroyer, during the Korean War. After being forced to perform surgery on 16 people, he speed-read a textbook on general surgery and was able to successfully perform all the surgeries without anyone dying.

Actor Noah Wyle, after simulating the procedure for over a decade as Dr. John Carter in TV's ER, successfully inserted a working I.V. into a fallen crew member on set.

UK surgeon Simon Bramhall marked his initials with an argon beam on the livers of two of his patients on February 9 and August 21, 2013. A colleague saw “SB” on a liver during a follow-up surgery. The marks aren't believed to be harmful to the liver but Bramhall pleaded guilty to assault and he was struck off the medical register.

Operation theaters are called such because they literally were theaters, built in a gallery style for public observation. Operations used to be advertised in newspapers and it was not unknown for an operation to be cancelled because public demand was such that a larger theater had to be found.

In 2015, the waiting time for organ transplants in America decreased for the first time in 25 years — and it's been decreasing ever since. The reason, however, is the massive increase in drug overdose deaths.

More than 60% of hearts and lungs collected for transplants each year are thrown away because they can't be kept on ice for more than four hours.painkillers

Surgeon

In Ancient Babylonia a collection of laws called the Code of Hammurabi was established around 1754BC. Among the listed decrees were the drastic penalties that had to be paid by unsuccessful surgeons. For instance, if a surgeon should be found responsible for a patient's death, his hands were to be amputated. 
Also if an eye surgeon accidentally blinded a slave, he had to replace him and if a freeman lost an eye because of faulty surgery, the surgeon's eye was removed. These severe decrees encouraged physicians to use the safer (for them) option of herbal drugs rather than surgery. 

In medieval Europe, surgery was considered to be a lesser profession compared to the practice of medicine. In 1215 The Fourth Lateran Council forbade those in holy orders to include surgery in their practice of medicine so they would not spill blood. 

Guy de Chauliac (c. 1300 – July 25, 1368), a French surgeon who was physician to the Pope completed his seminal work, Chirurgia magna (Great Surgery) in 1363 in Avignon. In seven volumes, the treatise covered anatomy, anesthetics, bloodletting, cauterization, drugs, fractures, ulcers and wounds.

For many years de Chauliac was considered to be the most eminent surgeon around and his good character was revealed when during the plague epidemics at Avignon he continued to tend the sick while many other physicians fled.

Guy de Chaulhac

Both Bach and Handel went blind after eye operations by charlatan surgeon John Taylor. Taylor was one of the most flamboyant quacks of his age, travelling from town to town in a coach decorated with pictures of eyeballs.

In the mid 19th century, Dr Robert Liston was the most celebrated London surgeon around (he was known as "the finest surgeon in Europe"). A born performer, crowds flocked to watch Robert Liston execute amputations at University College, London on fully conscious patients. He was renowned particularly for the speed in which he worked and one of his fastest operations involved the removal of a 45-pound scrotal tumor from a patient who triumphantly carried away the enlarged parts in a wheelbarrow.

Not only was Liston a speedy surgeon, he also invented the sticking plaster, the "Bulldog" artery forceps and an effective leg splint.

Robert Liston, 1847 portrait by Samuel John Stump

The first and, to date, only woman awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor was Dr. Mary E. Walker, for her medical service at the Battle of Bull Run during the American Civil War. A trained surgeon, she served as a civilian nurse/surgeon's assistant, initially without pay, because the Union Army did not permit women to be military surgeons. She also tended wounded soldiers after the Battle of Chickamauga and the Battle of Atlanta and, despite her civilian status, spent four months as a prisoner of war.

Renowned British military surgeon James Barry was, a pioneer in the medical field with a career spanning over 50 years. After his death in 1865 the nurse prepping his body for burial noted female anatomy and stretch marks from pregnancy. Barry had been born a woman named Margaret Ann Bulkley. 

Russian physician Fyodor Grigorievich Uglov was born on October 5, 1904. In 1994 he was listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest practicing surgeon in the world. Uglov retired from practice at the age of 102. 

American gynecological surgeon Dr. Howard Jones was forced into retirement in 1978 due to rigid age restrictions for surgeons at Johns Hopkins. Rather than end his medical career, Jones moved to Virginia, where in 1981 at the age of 70, he performed the first IVF case in the U.S. He died in 2015 at the age of 104.

Rick Jolly (October 29, 1946 – January 13, 2018) , a British Army surgeon in the Falklands conflict, saved every life under his care, both British and Argentine. He was the only man decorated by both Britain and Argentina for his services in the war.

Khassan Baiev was the single surgeon for over 80.000 during the Chechen wars and at one point during the conflict he performed 67 amputations and eight brain operations in a 48-hour period. He was also known for treating both Chechen and Russian soldiers.

Indian orthopaedic specialist Dr Manuj Wadhwa carried out 331 joint replacements in March 2013 — a world record for surgery.