Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman is considered one of the most important and influential American poets both for the style and subject matter of his work.

Whitman as photographed by Mathew Brady

Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island.

His parents were Walter (1789–1855) and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman (1795–1873). He was immediately nicknamed "Walt" to distinguish him from his father.

Walt dropped out of school at the age of eleven to support his family; they were struggling financially in part due to bad investments. He worked as a law office assistant and later as an apprentice and printer's devil for the weekly Long Island newspaper The Patriot, edited by Samuel E. Clement.

Whitman went onto work for several other newspapers and even founded one himself in Huntington.. The Long-Islander, for which Whitman served as publisher, editor, pressman, and distributor and even provided home delivery, was first published in 1838.

The young Walt Whitman was known as a loafer. He would arrive at the offices of newspaper where he worked at around 11.30am, and leave at 12.30 for a two-hour lunch break. He would work for another hour after lunch before calling it a day.

Whitman at age 28

He contributed freelance fiction and poetry throughout the 1840s and by 1850 had determined to become a poet.

Whitman preached an American version of individual freedom and human brotherhood. His work was considered very controversial in its time, particularly his free verse poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which scandalized the public with for its overt celebration of sexuality.

The first edition of Leaves of Grass was published on July 4, 1855. Whitman paid for it himself and had it printed at a local print shop. A total of 795 copies were printed.

Whitman anonymously published fawning reviews of Leaves of Grass in order to boost sales.

Leaves of Grass was so controversial for its reference to open sexuality and homosexuality, that a major literary weekly publication recommended in its review that Whitman kill himself.

The first edition of Leaves of Grass was 95 pages long and contained 12 poems. It did not sell well.

Whitman kept adding material to Leaves of Grass and expanded the book many times during his life

Among the poems in the collection are "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking."

Leaves of Grass 1860 edition

Here are some songs inspired by Leaves of Grass:
I Sing The Body Electric by Cast of Fame
Out Of The Cradle by Rush
Song of Myself by Nightwish
Body Electric by Lana Del Rey
The Body Electric by Hurray for the Riff Raff

Whitman volunteered as a nurse during the American Civil War. He wrote countless letters on behalf of soldiers, some of whom were illiterate or were dying, back home to their loved ones.

In 1865 Whitman published Drum Taps, a volume inspired by his work as an army nurse doing the Civil War.

His 1865 poem "O Captain! My Captain!" was written on the occasion of the death of Abraham Lincoln. First published in The Saturday Press on November 4, 1865, Whitman later included it in his later Leaves of Grass collections and recited the poem at several lectures on Lincoln's assassination. One of Walt Whitman's most popular poems, he grew to be "almost sorry" he wrote it. "

Whitman later wrote three other poems about Lincoln,"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day" also in 1865 and "This Dust Was Once the Man" in 1871. 

Whitman published a self-help series called Manly Health and Training under a pen name. It recommended beards, nude sunbathing, getting up early, plenty of fresh air, bathing daily in cold water, eating meat almost exclusively and comfortable shoes.

He never married and is generally assumed to have had a homosexual or bisexual orientation on the basis of his poetry.

Whitman was deeply influenced by deism. He denied any one faith was more important than another, and embraced all religions equally. In "Song of Myself", he gave an inventory of major religions and indicated he respected and accepted all of them.

Whitman spent his last years at his home in Camden, New Jersey. Today, it is open to the public as the Walt Whitman House.

Walt Whitman House. By Midnightdreary 

Walt Whitman died on March 26, 1892. The cause of death was officially listed as "pleurisy of the left side, consumption of the right lung, general miliary tuberculosis and parenchymatous nephritis".

Whitehall Palace

The Palace of Whitehall, in the Westminster neighborhood of London, was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures were destroyed by fire.

The Old Palace of Whitehall by Hendrick Danckerts, c. 1675

Westminster Palace had been the main English royal residence for hundreds of years but in 1512 it was gutted by fire.

York Place was created by Cardinal Wolsey as his central London residence. He expanded it so much that it was rivalled by only Lambeth Palace as the greatest house in London,

Whitehall became an official royal palace in 1530 when Henry VIII of England seized York Place (later renamed Whitehall Palace) after the Cardinal fell out of favour. He transformed it into a magnificent royal residence to replace Westminster as his main London residence.

King Henry VIII hired the Flemish artist Anton van den Wyngaerde to redesign York Place, and he carried on extending it during his lifetime.

A sketch of Whitehall Palace in 1544, by Anton van den Wyngaerde.

The name Whitehall was first recorded in 1532; it had its origins in the white stone used for the buildings.

Henry included in his Whitehall residence a recreation centre with tennis courts, a pit for cock fighting and a tiltyard for jousting. He also had a fine bowling alley laid out.

Henry VIII created The Privy Garden of the Palace of Whitehall, a large enclosed space in the mid-1540s. It continued to be used as a pleasure garden by the Tudor and Stuart monarchs of England for many years.

It is estimated that more than £30,000 (several million at present-day valued, or several billion when compared to share of GDP) was spent during the 1540s on the Whitehall residence.

By the time of Henry's death, Whitehall was the largest palace in Europe.

The Tempest, Shakespeare's romantic comedy, was first presented at Whitehall Palace in 1611.

On January 5, 1617, the Native American princess Pocahontas was brought before King James I at the old Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall at a performance of Ben Jonson's masque The Vision of Delight.

James I made significant changes to the Whitehall buildings, notably the construction in 1622 of a new Banqueting House built to a design by Inigo Jones. His new Banqueting House introduced the Palladian style to Britain.

Nearly 20 years after the Banqueting House was built, King Charles I instructed Jones to prepare designs for rebuilding the whole of Whitehall Palace. These designs by Jones still exist and are among his most interesting creations.

Inigo Jones's plan, dated 1638, for a new palace at Whitehall.

Charles II was fascinated by mechanical things such as mechanical clocks and he had a laboratory at Whitehall where he spent a lot of time on experiments.

Foe around a century Whitehall Palace was the largest and most complex palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, overtaking the Vatican, before itself being overtaken by the expanding Palace of Versailles.

William III of England and his wife Mary disliked Whitehall Palace, their home in London. The fumes of the sea coal, which burned in most of the fireplaces of London, were too much for a man used to the cool, brown cows and cheeses of the Netherlands. As a result the royal couple lived mostly in Hampton Court.

On the afternoon of January 4, 1698 a Dutch maidservant was drying linen sheets on a burning charcoal brazier in a bed chamber at Whitehall Palace. For some reason the maid left the room and in her absence, the sheets caught fire. The flames quickly spread throughout the palace complex, raging for 15 hours before firefighters could extinguish it.

View Of A Fire At Whitehall Palace Pastel On Paper by English School

Many of the palace's wooden structures were destroyed in the fire. The remaining structures were torn down. The Banqueting House, built by Inigo Jones in 1622, survived the fire. Various other parts of the old palace still exist, mostly incorporated into new buildings in the Whitehall government complex.

White House

The White House, the official residence of the US president, is situated on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. The 132-room Neo-classical mansion was built between 1793 and 1801 from the designs of James Hoban (1762-1831)

In 1792 the Commissioners of the District held a contest for the best design for the "President's House," or "President's Palace." George Washington had asked for "the sumptuousness of a palace, the convenience of a house, and the agreeableness of a county seat."

The design competition received nine proposals, including one submitted anonymously by Thomas Jefferson.

The first prize was won by James Hoban, an Irish-born architect. Hoban's was selected for its practical and aesthetically pleasing design. His design is said to have been suggested by the palace of the Duke of Leinster in Dublin, Ireland.

Architect James Hoban was awarded $500 and a parcel of land in Washington, DC, for his 1792 winning design for the President's House, now known as the White House.

The initial construction took place over a period of eight years, at a reported cost of $232,371.83 (equal to $3,430,446 today).

The first residents of the mansion were John Adams, second president of the United States, and his wife Abigail. Only six rooms were finished when they arrived on November 1, 1800. Abigail wrote: "The house is on a grand and superb scale, requiring about 30 servants. . . . [T]he fires we are obliged [to have] to secure us from daily agues . . . if they let me have wood enough to keep the fires. . . . [T]he great unfurnished audience room [East Room] I make a drying room of to hang up the clothes in."

In 1814 during the War of 1812, the British forces set fire to various government buildings including the White House. President James Madison was forced to flee the burning President's House. Only the exterior walls remained, and they had to be torn down and mostly reconstructed because of weakening from the fire and subsequent exposure to the elements, except for portions of the south wall.

The White House as it looked following the fire of August 24, 1814 

The White House was originally a whiteish-grey, the color of the sandstone it was built out of.  After it was burnt down during the War of 1812, its outside walls were painted white to hide the smoke stains.

President James Monroe and his family were the first to occupy the reconstructed White House , moving there in December 1817. He had the south portico built in 1824.

Since Monroe nearly every president has made some change in the White House. The north portico was erected in 1829. The first water pipes were installed in 1833; gas lighting in 1848 and an elevator in 1881.

In 1841 U.S. President John Tyler vetoed a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members rioted outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in United States history.

Earliest known photograph of the White House, taken c. 1846 

When it was announced in 1851, that a bathroom was to be installed in the White House, there was a public outcry against such unnecessary expenditure.

Benjamin Harrison was the first president of the United States to use electricity in the White House.

Theodore Roosevelt officially renamed the home of the president of the US as The White House on October 12, 1901.

In 1902 Congress spent $425,000 to renovate the White House and construct the executive office building.

During 1933 a swimming pool was built in the west terrace, paid for by voluntary contributions to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1935 the ground floor and kitchens were remodeled.

In 1948 architects found that the White House building was in danger of collapse. Some experts stated that building a new Executive Mansion would be far cheaper than repairing the White House; but national sentiment was for keeping its original form intact. Congress appropriated $5.4 million for repairs. The restoration was finished in 1952 at a cost of almost $5.8 million.

President Harry S. Truman gave the first televised tour of the White House in 1952. He explained its history, stopped in front of paintings and furniture to tell stories, and even played the Steinway piano in the East Room.

The White House 1952

Pope John Paul II became the first pontiff to visit the White House on October 6, 1979.

The White House is estimated to be valued at $295 million.

The White House is not free for the President: he receives a bill for food and expenses every month.

Source Compton's Encyclopaedia

White Christmas

Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas" a song that paints a picture of holiday nostalgia for the 1942 film Holiday Inn. It is the most performed Christmas song in history, with more than 500 versions recorded.

Irving Berlin foresaw its success when he wrote "White Christmas", telling his secretary, “I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!”

Berlin was tapped to present the Best Original Song at the 1942 Academy Awards. The Winner turned out to be "White Christmas"  and to this day Berlin remains the only Oscar presenter to present the award to him/her self in any category.

Bing Crosby's version of "White Christmas" is the best-selling single of all time, having sold more than 50 million copies. He originally recorded it on May 29, 1942 with help from the Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter's Orchestra. At the advice of Bing's record producer Jack Kapp, the original first verse about being sunny in California was cut as it made no sense outside of the context of the film.

"White Christmas" became a huge hit, spending 11 weeks on the Billboard sales charts in late 1942 and early 1943.

This recording was so successful that repeated pressings supposedly wore out the master. Crosby returned to the studio on March 19, 1947, using the same backing singers in an attempt to re-create the original recording as closely as possible. The new version was the one that was a hit almost every year from 1947 through 1962. It was honoured with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1974.

Ironically Christmas was always a bittersweet time for the Berlin family. Irving and Eileen Berlin's only son, Irving, Jr., died at only a few weeks old, of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, on Christmas Day, 1928. Every year, on Christmas Day, the Berlins would lay a Christmas wreath on his grave, a tradition their heirs carry on today.

Irving Berlin was so offended by Elvis Presley's 1957 rock 'n' roll version of "White Christmas" that he had his staff call radio stations across the country, urging their personnel not to play it.

'White Christmas' ended the Vietnam War in 1975 – it was used as the radio code signal for the evacuation of Vietnamese people who had assisted the US from Saigon.

Source Songfacts

Whistle

THE INSTRUMENT 

A whistle is an instrument which uses a stream of gas (usually air) to make a sound. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a large multi-piped church organ.

At the turn of the eighteenth century, a cylindrical, drinking vessel with a hinged lid for ale or beer, was widely used in Europe and colonial America. On the handles of many of these tankards were whistles that were baked into their rims or handles. When the customer needed a refill, they blew the whistle to be served. The phrase "wet your whistle" comes from this.

Before the introduction of the whistle in the early 1870s, soccer referees indicated their decisions by waving a white handkerchief.

Before whistles were introduced, ice hockey referees used a cowbell. They had to switch to whistles when fans started bringing their own cowbells to disrupt game play.

The whistle used for the opening match at every Rugby World Cup is the one used by Welsh referee Gil Evans for an England versus New Zealand match in 1905.

In 1971, young phone hacker John Draper discovered a way to gain free minutes for long-distance, AT&T calls. He would blow a toy ‘Captain Crunch' whistle, which had the same 2600-hertz tone that indicated a trunk line was ready to be put through, and gain access to additional minutes.

THE SOUND 

Whistling is a common way to attract someone's attention because it produces a loud and distinctive sound that is easy to hear from a distance. This makes it an effective way to communicate with someone who may be too far away to hear your voice or other sounds.

Crafty Romans used to put holes into their slingshot stones in order to scare their opponents by making them whistle and ensure victory.

A whistle is a shrill sound made by forcing the breath through the contracted lips or the teeth. Human whistling unaided by any instrument can be used for musical recreation or a whistled language for communication over distances too great for articulate speech.

The Whistling Boy, Frank Duveneck (1872)

A popular name for an English pub in the middle of the previous millennium was The Pig and Whistle. This originated from servants who were sent out to fetch a pig of ale. They were instructed to whistle as they walk to prevent them from taking some sips during their journey.

Hitler was a keen whistler; he would regularly whistle Disney's "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" - probably because of his "Wolf" nickname.

After Humphrey Bogart died in 1959 a small, gold whistle was placed in his coffin by his wife, Lauren Bacall. It was a reference to the famous line in the movie To Have or Not to Have when she says to him: "You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow".

Here is a list of songs with whistling

ANIMAL WHISTLES 

Each dolphin creates early in its life its own unique vocal whistle that gives it an individual identity. Because each whistle is unique, dolphins are able to call to each other by mimicking the whistle of a dolphin they want to communicate with. It's the equivalent of calling each other by name.

Dolphins can recognize the distinct whistle of their old friends even after 20 years of being separated.

The groundhog habitually gives a warning whistling when it sees a predator. They also whistle during the courtship season in spring.

The blue whale can produce can produce loud whistling calls that reach up to 188 decibels. The noise can be detected over 500 miles (800 km) away.

Whisky

Whisky or whiskey is a distilled spirit made from cereals.

ETYMOLOGY 

The word "whisky" comes from the Gaelic word "usquebaugh", which means the "water of life" because alchemists were convinced that whisky was the long-sought cure for old age.

The Scots and Canadians spell it whisky; the Americans and Irish spell it whiskey.

Whiskey is an American bourbon-based spirit. For a whiskey to be considered bourbon, the mixture of grains from which the product is distilled (the mash) must be, at least, 51% corn, rye, wheat, malted barley, or malted rye grain. Scotch whisky is distilled from malt and Irish whiskey is a barley-based spirit.

Irish whiskey has a smoother, sweeter flavour compared to Scotch because of the use of peat in the distillation process.

In the 18th century whisky was also a name for a light horse-drawn carriage, probably more for the speed suggested by "whisk" than the drink.

The earliest known record of whisky production dates back to 1494 but the word whisky was not seen until 1715.

Charles Dickens spelt it whiskey in Martin Chuzzlewit but used both whisky and whiskey in The Pickwick Papers.

HISTORY

Whiskey distillation began in Ireland and crossed via Islay and the Campbeltown peninsula to Scotland.

Distillery barrels

The first written record of Scotch Whisky appeared on June 1, 1495 in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland. Friar John Cor was the distiller.

James IV of Scotland (r. 1488–1513) reportedly had a great liking for Scotch whisky, and in 1506 the town of Dundee purchased a large amount of whisky from the Guild of Barber Surgeons, which held the monopoly on production at the time.

Between 1536 and 1541, King Henry VIII of England dissolved the monasteries, sending their monks out into the general public. Whisky production moved out of a monastic setting and into personal homes and farms as newly independent monks needed to find a way to earn money for themselves.

Queen Elizabeth I of England was partial to whiskey, indeed she claimed Irish whiskey was "her only true Irish friend".

Whiskey used to often be drunk from lead cups, but the combination sometimes knocked the drinker out. The unfortunate imbiber was then laid out on the kitchen table and the family gathered around and waited to see if the comatose drinker woke up. This was called "holding a wake."

The Reverend Elijah Craig (1738/1743 – May 18, 1808) was a Baptist preacher, educator, and entrepreneur in Fayette County, Virginia, which later became Scott County, Kentucky. In approximately 1789, Craig founded a distillery there. It is claimed he was the first to distil bourbon, a whiskey distilled from a mixture of grains, around 50% being maize. He called his corn-based whiskey 'bourbon', to distinguish it from the rye-based whiskies commonly distilled in the eastern United States.

By Jclark754 

While it is not entirely clear how bourbon got its name, most historians agree that it was probably not named for Bourbon County, Kansas.

In 1791 the American Congress passed a law authorizing the federal government to collect taxes on distilled liquor. In Western Pennsylvania farmers who distilled whiskey from the grain they grew were incensed at the high duty being placed on their liquor sales and some refused to pay it.

By 1794 the whiskey rebellion in Western Pennsylvania was gathering momentum and the home of the regional tax inspector's home had been set on fire. On August 7, 1794 President George Washington issued a presidential proclamation announcing, with "the deepest regret", that the militia would be called out to suppress the rebellion.

12,950 militia were sent the following month to assert the power of the federal government.

Washington left Philadelphia (which at that time was the capital of the United States) on September 30 to review the progress of the military expedition. He was one of only two sitting presidents to lead an army while in office.

When the militia arrived in Pennsylvania, the rebels disbanded and fled and the unrest was quashed without bloodshed.

After his presidency, George Washington operated a distillery as part of his Mount Vernon plantation. When it was completed in 1797, the distillery was the largest in America. By the end of the century it was producing 11,000 gallons of whiskey per year.

By the 1820s the Canadian whisky industry was proving to be successful. Canadian whiskies back then were light in body and flavor and were a blended multi-grain variant of the American type. They were composed of combinations of corn, barley malt and in particular rye prepared according to the formula of the individual producer.

In 1820, the average American drank half a pint of whisky every day.

In the 1820s whiskey sold for twenty- five cents a gallon, making it cheaper than beer, wine, coffee, tea, or milk. Annual consumption may have been as high as ten gallons per person. This level of consumption was over four times the current rate.

The 11 a.m. meal of Elevenses consisted of drinking whiskey. According to W Rorabaugh's The Alcoholic Republic, "liquor tended to be taken in small quantities throughout the day, often with meals. Instead of a morning coffee break, Americans stopped work at 11:00 a.m. to drink. A lot of work went undone but in this slow paced, pre-industrial age this was not always a problem. A drunken stage coach driver posed little threat, since the horses knew the route and made their own way home".

In 1830, the average person in America over 15 years old drank 88 bottles of whiskey a year - One bottle every 4.2 days.

A man pours some whisky into a flask in this 1869 oil painting by Scottish artist Erskine Nicol

The Great Whiskey Fire of Dublin on June 18, 1875 was when 5,000 barrels of whiskey ignited and flowed into the streets. 13 people died that day, but not from burns or smoke inhalation, All victims died of alcohol poisoning by drinking the whiskey flowing through the streets.

On the morning of November 21, 1906, one of the Glasgow-located Loch Katrine (Adelphi) Distillery’s massive washback vats collapsed. The vat held around 50,000 gallons of liquid and was situated on the top floor of the building. In the street outside, a number of farm servants with carts were waiting to pick up the malt refuse for cattle feed. A tidal wave of of over 150,000 gallons of red hot whisky smashed into them, throwing men and horses across the street where they struggled waist deep in the alcoholic mixture. One man James Ballantyne, a farm servant from Hyndland Farm, Busby, suffered severe internal injuries and died shortly after admission to the infirmary.

The first known mention of mixing whiskey with Coca Cola was in a 1907 report of an employee of the United States Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, who encountered the drink when visiting the South. Today, the drink is considered low-brow cultural fare and tends to be frowned upon by whiskey aficionados

FUN WHISKY FACTS 

Most distilled spirits that are labelled as "whisky" in India are a form of Indian-made foreign liquor, commonly blends based on neutral spirits that are distilled from fermented molasses with only 10 to 12 per cent consisting of traditional malt whisky,  Outside India, such a drink would more likely be labelled a rum.

Officer's Choice commonly known as OC, is an Indian whisky brand which is owned by Allied Blenders & Distillers. It is considered to be one of the largest spirit brands in the world. In 2015 Officer's Choice overtook Smirnoff vodka to become the world's largest selling spirit brand.

There are five distinct categories of Scotch whisky; single malt Scotch, single grain Scotch, blended malt Scotch, blended grain Scotch and blended Scotch.

Scotland is the biggest producer of whisky in the world, and has been for at least 100 years. On average, 34 bottles of whisky are exported from Scotland every second. The revenue from these sales in 2015 amounted to £3.86billion.

Until 2013 Johnnie Walker was the most widely distributed brand of blended Scotch whisky in the world, selling in almost every country, with annual sales of the equivalent of over 223.7 million 700 ml bottles in 2016 (156.6 million litres). In 2013 it was overtaken by Officer's Choice.

The J&B in the famous scotch maker's name stands for Justerini and Brook.

The drink must be aged in oak barrels for at least three years before it may be called whisky.

There are almost four barrels of whisky sitting in Scotland ageing, for every person.

Single-malt scotch means that it comes from one distillery, not one barrel. Blends can have up to 40 different distilleries.

In an effort to revitalize sales, Canadian Club hid 25 cases of whisky throughout the planet in July 1967, encouraging adventurers to seek them out. Over 50 years later, there are still nine cases undiscovered.

World Whisky Day takes place on the third Saturday in May each year.

The most expensive bottle of whisky ever sold at auction is the Macallan Fine and Rare 60-Year-Old, which sold for a record-breaking $1.9 million (£1,45m) at an Sotheby's auction in London on October 24, 2019. The whisky was distilled in 1926 and matured in ex-sherry casks for 60 years. It was released in a limited edition of only 40 bottles, and is considered to be one of the rarest and most sought-after whiskies in the world. 

The leading whisky drinkers of the world are the French, followed by Uruguay and the USA.

FUN WHISKEY FACTS 

Whiskey is clear when it is first distilled. It gets its color and much of its taste from the oak barrels in which it is aged.

Distillers call the 20 percent or more of whiskey that evaporates as it ages “the angel’s share.” 

There are more barrels of Bourbon in the state of Kentucky than there are people.

The creator of Maker's Mark bourbon did not have time to distill and age whiskey to taste test it, but he had created seven possible grain recipes and was unsure which to pick. He baked bread with each one, and the best tasting bread was picked as the grain "mashbill" recipe for Maker's.

Production line at the Maker's Mark distillery in Loretto, Kentucky By Shadle 

Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey is the number one selling American whiskey in the world, with over 16.1 million cases sold in 2017. The Brown-Forman brand is not only the most popular whiskey in America, it's the best-selling spirit, period, in the country, and the fourth best-selling spirit in the world.

In 1955 Jack Daniel's was selling about 150,000 cases annually of its black-labeled Tennessee whiskey. That year Frank Sinatra endorsed the liquor during a performance. Because of that, by the end of 1956 Jack Daniel's sold about 300,000 cases.

Jack Daniel's last words were "One last drink, please."

Jack Daniels employees get a free bottle of Jack on the first payday of each month.

Jack Daniel's headquarters is in a dry county so their product is not available for purchase in the area.

Sources Daily Express,  New York Times, Alcoholproblemsandsolutions, HistoricUK

Whiskers

A vibrissae, or whisker is a long bristle around the mouth of some animals, mostly mammals, that are specialised for tactile sensing.

Cat's whiskers. By Emelie Schäfer from The Netherlands 

Some animals, such as cats, also have whiskers above their eyes and on the backs of their legs.

Humans and anteaters are the only two mammals known not to sport any vibrissae, or whiskers that act as organs of touch.

In medicine, the term vibrissae also refers to the thick hairs found inside human nostrils.

Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an odd number of whiskers.

No two lions have the same whisker pattern.

A walrus' whiskers are 40 times thicker than human hair.

The length of a chinchilla's whiskers can be more than a third of its body length.

A chinchilla with large macrovibrissae. By © Salix /

Cats use their whiskers to gauge whether they can fit through an opening.

Cats often avoid consuming food or water from sides of their bowls to prevent 'whisker fatigue.' Whiskers brushing against a bowl can trigger sensory overload, causing them pain and stress whenever eating or drinking.

Hamsters are near-sighted and color blind. In order to compensate, they use their whiskers and their sense of smell to navigate.

Deprived of sight and hearing, seals can still accurately pinpoint the locations of fish because they have 1,500 nerve endings in their whiskers.

A mouse's whiskers can detect temperature changes as well as help it feel its way about.

Wheelchair

The ancient Chinese used early wheelbarrows to move people as well as heavy objects. The first records of wheeled seats being used for transporting disabled people date to around the third century BC there.

Depiction of Chinese philosopher Confucius in a wheelchair, dating to ca. 1680.

Images of wheeled chairs made specifically to carry people begin popping up in Chinese art in around 525AD.

An unknown inventor built for Philip II of Spain an early dedicated wheelchair, which was known as an invalid's chair. Essentially an elaborate, portable throne, the chair was made of leather, wood, and iron and included comfortable footrests. The design still had shortcomings since it did not feature an efficient propulsion mechanism and thus, requires assistance to propel it.

Stephan Farffler (1633 – October 24, 1689 was a Nuremberg watchmaker who was either a paraplegic or an amputee. In 1655, he built the world's first self-propelling wheelchair. The three-wheeled device used a system of cranks and cogwheels and is also believed to have been a precursor to the modern-day bicycle and tricycle.

Farffler's carriage of 1655

The bath chair was invented by James Heath, of Bath, England in the early 18th century. A rolling chaise or light carriage for one disabled person with a folding hood, it was mounted on three or four wheels and drawn or pushed by hand.

In the 19th century they were often seen at spa resorts such as Buxton and Tunbridge Wells. Some versions incorporated a steering device that could be operated by the person in the chair. Animal drawn versions of the bath chair became known as invalid carriages.

By the late 19th century improvements for wheelchairs such as hand rims for self-propulsion, rubber tires, and wire-spoked wheels were introduced.

On June 23, 1887, Queen Victoria engaged two Indian Muslims as attendants, one of whom was Abdul Karim. He served her during the final fourteen years of her reign and in Victoria's last years, the impassive Abdul was the servant who pushed the infirm queen around her homes in her wheelchair.

When Thomas Edison was confined to a wheelchair in the last years of his life, his friend Henry Ford bought one too, so that they could have wheelchair races.

In 1933 Harry C. Jennings, Sr. and his paraplegic friend Herbert Everest, both mechanical engineers, built the first folding, tubular steel wheelchair. (Everest was disabled after breaking his back in a mining accident.) The pair saw the business potential of the invention and the Everest & Jennings chair would become the industry standard for years to come.

Jennings and Everest were also responsible for developing the first powered wheelchair in the 1950s. Run by a transistor-based electrical motor, the Everest & Jennings powered chair was the first to make chairs both motorized and relatively lightweight.

By the early 1970s, Everest & Jennings International was the world's largest supplier of wheelchairs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sergeant Alvin C. York and Winston Churchill all used Everest & Jennings power chairs.

Everest & Jennings wheelchair. By Penny Richards

In 2000, a man in Munich was arrested for being drunk in charge of his motorized wheelchair.

In 2007 21-year-old Michigan resident Ben Carpenter's electric wheelchair was hit by an 18 wheeler. The handles were ensnared within the grill of the truck and he was pushed at over 60 mph for several miles he Red Arrow Highway. Amazingly, he escaped without injury.

Wheelchair athletes with spinal injuries will sometimes intentionally injure themselves on the lower body (e.g. break a toe), causing their bodies to respond by raising blood pressure and enhancing their performance. This practice has been banned as cheating.

Source Mental Floss

Wheel

A wheel is a circular frame turning on an axle. When the wheel spins, the object on the wheels moves more easily along the ground.

Pixabay

Man's use of the wheel changed a whole way of life. Even though the wheel is often cited as man's original invention... it wasn't invented until after boats, baskets, flutes or woven cloth, It is thought likely that wheels for carts and chariots were derived about 6,000 years ago.

Several civilisations, including the Incas and the Aztecs did pretty well without wheels.

Freely-spinning potter's wheels with a wheel and axle mechanism, were developed in Mesopotamia (Iraq) by 4200–4000. The oldest surviving example, which was found in Ur, dates to approximately 3100 BC.

The earliest evidence of a wheeled vehicle is a pictograph of a cart from the Tigris-Euphrates valley (modern day Iraq). It dates from 3500 BC; the device rolled West soon after that.

The oldest discovered wheel was found in Slovenia's Ljubljana Marshes in 2002 and it's approximately 5,150 years old. The wooden wheel belonged to a prehistoric two-wheel cart – a pushcart.

Ljubljana Marshes Wheel By Daniel Thornton

It's not the idea of the wheel that was clever but the idea of an axle. Men had probably been moving heavy objects by rolling them on logs for generations before anyone thought of slicing the log and attaching it by a means that let it roll along with the object being moved.

The wheels of the first wagons were made either from a single piece of wood or from three carved planks clamped together by transverse struts; sometimes they turned on the axle, sometimes with it.

An early wooden wheel. By John O'Neill, 

During the third millennium BC wagons acquired a regal status in addition to their practical uses. Royal tombs reveal that both wagon and oxen were valued enough to be required in the next world.

Spoked wheels appeared in the third millennium BC, when they were in use on chariots in Asia Minor. On these early vehicles the wheels either turned on an axle, or were rigidly fastened to an axle that revolved in a housing on the vehicle body. By 2000 BC heavy wheeled transport was in use in a region stretching from northern Europe to western Persia and Mesopotamia.

A depiction of an onager-drawn cart on the Sumerian "battle standard of Ur" 

The Inca and Maya had wheels on children's toys around 1500 BC, but they did not use wheels for transport. It is the only known instance of the wheel having been invented independently of the Sumerian version.

The earliest tires were bands of leather. Later a tire in the form of an iron ring was introduced that was heated in a forge fire. The expanded tire was placed over the wheel. Then on cooling it shrank and drew the members tightly together. A skilled worker, known as a wheelwright, carried out this work.

The traditional construction of the wheel in medieval Europe was to make the hub or 'knave' of elm, to resist splitting, the spokes of oak, for strength, and the felloes (sections of the rim) of ash, for toughness. An iron tire was shrunk on to give strength and resistance to wear.

The word 'truck' comes from the Greek word for wheel: 'trochos.' It first appeared in English around 1611 meaning small wheel or roller, specifically the sort mounted under cannons aboard warships.

A few hundred years ago the generally preferred method for cooking a large piece of meat evenly was to put it on a spit and rotate it until it was fully cooked. The spit was powered by the turnspit, a dog that was bred just to run for hours on a tiny wheel that turned the spit for cooking the meat.

The spoked wheel was in continued use without major modification until the 1870s, when wire-spoked wheels were invented. The wire spokes are under tension, not compression, making it possible for the wheel to be both stiff and light.

The first practical pneumatic tire was made in 1888 in Belfast by Scots-born John Boyd Dunlop. He fitted his son's tricycle wheels with inflated rubber hoses instead of solid rubber tires in order to make it more comfortable to ride on the city's bumpy roads. Dunlop's development of the pneumatic tire handily coincided with the late 19th century bicycle craze.

Dunlop's first pneumatic bicycle tyre National Museum of Scotland. By Geni 

Louis Perlman of New York was granted a patent in 1906 for "demountable tire-carrying" rims. Before Perlman's invention wheels and tires were a single unit and if the tire had a puncture, you had to replace both the tire and the wheel, even if the wheel was just fine. His demountable tires worked pretty much like the ones on your car right now. The inner rim of the tire held the tire against a groove machined into the wheel. The friction of shallow notches kept the tire from rotating on the wheel.

The Chrysler company was created by Walter P. Chrysler in 1925. Among the innovations in its early years was a wheel with a ridged rim, designed to keep a deflated tire from flying off the wheel. This wheel was eventually adopted by the auto industry worldwide.

A hamster will run as far as 5.6 miles in a night on wheel.

The phrase "touch and go", meaning a very narrow escape, is derived from driving where the wheel of one vehicle touches that of another passing without causing harm.

Sources Daily Express, The Independent, HistoryWorld, Wired