Wisconsin

HISTORY

The first European known to have landed in Wisconsin was Jean Nicolet. In 1634, Samuel de Champlain, governor of New France, sent Nicolet to contact the Ho-Chunk people, make peace between them and the Huron and expand the fur trade.

Nicolet founded a small trading post there in 1634, originally named La Baye or La Baie des Puants (French for "the Bay of Stinking Waters"). Nicolet's settlement was one of the oldest European permanent settlements in America.

Jean Nicolet's 1634 landing in Wisconsin

Early French voyagers exploring Wisconsin waterways bartered for cranberries with the Native Americans.

Great Lakes fur trader Charles Michel de Langlade is generally recognized as the first settler, establishing a trading post at Green Bay in 1745.

The British gradually took over Wisconsin during the French and Indian War, taking control of Green Bay in 1761 and gaining control of all of Wisconsin in 1763.

The United States acquired Wisconsin in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Four years later, in 1787, the Americans made Wisconsin part of the new Northwest Territory. Later, in 1800, Wisconsin became part of Indiana Territory.

Wisconsin Territory was created by an act of the United States Congress on April 20, 1836. The new territory initially included all of the present day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as parts of North and South Dakota.

The word Wisconsin comes from the name that one of the Algonquian speaking American Indian groups living in the area gave to the Wisconsin River. They named the Wisconsin River at the time that the European contact happened.

Map of Wisconsin Territory 1836–1848. Wikipedia

By the fall of 1836,  the best prairie groves of the counties surrounding Milwaukee were occupied by New England farmers.

Wisconsin was admitted as the 30th U.S. State on May 29, 1848. The state's constitution is the oldest of any state west of the Allegheny Mountains. It was adopted in 1848.

Wisconsin was the last state entirely east of the Mississippi River (and by extension the last state formed entirely from territory assigned to the U.S. in the 1783 Treaty of Paris) to be admitted to the Union.

The Republican Party was founded on March 20, 1854 in a little white schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin.

The Little White Schoolhouse, in Ripon, 1854, By Royalbroil

In 1856, Margaretta Schurz, wife of the politician Carl Schurz, established the first kindergarten in the United States, in Watertown, Wisconsin.

The Peshtigo Fire took place on October 8, 1871 in and around Peshtigo, Wisconsin. The wildfire consumed an area twice the size of Rhode Island, It was the deadliest forest fire in recorded history, with estimated deaths of around 2,000 people.

In 1882 the first hydroelectric plant in the United States was built at Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin. Named the Vulcan Street Plant, the hydroelectric central station served both private and commercial customers.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a large number of European settlers entered Wisconsin, many of whom emigrated from Germany and Scandinavia. The state remains a center of German American and Scandinavian American culture.

FUN WISCONSIN FACTS

Wisconsin is the 23rd largest state by total area and the 20th most populous.

The state capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee, which is located on the western shore of Lake Michigan. 33 percent of the population of Wisconsin lives in the Greater Milwaukee area.

The state has 7,446 streams and rivers. End-to-end they'd stretch 26,767 miles (43,077 kms).

Timms Hill is the highest natural point in Wisconsin at 1,951.5 ft (594.8 m); it is located in the Town of Hill, Price County.

Timms hill. By Skye Marthaler 

The state leads the nation in exports of cranberries. Infact, Wisconsin currently produces half of the world’s cranberries, creating 3,400 local jobs.

Wisconsin also leads the nation in exports of ginseng root. The city of Wausau is the ginseng capital of the world.

In Wisconsin, livestock always has the right of way when crossing a street.

Wisconsin is the dairy capital of the United States. It produces more milk than any other state.

The state has the most cheesemaking plants in the U.S. with 90 percent of Wisconsin's milk being made into cheese—about 2.8 billion pounds per year.

The city, Monroe, hosts an annual cheese festival in September, Green County Cheese Festival, for cheese enthusiasts.

Wisconsin landscape dairy farm

In Wisconsin, the word people most often google ‘how to spell' is ‘Wisconsin'.

Wisconsin have more bars than grocery stores. The state has the same number of bars as California despite a population that's 85% smaller. One bar for every 1,862 residents compared to California's one for every 11,962 residents.

There are only four authentic Thai pavilions built outside of Thailand. One of them being in Madison Wisconsin. It was a gift to the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the Thai government for the large Thai student population. The pavilion does not contain any screws or nails of any kind.

In Wisconsin, children are legally permitted to drink at any age, even in public, so long as a legal guardian gives the OK.

Green Bay, Wisconsin has a population of 100,000. Its American Football team, The Green Bay Packers is the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team in the United States.. Every Green Bay Packers home game at Lambeau Field has been sold out since 1960 and the wait time for season tickets is 30 years.

Lambeau Field Stadium. By T Lordmontu at English Wikipedia.

The Tug of War International Federation, the international governing body for the sport of tug of war, is based in Orfordville, Wisconsin.

With an average of 2,500 performers, Milwaukee's Summerfest is the nation's largest music festival. The Summerfest, held annually on the lakefront for 11 days in the end of June, attracts nearly a million visitors every year.

Sources Femalefirst

Winter Solstice

Solstice means "sun standing still" in Latin because the solstice is the time when the sun appears to stand still in the sky before daylight begins to increase. Daylight picks up speed in the spring, when we add about three minutes of daylight each day.

The solstice is when the Sun is at its at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky during a year. The solstice itself is one moment, but many use the word to mean the day when the solstice happens.

By Tim Ereneta from Berkeley, CA - solstice gathering,

The Roman Winter Solstice was celebrated by Brumalia, a festival which emerged in the 2nd Century AD to honor the rebirth of the sun god.

While the Winter of Solstice is the day with the least light, the coldest week of the year is actually in late January. That's because for the next month or so the earth continues to lose more heat than the sun puts back in.

Should you see your shadows on the Winter Solstice it will be the longest shadow of the year. That's because the sun is as low in the sky as it's going to get.

Source Syracuse

Winter Olympics

FIRSTS

The first Winter Olympic Games begun at Chamonix, in the French Alps on January 25, 1924, in connection with the Paris Summer Olympic Games held three months later. 16 nations took part and the host country failed to win any gold medals.

Dusan Zinaja at 1924 Winter Olympics Chamonix

The 1924 event in Chamonix was run by the French Olympic Committee but only recognised by the International Olympic Committee as official Winter Olympics after they had finished.

Ice hockey made its Olympic debut at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. The first Winter Olympics didn't take place until 1924.

The 1956 Winter Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, were the first to be shown on television. The 1968 Games in Grenoble, France, were the first to be broadcast in color.

Man-made snow was used in the Olympics for the first time at the 1980 Games in Lake Placid.

When Australian short track speed skater Steven Bradbury won the 1,000 m event at the 2002 Winter Olympics, he became the first athlete from the Southern Hemisphere to win a Winter Olympic gold medal. Bradbury won because his four rivals all collided and he skated alone past the finish line. He named his autobiography Last Man Standing.

RECORDS

Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjørgen has won the most Winter Olympic medals of any athlete: 15 (8 gold, 4 silver, and 3 bronze).

Marit Bjørgen 2013 By Frankie Fouganthin

Norwegian professional biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen has won more Winter Olympic medals than any other male (8 gold, 4 silver, and 1 bronze).

The oldest man to receive a Winter Olympics medal is 83-year-old Anders Haugen. The Norwegian-American actually received his ski jump bronze medal 50 years after he competed in 1924 when a scoring error was discovered in 1974.

Russian figure skater Yulia Lipnitskaya won gold in the team event at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, aged 15 years, 249 days. However, she is not younger than South Korean short track speed skater Kim Yun-Mi, who won gold medal in the 3000 m relay at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics aged 13.

Christa Luding-Rothenburger (East Germany) is the only athlete to ever win medals in both Winter and Summer Games in the same year: In 1998 she won speed skating gold at 1,000m (winter) and match sprint cycling silver (summer).

FUN WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES FACTS

Until 1992 Winter Olympics were held in the same year as Summer Games. Since then it has been in years midway between Summer Olympics.

The USA is the only country to have won at least one gold medal in every Winter Olympics. But Russia and Norway have both won more Winter Olympic medals and Winter Olympic golds than the USA.

No country in the southern hemisphere has ever even applied to host the Winter Olympics.

Philip Boit, became the first Kenyan to participate in the Winter Olympics, when competing in the 10 KM classic cross-country race at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. He came in last. The winner, Bjørn Dæhlie, waited for Boit to reach the finish line in order to hug him. The moment affected him so much Boit named his son after Dæhlie.

Steven Bradbury, a speedskater and Australia’s first gold medalist in the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics, won his medal by purposely going slower than the other four skaters and hoping that one or more of them would crash to secure at least a bronze. All four crashed near the finish line.

Sources Daily Express, WKYC

Winnie-the-Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh is a fictional teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne for a series of books.

Milne named the character Winnie-the-Pooh after a teddy bear owned by his son Christopher Robin Milne. The writer bought the 18-inch-high toy bear from Harrods in London. It was a present in honor of Christopher Robin's first birthday on August 21, 1921.

Milne called the toy bear "Winnie" after a Canadian black bear he often saw at London Zoo. The animal had been born in Canada but brought to London in 1914 as the mascot of a Canadian regiment. A Canadian soldier, Harry Colebourn, named him Winnie after his hometown Winnipeg.

Harry Colebourn and Winnie, 1914

The other part of the name, "Pooh," was based on a swan Milne and his family met on holiday.

The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, was first published on October 14, 1926.
Other stuffed animal toys owned by Milne's son were also incorporated into the story. The picture below shows some of the original Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed toys. Clockwise from bottom left: Tigger, Kanga, Edward Bear ("Winnie-the-Pooh"), Eeyore, and Piglet

Winnie-The-Pooh characters each represent a different mental disorder -- Eeyore - Depression, Pooh - Addiction, Tiger - ADHD, Owl - OCD.

Eeyore's name is based off the British Cockney dialect version of the phrase "hee-haw".

The Hundred Acre Wood in the Pooh books is strongly based on Ashdown Forest in Sussex.

Winnie-the-Pooh was followed by The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Milne also included a poem about the bear in the children's verse book When We Were Very Young (1924) and many more in Now We Are Six (1927).

All four volumes were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. An ink drawing by Shepard of Winnie-the-Pooh playing Poohsticks with Piglet and Christopher Robin sold for more than £314,000 in 2014.

Pooh in an illustration by E. H. Shepard

The "real" Christopher Robin, of whom the "Winnie the Pooh" stories were inspired by, actually hated the books.

The first time Winnie the Pooh appeared in color was in 1932. He was drawn by Stephen Slesinger in his red shirt and featured on an RCA Victor picture record.

Parker Brothers introduced a 1933 board game called A.A Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh Game with the bear showcased in his red top.

Christopher Robin was credited with killing 28 Wehrmacht soldiers in World War II's Battle of the Bulge.

Christopher Robin in 1928

Winnie Ille Pu, the 1958 Latin translation of Milne's book, is the only book in Latin ever to appear on the New York Times Best Sellers list.

The hyphens in the original Winnie-The-Pooh name were dropped when Disney bought the rights to the characters.

17-year-old Kenny Loggins wasn't going to be able to record his song "House at Pooh Corner" because Disney was enforcing their copyright to Winnie the Pooh. Upset, he mentioned this to his girlfriend, only to find out her father was the CEO of the Disney corporation– he soon got permission.

A Disney movie about Pooh, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, was made in March 1977.

A live-action movie entitled Christopher Robin, was released in 2018. It explores A.A. Milne's creation of Winnie-the-Pooh.

The Winnie-the-Pooh media franchise has generated more revenue ($76 billion) than Marvel Cinematic Universe ($35 billion) and Harry Potter ($32 billion) combined.

Christopher Robin's toy bear is on display at the Main Branch of the New York Public Library in New York City. The other original Pooh animals can also be seen there; except for Roo who was lost around 1930.

Sources Daily Express, Beliefnet

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi.

Her real birth name is "Orpah," the name of a biblical figure in the Book of Ruth. She changed it because people didn’t really know how to pronounce ‘Orpah’ and misspelt it as Oprah. Therefore she just stuck with it and began to call herself Oprah.

Oprah was born to a single teenage mother, Vernita Lee, a maid. Her father, Vernon Winfrey, had broken up with Oprah's mom long before she was born.

She spent her first six years living in rural poverty and wore potato sacks for clothes.

Oprah Winfrey 2014 By https://www.flickr.com/photos/aphrodite-in-nyc

During her childhood, Oprah Winfrey was molested by her uncle, cousin, and a family friend to the point where she ran away from home. When she discussed this with her family when she was older, they denied her allegations.

Oprah Winfrey gave birth at the age of 14 to a baby who died in the hospital weeks later.

She was crowned Miss Black Tennessee while in college and began co-anchoring the evening news when she was nineteen.

In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's movie The Color Purple as distraught housewife Sofia. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

Oprah Winfrey's first talk show was a local one in Baltimore called People Are Talking. She hosted it along with journalist Richard Sher.

Her own talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, first went on the air on September 8, 1986. The topic for the premiere show was "How to Marry the Man or Woman of Your Choice".

Winfrey used the show as an educational platform, featuring book clubs, interviews, self-improvement segments, and philanthropic forays into world events.. It was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011.

The most watched interview in television broadcast history is Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Michael Jackson from February, 1993—90 million people tuned in.

Winfrey is also a best-selling author. Her books include 1998's Make the Connection: Ten Steps to a Better Body and a Better Life co-authored with her personal trainer Bob Greene.

She became the world's first female black billionaire and the richest self-made American woman.

Winfrey celebrating her fiftieth birthday by Alan Light

Oprah Winfrey is the only African-American among the 400 richest people in the United States.

Winfrey and her longtime partner Stedman Graham have been together since 1986. They were engaged to be married in November 1992, but the ceremony never took place. Graham is the author of several self-help and business-related books.

Oprah Winfrey is chiclephobic, she is scared of chewing gum.

The Discovery of Wine

There are various stories and legends that tell of the discovery of wine. One gives the honor of the inventor of wine to King Jamshīd, the Sumerian founder of Persepolis. Jamshīd was very fond of grapes and in order that he would be able to enjoy them out of season, he arranged to have his favorite fruit bottled and stored. However a clumsy servant dropped one of the jars and the delicious grapes were crushed. In the summer heat they quickly fermented and Jamshīd curiously tried some, but thinking the taste to be strange he poured the remainder into a separate container, and marked it as poison. Somehow it was neglected to be thrown away.

Months later one of his servants came across the poison-marked jar and feeling depressed she decided to commit suicide by drinking some of it. She became inebriated enough to fall asleep and on awakening she drunk some more. She began to feel less depressed and was enjoying the effect it was having on her so she finished off the container. When she awoke the next morning she confessed to her master, who decided to experiment with this new beverage and as word spread, wine drinking developed throughout Mesopotamia. King Jamshīd recognized the two-sided, contradictory nature of wine and he referred to it as "the delightful poison."

Another story tells of God creating the first grapes, assisted by three members of the animal kingdom, the lion, the monkey and the pig-who each in turn scattered some of their own spirit on the fledgling grapevine. That is why anyone who drinks moderately a little grows strong like a lion. He who indulges in several drinks starts resembling strongly a monkey. Finally he who does not know when to stop eventually lies under the table like a pig.

Wine

Wine is a liquor of fermented grape pulp. It is made when single-celled yeast converts sugar in grapes into alcohol and carbon dioxide, and releases heat in the process.

Pixiebay

Wines can be made from the juice of other fruits, such as plum, cherry, pomegranate, currant and elderberry.

HISTORY

The grapevine originally came from the Caucasus region of Asia Minor and in time man leaned how to cultivate the wildly growing grapes. Grapes were originally considered to be just a tasty fruit but eventually it was discovered that once fermented, they produce a tasty and intoxicating beverage.

Sediment found in a pottery jar excavated in the Zagros Mountains of northern Iran indicate that man was drinking a retsina-like wine in 5000 BC.

The Egyptians adopted a wine culture and included wine in their funeral ceremonies. They made at least 24 varieties of wine. Its importance was indicated by the fact that while most gods were only worshipped locally, Sesmu - the god of wine - was worshipped throughout the country.

Grape cultivation, winemaking, and commerce in ancient Egypt c. 1500 BC

Wine-making reached Greece by about 2000 BC. By 17000 BC it had replaced mead - made by fermenting honey and water - as their tipple of choice.

The Phoenicians were seafaring traders who inhabited the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon and Syria between 1500 BC and 300 BC. They planted the first vines seen in Western Europe at Andalucia in Spain.

Like beer, wine was considered to be of divine origin. Indeed it was supposed to be the blood of gods and with the wine the god entered the human body. Thus, the drinking of wine was a sacred ritual, and drunkenness was regarded as the presence of the divine spirit.

The Greeks generally avoided drunkenness with the exception of the cult of Dionysus, the Greek God of grapes, in which intoxication was believed to bring people closer to their deity.

Hellenistic mosaics close to the city of Paphos depicting Dionysos, god of wine.

According to Plato, wine should be tasted in moderation until age 31, but when a man reached 40, he could drink as much as he wants to cure the "crabbedness of old age."

The Romans pressed grapes to make wine, which was sometimes sweetened with honey or flavored with roses or violets. It was drunk with most of their meals diluted with water, raisin wine being a particular favorite.

Roman soldiers on campaign drunk a particularly thirst quenching vinegar wine diluted with water. They were horrified that many of the Barbarians drunk their wine neat.

The Greeks and Romans used amphorae to store and transport wine. A label indicating the maker's name, the vineyard, the capacity of the jar and the year was either tied to the jar or engraved on it.

Greek amphora; 2nd half of the 2nd century BC; glass. By Marcus Cyron

The Greeks kept their wine in a storeroom near the chimney shafts. The effects of the heat made the wine more concentrated until it acquired the consistency of honey. Thus it had to be diluted before serving.

The Greeks and Romans used pomace to create an inferior wine normally given to slaves and common workers. After the wine grapes had been pressed twice, the pomace was soaked in water for a day and pressed for a third time. It produced a thin, weak and thirst-quenching wine called piquette.

At certain times Roman women were forbidden to drink wine, and a husband who found his wife drinking was at liberty to kill her.

We basically drink the same wine as ancient Romans. Researchers found grape growers managed to keep modern grape DNA extremely consistent and similar to ancient varieties. While this kept flavors consistent, researchers worry grapes are genetically at-risk to environmental changes.

The early Christian church refused to forbid the drinking of wine except for where the believer wished to abstain for reasons of self-discipline. Rather than castigating wine for its effects on sobriety, many early church fathers considered it a gift from God, both for its medicinal qualities and the relief it could bring from pain and the anxiety of daily life.

Wine is mentioned in the Bible 165 times in most places favorably.

In Renaissance Italy, the people sealed their wine bottles by topping the wine with olive oil, which filled the neck of the bottle. When a fresh bottle was used for serving drinks, the host would, after pouring away the oil, fill his glass first before his guests in case there are any drops of oil left in the wine.

Another reason it became a habit for the Italian host to test the wine first was to show his friends that the wine had not been poisoned either by himself or some other foe.

A typical Italian male citizen, in 1500, drunk around two litres of wine a day.

Jan van Riebeeck, the founder of Cape Town, produced the first bottle of South African wine on February 2, 1659  seven years after his landing. In 1685, the man succeeding Van Riebeeck as governor of the Cape of Good Hope, Simon van der Stel, purchased a large 750 hectares (1,900 acres) estate just outside Cape Town, establishing the Constantia wine estate. 

The South African wine industry grew over the centuries Today, the country's wine regions, such as Stellenbosch, Paarl, and Constantia, have gained international recognition for producing high-quality wines.

A tax on wine, in 1746, kept the size of wine glasses from that period small in England. Wine was drunk in dainty amounts, often as a toast, so the glasses were essentially a shot glass.

Australian soldiers fighting in World War 1 coined the word "plonk" meaning wine. They pronounced the French "vin blanc", (meaning white wine), "van blonk", and further transformed it into "plonk". Also the word resembles the sound of a cork being drawn out of a bottle.

In 1941 Parisian writers, who had evacuated to the Beaujolais region south of Burgundy in Eastern France, got to taste the local Beaujolais wine. The locals drunk it out of small containers in the bistros and the Parisian writers enthusiastically publicized it to the rest of the world.

A glass and bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau from the 2013 vintage By Agne27

American wine had a terrible reputation until an event in 1976, called the Judgment of Paris. Wine industry luminaries blind-tasted California and renowned French wines, side by side, and scored them. Surprisingly, the winning red and white wines were both from California.

In 1991, American television news magazine program 60 Minutes suggested red wine was the answer to the "French Paradox" (France enjoys a low incidence of heart disease despite a diet high in saturated fats). Within a year, American consumption of wine increased 40% and some wine sellers began promoting their products as "health food".

Pinot noir red wine became considerably more popular among consumers as a result of the 2004 movie Sideways. Throughout the film, the main character speaks fondly of Pinot Noir while denigrating Merlot. A study estimated that Sideways cost American Merlot farmers over US$400 million in lost revenue.

FUN WINE FACTS

There is a fully intact Roman wine bottle, which was unearthed from a Roman tomb near Speyer, Germany. Dated between 325 and 350 AD, it's fully drinkable as the Romans added a significant amount of thick olive oil as a preservative. It is considered "the world's oldest existing bottle of wine".

A single vine of Žametovka, a red Slovenian wine grape variety, is believed to be the world's oldest grapevine still producing fruit. Growing in the Slovenian town of Maribor it is estimated to be over 400 years of age. It has survived Napoleonic wars, World War 1, and bombing by the Nazis in World War II. The vine still produces 35-55kg of grapes and 100 bottles (250 ML each) of wine are produced each year.

The Austrian wine industry collapsed in 1985 after it was discovered that several large wineries had been using diethylene glycol (DEG) to make their wines sweeter. DEG is a toxic substance that can cause serious health problems, including death.

Bordeaux red wines must be made from a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot or Carmenère grapes.

Prosecco makers must follow strict rules set by the Italian government. Among them: The wine must come from a geographic region that partly encircles Venice like a tiara, to the north, east and west, (1)

Pinot Noir red wine has the highest level of resveratrol, the cardio-protective antioxidant from grape skin.

Although white wine can be produced from both red and white grapes, red wine can only be made from red grapes.

White wine gets darker as it ages while red wine gets lighter.

The color of red wine comes from the pigment anthyocanin which is found in grape skins.

In 2014, the three largest producers of wine in the world were, in order, Italy, France and Spain.

Global wine markets 2009, statistics

A standard glass of wine contains as much calories as are in a piece of chocolate or four cookies.

China consumes more wine than any other country, overtaking France in 2013 by drinking 1.39bn litres.

In 2013, the Chinese drank 1.86 billion bottles of red wine, making China the leading market for red wine, with France dropping to second place. The Chinese preference for red is less a matter of taste than culture, though, with red considered ‘lucky' and white associated with death and funerals.

A German study found that wine tasted better if the drinker thinks it's more expensive. Subjects inside an MRI scanner tasted a $14 red wine three times,  but were told each sip was from bottles costing $3, $7, & $21. The brain's motivation and reward center was more active for the "more expensive" wine.

Hatred or fear of wine is called “oenophobia”.

Sources New York Times (1), Daily Express

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is the oldest royal residence in the world.

Pixiebay

About 1070, when William the Conqueror was also having the Tower of London constructed, he built a wooden stockade at Windsor.

The site of Windsor Castle appealed to William the Conqueror because it was easily defensible and near Windsor Forest, a good hunting ground. William obtained title to the land from Westminster Abbey.

The original motte-and-bailey castle was built with timber. It was designed to protect Norman dominance around the outskirts of London and to oversee a strategically important part of the River Thames.

Henry I of England married his wife, Adeliza of Louvain, at Windsor Castle in January 1121. He was the first monarch to use Windsor Castle as a royal residence. He rebuilt much of the castle using Bagshot Heath stone for most of the work, and stone from Bedfordshire for the internal buildings.

Since the time of Henry I, Windsor Castle has been used by a succession of monarchs and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe.

Edward III was responsible for turning the fortress like building on the north side of the upper ward at Windsor into royal residence apartments. It had become evident by Edward's time that the need for royal comfort took priority over defensive capability. (The castle has been besieged only twice in its history.) To oversee the construction Edward employed William of Wykeham as clerk of works.

Edward III spent £51,000 on renovating Windsor Castle; this was the largest amount spent by any English medieval monarch on a single building operation, and over one and a half times the English King's typical annual income of £30,000. His rebuilding of the palace to make an even grander set of buildings was arguably the most expensive secular building project of the entire Middle Ages in England.

In 1603, 30,000 Londoners died from the plague. Queen Elizabeth I responded to the national crisis by fleeing with her court to Windsor Castle where she had a gallows set up with the promise that she would hang anyone who tried to follow her.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a darkroom installed at Windsor Castle to indulge their passion for photography.

The Lower Ward in 1840, by Joseph Nash,

After Prince Albert's death in 1861, Queen Victoria was called "The Widow at Windsor" as she continually mourned his passing and spent most of her remaining 39 years locked away at Windsor Castle.

A great fire broke out in the Queen's Private Chapel at 11:15 am on November 20, 1992, and quickly spread to the neighboring Brunswick Tower, St George's Hall banqueting space, and the private apartments in the eastern wing of the building. The fire burned for almost 15 hours and caused extensive damage, destroying nine State Rooms and damaging 115 rooms in total. The cost of the restoration work was estimated to be £36.5 million.

The fire was caused by a spotlight that was being used by renovators in the Queen's Private Chapel. The spotlight overheated and ignited a curtain, which quickly spread the fire. The fire was not discovered until it had already spread to several rooms, and it took firefighters several hours to bring it under control.

The fire was a major blow to Queen Elizabeth II, who had been using Windsor Castle as her weekend home for many years. She described the fire as her "annus horribilis," or terrible year, which also saw the separation of Prince Charles and Princess Diana and the publication of Andrew Morton's controversial biography of Diana.

Despite the damage, Windsor Castle was fully repaired within five years. The restoration work was led by the conservation architects Donald Insall Associates, and it was one of the largest and most complex restoration projects ever undertaken in the United Kingdom.

Queen Elizabeth II gave permission on December 6, 1994 for a Canadian-operated company to start exploratory drilling to see if there is, as suspected, a pool of oil under Windsor Castle's grounds. However, the plans were stymied when the Government did not renew the licence needed for exploration to take place.

A popular tourist attraction, Windsor Castle is used as a venue for hosting state visits, and is the Queen's preferred weekend home.

Pixiebay

More than five hundred people live and work at Windsor Castle, making it the largest inhabited castle in the world.

Windsor Castle has 400 clocks, all kept working by just one man.

Source Compton's Encyclopedia

Windsor

Windsor is a town in Berkshire, England near the River Thames. Its population is 32,207.

Windsor Bridge, Windsor and Windsor Castle By Aurelien Guichard from London

The name of Windsor comes from Old English 'windles-ore' ('winch by the riverside').

Windsor used to be called 'New Windsor'. Old Windsor is a nearby village once known as Windsor.

The British Royal Family has a castle in Windsor called Windsor Castle. The original castle was built in the 11th century after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I, it has been used by the reigning monarch and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe.

The British Royal Family changed its name from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor on July 17, 1917 during the First World War due to its German connections. King George V chose Windsor because of the royal family's ties with the English town.

Photochrom of Windsor and Windsor Castle looking across the Thames, 1895, By …trialsanderrors

Windsor and Maidenhead is the only "royal borough" outside Greater London.

Windsor has a 17th century guildhall designed by Christopher Wren.

Near the town is Legoland Windsor, the largest Legoland park in the world in terms of area. It was built on the site of the former Windsor Safari Park.

In 2012 Chris Brown was appointed as town crier of Windsor. The previous town crier retired in 1892 and the post had been vacant for 110 years. The following year Brown won the National Town Crier Championships.

Source Daily Express

Windows

Windows is an operating system for computers made by Microsoft. Their first operating system, Windows 1.0, was released on November 20, 1985. Since then, new versions of Windows go on sale every three years.

Windows 1.0, the first version, released in 1985 Wikipedia

Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984.

When Steve Jobs accused Microsoft of stealing the idea for Windows from the Macintosh computer, Bill Gates replied: "Well, Steve, .... I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it."

Microsoft tried to monopolize the early web browser market by making it difficult to install other web browsers and slowing down Windows if Internet Explorer was uninstalled.

After Bill Gates purchased the Da Vinci Codex, he had it scanned for use as a wallpaper on Windows '95.

Former Roxy Music band member Brian Eno wrote the iconic Windows 95 start-up sound on a Mac.

Windows XP, one of the most popular and widely used versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system, was released for retail sale on October 25, 2001.

A screenshot of Windows XP Service Pack 3 showing My Computer. Wikipedia

Microsoft was about to use "Prepare to Fly" slogan for its Windows XP launch but dropped it because the 9/11 attacks happened.

The newest version, Windows 10, came out July 29, 2015. Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by Microsoft, was included in the new Windows operating system.

The Windows 10 default desktop image is actually a photograph and not made using CGI

Window

A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof or vehicle that lets in light and air. It is usually filled with a sheet of glass.

Pixiebay

HISTORY

Located in southern Anatolia, in modern day Turkey, the Neolithic town of Catal Huyuk had rectangular rooms with windows in the seventh millennium BC.

Window glass was first used in the Roman Empire in the late first century AD. The technology was likely first produced in Roman Egypt, in Alexandria.

Fragment of a Roman glass window By Bullenwächter 

Benedict Biscop (c. 628 – 690), founder of the monastery at Wearmouth, is said to have introduced stone edifices and glass windows to England. He bought builders and glass-workers from continental Europe to help erect the building, thus introducing stone edifices and glass windows to his home country.

In Saxon buildings, during the Dark Ages, windows were mere holes in a wall, covered by shutters or some kind of curtain. The hole served a three-fold purpose. It let in light and air. The hole also served as an outlet for smoke from the large fire used for heating and cooking. Thirdly, like an eye, it enabled people inside the house to look out. Thus window, a combination of Anglo-Saxon words, means "wind's eye."

In England windows made up of panes of flattened animal horn were used as early as the 14th century.

In Gloucester cathedral there's a stained-glass window the size of a tennis court. At 38 feet (11.58 meters) by 72 feet (21.95 meters), it was the largest window in the world when it was built in the 1350s. 

By the fifteenth century, glazed windows had become a feature of the richer homes of northern Europe.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England in the latter half of the sixteenth century, windows were not yet plate glass but lattice. They occupied a much larger area of the wall space than in former times and let floods of light in.

The west side of Burghley House in Lincolnshire was designed so that when Elizabeth I arrived the windows would reflect the setting sun, and it would look like there was a fire in each one.

The fashion for glass windows (expensive and therefore a status symbol) is seen in extreme form in Hardwick Hall, built in England in the 1590s. The Derbyshire stately home, created by Bess of Hardwick, has 1403 mullions, made up of 140,000 individual pieces of glass. The house's appearance gives rise to the jingle "Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall."

Hardwick Hall in Doe Lea - Derbyshire Wikipedia 

The double-hung sash window was introduced in England in the 1670s and soon spread to the Netherlands. Along with the vertical sliding sash window it became standard in the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Modern windows are often made with double or triple thicknesses of glass separated by air space for insulation; these are called double- or triple-glazed windows.

WINDOW TAX

In 1696, William III of England introduced a window tax to pay for the losses of the great recoinage of 1695. It cost two shillings per house, plus extra payments for every window more than ten.

Window tax was retained - and increased six times in the 18th century in England, particularly by William Pitt the Younger. The tax was eventually applied to all windows in excess of six. To avoid it, many householders would brick up all windows except six

A house in , Southampton, with bricked-up spaces in place of windows By Whilesteps

The window tax was extended to Scotland in 1784 under William Pitt the Younger. As the bricked-up windows prevented rooms from receiving any sunlight it was described as a "tax on light and air" and led to the expression "daylight robbery".

Because of the window tax, many new houses were built with few windows or people would close up existing windows. When people began to suffer health problems from lack of fresh air, the tax was finally repealed on July 24, 1851.

FUN WINDOW FACTS

Witch windows, which exist mostly in Vermont, were created due to the belief that witches couldn't fly broomsticks through slanted windows.

The first all glass, windowless building was completed in Toledo, Ohio in 1936 as the home of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company Laboratory.

When the telecommunications entrepreneur Robert A. Brooks had his corporate headquarters built in St. Louis, the arrangement of windows spelled out "Brooks Fiber Properties" in Morse code.

The single blade window cleaning squeegee was invented by Ettore Sceccone in 1936 and is still the most common form of commercial window cleaning today.

Before glass was used in windows, people in Asia used paper to fill the hole in the wall. The paper would let light in.

Airplane windows were once square until three fatal crashes in the 1950's were caused by the windows. Corners are weak points (four on a window) and stress/pressure can cause these points to crack.

In 1993, lawyer Garry Hoy attempted to show that the windows in a building were nearly unbreakable by running into one at full speed. The window was knocked out of its frame and Hoy fell with it to his death. However, the window did not break.

There are 760 windows in Buckingham Palace. The windows are cleaned every six weeks.

The George Hotel in Hull claims to have the smallest window in England.

York Minster has the largest medieval stained glass window in Great Britain.

Sources Compton's Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Britannica