The Puritan poetess Anne Bradstreet (March 20, 1612 – September 16, 1672) was the first American female writer. Her first volume of poetry The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America was published in 1650. It was widely read in America and England.
Nineteenth century depiction of Anne Bradstreet.
Aphra Behn (1640 - April 16, 1689) was the first woman in England to be a professional writer. In 1668 Mrs Behn was recruited by King Charles II to be a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London she spent some time in debtors' prison, before taking up writing. Her output included 17 plays and, several novels and poems.
Behn's best known work was Oroonoko, her 1688 novel about the sufferings of an African prince and his loved one, who were transported by the English to slavery in Suriname. The work provoked the first sharp prick to the British public's conscience about the horrors of the slave trade.
Born in a remote country town, Hannah Adams (October 2, 1755 – December 15, 1831) lived at a time when a learned woman in New England was a rarity. Though frequently in frail health often poor and obliged to resort to various occupations for her sustenance, Adams doggedly pursued her studies. One day she was encouraged by a boarder in her family home to research comparative religions. The results of her research An Alphabetical Compendium of the Various Sects was published in 1784. It was well received and the emolument she derived from this enabled Adams to become the first American woman to support herself by writing.
Portrait of Hannah Adams by Francis Alexander, c. 1828
Mark Twain wrote in his billiard room so that he could distract himself when stuck.
Texas-born Robert Fulghum became in 1989 the first author in history to have both the #1 and #2 books on the New York Times best-seller list: It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It and All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.
Milo of Croton: (6th-c BC) was a legendary Greek wrestler from the Greek colony of Croton in South Italy. An athlete of extraordinary strength, he was six times victor in wrestling at the Olympics, and six times at the Pythian Games.
A man of huge stature, Milo boasted that no one had ever brought him to his knees. It is said that he carried a live ox upon his shoulders through the stadium at Olympia, then ate it all in a single day. He played a leading part in the military defeat of Sybaris in 511 BC.
Milo of Croton by Joseph-Benoît Suvée (18th century, oil on canvas)
Ancient Greek Wrestlers used to oil their bodies before starting a match. The suggestion that its purpose was to render the body so slippery that the opponent should be unable properly to get a hold is incorrect. It was done for hygienic reasons: to cover the pores of the skin lest the sand and dust of the arena clog them. This view is confirmed by the additional practice after oiling the body to rub it in with fine powdered clay, which certainly helped the wrestlers to gain a better grip.
Aristophanes alludes to some cunning and unsportsmanlike wrestler who, apparently unobserved, rubbed off the dust from his shoulders so that his adversary should not be able to get a grip on this vulnerable part of the body.
The Black Knight from Monty Python was based on a real person: Arrichion of Phigalia, a Greek wrestler who famously refused to give up during a particularly tough wrestling match. He died during the match, but still won because his opponent surrendered, not realizing he was dead.
Khutulun, the great-great-great granddaughter of Genghis Khan, was a fearsome warrior and a superb wrestler. It was said that she refused to marry unless her suitor beat her in a wrestling match, and that if she won, she would gain a horse from the loser. She accumulated a herd of 10,000.
In his younger days, Abraham Lincoln was famed for his wrestling ability earning his county's wrestling championship. Lincoln was touted as being defeated only once in roughly 300 matches and has been inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Local gang leader Jack Armstrong challenged Lincoln to a wrestling match. It ended with Abe grabbing him by the throat, hoisting him up, giving a little shake, then throwing him to the dirt. It was the first chokeslam used in wrestling.
The actor Kevin James was the number one spot on his high school wrestling team, until he had a season ending back injury. His friend took over his place and became WWE star Mick Foley.
Sputnik Monroe was a Memphis wrestler who fought between 1945 and 1968. As part of his villainous act, he fought against segregation and frequented black neighborhoods. Monroe succeeded in ending segregation in wrestling arenas and became one of the biggest draws in wrestling history
Aleksandr Karelin (born September 19, 1967) was the greatest Greco-Roman wrestler of all time. He won three Olympic golds, twelve European Championships and nine World Championships. His PhD was devoted to countermeasures against suplex throws. Karelin suffered two losses, one of which was against a Wyomingite farmer who wrestled cows.
Marvel collected royalties from Hulk Hogan for 20 years and it all stems from originally being introduced as "The Incredible Hulk Hogan." Once the WWF used it, they couldn't just drop "The Incredible" to avoid infringement. Had he been "Hulk Hogan" from the start, there wouldn't have been an issue.
Work is the effort directed to an end. Work as employment is done in exchange for money paid as wages or salaries, the work product generally becomes the undifferentiated property of the employer. Work done as self-employment is labor done independently for one’s own business.
HISTORY
Hebrew thinking saw work as part of worship. There was no distinction between working with one's hands and any other form of labor. All work had equal dignity before God and should be used to please him.
The Ancient Greeks lived for leisure. They believed that work (especially manual work) was degrading, and so wherever possible they used slaves to do it for them.
Before the advent of steam-powered machines and factories, work was a much more haphazard affair. The idea of being yoked to one particular employer to the exclusion of all other money-making activity was unknown. The work pattern was one of alternate bouts of intense labor and of idleness. On a rainy day a weaver, for instance might weave eight or nine yards. On other days he might weave just two yards before writing a letter, go cherry picking, or go and watch a public hanging.
When in the 18th century the spinning jenny was invented by the weaver and carpenter James Hargreaves and the steam engine by James Watt it kick-started the Industrial Revolution.
The factory system is the basis of manufacturing in the modern world. In the factory system workers are employed at a place where they carry out specific tasks, which together result in a product. Richard Arkwright pioneered the system in England in 1771, when he set up a cotton spinning factory.
Carding, roving, and drawing in a Manchester cotton mill c. 1834
People worked long house during the early decades of the Industrial Revolution. In the industrial north of England, chimneys belched smoke and the mills started up at 5.30 on a Monday morning with an all too powerful boom. The child workers started their shift at 5.00 in the morning with half an hour for breakfast, half an hour for lunch and leave at 6.00 in the evening as the night-shift children arrive. It was the job of the knocker-uppers to go round the northern mill towns at dawn, banging on bedroom windows with long poles to wake the workers for the early shift.
Children were forced to work long hours in severe working conditions. In 1833 the MPLord Ashley championed the Factory Act which limited teenage children to working no more than 12 hours a day. It took Ashley fourteen years to achieve his principal objective of the ten-hour work day for adult factory workers before he succeeded in getting the 1847 Ten Hours Act passed by Parliament.
A young "drawer" pulling a coal tub along a mine gallery
When workers on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal rioted over working conditions in early 1834, the government of Maryland pleaded with President Andrew Jackson for federal assistance, hastily interpreting the matter as a rebellion against the state’s civil authority. He responded on January 29, 1834 by calling his secretary of war to order sufficient military resources to "put down the riotous assembly." This was America’s first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labor dispute.
During the Irish Potato Famine, the poor were given construction jobs, so they could earn food rather than receive it as a handout. However, to avoid taking jobs from other workers, these people built useless projects, like roads in the middle of nowhere, and piers in the middle of bogs.
The Scottish 19th century social commentator Thomas Carlyle promoted the notion of the dignity or even the romance of hard work- the Victorian or Protestant work ethic. He wrote: "Man was created to work, not to speculate, or feel or dream… Every idle moment is treason."
A Message to Garcia is a widely distributed essay on labor relations written by Elbert Hubbard in 1899. It expresses the value of individual initiative and conscientiousness in work. In 1914, Hubbard claimed the essay had been reprinted over forty million times. However, this seems to have been exaggerated; in their 1977 survey of best sellers, Alice Hackett and James H Burke estimated a circulation of four million.
The phrase "to carry a message to Garcia" was in common use for years to indicate taking initiative when carrying out a difficult assignment. Richard Nixon can be heard using it on the Watergate tapes during conversations with Henry Kissinger and John Ehrlichman.
At the turn of the 20th century, the average American worker earned twenty-two cents an hour.
Booker T Washington, the black American writer, originated the phrase "dignity of labor" when he wrote in his 1901 autobiographyUp From Slavery "No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem".
The first five-day work week in the United States was instituted by a New England cotton mill in 1908 to afford Jewish workers the ability to adhere to the Sabbath.
The first 40-hour work week was in 1916 at factories in Western New York
37-year-old Arthur Conway was the first man in Britain to be publicly labelled ‘work-shy' by the state. In a case brought by the National Assistance Board, he was jailed for three months on April 14, 1950 for failing to maintain himself, his wife and three children.
The Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Act came into force in the United Kingdom on December 29, 1975. It meant companies could not advertise jobs as being exclusively for men or women — with firemen renamed as firefighters.
EIGHT HOUR DAY
The eight hour workday was devised so that workers could evenly divide twenty four hours between: "Eight hours' labor, Eight hours' recreation, Eight hours' rest".
The first country to legally adopt an eight-hour working day was Spain. In 1593, King Philip II of Spain issued a decree that limited the workday to eight hours for factory and fortification workers. This was a groundbreaking development at the time, as most workers were accustomed to working much longer hours.
Welsh textile manufacturer and social reformer Robert Owen (May 14, 1771 – November 17, 1858) raised the demand for a ten-hour day in 1810, and instituted it in his socialist enterprise at New Lanark. By 1817 he had formulated the goal of the eight-hour day and coined the slogan: "Eight hours' labor, Eight hours' recreation, Eight hours' rest".
Robert Owen
The eight-hour workday was not widely adopted until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the United States, the eight-hour workday was first adopted by the federal government in 1868 for its own employees. However, it was not until the 1920s and 1930s that the eight-hour workday became the norm for most American workers.
Uruguay made significant advancements in workers' rights, particularly during the presidency of José Batlle y Ordóñez (1903-1907, 1911-1915). Batlle was a progressive reformer who believed in the importance of social justice and the well-being of the working class. In 1915, Batlle signed into law a bill that established an eight-hour workday for all workers. This was a major breakthrough, as it was one of the first countries in the world to adopt such a policy.
"9 to 5" is a song written and performed by Dolly Parton, which was released in 1980. The song was the title track for the movie of the same name, in which Parton starred as a secretary named Doralee Rhodes. The song and the film were both rooted in the 9to5 movement, which was a grassroots campaign for workplace rights for secretaries and other working women in the 1970s. The movement sought to improve working conditions, pay and job security for women in the workplace. The song "9 to 5" reflects the struggles and challenges faced by working women and became an anthem for the movement.
SWEATSHOPS
Sweatshop (or sweat factory) is a pejorative term for a workplace that has very poor, socially unacceptable working conditions. The term sweatshop was coined in Charles Kingsley's Cheap Clothes and Nasty (1850) describing such workplaces create "sweating system" of workers.
Most Multi-international garment corporations sub contract out the manufacturing of their products to third world companies who are guilty of exploiting their workers in many different ways. For instance the majority of garment workers in Bangladesh earn little more than the minimum wage, set at 3,000 taka a month (approximately $35.5 or £25). That is far below what is considered a living wage, calculated at 5,000 taka a month (approximately $59 or £45), which would be the minimum required to provide a family with shelter, food and education.
By marissaorton - Sweatshop projectUploaded by Gary Dee,
Bangladesh garment workers work long 13 to 15 hour days and sometimes more before a shipment is due to go out. No trade unions are allowed; anyone protesting in however mild a manner is sacked on the spot.
Bangladesh workers work 6 to 7 days a week with no maternity leave for women. They work in subhuman conditions on dangerous machines making fashion apparel for their rich western customers. The disease-ridden sweatshop factories are under different names, as the multi-national company would be embarrassed to be associated with such restricted working practices.
FUN WORK FACTS
Back in 1965 a Senate subcommittee predicted that we'd enjoy two hour work weeks by the year 2000. However, In 1991, the average American worker put in 163 more hours on the job than in 1973, according to the sociologist Juliet Schor, the author of The Overworked American.
The world's largest employer is The United States Department of Defense (with 3 million employees)
Every day, 130 million Americans report for work, but 12 do not return home because they were killed on the job.
The average U.S. worker stays at each of its jobs for 4.4 years.
37% of job applications are submitted on Tuesday, more than any other day, because people hate their job most when they have to return to work on Monday.
In France, there is a legal limit to the number of working days per year for employees, which is currently set at 218 days. This is based on the "annual working time" regulations set out in French labor law. This means that an employee's working time including overtime, should not exceed this amount in a year. Employers must respect this legal limit, unless they have obtained a specific agreement with employees' representatives or the employees themselves.
In today's world, the average job seeker is rejected 24 times before getting hired.
A full-time employee in the U.S. will spend about 80,000 hours at work over the course of a lifetime.
Ergasiophobia is the fear of work.
The common Chinese working hour system, "996", is a requirement to work from 9 am to 9 pm for 6 days a week. This grueling schedule has drawn significant criticism for its negative impact on employees' physical and mental health, as well as work-life balance.
The Japanese term "Karoshi" refers to death by overworking.
Logging, fishing, and aircraft piloting/flight engineering are the top three most dangerous jobs in America, while law enforcement and firefighting are ranked 15th on the list.
Taxi drivers are more than twice as likely to be murdered on the job than law enforcement personnel.
In a 2019 Gallup poll, Americans rated the honesty and ethics of different professions: Nurses (85%) at the top for the 18th year in a row, followed by Engineers (66%) and Medical Doctors (65%); and Car salespeople (9%) at the bottom, just under Members of Congress (12%) and Senators (13%).
In China, "White monkey" jobs are when Caucasian foreigners are hired to stand around and pretend to be an employee of the Chinese company or representative of a international company to increase the value of the Chinese company.
In 2013 Swabhiman Sanghatana, headed by Nitesh Narayan Rane, set a Guinness World Record by conducting a job fair which gave over 25,000 jobs to unemployed youths.
In the early Middle Ages, it was not uncommon for an abbess (the female superior of a community of nuns) to rule "double" communities of both men and women. One who did so was Hilda of Whitby (614-680), the founding abbess of the monastery at Whitby, which became famous for its learning and libraries. Five future bishops were trained in her community, and kings and rulers sought her advice.
Antoinette Brown Blackwell became the first woman minister in an established Protestant denomination when she she was appointed in 1853 pastor by the First Congregational Church in South Butler, New York. She served the members of the Congregational Church of South Butler until June 1854, when due to theological disagreements she resigned.
Florence Li Tim Di (May 1907 - February 26, 1992) of the neutral Portuguese colony of Macau near Hong Kong was the first woman to be ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion on January 25, 1944. This was because the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and of parts of China had made it impossible for Anglican priests to get to neutral Macau, where there was no resident Anglican priest. However, there was an explosion of outrage and to avoid further controversy she resigned her licence (though not her priest's orders) after the end of the war. Li Tim Di continued to serve a small congregation in a Chinese church as an unlicensed priest.
Florence Li Tim Di Wikipedia
On July 29, 1974, three bishops in the American Episcopal Church, claiming that "obedience to the Spirit" justified their action, ordained eleven women deacons to the priesthood. The ensuing controversy surrounding these irregular ordinations highlighted divisions evident in the church over this issue. As a result, the American Episcopal Church approved the ordination of women as priests and bishops in 1976.
In 1978 Episcopal Canon Mary Simpson of New York spoke from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey in London. She was the first ordained woman to preach there in the 913 years since 1065, when the Abbey was first consecrated.
Afro-American Barbara Harris becomes the first female Anglican bishop, when she was ordained suffragan bishop of Massachusetts. The American Episcopal Church approved women's ordination to the priesthood in 1976.
In 1992 The Church of England Synod voted in favour of women priests. Two years later, the first 32 Anglican women priests were ordained at BristolCathedral by Bishop Barry Rogerson. However in response, 700 Anglican clergymen threatened to leave the Anglican Church for the Roman Catholic Church.
A wizard is a practitioner of witchcraft or magic. The word 'wizard' comes from the Middle English 'wysard', meaning 'a wise man'.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wizard
In Old Testament times, a wizard was a person who professed to be able to converse with the spirits of the dead.
You will find a total of 11 references to wizards in the King James Bible; all disparaging. In Deuteronomy 18:11, wizards are described as "an abomination unto the Lord". Leviticus 20:27 says, "A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death."
In Arthurian legend, the wizard Merlin was said to be the illegitimate son of a Welsh princess. A counsellor to King Arthur, Welsh bardic literature has a cycle of poems attributed to Merlin, and he may have been a real person.
Merlin
John Henry Anderson (1814-74) was a Scottish conjurer, who was known as the Great Wizard of the North. He is credited with moving the art of magic from street performances into theaters and presenting magic performances to entertain and delight the audience.
When he enlisted in the army, J. R. R. Tolkien's son Michael put down his father's profession as 'Wizard'.
W, I and Z are the 23rd, ninth and 26th letters of the alphabet; A, R and D are the 26th, ninth and 23rd letters from the end of the alphabet, making them the reverse of the first three.
New Zealand is the only nation in the modern world to have an officially appointed government Wizard. Ian Brackenbury Channel has an official mandate to protect the government of New Zealand, and receives a modest annual salary for his services.
In 1555 the Italian musician Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx moved to Paris, where he became a servant at the court of Catherine de' Medici. At the time the violin was played in Italy but not in France. He became the first famous violinist when he introduced the instrument to the French court. Such was its popularity, the violin supplanted the lute as the stringed instrument of choice.
Roller-skates made their first recorded appearance at Carlisle House, London in 1760. Belgian inventor Joseph Merlin rolled into a party being held there while playing the violin wearing these first roller skates. It was not a successful introduction as the violinist crashed into a large mirror causing nearly a thousand dollars' worth of damage.
Mozart was a very fine violinist, though he often took the viola part when playing quartets. He composed five violin concertos for his own use.
Niccolo Paganini (October 27, 1782 – May 27, 1840), regarded by many people to be the greatest violin virtuoso ever, was so good that he was thought to be the son of the Devil or to have sold his soul for his talent. As a result, he was forced to publish his mother's letters to him in order to prove that he had human parents.
Portrait of young Paganini
Paganini was the fastest violinist ever. He was once recorded playing 12 notes per second.
When Franz Liszt attended a concert by Paganini in Paris, he was so awestruck by the violin virtuoso's skill, he became motivated to become the greatest pianist of his time.
In 1929 Otto E. Funk walked from New York City to San Francisco playing the violin for the whole journey.
An accomplished violinist, Albert Einstein played Bach and Mozart with feeling and insight and with an excellent sense of rhythm.
Einstein playing violin
Jack Benny (1894-1974) was a US comedian whose act featured him playing the violin badly for laughs. He'd learned the instrument as a child and when Benny performed his first serious concert, a critic wrote: "Last night Jack Benny played Mendelssohn, and Mendelssohn lost."
Larry Fine of the Three Stooges burned his arm with acid as a child. His parents gave him violin lessons to strengthen the damaged nerves. Fine became so proficient on the violin that his parents planned to send him to a European music conservatory but the plan was thwarted by World War I.
Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) was an American-born violinist, who adopted British nationality. He made his concerto debut in Berlin aged 13. Albert Einstein, who was in the audience, said with tears in his eyes: "The day of miracles is not over."
Leading concert violinist Joshua Bell, played for free, for 45 minutes, on a violin worth 3.5 million dollars at a subway station on January 12, 2007. Of the 1,097 people who passed by Bell, only seven stopped to listen him play, including a 3-year old boy, and only one person recognized him. The experiment was initiated by The Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten.
Bell donned a baseball cap and played as an incognito busker at the Metro subway station L'Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. on January 12, 2007. T
The Guinness World Record for the fastest violinist is currently held by Ben Lee, who took 58. 515 seconds to perform Rimsky-Korsakov’s "Flight of the Bumblebee" at Norwood productions London, UK, on December 13, 2011. Ben Lee, one half of electric string duo Fuse, has held the Guinness world record for fastest violinist several times.
The longest marathon playing the violin is 40 hours, 5 minutes, and 6 seconds, achieved by Ravi Chandulal Kotadiya from India. He performed this remarkable feat at the Swaminarayan Mandir in Vadtaldham, Gujarat, India, from May 2 to May 4, 2024, during which he played 1,513 songs.
Under the original terms of the U.S. Constitution, the President could not choose his vice president, instead it was the candidate with the second most votes.
John Adams was elected as the first Vice President under George Washington in 1789. He served two terms as Vice President before being elected President in 1796.
Portrait of Adams by John Trumbull, 1793
Aaron Burr was still Vice President of the United States when he shot Alexander Hamilton and continued to perform his duties despite being wanted for murder in New Jersey and New York.
The current holder of the title "worst vice president of the United States of America" according to the Time Magazine is held by Aaron Burr.
Senator Daniel Webster was offered the office of Vice President by both William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, he did not accept either as he thought the position would lead nowhere, choosing instead to make three failed Presidential campaigns. Both Taylor and Harrison died in office.
U.S. Vice President William R. King took the oath of office in Cuba in 1853 because he was too ill to travel to Washington, making him the only U.S. president or vice president ever sworn in on foreign soil, and he died less than a month later before ever serving in Washington.
When, Calvin Coolidge became Vice President in 1921, he was so obscure that Major League Baseball sent him free passes that misspelled his name,
Calvin Coolidge was the first Vice President to attend Cabinet meetings on a regular basis, at the invitation of President Warren G. Harding. Prior to Coolidge, all Vice Presidents had been excluded from Cabinet meetings.
Charles Curtis, who served as the Vice President of the United States from 1929 to 1933, was of Native American ancestry and was enrolled as a member of the Kaw-Nation. English was his third language after Kansa and French.
Charles Curtis
In 1984, Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro to be his running mate in the upcoming election. Ferraro was the first woman to be a vice-presidential nominee. In the general election, Mondale and Ferraro were defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush.
Only five sitting vice presidents—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and George H.W. Bush—have been elected president.
Richard Nixon is the only person to have served both as a vice president and then president but not back to back. He was first the 36th Vice President under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953-1961. He ran for president in 1960, but lost to John F. Kennedy. In 1968 he ran for the presidency again and was elected, defeating incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
Fourteen vice presidents have become president during their tenures (eight because the president died; one because the president resigned).
Veterinary science is the prevention and cure of disease and injuries in animals.
Pixabay
HISTORY
Veterinary medicine may have been established as a specialty as early as 2000 BC in Babylonia and Egypt. An Egyptian document dated around 1800 BC contains descriptions of treatments for birds, cattle, dogs and fish. Because these ancient cultures considered the animals sacred, the practice of veterinary science was often limited to external observations only.
It was not until the time of the ancient Greeks, a thousand years later, that the practice of veterinary medicine became a science based on experimentation and observation.
Hippiatrica is a Byzantine veterinary compilation of ancient Greek texts dedicated to the care and healing of the horse. The texts were probably compiled in the 5th or 6th century AD by an unknown editor. Below is written and illustrated instructions in Hippiatrica on drenching a horse to induce diarrhea.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, veterinary science went into a sharp decline. For the next 1,300 years, the practice of treating animals tended to focus on horses because of their economic significance. In the Middle Ages, farriers or horseshoers combined their work in horseshoeing with the more general task of "horse doctoring."
Rinderpest, also known as cattle plague, was a highly contagious viral disease that devastated cattle populations in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. The outbreak of rinderpest led to the establishment of veterinary colleges and schools in Europe and other parts of the world, as efforts were made to develop measures to control and prevent the spread of the disease.
The world's first veterinary school was founded in Lyon, France in 1762, by French veterinarian Claude (March 27, 1712 – January 3, 1779) . Bourgelat's school was dedicated to the training of veterinarians to care for both farm animals and horses, and it became a model for similar institutions around the world. Today, Lyon's veterinary school is part of the University of Lyon and is one of the oldest and most prestigious veterinary schools in the world.
Claude Bourgelat
UK's first college for veterinary surgeons opened with just four students in St Pancras Fields, in London's Camden Town in 1792.
In the United States, the first schools were established in the early 19th century in Boston, New York and Philadelphia.
In 1996 Synbiotics Corporation of Rancho Bernardo, California, became the first U.S. company to extend group health-care coverage to its 60 employees' family pets, including dogs, cats, and horses.
FAMOUS VETS
John Dunlop studied to be a veterinary surgeon at the University of Edinburgh's Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, graduating in 1860. In 1867, he moved to Ireland where he established Downe Veterinary Clinic in Downpatrick with his brother James Dunlop before moving to a practice in 38-42 May Street, Belfast.
Dunlop was a flourishing veterinary surgeon when in 1888 he obtained patents on a pneumatic tire for bicycles.
Aleen Isobel Cust (February 7, 1868 –January 29, 1937) was the first female veterinary surgeon to be recognised by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Following the death of her father in 1878, Cust's guardian encouraged her to pursue an education and funded her attendance at the New Edinburgh Veterinary College. As her mother was acting as a Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, Cust enrolled under the name A.I. Custance to avoid any embarrassment for her family.
Cust completed her veterinary studies in 1897, but was denied permission to sit the final examination and consequently not be admitted as a member of Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). She nevertheless went on to practice in County Roscommon with William Augustine Byrne MRCVS. Later, she volunteered at the front lines of World War II treating horses
The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in London did not recognize Cust's right to practice in her own right in Britain until 1922 following the enactment of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919.
Aleen Isobel Cust
Suzanne Morrow (nee Francis), was part of the first Canadian figure skating pair to win both Olympic and World medals. She was also the first ice skater to perform the modern day ‘death spiral’ in an international competition. Morrow graduated veterinary school in 1952 and served as a vet until her retirement 43 years later.
James Herriot was the nom de plume of James Alfred Wight (October 3, 1916 – February 23, 1995), an English veterinary surgeon and writer, who used his many years of experiences as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales to write a series of books each consisting of stories about animals and their owners. He is best known for these semi-autobiographical works, beginning with If Only They Could Talk in 1970, which spawned a series of movies and television series.
Below is part of the BBC television set for All Creatures Great and Small on permanent display at the World of James Herriot museum in Thirsk, North Yorkshire.
Peter Ostrum, who played Charlie in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, never took another film role and instead found a career as a vet. He did not speak publicly about the movie for nearly twenty years, and for several years even his wife did not know about his role.
Laura Muir is a Scottish middle distance runner and a qualified vet. She juggled her veterinary medicine studies at the University of Glasgow and placements with her athletics training before passing her final exams in 2018.
FUN VETERINARY SCIENCE FACTS
Overweight pets can suffer from arthritis, diabetes, hypertension and many other problems.
Veterinarians say obesity is the most common health problem they see in pet parrots today.
Canned pumpkin is often recommended by veterinarians as a dietary supplement for dogs and cats that are experiencing certain digestive ailments such as constipation, diarrhoea, or hairballs. The high fiber content helps to aid proper digestion.
Cats will usually stop purring when they hear water running. This is a trick used by veterinarians who need the cat to stop purring long enough to hear their heart and lungs.
Spayed females live around 40% longer and neutered males live over 60% longer than cats that haven’t had the procedure.
Veterinarians kill themselves at approx. three times the general population, due in part to online trolling and threats from pet owners who blame them for the death of a pet, and easy access to lethal medicines
Wimbledon-born Spencer Gore — the inventor of the volley — won the first-ever Wimbledon tennis final on July 19, 1877. He was also a first-class cricketer who played for Surrey County Cricket Club in the mid 1870s.
Lottie Dod, who won the Wimbledon ladies' singles five times in 1887-1893, was also a golf champion and took silver in 1908 Olympicarchery.
Lottie Dod
King George VI of the United Kingdom was an outstanding tennis player. Before he became the British monarch, he played at Wimbledon in the Men's Doubles with Louis Greig in 1926, losing in the first round.
Don Budge became in 1938 the first amateur player to win the four major tennis events (Australia, France, Great Britain and United States) in a single year.
The one-armed Austrian tennis player Hans Redl played at Wimbledon from 1947 to 1956. He served by tossing the ball up with his racket.
Sally Ride the first American woman to reach outer space, achieved national ranking as a tennis player, but chose not to follow this as a career.
Former Wimbledon champion Martina Hingis was born in Kosice, now in eastern Slovakia but then part of Communist Czechoslovakia, in 1980. She and her mother defected to Switzerland when she was seven.
Martina Hingis at the Roland Garros 2016. By si.robi - Hingis RG16 (10),
Mats Wilander missed only two out of 73 first serves in the entire match when winning the 1988 French Open.
In 1998, teenagers Venus and Serena Williams made a newsletter called Tennis Monthly Recap where they interviewed famous tennis players.
Steffi Graff and Andre Agassi are the only two tennis players to win all four Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal. With only their mothers as witnesses, they married on October 22, 2001 at his Las Vegas home.
Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi (Wimbledon 2009) Wikipedia
Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia is the only player to win the Wimbledon men's singles (in 2001) whose full name is a strict alternation of consonants and vowels. Ivanisevic also has the record for most aces in a single tournament.
Ivo Karlovic (also of Croatia) holds the record for numbers of tennis aces served in his career (12,936).
On May 9, 2012, Samuel Groth of Australia served an ace recorded at 263 km/h (163.4 mph) during an ATP Challenger event in Busan, South Korea. The serve came during Groth's second-round match against Uladzimir Ignatik (Belarus). It's the fastest ever recorded serve.
With a ball speed of 210 kph (131 mph), Germany's 26-year-old Sabine Lisicki holds the record for the fastest serve in the history of women's tennis.
Rafael Nadal "became" a left-handed tennis player as a child when his uncle who coached him thought it would help give him an advantage on the court.
Maria Sharapova's loudest grunt was measured at 101.2 decibels in Wimbledon in 2005: that's louder than a motorcycle or a lawnmower. In fact it's only five decibels less than a lion's roar.
Plato established the first school of higher learning on around 385BC. Plato's followers were known as Academics, where the word was first coined. In his lifetime he was probably the most celebrated teacher of his day.
Ancient Academy/ Academy of Plato. Mosaic from Pompeii
The 1665 Five Mile Act, an Act of the Parliament of England. forbade non-conformist ministers from going five miles (eight kms) of a corporate town and from teaching in schools.
In colonial Boston, schoolteachers earned about seven cents per day.
Prudence Crandall was a school teacher in Connecticut who made history in 1832 when she accepted and African American girl, Sarah Harris, into her class, making it the first integrated school house in the US.
Frances Mary Buss (August 16, 1827 – December 24, 1894) was a British pioneer in women's education. At the age of 23 she founded the North London Collegiate School for Ladies, and became its head (1850-94) - the first woman to call herself a headmistress.
Frances Mary Buss
In 1828 Thomas Arnold was appointed headmaster of Rugby. He reformed the school system (especially by introducing sports and ending bullying). The style of teaching he introduced was graphically described in Thomas Hughes's 1857 novel Tom Brown's Schooldays.
Dr Keate, a headmaster of Eton College, commanded his pupils to be pure in heart, "for if not 'll flog you until you are". He once publicly flogged 80 boys in a day and when he died in 1852, he'd had the distinction of administering the birch to half the bishops, generals and dukes in the kingdom.
Dorothea Beale was principal of Cheltenham Ladies' College (1858–1906). In 1885, she founded St Hilda's College, Cheltenham, as the first English training college for women teachers. She sponsored St Hilda's Hall in Oxford for women teachers in 1894.
Science teacher Peter Tabichi from rural Kenya donated 80% of his salary to help poorer students. He was crowned the world's best teacher of 2019, and was awarded with $1m prize (£760,000) prize, beating 10000 other nominees from 179 countries.
MODERN FAMOUS TEACHERS
Laurence Tureaud, better known as "Mr. T," attended the Paul Lawrence Dubar Vocational Career Academy in Chicago and worked as a gym teacher.
The actor Liam Neeson used to be a teacher, but got fired for punching a 15-year-old boy when the pupil pulled a knife out in class.
The singer Art Garfunkel worked as a maths teacher in a private school in Connecticut in the early Seventies, after splitting from his musical partner Paul Simon.
Before he became the frontman of The Police, Sting taught English, music, and football at St. Catherine's Convent School for two years in Cramlington, England. He wrote the hit single "Don't Stand So Close to Me" about a teacher who is attracted to one of his students.
The rock music group Lynyrd Skynyrd is named after a high school gym teacher and basketball coach from Jacksonville, Florida, Leonard Skinner (January 11, 1933 – September 20, 2010), who suspended students for having long hair.
Leonard Skinner Wikipedia
The rock band Kiss' frontman Gene Simmons taught sixth-graders in Harlem and was fired for replacing Shakespeare with Spider-Man comics.
FUN TEACHER FACTS
World Teachers' Day, also known as International Teachers Day, is an international day held annually on October 5 that acknowledges, evaluates, empowers, and appreciates teachers worldwide. First established in 1994, according to UNESCO, Teachers' Day celebrations are all about reminding society that "the right to education means the right to a qualified teacher.
Pixabay
Medarda de Jesus Leon de Uzcategui, alias La Maestra Chucha, had the longest ever teaching career. She began her career by setting up a school at the age of 12 with her two sisters in Caracas, Venezuela and carried on teaching for 87 years from 1911-1998.
Teachers in the state of Texas are legally permitted to carry firearms in the classroom.
