Gibraltar

GIBRALTAR HISTORY FACTS

First inhabited 50,000 years ago by the Neanderthals, Gibraltar may have been one of their last refuges before their extinction.

To the Carthaginians and Romans Gibraltar was one of the Pillars of Hercules at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea.

Moors from North Africa first settled and fortified the area, calling it Jebel al-Tarik, later corrupted into Gibraltar.

Castile contested Gibraltar and eventually conquered it on August 29, 1462, after which it became part of Spain.

The patron saint of Gibraltar is St Bernard of Clairvaux, for no better reason than the fact that the Moors were permanently expelled from Gibraltar on his August 29th feast day.

Gibraltar's North Bastion and South Bastion were built by Spain to protect it against attacks from either direction.

An Anglo-Dutch force seized Gibraltar during The War of the Spanish Succession on August 4, 1704. It was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht, signed on April 11, 1713.

First edition of the Treaty of Utrecht

Spain unsuccessfully besieged Gibraltar in 1727 and 1779–83; its status is still disputed.

Civilian government in Gibraltar only emerged in the 20th century because its governors gave priority to its role as a military fortress.

It was revealed on December 8, 1945 at the Nuremberg Trials that Nazi Germany had high hopes that Spain would join its side in World War II and seize the strategic British territory of Gibraltar, The Nazis believed that capturing Gibraltar would sever Britain's naval communications with its empire and its Mediterranean allies, crippling its ability to wage war.

In October 1940, Adolf Hitler met with Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in Hendaye, France, to discuss Spain's participation in the war. Franco was hesitant to join the Axis, citing Spain's economic and military weakness. However, he did agree to allow German troops to cross Spanish territory to attack Gibraltar, codenamed Operation Felix. Operation Felix was never carried out. 

If the Axis had captured Gibraltar during World War II, the British planned to seal six men in a secret cave overlooking the harbour to secretly monitor and radio back enemy movements. The cave had enough provisions for the men to stay for up to seven years.

In a referendum in Gibraltar on whether to remain British held on September 10, 1967, 99.64 per cent voted in favor.

In 2002, a proposal to adopt shared British and Spanish nationality was rejected by 98.5 per cent.

Overlooked for nearly two centuries, Gibraltar's status as a city was officially recognized in 2022. The British territory had initially applied for city status that year but was unsuccessful. However, a subsequent discovery revealed that Queen Victoria had granted it the title 180 years prior, a fact that had somehow been omitted from official records.

GIBRALTAR FUN FACTS

Notable natives include singer-songwriter Albert Hammond, who was born in London to Gibraltarian parents and raised on the Rock, and fashion designer John Galliano.

John Lennon married Yoko Ono at the Rock of Gibraltar in 1969. The Beatles song “The Ballad of John and Yoko” describes their ordeal finding a location for the nuptials.

The so-called ‘Barbary apes’ in Gibraltar, are in fact tailless macaque monkeys, not apes. Feeding the macaques in punishable under Gibraltar law by a fine of up to £4,000.

The first person to swim across the Straits of Gibraltar was Miss Mercedes Gleitze of the UK in 1928. She was also the first British woman to swim the English Channel.

There are 11,007 people per square mile in Gibraltar, a population density exceeded only by Macao, Monaco, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Gibraltar was confirmed as UEFA's 54th member on May 24, 2013. Their first international football match was a 0-0 draw against Slovakia. Gibraltar has since played in a number of UEFA competitions, including the UEFA Nations League and the UEFA European Championship qualifiers. They have yet to qualify for a major tournament, but they have made significant progress in a short period of time.

Gibraltar starting XI in UEFA debut against Slovakia

Gibraltar awaits IOC approval to have its own Olympic team but Gibraltarian Peter Dignan won a bronze rowing for New Zealand in 1976..

Source Daily Express

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon was born on April 27, 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove, in the town of Putney, Surrey.

His grandfather, also Edward, had lost all of his assets as a result of the South Sea Bubble stock market collapse in 1720, but eventually regained much of his wealth, so that Gibbon's father was able to live an easygoing life in society and Parliament.

He had six siblings: five brothers and one sister, all of whom died in infancy.

Never a strong or active man, Gibbon was of diminutive stature, little more than 5 ft tall with a large head and uncommonly small bones.

Edward Gibbon, by Henry Walton (died 1813)

In his later years Gibbon became became very fat and corpulent. Boswell referred to him as "an ugly affected and disgusting felloe."

Gibbon suffered from a malady now believed to be hydrocele. This condition caused his testicles to swell with fluid to extraordinary proportions. He underwent numerous procedures to have the fluid removed during his later years, but as his condition worsened, it became both more painful and an embarrassment. His doctor, who actually measured the contents, once drew five quarts of liquid from the protuberance.

This chronic inflammation caused Gibbon great physical discomfort in a time when men wore close-fitting breeches. He refers to this indirectly in his Memoirs, with comments: "I can recall only fourteen truly happy days in my life," and "I am never so content when writing in solitude.”

Personal hygiene during the Eighteenth Century was optional at best; for Gibbon, it was marginal by any standard. The social humiliation Gibbon endured as a result of his hygiene and his protuberance meant he was a lonely figure.

Gibbon wore vivid clothes such as flowered velvet, and was Frenchified in mannerisms, but it was a pathetic attempt to be a dandy. According to one comment Gibbon was so filthy that he couldn't stand close to him.

A lapsed Anglican, Gibbon toiled with Islam before becoming a Catholic at Oxford through reading an account of the miracles of the early church. He came to the conclusion that miracles were genuine and the dogmas they validated, such as purgatory and transubstantiation were true. As a result he sought out the Catholic Chaplain at the Sardinian Embassy in London. His father alarmed at his son becoming a Catholic sent Edward to the home of a Calvinist Swiss Pastor, Monsieur Pavilliard at Lausanne, but intellectual doubts got the better of him. Thereafter he was a skeptic.

Gibbon observed on October 15, 1764, a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspired him to begin The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His most important work, it was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788.

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire caused much controversy due to its treatment of Christianity and was opposed by many churchmen. Gibbon blamed Rome's adoption of the Christian faith as the major cause for Rome’s decline and mocked the religion through his use of irony. Only the author's fear of the blasphemy laws prevented him attacking it directly.

He referred to the monks in Roman times as: "The unhappy exiles from social life, impelled by the dark and implacable genius of superstition.”

The famous London based eye surgeon, John Taylor, once operated on Gibbon’s failing sight having earlier done the same for George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach. All three operations were unsuccessful.

Gibbon underwent numerous procedures to alleviate his chronic inflammation, but with no enduring success. In early 1794, the last of a series of these operations caused an unremitting peritonitis to set in and spread, from which he passed away at 12:45 pm on January 16, 1794 at age 56.

Gibbon was buried in the Sheffield family graveyard at the parish church in Fletching, Sussex.

Source Encyclopedia of Britannica

Giant

Goliath was a giant Philistine warrior defeated by the young David, the future king of Israel.The oldest manuscripts, the Dead Sea Scrolls text of Samuel, the 1st century historian Josephus, and the 4th century Septuagint manuscripts—all give Goliath's height as "four cubits and a span" (6 feet 9 inches or 2.06 metres.

David and Goliath, a colour lithograph by Osmar Schindler (c. 1888)

Frederick William I ((1688 – 1740), the father of Frederick the Great, had a famous private guard company called the Potsdam Grenadiers. He would bribe, buy or even kidnap any man close to seven feet high to get them for the Grenadiers. Frederick made the giant men marry giant woman so he could “raise” his own giants.

William Bradley known more commonly as Giant Bradley or the Yorkshire Giant, was born on February 10, 1787. By 18, he had shot up to 7ft 8in (234 cms). His teachers punished naughty boys by making Bradley lift them up and put them on high ceiling beams in the classroom until they learned their lesson.

William Bradley aged 18 and half years. Wikipedia Commoms

7 ft 11 in (2.41 m)  Canadian Anna Swan (August 6, 1846 – August 5, 1888) toured in a circus with 7 ft 9 in (2.36 m) Martin Bates. They fell in love and married. The Bates' home and furniture was built to their specifications, with 8ft doorways and 14ft ceilings.

Anna Swan and Martin Bates were not only the tallest couple ever but also gave birth in 1879 to the largest baby ever. He weighed 23 pounds 9 ounces (10.7 kg) and was nearly 30 inches tall (75 cm) with each of his feet measuring six inches(152 mm) long. Tragically the baby only lived 11 hours.

Adam Rainer (1899-1950) is the only person ever to be both a dwarf and a giant. At 18 he was measured as 4 ft 0.25 in (122.55 cm) . Then, likely as a result of a pituitary tumor, he had a dramatic growth spurt so that by 1931 at the age of 32 he had reached a height of 7 ft 2 in (218 cm).

The tallest man of all time in the world, Robert Wadlow, was 8 feet eleven inches tall (2.72 meters).  He was asked if it bothers him that people stare, and he answered "No, I just overlook them."

Wadlow died at the age of 22, on July 15, 1940, due to an infection caused by leg braces he needed to be able to stand on his feet.

The tallest woman ever Zeng Jinlian was born on June 26, 1964. Jinlian was from Yujiang village in the Bright Moon Commune, Hunan Province, China. She measured 246.3 cm (8 ft 1 in) and suffered from both scoliosis and diabetes.

American Sandy Allen (June 18, 1955 – August 13, 2008) was 7 feet 7 inches (231 cm) tall. She never married saying that she was "an old fashioned girl" and would not date a man shorter than her.

André René Roussimoff (May 19, 1946 – January 27, 1993), best known as André the Giant, was a French professional wrestler, actor and giant who grew to the height of 7 ft 4 in (224 cm).

André the Giant grew so fast that his own parents didn't recognize him. He left home at 14 and returned at 19, having already become a professional wrestler. As he explained his career choice, they realized they had seen him wrestle on TV under his alias, without knowing it was their son.

In 1965, Andre the Giant received a draft notice for the French peace time army, but was unable to join as there were no shoes big enough, bunks long enough, or trenches deep enough to accommodate him.

André the Giant walking to the ring in the late 1980s By John McKeon 

The guy who played the Xenomorph in the 1979 science-fiction horror movie Alien was a 7’2” man from Nigeria named Bolanji Badejo. He was discovered by a member of director Ridley Scott’s casting team by chance in a pub in Soho London. His role as the Xenomorph was his only film credit ever.

7ft tall people are so rare that if you know an American man between 20 and 40 who is 7ft tall, there's a 17% chance he's in the NBA.

Ghost

In Ancient Rome, May 13 was the last of three days on which the feast of Lemuralia was celebrated, when malevolent ghosts were exorcised from homes.

The Apparition of Mrs. Veal is a pamphlet that was published anonymously in 1706 and is usually attributed to Daniel Defoe, It has been described as the first modern ghost story.

Telling ghost stories around a fire was originally a Christmas Eve tradition. Beginning with Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol it was an annual tradition throughout the Victorian Era and only changed when Halloween became popular in the 1920s.

23-year-old Elva Zona Heaster (see below) was found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia on January 23, 1897. Initially judged a death by natural causes, the court later declared that the woman had been murdered by her husband following testimony by the victim's mother, in which the latter claimed that her daughter's spirit revealed the true cause of death. The murder trial is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.

After a bad date 16-year-old Daniel LaPlante dug a burrow into the crawl space of the girl’s home and terrorized her for months during the mid 1980s as a spirit of her late mother. He was discovered by her father dressed as a bride wielding a hatchet.

In 2013, 3000 workers at a garment factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh went on strike, some even rioting, not for better pay or working conditions, but because they wanted something to be done about the ghost inhabiting the bathroom.

Lemurs take their name from the Latin lemures meaning ghosts, because of their mysterious and mainly nocturnal lifestyles.

Ghosts looking like walking bed sheets comes from burial sheets. In old theater productions, when you wanted someone to look as if they had risen from the dead you would have them appear in their burial sheet thus representing that they were corpses. And that has lasted on to mean you become a ghost by putting a sheet over your head.

According to a report in 2011, 25 per cent of Britons say they have seen a ghost.

Source Daily Express 

Ghana

GHANA HISTORICAL FACTS

The name Ghana means warrior king and harks back to the days of the Ghana Empire between the 9th and 13th centuries.

The Ghana Empire was built on trade in salt and gold, which is why British merchants later called it the Gold Coast.

European contact with Ghana began in 1470. In 1482, the Portuguese built a trading settlement there.

In 1821, the British took control of all of the trading posts located on the Gold Coast.

From 1826 to 1900, the British fought battles against the native Ashanti and in 1902, the British defeated them and claimed the northern part of today's Ghana.

Ghana became the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British on March 6, 1957 at 12 a.m.

Ghana became a Republic and Kwame Nkrumah its first President on July 1, 1960. This meant that Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom ceased to be its Head of State.

GHANA FUN FACTS

193 is the fire emergency number in Ghana.

The equator misses Ghana by about 380 miles.

Lake Volta (the world’s largest artificial lake) extends through eastern Ghana.

The currency unit in Ghana is called the Cedi. The word ‘cedi’ comes from a local word meaning a cowry chell. Cowry shells (from sea snails) were once used as money in Ghana.

After decades of high inflation had devalued the Cedi, the “Ghana Cedi” became the new currency.in July 2007 with  1 Ghana Cedi being equal to 1000 Cedi.

The only English word from the Ga language of Ghana is that of the wasting disease kwashiorkor.

Ghana has 47 local languages but English is its official language.

Ghana has never won an Olympic gold medal but has three silvers and a bronze.

Ferdi Ato Aboboe of Ghana set a world record in 1991 by running 100 metres backwards in 13.6 seconds. That record was equalled by Roland Wegner (Germany) in 2007 but Aboboe still holds the sole record of 12.7 seconds for 100 yards backwards.

Source Daily Express

Battle of Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863 in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee fought the battle with his Army of Northern Virginia of 72,000 men. The Union Army of the Potomac, under Major General Joseph Hooker, consisted of seven infantry corps, a cavalry corps, and an Artillery Reserve, for a combined strength of about 94,000 men. Gettysburg is still the largest battle to ever be fought on American soil.

Gettysburg is often called the turning point of The American Civil War as Union Major General George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac stopped attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North.

Hancock at Gettysburg by Thure de Thulstrup

During the early days of the Battle of Gettysburg, a nervous President Lincoln paced up and down as the battle reports poured in. With the fate of the United States in the balance, Lincoln retired to his room, locked the door and got down on his knees in prayer. He told God that he had done all he could, now the result was in His hands; that if this country was to be saved, it was because he so willed it. The burden fell off his shoulders, his intense anxiety was relieved and in its place came a great trustfulness.

The three-day battle had more casualties than any other battle in United States history. Both the Confederate and the Union forces saw 23,000 killed or injured.

The wagon train for wounded Confederates after Battle of Gettysburg was 17 miles long.

20-years-old Jennie Wade was the only Gettysburg civilian killed directly during the Battle of Gettysburg. She was hit by a stray bullet that passed through her kitchen in town while she was making bread.

Most of the dead were left on the battlefield for people in the town to bury. The National Cemetery was founded in Gettysburg to give them a proper burial place.

On June 29, 1913 the Confederates and Unions had a reunion at Gettysburg. 53,407 veterans gathered at the Gettysburg Battlefield to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. It was the largest combined reunion of American Civil War veterans ever held. 

The veterans came from all over the United States to pay their respects to those who had fought and died at Gettysburg. They marched in parades, listened to speeches, and toured the battlefield. Many of the veterans were elderly and frail, but they were determined to make the trip to Gettysburg one last time.

Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address was delivered by the President on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. He gave it at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, taken about noon, just after he arrived

Before Lincoln spoke, the crowd had heard a two-hour oration from the politician Edward Everett. By contrast, Lincoln's speech took two minutes.

Lincoln felt weak before the speech and was described as "pale" and "sickly" by those around him. He is now thought to have suffered a mild case of smallpox.

In his carefully crafted 272 word address Lincoln spoke of preserving a "nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Though it came to be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history, Lincoln at the time thought it was a failure.

The media greeted Lincoln's speech with criticism and apathy - The Chicago Times called it "silly, dishwatery utterances" and journalist Gabor Boritt reportedly stated that there was nothing good to say about the speech. The Patriot and Union newspaper called Lincoln's words "silly remarks" that deserved "a veil of oblivion" dropping over them. In November 2013 the Patriot News, as it is now called, apologized for its remarks and withdrew its criticism.

Nowadays the Gettysburg Address is considered a masterpiece of rhetoric, and is taught in every American school.

Nobody is sure of the exact words of Lincoln's speech. Several versions exist in his handwriting.

Sources Latin Times, Daily Express