The Ultimate Trivia Thread

[Solitaire1]

Proof (as a measure of the alcohol content of a beverage) was originally based on how readily gunpower would ignite when mixed with the beverage (if the alcohol content is too low the gunpower would not ignite).

Source: Good Eats

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Well I, for one, make a point of always asking birthday party hosts if they're paying their royalties. If they don't I drop Time Warner a note. I'm very popular at birthday parties.

[pdurrant]

The extra day inserted into a leap year is actually February 24th. The old 24th of February becomes the 25th, etc, with 28th February become the 29th February.

This is because Julius Caeser's calendar reform (which is still the basis (with a minor tweak) of our current calendar) said that in leap years the "6th day before Kalendae of March" should be doubled. That is to say, there should be an extra February 24th. This matched the position of the leap month, Intercalaris, of the pre-Julian Roman calendar.

[kindlekitten]

I have 2 nieces born on leap day. The first one was natural , the second one was really close so my sister asked to be induced. She's always been a little off

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The extra day inserted into a leap year is actually February 24th. The old 24th of February becomes the 25th, etc, with 28th February become the 29th February.

This is because Julius Caeser's calendar reform (which is still the basis (with a minor tweak) of our current calendar) said that in leap years the "6th day before Kalendae of March" should be doubled. That is to say, there should be an extra February 24th. This matched the position of the leap month, Intercalaris, of the pre-Julian Roman calendar.

Didn't Pope Gregory add in some more changes later as well? Prior to Julius Dec. was the 10th month as well I think. In fact Dec. is the start of words like Decimal (as in decimal system) which is our base 10 number system.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by crich70

Didn't Pope Gregory add in some more changes later as well? Prior to Julius Dec. was the 10th month as well I think. In fact Dec. is the start of words like Decimal (as in decimal system) which is our base 10 number system.

That was the minor tweak. The Julian calendar had a leap year every four years. This leads to a slight excess, which was corrected by the Gregorian calendar reform by abolishing the leap year once per century, unless the century was a multiple of 400. That is, in the Julian calendar, 1500, 1600 and 1700 would all be leap years. In the Gregorian calendar, 1600 was still a leap year, but 1500 would not have been a leap year, and 1700 wasn't a leap year.

And yes, September, October, November and December were named for 7, 8, 9 and 10 in Latin. Two new months, January and February, were added after the names were fixed, but long before the Julian calendar reform (Before there was January and February, the Roman year started with March in the spring equinox and ran until December at the winter solstice, and then had a variable number of days that weren't assigned to any month until the following March.)

July and August are named after Julius Caeser and Augustus Caeser. Before their names changed, the months were called Quintilis and Sextilis (from 5 and 6 in Latin).

[pdurrant]

Another interesting calendar trivia:

The timing of leap years was set by the Romans before the birth of Christ. That the leap year happens in years of the Christian calendar that are divisible by four is a coincidence. (Or else Dionysius Exiguus carefully chose the starting date to make this happen.)

[crich70]

And January comes from Janus the two faced god. One face was old and the other was blank.

[Solitaire1]

Even more calendar trivia:

During the transition from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar (according to Wikipedia it took about 170 years), dates were recorded as "Old Style" and "New Style" to indicate which calendar was being used. As an example, due to this George Washington has two different dates of birth: 22 February 1732 and 11 February 1731 (O.S.).

New Trivia Item: The standard for the Compact Disc is called "The Red Book Standard" because that was the color of its binder (leading to other colors being used for the other standards, such as "Yellow Book" for CD-ROM).

Source: Wikipedia.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Even more calendar trivia:

During the transition from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar (according to Wikipedia it took about 170 years)

The last European country to switch from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian calendar was Greece, in 1923, 341 years after it was introduced by Pope Gregory!

The British Empire (including North America) switched in 1752, which was 170 years after it was introduced.

There is currently a 13 day difference between the calendars, and has been since 1900.

[trichobezoar]

"The second half of the 20th century saw the birth of the cyberpunk sci-fi subgenre. Often set in industrial dystopias, the cyberpunk genre features plots related to computing, hackers, and large corrupt corporations. Perhaps the earliest recorded use of the term was in Bruce Bethke's 1983 story 'Cyberpunk.' One year earlier William F. Gibson, an early cyberpunk writer, coined the term cyberspace in a story he wrote for the popular sci-fi magazine Omni."


Source: 10 Words Coined in the Sci-Fi Universe


EDIT:

Originally Posted by orlok

Never heard of [amaranth], but given that I'm on a wheat free diet, I will certainly be looking into it. Karma for this .

Thank you for the karma. Other healthy foods are flaxseed and quinoa. Organic is best... but regular store bought flaxseed or quinoa will do. *nods* I could only afford organic once in a while, but I'm still eating a lot healthier than I used to! Also... wheatgrass juice. I know it sounds horrible... and it certainly tastes horrible (like grass), but it's so healthy! lol

[wodin]

Originally Posted by trichobezoar

Also... wheatgrass juice.

That stuff is HORRIBLE

Originally Posted by trichobezoar

I know it sounds horrible...

Not just "Sounds"

Originally Posted by trichobezoar

and it certainly tastes horrible (like grass),

That's 'cause it IS!

Originally Posted by trichobezoar

but it's so healthy! lol

And your point would be?

[trichobezoar]

Originally Posted by wodin

That stuff is HORRIBLE

Not just "Sounds"

That's 'cause it IS!

And your point would be?

Um, are you going to add a trivia fact when criticizing my posts? lol I recommend doing so, if not... *shrug*

[Solitaire1]

Despite being commonly considered to be a metric measure, the Liter/Litre is not an official metric unit.

Source: Wikipedia

[trichobezoar]

"Virus

Science fiction writers of the cyberpunk persuasion introduced the world to a new sense of virus: the computer virus. This sense of virus appears in a short story by Gregory Benford published in 1970 in which a malevolent computer program called VIRUS infects computers via their modem connections. Within five years David Gerrold, Michael Crichton, and John Brunner had all published sci-fi novels featuring computer viruses, and from there, computers along with the viruses that aim to corrupt them became part of language and life beyond science fiction."


Source: 10 Words Coined in the Sci-Fi Universe