#factoftheday — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #factoftheday, aggregated by home.social.
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When Jews were expelled from the Iberian peninsula in the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire sent ships to bring them into their empire in the Eastern Mediterranean.
That is how Thessaloniki in Greece grew its large Sephardic Jewish community, until World War II.
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Emma Morano’s live spanned three centuries.
Born in 1899 in Civiasco, Kingdom of Italy, Emma Martina Luigia Morano died in 2017 at the age of 117, in Verbania, Italian Republic.
She survived an abusive marriage, the loss of her only son, two World Wars and 90 Italian governments.
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Ireland’s postal code system is unusually precise.
Where most systems group multiple addresses into a postcode, Eircode gives each address a unique code.
Many Irish addresses had no house number or name; the 2015 Eircode introduction fixed multiple issues at once.
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Ireland’s postal code system is unusually precise.
Where most systems group multiple addresses into a postcode, Eircode gives each address a unique code.
Many Irish addresses had no house number or name; the 2015 Eircode introduction fixed multiple issues at once.
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Ireland’s postal code system is unusually precise.
Where most systems group multiple addresses into a postcode, Eircode gives each address a unique code.
Many Irish addresses had no house number or name; the 2015 Eircode introduction fixed multiple issues at once.
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The Principality of Sealand is an unrecognised micronation on an offshore platform in the North Sea.
A sea fort built some 11 km off the English coast during WW2, it briefly housed pirate radio stations before being seized in 1967 by Roy Bates, who declared it independent.
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Although called the New Bridge, the Pont Neuf is actually the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris.
The first stone was laid in 1578 and it was completed in 1607.
Unusual for the time, it was designed without buildings on it, allowing a view of the Seine.
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In 1917, the British Royal Family changed their last name from ‘Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha’ to a more English-sounding ‘Windsor’.
It was the height of WWI, anti-German sentiment was high, and King George V chose a new name based on the English town with the famous castle.
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Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is a village in Wales.
The name was created in the 19th century to attract tourists and it now has the second longest one-word place name in the world.
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Frédéric Beigbeder’s 2000 breakthrough novel, criticising the advertising world, had a varying title depending on the currency and edition because its title was its price.
Launched in France as ‘99F’, costing 99 Francs, it was renamed 14,99€ after the introduction of the euro.
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Andorra is the world’s largest country without an airport.
Its nearest airport is ‘Andorra–La Seu d’Urgell’, located 12 km south of the country of 90 000, in neighbouring Spain.
Its nearest large airport is ‘Barcelona El Prat Airport’, a three-hour bus ride away.
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The world’s shortest scheduled passenger flight is between Westray and Papa Westray in Scotland.
The flight between the islands covers a distance of just 2.7 km and takes about one minute. The record flight time is 53 seconds.
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The Baltic Way was a peaceful political demonstration that occurred on 23 August 1989.
Two million people joined hands to form a human chain spanning 675 km across the three Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
At the time, the countries were occupied by the Soviet Union.
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Though only Europe’s fourth-largest airport in passenger numbers, Amsterdam Schiphol has Europe’s largest number of runways, six.
Five runways exceed 3300 m, a shorter one for general aviation measures 2014 m, the various orientations providing wind resilience.
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EN 13402 is a European standard for size labelling of clothes.
Based on actual body dimensions measured in centimetres, its aim is to make it easier for people to find fitting clothes by ensuring size consistency across brands and countries of origin.
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In 1957 six countries signed the Treaty of Rome to establish the European Economic Community.
The treaty between Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany was a milestone promoting peace, stability, and economic prosperity in Europe through integration.
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There were just 33 years between the Spitfire and the Concorde maiden flights
On 5 March 1936, Captain Joseph “Mutt” Summers flew the first Spitfire test flight.
On 2 March 1969, Major André Turcat flew the first Concorde test flight.
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While tumbleweed is iconic in Westerns set in the Americas, the plant is originally from eastern Europe.
The tumbleweed (or ‘Russian Thistle’) didn’t arrive in North America from Europe until the 1870’s, most likely with shipments of seeds.
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In January 2004, Georgia reinstated its historical national flag, the “five cross flag”, after a hiatus of 500 years.
Following Georgia’s 1991 independence from the Soviet Union it had become a symbol of national roots, historical identity and the 2003 Rose Revolution.
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Until 1752, the new year in England and Wales began on 25 March.
When, in 1752, England switched to the Gregorian calender, 11 days were skipped as 14 September followed 2 September.
To this day, the UK’s tax year starts on 6 April, 11 days after 25 March, the original new year.
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The peace symbol was first used in 1958 at a protest in London.
Designed by Gerald Holtom, it first appeared on signs at a protest held by the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and shows the letters N and D in flag semaphore.
It has since become an international peace symbol.
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The Chupa Chups logo was designed in 1969 by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí.
A friend of the company’s founder, Dalí rebranded the entire visual identity, from colours to typeface and the logo placement on the top of the wrapper.
The design remains largely unchanged.
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11 April 1954 is calculated to be the most uneventful day of the 20th century.
In 2010, William Tunstall-Pedoe, a computer scientist at Cambridge University, used a computer model to rank historical events by relevance.
Using millions of data points, 11 April 1954 ranked the lowest.
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The Free State of Ikaria was an independent country from July to November 1912, between the islanders expelling a Turkish garrison and it becoming part of Greece.
The island’s isolation made it a common place to exile dissidents during the Greek Civil War and the Junta rule.
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In 1888, Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back in the first long distance car trip.
Her husband, Carl Benz, had patented the first car designed to produce its own power in January 1886.
The 100 km trip is now commemorated as the Bertha Benz Memorial Route.
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Construction of Cologne’s cathedral, the Kölner Dom, was started in 1248 but not completed until 1880, 632 years after it began.
The construction of the masterpiece of Gothic architecture was halted several times and not fully resumed, or funded, until 1840.
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The EU organic logo is compulsory for all pre-packaged organic food produced in the European Union.
It can only be used on products that contain at least 95% organic ingredients and are certified organic by an authorised body.
The remaining 5% requires strict conditions.
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British soap Coronation Street (“Corrie”) is the world’s longest-running TV soap opera.
Since its debut on 9 December 1960, it has aired over 11 000 episodes, portraying a working-class community in a fictional part of Greater Manchester.
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Ireland’s postal code system is unusually precise.
Where most systems group multiple addresses into a postcode, Eircode gives each address a unique code.
Many Irish addresses had no house number or name; the 2015 Eircode introduction fixed multiple issues at once.
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Arkell v. Pressdram (1971) is a famous UK legal anecdote where Private Eye magazine defeated a libel threat from James Arkell.
Private Eye responded to Arkell’s lawyer’s demand with a curt dismissal (“f*** off”), the case never went to court.
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According to legend, kissing the Blarney Stone, a limestone block built into Ireland’s Blarney Castle, endows the kisser with ‘the gift of the gab’.
The supposed gift of great eloquence has made many statesmen, actors and writers try to kiss the stone.
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The funeral procession of Józef Piłsudski was the largest public funeral in Poland’s history.
A statesman and pivotal figure in Poland’s independence, Marshal Piłsudski’s funeral procession in Kraków in 1935 was attended by an estimated 300 000 people.
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Maltese is the only semitic language written in the Latin script and the only semitic language that is an official language of the EU.
Spoken natively by over half a million people on the Mediterranean island of Malta, the language is closest to historical Arabic.
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#FactOfTheDay: Licensed childcare spaces were available to only a quarter of California children with parents in the workforce.
#Childcare #PreK #WorkingFamilies #WorkingParents #WorkingMoms #WorkingDads #Preschool #Daycare
(Photo is of children in a preschool classroom. Photo credit: CDC via UnSplash.)
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#FactOfTheDay: Older children have higher rates of uninsurance than younger children. And US rates are higher than California rates.
#HealthInsurance #HealthCare #ChildHealth #PublicHealth #Medicaid #Uninsured #Data #Teens
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#FactOfTheDay: Childcare availability declined dramatically in some parts of California between 2019 and 2021. The northern region of the state saw the biggest decline in spaces (-5%).
Learn more: https://www.kidsdata.org/blog/?p=10627
#Childcare #Daycare #Preschool #WorkingFamilies #WorkingParents @parenting