Friday Thread- Historical facts that are hard to fathom now

What is/was the average mortality age for everyone that has ever lived? And how much older am I than it at 53?

Given the rate of population growth, You are probably below it. It took 1500 years to double from 200mn to 400mn. It then doubled much more rapidly and now has slowed. Multiply the curve below by average life expectancy, which is today over 70, and you’ll get an average.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

times

https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

in 1964, global life expectancy exceeded 53.

This is a good visual representation of the timeline of Earth…

‘Live expectancy’ seems a misleading term, because it’s not a figure for how long you can expect to live. Age at death is not a normal distribution, so the most common value is not the mean.

Up until the 1960s, pregnancy tests involved injecting urine into frogs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44886585

The B52 is only 5 years younger than the Lancaster bomber. When it was first in service there were still huge numbers of WW2 planes in service. The Lancaster was flying until 1963. The last B52 technically rolled of the production lines in 1962. Due to an upgrade policy it has now been in service since 1955, was last updated in 2015 and is due to remain in service until the mid 2050s. That is a century in service.
It is hard to think of many pieces of equipment that have survived that long in active service.

One that always blew my mind is that to Cleopatra the building of the Great Pyramid was longer ago than Cleopatra is to us. And to the Sumerians who were alive when the Great Pyramid was built the orgins of their civilisation were similarly ancient.

It’s sometimes just hard to fathom how much history their actually is.

potatoes

Oh yeah, one I read earlier this week,

For decades, tomatoes were believed to be poisonous. People grew tomato plants for decorative purposes.

It’s sometimes just hard to fathom how much history their actually is.

And yet Jesus, if he was an historical figure, would have lived roughly 20 overlapping lifetimes ago.

Multiply the curve below by average life expectancy, which is today over 70, and you’ll get an average.

Oh c’mon, it’s Friday afternoon! 😀

‘Live expectancy’ seems a misleading term, because it’s not a figure for how long you can expect to live. Age at death is not a normal distribution, so the most common value is not the mean.

I think we all know that. It’s a useful term for a not particularly serious topic. 😀

One that always blew my mind is that to Cleopatra the building of the Great Pyramid was longer ago than Cleopatra is to us. And to the Sumerians who were alive when the Great Pyramid was built the orgins of their civilisation were similarly ancient.

Related to that:

Although there is no clear definitive “date of foundation”, teaching existed at Oxford University in one form or another from 1096.

That means it’s more than 200 years older than the Aztec civilization (the acknowledged start of which was the founding of Tenochtitlán in 1325).

On a slightly longer timescale…

All the carbon atoms in the universe were created in red giants and IIRC heavy metals like Gold have been ejected from black holes. So before life could even think about existing, all the elements necessary had to be created by the collapse of stars which had been shining for millions of years and before that it was just a sea of Helium which has to coalesce into stars…..

Most workplaces had smoking rooms.
It seems like a completely different age now

I’d forgotten this.

Back in my previous job, so 15-20 years ago, we had a branch in Bristol (Whiteladies Road, should Bristolians care). They had an office in there, a fairly sizeable one, holding three workers all of whom smoked.

It was… I’m genuinely struggling for words to describe it… it was sticky. It was brown like a 1970s suit. The once-white paint was, generously, yellow. It was grim as. You couldn’t touch anything without getting residue on your fingers. At the time I was looking after their computers and even that material well-known for its absorbent qualities ‘steel’ was tacky. You couldn’t read the letters on their keyboards and gods help you if you were anywhere near a PSU fan when a PC started up. If ever there was an advert for not smoking…

I mean, I’m all for choice and all, and if people want to smoke then good luck to them, but why would you do it in an enclosed space like that? You ever turn up to work one day and think “you know, it’s alright here, but it’s not baby-shit coloured enough and my shoes don’t stick to the carpet”?

Oh, and, school.

The one time I ventured into the hallowed ground that was my high school’s staff room, I literally couldn’t see to the back wall.

Not only was I alive when there was a fascist dictatorship in Europe, we went on a family holiday to it. Maybe I will live long enough to repeat this…

It is hard to think of many pieces of equipment that have survived that long in active service.

The Shackleton which was an incremental improvement to the Lancaster was in active service until the 1990s.

Not only was I alive when there was a fascist dictatorship in Europe, we went on a family holiday to it. Maybe I will live long enough to repeat this…

I live in one.

Still. Sovrinty, blue passports, commemorative 50p.

Not sure this is true for medieval times. I have read lots of people debunking this.

It depends when you look. During the medieval warm period then there would have been decent food supplies shown by how the population boomed.
However it then went into the Little Ice Age and a long period of very poor conditions and starvation with a massive drop in population back to what could now be supported.

Still. Sovrinty, blue passports, commemorative 50p.

And the crown on the pint glass!
That you deliberately ignore that says all.

I live in one.

Still. Sovrinty, blue passports, commemorative 50p.

Expect a knock on the door from the secret service any time soon. I have informed on you.

It was… I’m genuinely struggling for words to describe it… it was sticky. It was brown like a 1970s suit. The once-white paint was, generously, yellow. It was grim as. You couldn’t touch anything without getting residue on your fingers. At the time I was looking after their computers and even that material well-known for its absorbent qualities ‘steel’ was tacky. You couldn’t read the letters on their keyboards and gods help you if you were anywhere near a PSU fan when a PC started up. If ever there was an advert for not smoking…

My dad used to fix TVs back in the day and one time I was helping him – I put my hand out onto the lovely light yellow painted wall to reach around to unplug it and then had to peel my hand back off the sticky mess, leaving a white imprint of my hand.

Did we fix the TV I hear you ask. Nope – the build up of nicotine enriched dust (attracted to the static build-up up you used to get on old TVs) had rotted though most of the wiring. It wasn’t long after that my dad gave up smoking. I wish my mum did too as lung cancer did for her in the end.

All the carbon atoms in the universe were created in red giants and IIRC heavy metals like Gold have been ejected from black holes.

I don’t think that’s correct…nothing is ejected from black holes. I think that heavy elements are created at the point that a “normal star” runs out of fuel and collapses to create a neutron star. I may well be wrong but I was half listening to a program about it the other day.

For 239 years, Aberdeen had as many Universities as the whole of England.

This is a great thread. 😀

The orbital spaceflight of Yuri Gagarin on the 12th April 1961 technically did not qualify for the Guinness Record because the rules stipulated that the spacecraft must safely launch and land with the occupant inside.

We now know that after re-entry, Gagarin’s Vostok capsule ejected it’s occupant at an altitude of 7,000m and that Gagarin landed via parachute some distance away from his spacecraft.

The very excellent book Beyond talks about the Russian space program, Gagarin’s flight, and even has interesting snippets about Mercury, too. The Russian programme was so incredibly agricultural, it’s a literal miracle he got away with it. And yeah, they knew Vostock shouldn’t be eligible because the cosmonaut ejects on the way down, so they lied about it. And about where it took off from. And it was dumb luck that saw him land where he did. Alive. It’s insane. 🙂

All the carbon atoms in the universe were created in red giants and IIRC heavy metals like Gold have been ejected from black holes.

Supernova explosions for the heavy elements that aren’t formed by fusion in layer burning stars.

Few will believe this but you used to be able to mountain bike without disc brakes, suspension or a dropper seat post. Amazingly motors were not used either. What an awful place history was

I don’t think that’s correct…nothing is ejected from black holes.

Not quite, you can get jets of excess material spat our from accretion discs IIRC.

I think that heavy elements are created at the point that a “normal star” runs out of fuel and collapses to create a neutron star.

That only gets you so far up the periodic table, to carbon I think, after that you need something more intense…..

You sure about that thing about how far it is to the moon? I mean it’s a long way , but what does lining up mean?

nothing is ejected from black holes

OK, a former Theoretical Physicists writes… Hawking radiation is emitted from a black hole, it’s caused by the spontaneous appearance of particles and antiparticles at the event horizon. One crosses and doesn’t come back. the net effect is that the black hole loses mass and evaporates…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

Isn’t it the case that mathematically almost nothing comes out of a black hole , but because the mass is so large that almost nothing is an appreciable amount?

My school had an indoor shooting range for 22 rimfire, and an armoury. I doubt it’s still there can you imagine the fuss if the press found out. This was the 80s

Only one person was at both the battle of Trafalger and the battle of Waterloo.

https://www.napoleon-series.org/research/biographies/c_alava.html

Nelson and Wellington met only once, by chance.

Nelson left no record of what he thought of Wellesley, but in later life the Duke of Wellington gave his account of the meeting. He claimed that Nelson did not initially recognise him, and spoke in a light and superficial manner before leaving the room for a moment. When Nelson returned, however, someone had clearly told him whom he had been speaking to and his entire attitude changed so that the two men then spoke as equals for the remainder of their brief conversation.

The only meeting of Nelson and Wellington

You sure about that thing about how far it is to the moon? I mean it’s a long way , but what does lining up mean?

As in, the sum of the diameters of the other planets is (nominally) less than the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

My school had an indoor shooting range for 22 rimfire, and an armoury. I doubt it’s still there can you imagine the fuss if the press found out. This was the 80s

I was the armourer in my U6 year at school, in our CCF. I had to check the keys out from the staff room on Thursday lunchtime if we were doing weapons training, and then I had access to 50-odd Lee-Enfield 303’s. Inside the big steel armoury was a code box which had the key to another safe in the cadet hut where all the bolts were stored. You needed both to make them work, so there was security of a sort.  Similarly a smaller number of .22 rimfires which we used at a range on the school grounds. We also had a fully functional 303 LMG (Bren gun)

We held a small amount of .22 ammo for target shooting but no full bore stuff, if we were doing full bore at one of the ranges (Ash or Pirbright) we’d call in to Arborfield REME Garrison on the way and book it in and out.

So more than having an armoury and a few .22’s, when we went on a trip we’d have 8 or 10 massively tooled up schoolboys in a school minibus touring the streets of Berks and Surrey, stopping at garages for fags, living the life.

I was the armourer in my U6 year at school, in our CCF. I had to check the keys out from the staff room on Thursday lunchtime if we were doing weapons training, and then I had access to 50-odd Lee-Enfield 303’s

Amateur.

We had the spectacularly shit L98A1 General Purpose Cadet Rifle – the manual cocking version of the (at the time equally shit) SA80, guaranteed to jam at least twice per magazine.

We had a few .22s as well but the only range near us was at a neighbouring school, our range having been demolished to build a Music Block.

No idea if the Armoury still exists in that school today but yeah, 6th Formers handing out weapons to 14 year olds. Oh the H&S brigade would have had a fit if they’d have seen that.

What’s behind that door then?
Oh err… just the boiler room… shall we go and look at the fire escapes from the classrooms?

We did oxy acetaline welding at school age 12….it was called metalwork. I left in 1985.

We had an armoury at school with a dozen or so L98A1s, some .303s, .22s and the odd Bren IIRC. Some work on a neighbouring building disturbed some alarm sensors and led to *quite* a big response from the rozzers.
I seem to recall about half a dozen cars, couple of vans and a helicopter.
From what I know, I don’t think they stocked ammo in their anyway apart from pellets and .22 rounds. We didn’t have a range on site, and we drew the rounds when we went out to play.

guaranteed to jam at least twice per magazine.

Shit magazine filling didn’t help. I used to help cock the weapons on the range as the little dudes (and girls) had no chance.

Cock, Hook and Look.

As a 17 year old, I found a sheath knife with a 16cm blade (similar to the one I wore on my Scout uniform). I handed it in to the Police. Six months later it was returned to me as unclaimed lost property.

Most workplaces had smoking rooms.

we had indoor smoke rooms for patients on an acute mental health wards, as soon ago as 2007/08 when I started, if you was on 1:1 obs, and the patient smoked, that is where you would be sat (with the other 14 patients puffing away)

Friday Thread- Historical facts that are hard to fathom now

Flashy is a paperclip salesperson.

We had the spectacularly shit L98A1 General Purpose Cadet Rifle – the manual cocking version of the (at the time equally shit) SA80, guaranteed to jam at least twice per magazine.

It was coming in the year after I left, I think we dodged one there.

We also did a couple of exercise where some of us seniors went and acted as enemy for another school’s cadet force, and to help identify us we were loaned some SLR’s by the REME we had a relationship with. That was cool, anything goes, working in pairs pretending to be SF, setting a rota so we could hit their position at regular intervals all chuffing night. I still MTB on the same areas, and brings back great memories.

tlr
Full Member
That the world population has doubled since I was born in 1973.

Incredible, and scary.

It’s quadrupled since 1928, when it was 2 billion, or atleast it will when the population hits 8 billion in a very short while. (few months to a year, 7.9bn currently.)