After Ivan the Terrible died, he left a power vacuum, and Russia went through a number of rulers over the next few years.

The list included one notable ruler, who wasn’t Russian at all.  Known as False Dmitriy, this guy was actually Polish, and claimed to be the lost son of Ivan.

He ruled for a brief 10 months, until he was discovered to be an impostor.

Once he was discovered, he was killed, and put on display as a warning to other would be impostors.*  Then they sent him home “Russian Style”, which apparently means burning his body and stuffing the remnants into a cannon, which was shot in the direction of Poland.

*The warning didn’t work so well, as two other False Dmitriys eventually showed up.

The Russian word Tsar (also sometimes spelled Czar) is the Russian translation for Caesar.

Ivan III was the first Czar of Russia*.  He was searching for a way to unite the factious princedoms of Russia, and decided that embracing the Catholic Church was the way to do it.

So he took a bride from Rome, and also took the old Roman title for himself, Caesar.

*Technically, Ivan IV (the terrible) was the first ruler to “officially” use the title Tsar, but III used it unofficially.  Also, the point of the post is that the two words are related, so the firsties debate is really secondary.

Two pieces of trivia that are in fact related:

• The name “Trench Coat” comes from the heavy, long wool coats that German soldiers wore in the trenches during WWI.
• The Geneva Convention banned the use of knives and blades that had more than two sides.

During WWI, the US issued a tri-cornered knife to soldiers.  The knife was designed to pierce the German Trench Coat.  (A normal blade wouldn’t pierce the coat.)  It was common for men to infiltrate the trenches of the enemy and then use knives to slash the hell out of them.

At the Geneva Convention, the tri-cornered knives were banned.  Although they were good at piercing jackets, they also created wounds that were very hard to stitch.  A knife with one or two blades created a wound that was easier to stitch, thereby allowing more wounded soldiers to live after being stabbed.

Source: Pawn Stars on the History Channel

Some Pepperoni Fun Facts:

• Although it’s based on an Italian spiced salami, pepperoni is an American invention.
• To be considered pepperoni, the meat must contain both beef and pork.
• A typical mix is 72% Pork meat, 8% Beef meat, and 20% Pork fat.
• The “pep” in the pepperoni comes from paprika.

Source: The show on the History Channel that has the fat guy who loves food.

Reindeer and Caribou are the same species of animal. Reindeer are just the domesticated variety, while the ‘bou are the wild variety. Sometimes reindeer get confused, escape from their pens, and join the caribou in wandering around. (I think the technical term is migrating.)

Source: Life After People

Just seen on Life After People… a grocery store went bankrupt in the 90’s.  They just shut the doors and left.  A few months later the city had to go in and clean out the place.  The smell was so bad the people had to don haz-mat suits to get in the door.

Imagine a full sized grocery store that was just abandoned.  The milk alone…  eww.

Mark Twain was born in 1835, a year in which Halley’s Comet was visible from Earth.  He always said it was his hope to die the next time the comet came around.

I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: “Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”

Twain died in 1910, the day after the comet next appeared.

Source: History Channel

If you took all of the Sesame Seeds from the top of all of the Big Macs sold in one year, the seeds would weigh more than two 747 Jumbo Jets.

In related news, I’m hungry.

Source: The Best Modern Marvels Ever.  (Fast Food Tech)

Please forgive the post-Halloween Halloween post, but I only learned the legend of Stingy Jack last night.

Stingy Jack was a trickster who lived in Ireland.  No one was safe from Jack’s pranks, even the Devil himself…

Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Sadly, Jack died soon after that.  He tried to go up to Heaven, but God wasn’t interested in hosting such a notorious stingy prankster.  So he had no choice but to go to Hell.

But there was a problem.  The Devil had already agreed not to claim Jack’s soul.  Plus, Jack was too much for even the Devil to handle.  So the Devil sent Jack back from whence he came.  But there was another problem.  It was too dark for Jack to see.

So he asked the Devil for a light.  The Devil, being an obliging fellow, tossed Jack an ember from the fires of Hell.  Jack stored the ember in a hollowed out turnip, which he of course had on him.

Jack has since been doomed to wander in the darkness alone.  In an effort to ward off the evil wandering spirits, the Irish townsfolk began carving their own turnips.

When Irish immigrants made it to America in the 1800’s they discovered the pumpkin, which was much better for carving than a turnip.

And that, my friends, is how we got the Jack of the Lantern, or Jack-o-Lantern.

Happy belated Halloween.

Source: History Channel Website, here, and here.  But originally on the National Geographic Channel.

Everyone has experienced this problem:  You go to buy shoes.  But how can you be sure that those shoes will fit?  That squishing your toe thing is so barbaric.  Wouldn’t it be great if there were a high tech way to check shoes for proper fit?

Why yes, kids and kiddies, you need a Shoe Fitting Fluoroscope!

The Fluoroscope, common in shoe stores from the 1920s – 1950s, used x-rays to project an image of the foot, inside the shoe, onto a screen.

The three viewfinders were for the shoe salesman, mom, and the kid getting the shoes.  The kid put his foot into the slot below, and was basically standing on an x-ray tube.

X-Rays of feet! How high-tech!

Now, even the most casual observer of history and science can finish this story.  Yep.  Cancer in shoe salesmen, deformities, birth defects, sterilization.

But a small price to pay for a proper fit, I say!

Toward the end of the 1940’s US states started adopting laws regulating the machines and the radiation they could output.  By 1960 they were pretty much banned everywhere.

Source: History Channel, here.