The reason why we nod our heads for “yes” and shake it for “no” was first explained by Charles Darwin. He related the gestures to a baby’s nursing habits. The nod, the forward head motion, is the breast-seeking pattern. Shaking the head from side to side – gesturing “no” – is a breast-rejecting motion. This is confirmed by the fact that a baby born deaf and blind will nod for yes and shake its head for no.

Source: Ever wonder why? – by Douglas B. Smith

When Jonathan Swift published Gulliver’s Travels in 1726 he intended it as a satire on the ferociousness of human nature. Instead, today it is enjoyed as a children’s story.

In another book, called ‘A Modest Proposal’, Swift suggested that the solution to poverty and overpopulation is to raise and eat the children, as one would with sheep or cattle.

Swift wrote a lot of stories but burned most of it. He died in 1745, aged 78. The last piece he wrote, his will, provided funds for setting up a hospital in Dublin, Ireland (where he lived) for, as he puts it, “idiots and lunatics.”

Jonathan Swift quotes:

May you live all the days of your life.

Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.

We are so fond of one another, because our ailments are the same.

The most positive men are the most credulous.

Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.

A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.

More Jonathan Swift quotes

The phrase “big cheese” originates from the Persian and Hindi word “chiz” which means “thing.” In 1886, Sir Henry Yule wrote that “it was common among Anglo-Indians” to say something is “the real big chiz.” The “big chiz” became “big cheese.” The phrase is most commonly used to refer to someone of importance or, in the least, someone who thinks he/she is the big cheese.

Talking about cheese, when a Uruguayan ship ran out of canon balls during an 1865 battle against Brazil they fired the next best thing: stale Dutch cheeses. It dismasted an enemy ship.

The first edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica was published in 1768 and included some odd entries, even describing monsters as a human species. The editors of British newspaper The Daily Telegraph shares some of the weirdness:

Humans and monsters

Homo sapiens were sub divided into five varieties: the American, the European, the Asiatic, the African and the monstrous.

Medicine

Cures for flatulence included drinking chamomile tea and blowing smoke from a pipe ‘through the anus.’

Chocolate

Chocolate was prohibited to be imported but may be made at home for private use ‘upon three days notice given to the officer of excise, and provided no less than half an hundred weight be made at one time.’

Petrol

Petroleum was used as an ointment to treat pains of the limbs, and to try and cure paralysis. (No cars in those days yet.)

Solar system

The solar system was described as having six planets. (Uranus was discovered in 1781 and Neptune in 1846.)

California

The US state of Callifornia was spelt with two ‘L’s’ and is described as ‘a large country of the West Indies. Unknown whether it is an island or a peninsula.’

About The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph was founded by Colonel Arthur B. Sleigh in June 1855 as the Daily Telegraph and Courier. During the Second World War, the ability to solve The Telegraph’s crossword in under 12 minutes was considered a recruitment test for code breakers for Bletchley Park, according to the Wikipedia article on the newspaper’s history.

The Daily Telegraph is the highest selling British newspapers. It was the first UK newspaper to have a web site version, launched in 1994; telegraph.co.uk.

See the original Telegraph entry about the old Encyclopaedia Britannica articles.

The FBI has been investigating Rod Blagojevich, the former Governor of the State of Illinois, since 2005. Blagojevich was removed from office in January 2009 and indicted in April 2009.

The charges centered on allegations that he tried to “sell” the Senate seat left vacant by Barack Obama. The federal agents recorded Blagojevich saying, “I’ve got this thing, and it’s f*ng golden. I’m just not giving it up for f*ing nothing.” In politics it is referred to as a Pay-to-Play scheme.

The 24 charges against Rod Blagojevich:

Racketeering (Count 1),
Conspiracy to commit racketeering (Count 2),
Wire fraud (Counts 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
9, 10, 11, 12, and 13),
Attempted Extortion (Counts 14, 15, 19, and 22),
Conspiracy to commit extortion (Counts 17 and 21),
Bribery (Counts 16 and 20),
Conspiracy to commit bribery (Counts 18 and 23),
Making false statements to the government (Count 24).

On August 17, 2010, Blagojevich was convicted of only 1 count of lying to federal agents, with a retrial being seeked by public prosecutors.

Source and more about the Blagojevich charges: TalkLeft – The Politics of Crime.

Edward the Confessor grew up in Normandy, France while his half-brother Hardicanute was ruling England. At Hardicanute’s death in 1042, Edward took the throne and surrounded himself with his Norman favorites. In 1051, he named William, Duke of Normandy, heir to the English throne but it was taken by Harold II in January 1066. Nine months later, at the Battle of Hastings, William conquered England, hence William the Conqueror. For the next 300 years, the rulers and nobility of England spoke French, not English.

The picture depicts William invading England, from Le Miroir Historial (Vol. IV) by the Dominican friar Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1190 – 1264?). Vincent wrote Speculum Maius (The Great Mirror), the main encyclopedia of the middle ages.

A snail has something called a radula in its mouth. It is like a file with rows made up of about 25,000 tiny teeth. A snail has 4 noses and 1 pair or 2 pairs of tentacles on its head. The longer pair houses the eyes on the tip (or at the base of the tentacle for sea snails). The other, shorter pair is used for smelling and feeling its way around. Some land species of snail, like the grapevine snail in the picture, have only 1 pair of tentacles, meaning they have only 1 eye.

Snails produce a colorless, sticky discharge that forms a protective carpet under them as they travel along. This slimy discharge is so effective that they can crawl along the edge of a razor without cutting themselves.

A snail can sleep for 3 years without eating and live up to 10 years. Except for the one billion snails that annually find their way onto restaurant tables.