Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! - Page 5 - Other Topics Forum - Discuss Pop Culture, Arts and Entertainment

Ron Poor · 02-26-2010, 07:54 AM

Not that it's interesting. but I once edited a Wiki while working for a local newspaper in that area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auchenback

Interestingly, it hasn't been changed!

nflods · 02-26-2010, 07:57 AM

Japanese fire balloon bomb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon

Quote:

From late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched over 9,000 of these fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. They were found in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Michigan and Iowa, as well as Mexico and Canada.

Oxygen · 02-26-2010, 09:29 AM

Great thread. Dyatlov Pass, Boston Molasses Disaster and Lake Nyos were all really interesting. Quite surprising that so many of these are not more widely known about, I have barely any knowledge on any of the linked articles.

kitaristi0 · 02-26-2010, 09:37 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

Quote:

Simo Häyhä (December 17, 1905 – April 1, 2002), nicknamed "White Death" (Russian: Белая смерть, Belaya Smert; Finnish: Valkoinen Kuolema; Swedish: den Vita Döden) by the Red Army, was a Finnish sharpshooter. Using a standard iron-sighted, bolt action rifle in the Winter War, he has the highest recorded number of confirmed kills in any major war.

Häyhä was credited with 505 confirmed kills of Soviet soldiers,[2][4] - 542 if unconfirmed deaths are included.[4] The unofficial Finnish frontline figure from the battlefield of Kollaa places the number of Häyhä's sniper kills over 800.[5] A daily account of the kills at Kollaa was conducted for the Finnish snipers. Besides his sniper kills, Häyhä was also credited with over two hundred kills with a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun, thus bringing his credited kills to at least 705.[4] Remarkably, all of Häyhä's kills were accomplished in fewer than 100 days.

TheUntouchable · 02-26-2010, 09:41 AM

That's pretty badass.

Triumph36 · 02-26-2010, 10:08 AM

this isn't long, but it amused me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_..._polar_regions

Quote:

The observance of Jewish law (halakhah) in the polar regions of Earth presents unique problems. Many mitzvot, such as Jewish prayer and the Jewish sabbath, rely on the consistent cycle of day and night in 24-hour periods that is commonplace in most of the world. However, north of the Arctic Circle (and south of the Antarctic Circle) a single day can last for a month or more during the summer, and the night lasts for a similar length of time in the winter. The question is how to reconcile the observed length of days in the polar regions with common practice elsewhere in the world: should a "day" be defined solely based on sunrise and sunset, even if these events do not occur for long stretches of time; or should the definition of a polar "day" be consistent with the length of a day in the rest of the world?

esad · 02-26-2010, 10:13 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

Quote:

The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, refers to a six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing (Nanking), the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 9, 1937. During this period, hundreds of thousands of civilians were murdered and 20,000–80,000 women were raped by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army.

cookieb · 02-26-2010, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kitaristi0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

This doesn't sound like more than Frederick Zoller.

cookieb · 02-26-2010, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nflods

Japanese fire balloon bomb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon

This was interesting, and led me to this poor guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_E._Mitchell

Tony Lepatata · 02-26-2010, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeapFrog

Pyrrhus of Epirus, the conqueror and source of the term pyrrhic victory, according to Plutarch died while fighting an urban battle in Argos when an old woman threw a roof tile at him, stunning him and allowing an Argive soldier to kill him

first confirmed bad beat.

bingobars · 02-26-2010, 11:20 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infibulation

Now this is a bad beat!!!

Golden_Rhino · 02-26-2010, 12:00 PM

This seems like a good place to ask. A while back somebody posted a wiki link about a Russian guy who helped avert WW3. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

J-Mac · 02-26-2010, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anacardo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

(famous coded European book that has resisted 400 years of decoding attempts)

Quote:

Originally Posted by miajag

I've read a lot about this and it really creeps me the **** out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quadstriker

Me too. What's your take? I think I like the glossolalia explanation. Made sense to the author at the time on whatever drug/religion induced trip they were on at the time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheUntouchable

Just wasted a solid 2-3 hours of my life reading about this. So frustrating. Somebody needs to crack it.

Somewhat Damaged · 02-26-2010, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden_Rhino

This seems like a good place to ask. A while back somebody posted a wiki link about a Russian guy who helped avert WW3. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

I believe you're thinking of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

TheNoodleMan · 02-26-2010, 01:11 PM

Monitoring for incoming nukes sounds like a pretty sweet gig. You could spend an entire career doing absolutely nothing.