Discover Something New #6

War War War... And a Volcano

Sunday:-Wow: Imagine walking 11 miles (17.7 K) in a straight line. Then you turn right and walk another 11 miles, making two sides of a giant square. Then you walk straight down 11 miles, making a giant cube. Now imagine that that is how much rock was thrown into the air when the volcano Mt. Mazama erupted 1000s of years ago. Mt. Mazama was in southern Oregon. The ash in the air covered eight US states and three Canadian Provinces, traveling nearly 1000 miles (1600 K) in all directions. (For you Europeans, if the volcano was in London, Prague would be covered with ash).

Monday:- Impossible? I've been wanting to cover this one for a while, and now that there's a movie coming about about this story I want to write about it before Hollywood claims another story for themselves. It was August 11th, 480 B.C. And Persia was attacking Greece. At the battle of Thermopylae the Greek army was vastly outnumbered. The numbers vary a lot, but the Greeks numbered about 5,000, and estimates about the Persian forces range from 400,000 to 5 million. Amazingly, the Greeks were holding their position on higher ground. Then the Persians found a way to travel behind the Greek lines through a narrow mountain path. Most of the Greek army retreated towards the city, but King Leonidas of Sparta and 300 Spartan soldiers stayed behind to defend the path. The legend says that the 300 Spartans held back over a million Persians and caused so many casualties that it crippled the Persian army and gave Greece an eventual victory. Every one of the 300 died.
The truth is probably a little different. There were also 700 Thespian soldiers with the Spartans, and the number of attacking Persians is not clear. It may have been much more or less than a million. Also, not all of the Thespians were killed. Still, the legend could be pretty accurate, and I like that version. 300 vs. a million (that's one Spartan against 3,333 Persians). Impossible? Maybe, if you want to live. A general of the Persian army is reported to have said to the Persian King, “what kind of men are these against whom you have brought us to fight? Men who do not compete for money, but for honor.” For all the details on this story I recommend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

Tuesday:So That's Why- No third-world country has sent military aid beyond its immediate neighborhood, except Cuba. Strangely, most Cuban troops sent abroad went to Africa. Indeed, the Cold War was not cold in Africa, where dozens of rising countries were being pulled between Russia and America. Cuba wanted to help its communist brothers, and in 1975 sent 36,000 soldiers to Angola, in 1977 16,000 soldiers to Ethiopia, engaged in small-scale missions in Congo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Benin, and in 1988 Cuba sent an army of 52,000 to Angola. There were also 10,000s of Cubans sent to Africa as experts in health care, education, construction, etc. Considering that this poor island country was putting the US to shame in the battle for Africa, it's little wonder why the US/Cuban relationship is still tense.

Wednesday:-Say What? During WWII the socialist revolution started in Russia. In June 1918 Allied forces were sent into Siberia to meet an army of 70,000 Czech soldiers. What were the Czechs doing in Siberia? Well, at the time of WWII Czech land was part of the Austian-Hungarian Empire, and the Czechs were enlisted by Austria to fight against the Allies. But the Czech people wanted independence, so they devised a way to fight against Austria. When the chaos of the Revolution began, they planned to march across Russia and Siberia, sail from the port of Vladivostock to San Francisco, join the American army, then sail across the Atlantic Ocean and fight against Germany on the French western front. The Americans who met them in Siberia saw nothing wrong with this plan, but they suggested that the Czech fight against the Russian revolutionaries instead. In the end, the Czechs spent so much time fighting the Reds that the war with Germany ended before the Czechs could do any fighting against their real enemy.

Thursday:-Actually: The word “Aryan” usually conjures up images of Nazi Germany and Hitler's twisted vision of a perfect, pure, white, “Aryan” race. Actually the word Aryan comes originally from the holy books of Indian Hinduism, where the word is used to describe the people of the India area. It really has nothing to do with any kind of “pure” race.

Friday:-World problems: It is estimated that by 2100, 90% of the world's 6000 languages will be replaced by a dominant world language. The process is already well under way. In Africa only 10% of languages are used in school. And while around 350 million people claim English as their native language, about 1.4 billion people live in a country where English is the official language.

Saturday:-Amazing person review: In 1921 the US Secretary of State Evans Hughes called a meeting of the representatives of England, Japan, France, and five others. The topic, the naval arms race. All these countries were in competition to have the strongest navy, and it was getting out of control. Hughes wanted to put a stop to it. So in the first speech of the conference, when the others were expecting just a nice welcome speech, Hughes presented his plan to abandon, destroy, or stop construction on 845,740 tons of ships for the USA, 538,375 tons for Great Britain, and 448,928 tons for Japan, making the total over 1.8 million tons of military ships to be voluntarily destroyed. Amazingly, everyone agreed to this plan. Some say that in 30 minutes Hughes destroyed more military ships than all the wars in all of history.