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Fun Fact Thread! (previously fun fact for the day, not limited to 1 per day anymore.)


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  • 2 weeks later...

Sailing north out of Nassau, Bahamas I noticed something different about the water.  It was a deep, dark almost black blue.  My kid asked me why it was so dark and I quipped that meant the water was probably in excess of 6,000 feet deep.

Literally just from stuff I picked up by hanging out with Navy types.

Turns out I was right.  

Just north of Nassau is a part of the ocean called "Tongue of the Ocean" that cuts through the plateau that makes up most of the shallow seas that give the Bahamas such beautiful water.  And yes - it was about 6,000 feet deep where we were.  Not far from there it can get as deep as 13,000 feet deep!

!8o

The Bahamas

FWIW - Nassau is pretty much in the middle of the map in the link above.

 

Map-of-Tongue-of-the-Ocean-Bahamas-star-indicates-deployment-site-with-the.png (850×634)

 

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599px-Craspedacusta_sowerbyi_by_OpenCage

This is a Craspedacusta sowerbii, or a peach blossom jellyfish. It is a very unusual, freshwater jellyfish. Well, not actually a jellyfish, biologically speaking, but close enough. It is a very small creature, only 20-25 mm in diameter. Like all jellyfish, its body consists mostly of water. If placed in sea water, it would probably die, but the jellyfish's body would contain more water by volume, than the water it was swimming in. A bucket of water with a C. sowerbii in it would probably, on average, be so little polluted that it would pass most regulations for drinking water. It is only a small pinch of material more than water itself.

[snip]

Edited by Vanamonde
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On the 6th of December 2014 the French pilot Jean Navarre met a German counterpart above the river Somme. They waved to each other.

Then the future Sentinel of Verdun, and possibly the first fighter ace, fetched his carbine and started blasting at his startled opponent.

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11 hours ago, DDE said:

On the 6th of December 2014 the French pilot Jean Navarre met a German counterpart above the river Somme. They waved to each other.

Then the future Sentinel of Verdun, and possibly the first fighter ace, fetched his carbine and started blasting at his startled opponent.

Pretty spry for a couple of guys more than 100 years old. 

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59 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Pretty spry for a couple of guys more than 100 years old. 

Yes an 100 year bug. Now its a bit interesting that none thought of arming planes designed to be used in an war, but planes was just 11 years old. 
Balloons was common for artillery spotting as they was established technology and stay up for hours being tethered and with an phone line down. 
Planes could do deeper recon like spotting build up of forces in the rear indicating an assault. 
The first real combat missions of planes was taking out the balloons. 

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Alright, this time, no dates...

Napoleon's sarcophagus is made from Shoksha quartzite found on the coast of Lake Onega and released by special dispensation of Czar Nikolai I.

800px-Napoleone_Bonaparte's_Tomb.jpg

The material, complete with a sample, was suggested to Louis Visconti in an anonymous letter signed by "an engineer". Nikolai, an unexpected heir to the throne and a military engineer by education, was reportedly very pleased with his father's arch-nemesis being permanently confined by Russian stone.

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