The new trivia thread.
- Thread starter Ceiling Cat
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You are 1/2 right!, It's Denise Crosby, Lt. Tashsa Yar and Yikes! also, she used to be quite attractive
Halifax in Yorkshire, England.
The Halifax Gibbet consisted of two fifteen-foot wooden uprights between which hung an iron axe mounted on a lead-filled cross-beam controlled by a rope and pulley. Official records show at least fifty-three people were executed using it between 1286 and 1650.
Medieval Halifax made its fortune from the cloth trade. Large quantities of expensive cloth were left outside the mills to dry on frames. Theft was a serious problem and the town’s merchants needed an efficient deterrent.
This, and a similar, later, Scottish device called the Maiden, may well have inspired the French to borrow the idea and come up with their own name.
Dr Joseph Ignace Guillotin was a humane, mild-mannered doctor who disliked public executions. In 1789, he put to the National Assembly an ambitious plan to reform the French penal system and make it more humane. He proposed a standardised mechanical method of execution which didn’t discriminate against the poor (who were messily hanged), as opposed to the rich (who were relatively cleanly beheaded).
Most of the proposals were rejected out of hand, but the notion of an efficient killing engine stuck. Guillotin’s recommendation was picked up and refined by Dr Antoine Louis, the Secretary of the Academy of Surgeons. It was he, not Guillotin, who produced the first working device with its characteristic diagonal blade in 1792. It was even called, briefly, a Louison or Louisette, after its sponsor.
But somehow, Guillotin’s name became attached to it and, despite the best efforts of his family, there it has stubbornly remained. Contrary to popular folklore, Guillotin was not killed by his eponymous machine; he died in 1814 from an infected carbuncle on his shoulder.
The guillotine became the first ‘democratic’ method of execution and was adopted throughout France. In its first ten years, historians estimate 15,000
people were decapitated. Only Nazi Germany has used it to execute more, with an estimated 40,000 criminals being guillotined between 1938 and 1945.
The last French person to be guillotined was a Tunisian immigrant called Hamida Djandoubi, for the rape and murder of a young girl in 1977. The death penalty was finally abolished in France in 1981.
It is impossible to test accurately how long a severed head remains conscious, if at all. The best estimate is between five and thirteen seconds.
Technically there are only 46.
Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are all officially Commonwealths.
This grants them no special constitutional powers. They simply chose this word to describe themselves at the end of the War of Independence. It made clear they were no longer ‘royal colonies’ answering to the King, but states governed by the ‘common consent of the people’.
This is Pete Best, also known as the Fifth Beatle. He was the original drummer with the band, but was sacked on 16 August 1962 and replaced with Ringo Starr.How about this guy?
Edmund Hilary is famous for being the first to climb to summit of Everest, what was his day job?
After the ascent of Everest he set up the Himalayan Trust dedicated to improving living conditions and the economy of the Himalayas. He also participated on many other expeditions. He was also the New Zealand High Commissioner to India for several years.
Oh yeah, that as well.... a job he could do in the summer to allow him time for mountaineering in the winter
He is another sacked musician whos band went on to great things.... Paul DiAnno, the third vocalist with Iron Maiden. Replaced in 1981 by Bruce Dickinson.How about thus fine, upstanding individual?
