What is HOLMES? HOLMES is the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. It was so named because it is the same name as the great detective Sherlock Holmes. It is a computer system that the UK police use to collate all of their data about crimes in the country. At its simplest, HOLMES is a […]
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When was the first train robbery? It depends what you mean by robbery. Things had bee stolen from stationary trains since they had become popular. The first robbery from a moving train is unknown, but a good example was an 1849 robbery in the UK. And the first hold up of a train in true
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Why did we evolve to see the part of the light spectrum that we can see? We evolved to see the range of the light spectrum that we can see because it was the most available and easily detectable. If our planet had a different atmosphere and our sun was hotter or colder, we may
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When was the first national debt? The first systems that resembled modern national debt developed in the Italian city-states during the 12th century. These days we are very used to countries being in debt. The USA, for example, as of 2026, the United States has a national debt of around $40 trillion. That is such
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Why do physicists think dark energy exists? Physicists think dark energy exists because something must be overcoming the pull of gravity to be speeding up the expansion of the universe. 13.8 billion years ago, the Big Bang happened and the universe began to expand. This is often described as an explosion into space, but it
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When did billboards become a thing? Billboards have been around for years, but the modern style was created in the early 19th century. Billboards really took off with the growth of modern transportation. A board to post bills on has been around since people have been able to write on some kind of material, such
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Who was the most important person in early Christianity after Jesus? There is no obvious “most important” person, but Peter, James, Paul the Apostle, and Constantine the Great were all extremely important. Obviously, Christianity wouldn’t exist without Jesus Christ, but in the early days, the likelihood that it would become the global religion it did
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How did sailors get fresh drinking water? Sailors got fresh drinking water from the barrels stored on the ship, rainwater, stocking up whenever they made land, and occasionally desalination. These days, most of us rarely use a boat. If we do, it might be a short ferry crossing, or possibly a cruise. We don’t give
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Why did armies use brightly colored uniforms? Armies used to use brightly colored uniforms so that the commanders could easily see their troops, prevent friendly fire, project national pride, instill fear in the enemy, and help to direct a battle. This stopped with the development of modern conventional weapons and tactics. Warriors have worn one
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What was miasma theory? Miasma theory was the idea that diseases such as cholera and the plague were caused by a noxious form of bad air called miasma, which is the ancient Greek word for pollution. Miasma as a theory lasted for over two thousand five hundred years and only disappeared when microorganisms were discovered
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