What was the Cadaver Synod? The Cadaver Synod was the trial of the deceased pope, Formosus, in Rome in 897, demonstrating the level of corruption and politics that existed in the Roman Catholic church at the time. The pope is the head of the Roman Catholic and resides in the Vatican City. Today, he is […]
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Why do we use so many Latin abbreviations in English? These abbreviations didn’t begin as English, but were abbreviations used in Latin writing to save time. They gradually took on meanings of their own and entered the English language. Today, a lot of people (myself included) don’t know what the original Latin expression was or
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Was there anything the Germans could have done after D-Day? Not to win the war. Short of producing a working nuclear bomb, and probably not even then, there was no realistic way for Germany to secure victory after the Allies entered Europe on D-Day. What they could have done was make the Allied advance slower,
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What was the first hotel chain? It depends how you look at it, but the first hotel chain was either Fred Harvey’s Harvey Houses or Ellsworth M. Statler’s Statler Hotels. Conrad Hilton’s hotels later became the first coast-to-coast hotel chain in the United States and one of the first major international hotel chains. These days,
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What was the first arms race? To be honest, nobody knows, and this is probably not something we can ever know. Arms races are probably older than written history. Most likely, human civilization has been a trail of one arms race after another. An arms race happens when two or more groups compete to make
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How did people first learn how to smelt metal? They probably learned through a gradual process of experimentation, observation, and learning from the results. Copper was the first metal to be smelted on a large scale, at least by around 5000 BC. The discovery of smelting is probably one of the most important discoveries of
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How did the Allies keep D-Day a secret? The Allies kept D-Day secret through a mixture of deception, censorship, and need-to-know security. D-Day was Tuesday, June 6th, 1944. The landings in Normandy were the beginning of the Allied return to Western Europe. The overall campaign was called Operation Overlord, and the naval invasion itself was
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Why are British people called Limeys and Poms? British people are called Limeys because of the citrus juice British sailors drank to prevent scurvy, and they are probably called Poms because of Australian rhyming slang connected to the word immigrant. There are many names for British people around the world. Some of them are affectionate
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How did hinges evolve? The very first hinges were probably simple wooden or stone pivots, and they slowly evolved from there. We probably don’t pay much attention to hinges, but we use them multiple times every day. Doors, cupboards, car doors, garage doors, and even the arms of glasses and sunglasses all have hinges. They
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Why did it take so long to invent the wheel? It took so long to invent the wheel because a wheel is not as intuitive as we might think. It is probably safe to say that modern life would not function without the wheel. Wheels are everywhere, even down to tiny wheels inside the devices
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