Yap Session
Here are some random facts that I have learned over the years. I found all of these interesting and wanted to share now that I have a platform. Links to sources will be provided for each fact in the underlined portions of the paragraphs.
Recently I was wondering why I never heard about tornados in other countries besides the United States. All the media I grew up watching mentioned tornados but they were always kept to areas in the inner United States. I hadn’t heard about major historical tornados happening to ancient civilizations, or to medieval era kingdoms, or to dynasties or empires. I had, however, heard about other historically significant natural disasters. This got me wondering why this is the case, and it turns out this is because the United States has the most tornados out of any country in the world. We average an around 1,200 tornados per year! This is due to the unique geographical location of the United States, as mentioned in the following article, the warm-moist air from the Gulf of Mexico mix with the cool-dry air from the Rockies and southwest to create an environment ideal for tornado activity.
What do you think killed the most soldiers during World War 1? Do you think it was guns? Well it was actually artillery. Artillery was responsible for 60% of battle field causalities and looking at these photos you can definitely tell why. WW1 is considered one of the first mechanized wars, and this most definitely contributed to the large amount of death. This was one of the first times in history humans were able to produce and manufacture at such a large scale, and the subsequent carnage was a grim result. Tanks, planes, toxic gases, and machine guns all saw use for the first time during this war and were the biproduct industrial scientific discoveries. War had forever been changed, and it wasn’t like your grandpa’s war. While World War 2 had caused more damage overall the precedent for war had definitely been set in the Great War, also known as the War to End all Wars.
In the mammal class of animals and under the order of carnivora, there are two subclasses, feliformia and caniformia. From those names you can probably tell what animals in those sub-classes look like, felines (cats) and canines (dogs) respectively. In the feliformia (cat-like) subclass you have actual cats (big and small), hyenas, mongooses, civets, bear cats, and many more. In the caniformia subclass you have actual dogs, bears, racoons, badgers, otters, wolverines, skunks, sea lions, and many more. I don’t have much commentary to add to this entry, I just thought it was interesting. Also this further proves my personal observation, that bears are just big dogs that would hurt me if I hugged them.
Now this fact has been stated so much online on fact websites and in listicles that it has become somewhat common, but there were Civil War Veterans alive during the 1950s. Now some of the veterans would have been extremely young during the war, but they were participants nonetheless. They would have lived through so much history including (but not limited to) the Gilded Era, the wild west era, the rise of the automobiles and airplanes, the implementation of the electricity and household appliances, two world wars, and countless cultural and societal changes. This is so fascinating to me, as someone who is interested in this time period of American and world history. To end out, what I will say about change is that sometimes you don't realize how much has changed until you look back. I wonder if they reflected on the world’s transition around them at the end, or if they were just focusing on their personal lives and death. Time is strange yet captivating.