Thursday, January 31, 2013

Mom with the Longest Interval Between Kids


Elizabeth Ann Buttle gave birth to two kids, but what is special is the interval between their births. Belinda Buttle was born on May 19, 1956 when Elizabeth Ann Buttle was 19. Joseph Buttle was born on November 20, 1997 when Elizabeth Ann Buttle was 60, an interval of 41 years 185 days. Joseph’ sister was old enough to be his own grandmother.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Black Hand




The Black Hand was a secret society of anti-imperialist political revolutionaries that was started in Serbia in 1912. It formed as an offshoot from Narodna Adbrona, a group that sought to unite all of the Slavic people of Europe under one country. This required the separation of Serbia from the monarchy of Austria-Hungary, which had annexed the country some years before. With this in mind, the group began disseminating anti-Austrian propaganda and training saboteurs and assassins to disrupt political rule within the province. Their plan was to incite a war between Serbia and Austria, which would give them a chance to free their country and unite the different Slavic nations as one.

Secret Practices
Black Hand would be all but forgotten today if not for their unlikely involvement in one of the biggest events of the twentieth century. In 1914, the group engineered the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The job was badly botched, and was only completed when a low-level hood named Gavrilo Princip stumbled upon the Archduke’s car and shot him to death at close range (see photo). Still, the results of the assassination were catastrophic. Within days, Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia, and after the allies of both countries joined the fray, the small dispute managed to escalate into WWI. The aftermath of WWI eventually led to WWII, and this led to the Cold War, which makes the Black Hand one of the most strangely influential forces of the twentieth century.

Famous Members
Gavrilo Princip (rumored)

Monday, January 28, 2013

Chinese ghost town

Ordos in China – a modern ghost town. Kangbashi area, designed for more than a million inhabitants, remains deserted, even five years from the date of commencement of construction. Construction began in the area Kangbashi within the state of the project in Ordos – a town in the province of Inner Mongolia, whose source of wealth is the extraction of coal. The area is built up with office buildings, administrative centers, government agencies, museums, theaters and sports facilities, as well as residential neighborhoods. But there is one problem. In an area with more than one million inhabitants, is still almost no one lives.
In the city the complete absence of business. A pedestrian walks past the empty retail space. Virtually none of the companies did not want to move into a new area