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Which State Has the Most Millennials Still Living at Home?
EU Proposes Free Public Wi-Fi for Member Countries by 2020
Ubiquitous free public Wi-Fi might seem like a pipe dream for Americans, but for many European countries it could become a reality in as little as four years. The London Evening Standard reports that European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has proposed to provide Wi-Fi connections in public spaces for all EU member states by 2020. He announced the plan during his State of the Union speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday, September 14.
“Digital technologies and digital communications are permeating every aspect of life,” Juncker said in his talk, as quoted by the Evening Standard. “All they require is access to high-speed internet. We need to be connected. Our economy needs it. People need it.”
According to the BBC, the EU wants to provide Europe’s parks, squares, libraries, and public buildings with Wi-Fi by 2020, and for at least one city in each member country to have a 5G mobile network. By 2025, the union wants all households, major railroads and railways, and public services and administrations to be equipped with internet connections of varying speeds. (The jury’s still out on whether the EU’s wireless goals apply to England, as they exited the union before 2020.)
Some people doubt the plan’s viability, and argue that European officials still haven’t made good on other tech-related promises, like getting rid of mobile roaming fees. Others have read the plan’s fine print, and point out that while the EU will take care of installation fees and equipment costs, local organizations will have to foot Wi-Fi subscription and maintenance bills. Meanwhile, additional critics say that 5G technology is still a work in progress, and that many of Europe’s public spaces already have Wi-Fi.
[h/t London Evening Standard]
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September 16, 2016 – 2:30pm
Wouter Engler via Wikimedia // CC BY-SA 4.0
Although they frequently include some pretty epic crowns, crown jewels are not necessarily just crowns—they can also include scepters, jewels, necklaces, tiaras, and enormous gemstones. A nation’s crown jewels are used during a coronation ceremony, with the regalia often being used to represent the transfer of power to the new monarch. Over the years, the crown jewels of many nations have been lost or destroyed—sometimes in very mysterious circumstances.
Hawaiian king Kalakaua and his queen Kapiolani decided to hold a lavish coronation eight years into their reign, after witnessing many foreign royals performing such ceremonies. They had two solid gold crowns designed and made in London by Hoffnung and Co., for which they paid £1000. One crown was said to contain 521 diamonds, 54 pearls, 20 rubies, 20 opals, and eight emeralds, among other jewels.
The coronation went ahead on February 12, 1883 and the impressive crown was ceremonially placed upon Kalakaua’s head—the only occasion on which the crown was ever used. Kalakaua died of kidney disease in 1891 and his sister Liliuokalani inherited the throne, but already much of her constitutional powers had been eroded, and by 1893 she was deposed by an American-led military coup. The custodian who took over the provisional government ordered an inventory of royal possessions, but when staff fetched the satin-lined box in Iolani Palace in which crown had been stored, all they found was its twisted and bent remains. Every single jewel had been pried from its moulding and stolen.
Detectives immediately set to work to try and find the lost jewels, and before long one of the guardsmen, George Ryan, was found to have some of the smallest diamonds in his jacket pocket. Ryan was jailed for the theft for three years but no other jewels were recovered. Kalakaua’s crown was restored with glass and paste jewels costing $350 in 1925 and is today displayed alongside Queen Kapiolani’s crown (which had been stored elsewhere and thus remained intact) in Iolani Palace.
The Irish crown jewels included no crown, but a diamond brooch, five gold collars, and a diamond, ruby, and emerald encrusted star of the Order of St. Patrick, an honor created in 1783 as an equivalent to the illustrious British Order of the Garter. In 1903 the jewels were moved to a special safe in Dublin Castle which was supposed to be kept in a newly re-enforced strong room. However when staff came to move the safe into its new position, they realized, a little late, that the safe would not fit through the door. Instead, the Officer of Arms, Arthur Vicars, allowed it to be stashed outside the strongroom in a library.
In 1907 King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were due to visit Dublin Castle, intending to use the jewels to bestow the Order of St Patrick on a local Lord, but when the custodians came to check on the jewels the found the safe empty. Panic and suspicion swept the castle—the crime was clearly an inside job, because keys had been used to unlock the safe. All fingers pointed to Arthur Vicars, the person in charge of the keys, but he vehemently protested his innocence and instead accused his assistant, Francis Shackleton—brother of the famous Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and later a convicted fraudster. Both men were investigated by a Royal Commission which cleared them of the theft but admonished Vicars for not exercising due vigilance. Vicars became a bitter recluse, blaming King Edward VII for making him a scapegoat and continuing to accuse Shackleton of the crime, even using a statement in his will to take another swipe at his former colleague. Modern historians largely agree that Shackleton appears to have been the most likely culprit, but the jewels have never been tracked down and their disappearance remains a great mystery to this day.
King John of England (known as King John the Bad) had a huge cache of crown jewels. In October 1216, just a year after the famous Magna Carta was signed, King John was trying to suppress a rebellion and made a trip through the boggy Fens of eastern England. He and his large entourage travelled with many carts laden down with supplies, including one holding all of King John’s crown jewels. It’s thought that John had fallen ill, and so was in a hurry to get across The Wash, a tidal area criss-crossed with creeks, streams, and treacherous patches of quicksand. The riders got across safely, but contemporary chronicles tell us that the baggage carts laden with jewels sunk forever into the silt. To cap a really terrible week, just a few days later King John the Bad died of dysentery. The legend of the lost jewels has grown over time and archaeologists have sought the treasure in vain—the huge, boggy Fens seem unlikely to ever reveal their resting place.
The Scottish crown jewels are known as the Honours of Scotland and consist of a crown that was remodeled by James V in 1540, a scepter given to James IV in 1494, and the sword of state, which was given to James IV in 1507. The jewels were first used all together at the coronation of all Scottish monarchs starting in 1543, but during the English Civil War, when Oliver Cromwell had Charles I executed, the Scottish crown jewels were spirited away and hidden to prevent Cromwell from destroying them.
The monarchy was restored in 1660, and in 1707 Scotland officially became unified with England under James I. At that point, the historical pieces were placed in storage in Edinburgh Castle for safekeeping. Largely forgotten, they were thought lost until 1818, when the celebrated novelist (and ardent Scot) Sir Walter Scott led a search party through the storerooms of Edinburgh Castle in search of the jewels. Scott stumbled upon a locked oak chest, and there, hidden underneath piles of linen, were the Scottish crown jewels, exactly where they had been left in 1707. Since then the rediscovered jewels have been on display at Edinburgh Castle for all to admire.
The Romanov family ruled Russia for over 300 years: from 1613 until they were overthrown during the Russian Revolution in 1917. The Russian tsars had amassed an amazing collection of crown jewels, and in the chaos following their departure it would not have been surprising had the jewels gone missing. However, despite some revolutionaries arguing that the jewels should be sold as they represented the oppression of the people, historians were able to preserve the collection due to their national importance—or so it was thought. In 2012 researchers uncovered a large photographic record of the jewels from 1922 in the U.S. Geological Survey Library in Reston, Virginia. When they compared this record to the official inventory of the crown jewels from 1925 they discovered at least four pieces were missing, including a sapphire brooch that they later found had been sold at auction in London in 1927. The other three pieces—identified as a diadem, a bracelet, and a necklace—have so far not been traced and their whereabouts remain a mystery. As for the rest of the still extremely impressive Romanov crown jewels, they are on display at the Kremlin in Moscow.
The incredible French crown jewels were last used at the coronation of Louis XVI in 1775 and were thereafter on display in the treasury. They included the priceless Charlemagne Crown, Charles V’s medieval gold scepter, and the coronation sword, as well as an enormous collection of gemstones collected over hundreds of years by the French monarchs.
After the French Revolution it was agreed that the crown jewels should be sold, because keeping them might encourage attempts to restore the monarchy. It took many years for the plan to be put into action, but in 1887 many of the crown jewels were put up for sale (fortunately some of the most historically interesting pieces were preserved for the nation and some can still be seen on display in the Louvre). The auction caused quite a sensation and jewelry fans from all over the world flocked to try and secure a piece of history. The gross proceeds of the sale were put into government bonds for the benefit of the nation.
In 2008 one of the jewels sold at the 1887 auction again came up for sale. The stunning diamond brooch [PDF] had been made for Empress Eugenie in 1855 and was bought by jeweler Emile Schlesinger for Mrs. Caroline Astor at the 1887 auction. When the jewel came up for sale in 2008, it was quickly snapped up by the Louvre so that it might join their collection of surviving crown jewels.
After the Civil War in England, when Parliamentary forces under Oliver Cromwell defeated the Royalist forces of Charles I, all emblems of the monarchy were ordered destroyed. Charles I was executed in 1649 and the Parliamentarians agreed that the ancient English crown jewels must be melted down, preventing them from being used as a symbol of the lost monarchy. It is unclear exactly what items were in the crown jewels at this time, but they are thought to have included the diadem of St. Edward the Confessor, used at his coronation in 1043, as well as many other crowns, jewels, and plate. Details of the historical vandalism are scant, but it is thought that the golden crowns were melted down and made into coins.
However, one item survived: the golden Ampulla and spoon used to anoint the monarch with holy oil during the coronation ceremony. Today the English crown jewels—created after the Restoration for the coronation of Charles II in 1661—are kept on display at the Tower of London. The Imperial Crown of State includes a sapphire that once belonged to St. Edward the Confessor and was buried with him in 1066. It’s said, somewhat gruesomely, that the stone was retrieved from the king’s casket in 1101 and set into a crown for Henry I. It is unclear how the jewel managed to survive the destruction of the crown jewels but it thankfully reappeared at the Restoration and now represents the oldest surviving jewel in the current royal regalia.
September 16, 2016 – 2:00pm
The left most pillar of the famous Pillars of Creation, is actually 4 Light Years tall. That is equal to roughly 37,844,000,000,000 Kilometers.
Bruce Springsteen’s classic, Born to Run, almost became the official song of New Jersey until legislators listened to the lyrics and realized the song was about wanting to get out of New Jersey.
Sharks are older than trees. “Modern” trees lived around 350 million years ago while sharks have existed for 400 million years.
There used to be a popular children’s game called “mumblety-peg.” Children would compete to see who could throw a knife into the ground closer to their own feet. The loser had to pick his knife out of the ground with his teeth. Impaling your foot was an automatic win.
While in college during the Prohibition era, Dr. Seuss was caught drinking gin with friends in his dorm room. He was forced to write under a pen-name to dodge his ban from writing for the school’s humor magazine. Thus, Theodore Geisel chose his now-legendary pseudonym.
This one is for our readers on the other side of the globe from our main office. If you live in the Eastern Hemisphere, look up tonight and you’ll notice something strange going on with the Moon. It’ll be full, oh yes, and big, but with a pronounced darkness at its upper half. The best time to see it will be 19:05 UTC (3:05 pm EDT). It will be the kind of full moon that looks like it’s been through an Instagram filter—maybe Ludwig or X-Pro II. So what in the world is going on up there?
In our light-polluted modern world, the sky can seem pretty boring. Hazy black nights and smoggy white mornings. There are rain clouds, some lightning on occasion, and the Sun and Moon, constant and reliable, up and down, east and west. But don’t be fooled. The solar system—our solar system—is a teeming, dynamic system where shadows and light interplay constantly, with beauty and grace.
The Earth casts a pretty large shadow. Sometimes, when orbital dynamics are being generous, the Earth, Sun, and Moon line up just so. When the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth, blotting out our star but for a blinding corona along the rim—a pitch orb ringed in flame—you have a solar eclipse. Next year the United States will be treated to just such an eclipse, its shadow creeping across the North American continent in a line from Washington state to South Carolina.
When the celestial objects are reversed, and the Earth lines up between the Sun and the Moon, you get a total lunar eclipse. What that occurs, the darkest part of our shadow—the umbra—blankets the Moon, blotting it out, denying it sunlight. Sometimes, though, things aren’t quite so total. Sometimes the Moon passes into the Earth’s shadow, but not its umbra. When the Moon crosses into the outer shadow of the Earth—where the Sun’s rays are not blocked entirely—the Moon is darkened but not blackened. This is called a penumbral eclipse, and it’s what you’re going to see tonight. A good portion of the lunar surface is cast in a grim pall. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys creepy sights in the night sky, tonight is going to be your goth Christmas morning.
Because this is the last full moon before autumn equinox, tonight’s full moon is called the harvest moon. The name comes from ye olden days, when the light of the full moon gave farmers a little more time with which they might harvest their crops. The autumn equinox is the point in the Earth’s orbit in which the Sun shines directly on the Earth’s equator, meaning the whole world experiences a day and night of equal length. This year the autumn equinox will fall on September 22. It is the first day of fall.
This is the last eclipse of 2016. This is also the second eclipsed harvest moon in two years. (You might recall last year’s super red harvest moon.) Moreover, this is the last eclipsed harvest moon until 2024. (That year will also herald North America’s next total solar eclipse, should you miss the one in 2017.) If you live in the Western Hemisphere and want to be part of the penumbral lunar eclipse action, there is hope. Slooh is hosting a livestream of the event, which began at 11:30 a.m. EDT, complete with scientists explaining the mechanics of the event. It won’t be as good as the real thing, but you can screenshot it, apply X-Pro II, and post it to Instagram, and no one will be the wiser.
September 16, 2016 – 12:30pm
