#factman

[factsman]

Hiatus

Hello, dear followers.

I have come to a decision that it's time to put this tumblr on hiatus. I don't have as much time to dedicate to research and writing facts and fearing a dramatic drop of quality, I concluded that it's best to end while the content is still any good. And 75 seemed a nice round number to end on.

I doubt that I will be able to quit completely and you can expect a fact once in a while, every time I learn something new and cool I'd like to share, but it definitely won't be a daily thing.

Thanks for reading!

[factsman]

Fact 75: Yo dawg, I heard you like enclaves...

Fact: The Indian enclave of Dahala Khagrabari is located within a Bangladeshi enclave, located within an Indian enclave, located in Bangladesh.

Explanation: An enclave is a piece of a country's territory, that is not contiguous with the main body, due to some other countries' territory. The borders of Bangladesh and India are dotted with 173 enclaves, created through misinterpreted treaties, chess games between kings and other political misunderstandings. One such enclave is of interest, as it is the only counter-counter-enclave or 3rd order enclave in the world. This means that within the enclave, lies another enclave, and within that enclave, lies yet a third one.

[factsman]

Fact 72: Germans build massive death machine

Fact: The Bagger 288 is the world's largest vehicle in the world, weighing 13,500 tonnes.

Explanation: No, that is not photoshop. What you're seeing on the picture is the Bagger 288, the world's largest land vehicle being moved in 2001 from one mine to another. It's an excavator, and can dig up to 240,000 tonnes every day - the equivalent to making a hole the size of a football pitch 30 metres deep. Also, that's enough to fill up 2400 coal wagons.

To complete this task, it uses the massive excavating head that is 21 metres in diameter (that's that thing on the left that looks like a massive buzzsaw). Each of those teeth is actually a massive bucket the size of a jacuzzi.

The whole machine is 220 metres long and about a hundred tall, and can move at a staggering pace of up to 0.6 km/h. It weighs a staggering 13,500 tonnes (since I seem to be using this comparison often, it's equivalent to 220 Challenger II tanks). What is incredible is that due to its massive amount of caterpillar tracks, the weight is very well distributed, and the machine can move on dirt, gravel and grass without leaving much of an imprint (the pressure under it's treads is 170% atmospheric pressure).

To power this behemoth, it needs 16.6 megawatts of power, or as much as 16600 households use on average or about 22,300 horsepower.

[factsman]

Fact 71: Russians fire king, literally.

Fact: The impostor tsar Dmitriy I was killed, quartered, cremated and his ashes shot from a cannon.

Explanation: In 1593 the son of Ivan the Terrible died childless, ending the  Rurik dynasty which ruled Russia for over 400 years. That started what is called the Time of Troubles, a 15 year period before a new dynasty was established (the Romanov dynasty, which ruled Russia until the death of the last tsar at the hands of the communist revolutionaries). In that period there was a claimant to the throne, Dmitriy I (also called False Dmitriy I), who claimed to be the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, which would give him right to the throne.

Before he could take the throne, however, he needed help, money and armies. He got them from the Polish, which didn't gain him a whole lot of trust from the Russians. After seizing the throne, he ruled for 10 months, during which he was disliked by his subjects. He was a womaniser, didn't follow local traditions, didn't have a beard and surrounded himself with Poles.

He, along with about 500 Polish noblemen, were massacred by rebels led by future tsar Vasili IV. He was buried, then exhumed, dragged by rope attached to his genitals, quartered, burned, loaded into a cannon and then fired in the general direction of Poland, as an act of defiance.

[factsman]

Fact 70: Insect man world's most powerful superhero.

Fact: If a human was to jump as high and as far as the froghopper, they would be able to jump 200 metres into the air. If a human was to be as strong as a Hercules beetle, they would be able to lift 60 tonnes. If they were to be as quick as an American cockroach, they would be able to run at 315km/h.

Explanation: Insects are wonderful animals and often the most underrated, simply because of their size. If things were to be scaled up to human sizes, the insects would have incredible strength, speed and power.

Take a froghopper, for example. It is a small insect that lives in our back gardens, usually about half a centimetre in size. It is however able to jump up to 120 times it's own length, experiencing the acceleration of a baseball getting struck by a bat (60 times the deadly acceleration for a human).

And the Hercules beetle is a true strongman of the insect world. It is a massive beetle growing up to the size of a human hand and is able to lift up to 850 times its own weight, equivalent to a human lifting a Challenger tank overhead.

The American cockroach is the quickest bug ever recorded, reaching 50 body lengths per second, If this was a human, we'd be able to outrun most cars.

Next time you see insects, think of them as mini-superheroes.

[factsman]

Fact 68: Chicken at 10 Downing Street.

Fact: One of the houses that now makes up 10 Downing Street was owned by Mr Chicken.

Explanation: 10 Downing Street, as you may know, is the home and office of the prime minister of Great Britain. It was originally gifted to Sir Robert Walpole, who is considered the first Prime Minister, by George II in 1732. Soon thereafter, he realised that he needed more room, so he decided to join the building with the house next door, whose tenant happened to be none other than Mr Chicken.

[factsman]

Fact 67: Germany has tropical airship house.

Fact: The Aerium, a building originally built as a hangar for airships, is the world's largest uninterrupted volume buidling and now houses a tropical resort.

Explanation: The Aerium was originally built in 1996 as a hangar for developing a massive airship (a ridig-body blimp) for heavy cargo operations.  It has the world's largest uninterrupted volume (meaning it's basically one single room without any separators in between) of 550,000 cubic metres. How big is that? Well, have a look:

See those tiny dots on the bottom left? Those are people.

Eventually, the company that built this beast filed for insolvency and had to sell this off. Now it serves as a self-contained tropical paradise resort. And it looks pretty sweet.

[factsman]

Fact 66: Fourteen of you could fit in world's largest engine.

Fact: The Wärtsilä RT-flex96C is the world's largest engine. Each of it's cylinders has a bore of about 1 metre and with each stroke, the cylinders move down by 2.5 metres.

Explanation: No, that is not a model truck. What you're seeing there is the world's largest reciprocating engine (similar to the one you have in your car or your lawnmower). From the bottom to top it is an impressive 13.5 metres and weighs an incredible 2200 tonnes. It is used in the world's largest ships and is able to provide 110 thousand break-horsepower. To put that into perspective, the world's most powerful road car ever built produces 85 times less. And it's enough force to pull a T-90 tank along the ground at the speed of sound.