Things I learned today (Part 2)

Marilyn is still in Home and Away and Emily Symons is now 54

Probably a Chinese manufacturer. Nankang?

Lego

It’s a trick question really :grin:

Announced at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, ‘The Property of a Lady’ was to star Timothy Dalton in his third feature to complete his three-film contract, possibly alongside Elizabeth Hurley, Catherine Zeta-Jones or Lucy Liu and Anthony Hopkins as the villain. Originally supposed to be based on the Ian Fleming short story of the same name, the film was ultimately reworked into ‘GoldenEye’, which starred Pierce Brosnan (the fifth official Bond actor) following expiration of Dalton’s contract.

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On 21st October 1805, during the Napoleonic Wars, a British fleet led by Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve in the Battle of Trafalgar.

A quarter of his men who can be identified were Irish, according to the UK’s National Maritime Museum and the UK National Archives.

They have examined the surviving records for all involved in Nelson’s fleet as part of a new exhibition in London which analyses the time in the 18th and 19th century when Britannia really did rule the waves.

Nelson’s fleet consisted of 33 ships and approximately 18,000 men, of whom records survive for about 12,000.

Some 3,573 sailors came from Ireland including:

  • 893 from Dublin
  • 632 from Cork
  • 187 from Waterford
  • 154 from Limerick
  • 116 from Wexford
  • 112 from Antrim

There were 94 Irishmen on the flagship HMS Victory on which Nelson lost his life during the battle.
There were 77 Ryans, 59 Murphys and 32 McCarthys involved.

The archivists were particularly interested in one Irishman, James Spratt, who was born in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, in 1771. He is one of the few survivors of Trafalgar who was photographed when the age of photography began in the 1830s. He had also taken part in another of Nelson’s victories at the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen.

Spratt was injured in the leg at Trafalgar. He refused to allow it to be amputated, but in the days following the battle the infected wound became infested with large maggots that had to be removed by a surgeon. The limb was saved, but was permanently damaged and ended up three inches shorter than his other leg.

The Battle of Trafalgar, off the coast of Spain, was the decisive naval engagement of the Napoleonic wars and a huge victory for Britain over the combined French and Spanish fleets. It put paid to any hopes Napoleon had of staging a cross-channel invasion of Britain.

The scale of Irish involvement in the Battle of Trafalgar is not a surprise, according to the National Maritime Museum’s curator of naval history Dr Quintin Colville.

"The contribution of the Irish was enormous, not just about people but about provisions including beef, pork and grain”.

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Cork

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Impressed that this girl didn’t go off the rails completely.

The musician Donovan has lived in Ireland for the last 40yrs.

Captain Cook on his voyage to Australia went via Cape Horn rather than Cape of Good Hope

No idea why but I always assumed the good Captain when around South Africa.

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A Dutch explorer was first European to arrive at NZ 127 years earlier, Cook was second but first European to Australia which seems scarcely believable if yer man was in NZ over a century earlier

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They knew it was there alright. They just didn’t bother their holes exploring it because it wasn’t on any known trading routes at the time.

A place wasn’t deemed discovered until it’s navigated and explored.

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Didn’t the Dutch lad discover Tasmania too, which is now named after him, but which he named van Diemen’s land after his boss. Odd that he seems to have missed the rest of Australia, especially seeing that he was working from the Dutch East Indies

Edit @habanerocat has this covered

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So i could still discover Leitrim?

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If you’re lucky.

Cork City was always a loyal subject.

Only found out about it when listening to “The rest is History”
Will give that a listen.

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History hit did one on him as well lately

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The Brits were convinced there must be a lost continent to the south to “balance out” the World map. They knew of NZ so he headed for there to see if that was a continent, he figured out it was two islands. So he headed for Tazmania which the Dutch had found, to see if that was a continent. But he hit Oz before he could find Tazmania. So he headed North up along Australia to see if that was connected to the East Indies or to find the end of Australia and get an idea how big that was.
He nearly managled himself on the great barrier reef.

As above I was only listening to a very good history hit pod on it lately.

Cook didn’t even know he was going looking for the continent he was heading for Taihiti which is why he went the way he did I guess, he opened an envelope when he finished his first mission (capturing a solar eclipse) and it said, off you go and find Austrailia

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