Posted
on July 9, 2013
Every
once in a while, a bridge collapses. One just collapsed a couple of
months ago in Washington state—luckily, only three people suffered
minor injuries, and nobody died. The bridge was called “very, very
old” in a newspaper report. I had to dig around a lot to find out
how old you have to be to be called “very, very old”—and I
finally discovered that the bridge was built in 1955.
Which
means that I am older than the bridge!
Today's
“birthday bridge” is a fair bit older than that bridge in
Washington. As a matter of fact, the construction of it began on this
date in 1357!
Which
means that the bridge is even older than me!
Actually, it means that
the bridge is more than 650 years old!
Now
that's an old bridge!
The
Charles Bridge crosses the Vltava River in Prague, in the Czech
Republic. It is 621 meters long and nearly 10 meters wide (more than
2,000 feet long, and almost 33 feet wide). The bridge rests on 16
arches and is protected by three bridge towers.
There are 30 statues
decorating the bridge at spaced intervals.
I
don't want you to think that the bridge has lasted all these
centuries without any need for repairs! Quite a lot of the problems
the bridge has encountered damaged or toppled the statues—this
happened, for example, when Swedes battled the locals on the bridge,
during the Thirty Years' War. Other problems occurred during huge
floods, when trees and rafts were swept from upstream into the
bridge's pillars. The bridge withstood many floods, but part of it
collapsed in 1432 and again in 1890 during particularly disastrous
floods. Most of the bridge has been reworked and stabilized, and
missing statues have been replaced with replicas.
This primer on Prague lists Charles
Bridge as one of the top ten things to do and see in the city.
By
the way...
Today
isn't just the anniversary of the day that construction on the bridge
started—it's the anniversary of King Charles IV himself laying the
first stone of the bridge at exactly 5:31 a.m. Why at that very early
hour, you might ask? Well, Charles IV was superstitious and believed
that numerology could help keep “his” bridge safe. He said that
the date and time 1357 9, 7 5:31 built a bridge of numbers to support
the actual bridge. Obviously, Charles IV's “number bridge” starts
with the year, the the day, month, and time. This creates a sort of
palindrome of odd numbers. (A palindrome is something that reads the
same backwards and forwards, such as “A Toyota's a Toyota,” “A
man, a plan, a canal, Panama!” and “Step on no pets.” In this
case, it is an arrangement of numbers that reads the same either
direction, like 3941493.)
Also
on this date:
Inventor Elias Howe's birthday 
Plan ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest pages on July
holidays, historical
anniversaries in July,
and July
birthdays.
And
here are my Pinterest pages on August
holidays, historical
anniversaries in August,
and August
birthdays.
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