November 30 - National Days in Yemen and Benin

 Posted on November 30, 2021


This is an update of my post published on November 30, 2010:



Above, Yemen's flag
Below, Benin's flag



1. On which two continents are Yemen and Benin located?

2. Which two European countries colonized Yemen and Benin?

3. What do Yemen and Benin celebrate on this date?



Answers: 

1. Yemen is on the Arabian Peninsula, in the “Near East” portion of Asia; Benin is on the southern side of the "bulge" of Africa.

Yemen in red

Benin's location

2. The U.K. colonized southern Yemen; France colonized Benin. 

3. Yemen celebrates its Nov. 30, 1967, independence from the U.K.; Benin celebrates the Nov. 30, 1975, renaming to Republic of Benin. The former name, Dahomey, was the name of just a portion of the nation, so a more neutral name was chose. Benin is the name of the body of water next to the country.


Yemeni kids, above.
The kids below live in Benin.



By the way:

Yemen's main national holiday is on May 22, which is Unity Day, celebrating the 1990 joining of North and South Yemen. 

Benin's main national holiday is August 1, celebrating its independence from France in 1960.


These are a few of my favorite things...
...about Yemen and Benin.

  • Yemen is the only nation on the Arabian peninsula to have a pure republic form of government. The other nations have kings (or sultans) of some sort.

  • More than 200 islands, located in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, are part of Yemen. Most of the islands are volcanic in origin.


    Socotra Island, part of Yemen, has...
    ...weird trees!


  • I read that almost everybody in Yemen wears ceremonial daggers or swords on a daily basis. I can't help wondering if “almost everybody” really means “almost every adult man”? 

  • Shibam, in Yemen, is called the oldest skyscraper city of the world and also “the Manhattan of the desert.” Its many-storied buildings are made of mud bricks. With some buildings 100 feet tall, these are the tallest mud buildings in the world.




  • A memorial about the slave trade has been erected on the beach of Benin. Called The Door of No Return, it shows that slavery was a one-way trip into horror for most people.



  • The cathedral in Cotonou, Benin, may be one of the most unusually colored churches in the world.


  • Get a glimpse here of some of the animals you can see at Benin's Pendjari National Park.

  • Grand Popo is one of the most picturesque beaches of Benin.




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November 29 - Classified Day

 Posted on November 29, 2021


This is an update of my post published on November 29, 2010:




For centuries people have been naming animals (and plants) and animal groups (and plant groups), making assumptions about which critters are like which other critters, sorting them according to what they look like and how they behave. Scientists call the study of classification of plants, animals, and other organisms taxonomy.



On this day in 1627, English naturalist John Ray was born. He ended up making contributions in classifying flowering plants, and he was the first person to define the word species in a scientific way. (Basically, he said that organisms are of the same species, even if they vary from one another, if they are related through reproduction.)

One of the things Ray believed and practiced was classifying creatures according to actual observations instead of according to pre-conceived groups created by either-or thinking. Instead of diagramming a rigid “tree of life” like this:



Ray allowed for a taxonomy like this:





On this day in 1762, French biologist Pierre Andre Latreille was born. He ended up making the first detailed classification of insects and crustaceans (which are shrimp, lobsters, crabs, and other shellfish).




Latreille may be the only person who saved his own life by discovering a new species. He was imprisoned during the French Revolution, and he was sentenced to death for refusing to pledge his allegiance to the new constitution. However, there in the prison he discovered a beetle that had not been known to science before. Because of this, two fellow naturalists were able to convince Latreille's captors to free him!


Classifying Fun

  • Kid Zone has a nice webpage covering some of the same content. 
  • Scientists classify plants, too. Here is a YouTube video that discusses plant classification.













(Monday after Thanksgiving)






Plan ahead:


Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

 
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November 28 - First Skywriting in U.S. Skies

Posted on November 28, 2021


This is an update of my post published on November 28, 2010:





November 28, 1922: Ten thousand feet up, over Times Square in New York City, giant letters appeared in the sky. Made of white smoke, the letters spelled out, “Hello USA. Call Vanderbilt 7200.”

Within three hours, the Vanderbilt Hotel received 47,000 calls!



And a new advertising form was born.

Actually, pilot Captain Cyril Turner of Britain's Royal Air Force had earlier demonstrated sky writing in England, in May 1922. That time, he was advertising a newspaper, the Daily Mail.

Skywriting is formed when engine heat is used to turn a certain kind of oil into white smoke. This smoke is released under pressure. Of course, it is the plane's maneuvers, along with the starting and stopping of the smoke release, that makes the smoke form letters.



Skywriting is often done in summer. It requires cloudless skies (or at least nearly cloudless skies) and little wind. In this video you can see how slowly skywriting appears, and why strong winds would destroy the beginning of the message before the end has appeared. This video also features a cloud threatening to cover part of the message. 


Do It With Dots!

With five airplanes, skywriting can appear more quickly. Each letter is created with five rows of dots rather than with continuous lines “drawn” on the sky by just a single plane. Here is a video in which this sort of skywriting is called skytyping!




If You Could Write Anything on the Sky...

...what would it be? Where would you write it? Who would read it?



I wonder who paid for this message... 
...and who it was meant for.

More

Perhaps the most famous skywriting in motion picture history wasn't made by a plane....



It was made by a witch! "Surrender Dorothy" appeared in the skies over the Emerald City, in The Wizard of Oz.




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