Martin Strel, is a Slovenian long-distance swimmer, one of the most elite endurance athletes best known for swimming the entire length of various rivers. Strel holds successive Guinness World Records for swimming the Danube river, the Mississippi River, the Yangtze River, and the Amazon River. The latter being his crowning achievement. Strel swam the successive length of the Amazon 5,268 kilometres (3,273 mi) over the course of 66 days.
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That’s an average of 3.325 km an hour or 2 miles an hour. Which I think is pretty fast. And that’s without calculating the breaks. Holy shit
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If he’s putting in an 8 hour day, that’s about 6.2 MPH. Considering most Olympic swimmers are doing about 8 MPH, it’s incredibly impressive. Maybe less impressive though, since I’m willing to bet he swam downstream, so the river likely sped him up a lot.
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In July 2001, he achieved one more world record — 504.5 kilometres (313.5 mi) of non-stop swimming in Danube within 84 hours and 10 minutes. He lost 40 pounds of weight.
That’s 6 kph, 3.73 mph - every hour - for 3 and half days. Astounding feat!
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On the subject of elite endurance athletes (ok I have to say I am a mountain biker and that’s how i know about john stamstad)
“The year 1999 was highlighted when Stamstad conquered the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route-the longest off-road trail in the world. He completed the 2500 miles and 200,000 vertical feet of climbing in 18 days and 5 hours.”
If I was 20 years younger and richer… I’d give it a shot! He has an impressive list of accomplishments if anyone wants to check them out.
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The Egyptian ruler Cleopatra is widely thought of as a stunning seductress. Current evidence suggests that this was not actually the case. Furthermore, Cleopatra was not even Egyptian, but actually a Greek. Cleopatra was a ambitious ruler, who murdered two siblings to secure greater power for herself. She spoke at least a dozen different languages and was well educated in mathematics, philosophy, oratory and astronomy. Legend says that she died by suicide after failing to seduce the Roman conqueror Octavian. It is believed that she did this by enticing an Asp (or a viper or Egyptian cobra) to bite her. The ancient chronicler Plutarch said that her death is still speculation, but she was known to carry a hairpin coated in a deadly poison on her.
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Vesna Vulović currently holds the world record for the highest fall survived without a parachute. Vesna was a Serbian Flight Attendant in 1972, when her plane was air-bombed. She is thought to have survived by crashing down in a piece of fuselage in a wooded, snowy mountainside. The total height she fell from totaled 33,330 ft (10,160 m) or about 6.3 miles (10.16 km). She suffered several broken bones, but was otherwise fine.
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The island archipelago of Tristan da Cunha is possibly the most remote permanently inhabited settlement in the world. It lies about 1,732 miles (2,787 km) off the coast of Cape Town in South Africa, has a population of about 268, and has been completely isolated from Covid 
.
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On this date March 16th, 1917 Nicolas II, the “last Tsar of Russia” was forced to abdicate the throne. Nicolas II was generally considered a poor leader, being more authoritarian in his rule. Often nicknamed Bloody Nicolas due to his bad handling of Bloody Sunday, in which he visited the injured and bereaved, promising them support and compensation, but then proceeded to go to a lavish ball. It was akin to a “let them eat cake” moment. This in concert with their role in World War I helped tip the scale towards revolution. He was executed and replaced by Bolshevik Vladmir Lenin who helped form the U.S.S.R.
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Figured I’d throw some St. Patrick’s Day history at you. St. Patrick was born in Britain. He was kidnapped and sent to be a slave in Ireland at the age of 16. He eventually escaped, but is said to have returned to Ireland to bring them Christianity. The tradition of the Shamrock stems from the symbolism of the three leaves matching the Holy Trinity. Legends tell of St. Patrick standing on a hill, Croagh Patrick, holding a staff up and banishing all the snakes from Ireland. This can be viewed possibly as the removing of Paganism from the country.
St. Patrick’s Day began in Ireland as a religious holiday and continued that way for a long time. In the 1970’s Ireland began promoting St. Patrick’s Day as a means of increasing tourism. Through the many years of the celebration, Celtic/Pagan traditions intermingled, such as the wearing of green and Leprechauns/rainbows/pots of gold, etc. The holiday is celebrated in many countries worldwide now. Traditional foods eaten include Irish Soda Bread, Corned Beef and Cabbage. The city of Chicago dyes to Chicago river green during their celebration. Sydney lights up their famous Opera House green specially for the day. People dress as Leprechauns in Tokyo during their Parade.
It’s become a worldwide celebration. Not necessarily of Irish heritage, but more for the traditionalism of it.
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Conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874) - whose Siamese (Thai) origins are the source of the term “Siamese twins” - had 21 children of their own, and they have 1500 living descendants, most of whom live in North Carolina.
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Let’s say a generation is 30 years. Then there were generations in 1811, 1841, 1871, 1901, 1931, 1961, 1991, 2021. So that would mean 1500 descendants in only 8 generations. Supposing the average amount of children per generation is 2.5, the average amount of children after 8 generations would be 2.5^7(the first generation doesn’t count as it starts with one person… usually) so only 610 descendants.
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Increase the average per woman for the first 3-4 generations at least, and keep in mind that many women in the US had 3,4,5 or more children at least, well into the 1930s and beyond:
Source of image:
Also keep in mind the children per woman in the US was higher than 3 up to 1964:
I suspect the numbers will work out better when those variable rates are worked into the calculations 
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I’ve often thought of life like a fading movie from the past, but now gloriously restored in Technicolor, Panavision and Dolby Surround Sound. Celebrated and cherished again, until the end.
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Love this thread 
I thought I’d chime in.
On 12 June 1858 in Birmingham, UK - Hundreds of thousands of little stones rained down on the city, smashing greenhouses and littering the streets. The event was never explained.
Any ideas?
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love it - screens are definitely a gift and curse of our generations, something I need to work on… Back to nature 
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The stones may have been picked up by an updraft of wind (perhaps like a tornado funnel) and carried high into the atmosphere, they could have been transported by currents of wind, high up, and then eventually dropped. There wouldn’t necessarily need to be a storm/ high wind in the area they are dropped.
This can also happen with animals, like frogs, birds, fish insects etc.
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@Badger Excellent point. This isn’t necessarily a common event. But, it happens enough for it to be not surprising to the scientific community, though not enough for the local populace to understand it. In less civilized times, it was seen as either a blessing or a curse by the Gods, I’m sure.
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Here’s an interesting one. Vetting your honey’s pollen sources may actually be a wise decision. In certain parts of the USA, honey bees collect pollen from the Mountain Laurel plant’s flowers. Because of the toxicity of the plants it actually causes the bee hive’s honey to become toxic as well. The resulting honey was coined Mad Honey, because it can induce vomiting, convulsions, and paralysis.
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