Mysteries Around Us: 7/6/08

Saturday, July 12, 2008

THE GHOSTS OF THE TOWER OF LONDON

With a long history of execution, murder and torture, is it any wonder the "Tower of London" ranks as one of the most haunted Castles in Britain. Its history begins in the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius. He chose the site to build a fort on. Over a 1000 years later William the Conqueror chose the same site on which to build the Tower of London. It is the oldest fortress, palace and prison of its type anywhere in Europe. With a 400 hundred year history of executions: these ranged from hanging, beheading, to being hung or drawn and quartered, it was the perfect recipe for a haunted history.

The first documented sighting of a ghost at the tower was that of Thomas A. Becket. It was reported that during the construction of an inner curtain wall, he appeared and showed his anger at the construction by reducing the wall to a pile of rubble by striking it with his cross. Probably the most persistent ghost is that of Queen Anne Boleyn. On learning that the baby she was carrying was a boy, and heir to the Kings throne, she sadly went on to miscarry the child and was subsequently beheaded on the grounds of adultery and treason. Queen Anne is buried under the chapel's altar, and her body has been seen to walk the corridors of the Tower. She is only recognisable by the dress she wore at her execution.

One of the most gruesome hauntings spoken about is that of the Countess of Salisbury. At 70 she was given the death penalty on political grounds. As she strode up to the block to be beheaded, she refused to place her neck on the block as all others did, subsequently she fled the scene chased by the executioner. he apparently hacked at her body until she fell down dead...hacked to death. at the scene of this grisly murder it is said you can see the executioners axe doing its deadly deed.

Although not an apparition, the haunting in the Salt Tower is for some, very real and very frightening. Said to be one of the most haunted areas in the tower's complex, dogs will not enter this area at all, and and Yeoman Warders will not enter after dark, after a Warder told how he was almost throttled by a strong but unseen force. As recently as 1995, an American tourist was taking photographs of the Tower. She took a picture of Traitor's Gate. On having the film developed, you can clearly see what appears to be a hand wearing a 16th century Yeoman's uniform.

Did you know...

1. Until babies are six months old, they can breathe and swallow at the same time. Indeed convenient!

2. Offered a new pen to write with, 97% of all people will write their own name.

3. Male mosquitoes are vegetarians. Only females bite.

4. The average person's field of vision encompasses a 200-degree wide angle.

5. To find out if a watermelon is ripe, knock it, and if it sounds hollow then it is ripe.

6. Canadians can send letters with personalised postage stamps showing their own photos on each stamp.

7. Babies' eyes do not produce tears until the baby is approximately six to eight weeks old.

8. It snowed in the Sahara Desert in February of 1979.

9. Plants watered with warm water grow larger and more quickly than plants watered with cold water.

10. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

11. Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.

12. Those stars and colours you see when you rub your eyes are called phosphenes.

13. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

14. Everyone's tongue print is different, like fingerprints.

15. Contrary to popular belief, a swallowed chewing gum doesn't stay in the gut. It will pass through the system and be excreted.

16. At 40 degrees centigrade a person loses about 14.4 calories per hour by just breathing.

17. There is a hotel in Sweden built entirely out of ice; it is rebuilt every year.

18. Cats, camels and giraffes are the only animals in the world that walk right foot, right foot, left foot, left foot, rather than right foot, left foot...

19. Onions help reduce cholesterol if eaten after a fatty meal.20. The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.

21. In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch and make it look like its smiling.

22. The color blue can have a calming affect on people.23. Depending upon the need, the brain may send up to 11 tranquilizing chemicals to calm the body.

24. Leonardo DA Vinci could write with the one hand and draw with the other simultaneously. Now we know why his pictures were so exquisite!

25. Names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru(Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).

26. The only 2 animals that can see behind themselves without turning their heads are the rabbit and parrot.

27. The only 15 letter word that can be spelt without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

28. Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.

29. The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start.

30. Electricity doesn't move through a wire but through a field around the wire.

31. All U.S. Presidents have worn glasses; some of them just didn't like to be seen wearing them in public.

32. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver and purple.

33. Raw cashews are poisonous and must be roasted before eating.

"FACTS" we know that are not so...

Almost everybody knows that Wellington’s final battle against Napoleon was fought at Waterloo. And that bulls see red. But, like a lot of other things we know, these “facts” just aren’t so. The battle of Waterloo was really fought four kilometers away from Waterloo, between the villages of Plancenoit and Mont St Jean. And investigations have established that bulls are actually “colour-blind” – they cannot distinguish one colour from another. This article is an attempt to set the record straight on some more such misinformation.

Moth-eaten:

Moths, contrary to the popular notion, do not eat clothes. Some, as a matter of fact, don’t eat anything at all during their adult lives, which are (not surprisingly) brief. It’s the larvae that do the damage; by the time moths are flying out of the cupboard, it’s too late.

Sherlock Holmes:

At no point in any of the 56 short stories and four novels that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about his famous detective does Holmes say, “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

S.O.S.:

The universal symbol requesting aid, contrary to what is often said, doesn’t stand for “Save Our Ship,” or “Save Our Souls.” It doesn’t, in fact, stand for anything. It was selected because it is very simple, both to remember and to transmit in Morse code – three dots, three dashes, three dots.

The bagpipe:

While the bagpipe is considered to be the national instrument of Scotland, historically it is hardly more Scottish than Irish. It is a very ancient instrument – as old as ancient Persia – which was introduced into the British Isles by the Romans. Surprisingly enough, some form of the bagpipe is found in Spain, Italy, France, the Balkans, and even Czechoslovakia.

Frankenstein:

A common misconception is that the name of the monster in Mary Shelly’s book: Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, is Frankenstein. Frankenstein was not the name of the monster but the name of the person who created the monster.

Steam:

You just think you can see it. Like most other gases, steam is invisible. Only when it cools enough so that minute droplets of water condense, is it visible. If one looks closely at the spout of a boiling kettle, one can observe a small space of what looks like air between the spout and the mist. That is steam.