Things you were shockingly old when you learned

i've been hearing the expression "it is always darkest before the dawn" all my life and it wasn't till about a week ago that i thought about it for more than a second and realized that it is not, in fact, true from a scientific pov

Washington DC is not a state. For some reason I always thought it was one.

― the grateful dead can dance (anagram), Tuesday, June 9, 2020 11:35 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think this tied in with teh deployment of troops there. If it had been a state t would have had to ok deployment with the state leadership.
I've heard a lot of people wanting to try to get DC State status because its residents don't have the same representation without it.

Correct. Unlike the 50 states that each get two senators, DC, not being a state, gets no representation in the Senate.

The baseball team in DC until 1971 was called the Senators. When the Montreal Expos moved to DC after decades of no baseball in the city, many wanted to revive the traditional Senators name, but others including DC's mayor objected to a city with no senators being called the Senators, so they became the Nationals.

xp Yeah it actually makes me bitter that I live in a borough of NYC that has 5x the population of Wyoming yet my ENTIRE STATE - let alone my city, let alone my borough - has the same number of senators as fucking Wyoming

― Josefa, Sunday, June 7, 2020 6:12 PM (two days ago) bookmark flaglink

This is one of the many reasons right-wing Republicans stay in power in the U.S. - most of the rural states with low populations are more conservative whereas high-population coastal states like New York and California are more liberal, but nonetheless Wyoming and Montana get as much Senate representation as California and New York.

D.C. also has no voting representation in the House. meanwhile its electoral-college representation is capped at the same number of electors as the least populous state, although i don't think that actually changes anything at current population levels.

DC is perpetually fucked, although arguably less so than Puerto Rico

i mean, i've come to terms with it by this point tbh

Feel like Puerto Rico has a better chance of being admitted as a state before DC.

Some people just can't get their head around a city being a state, no matter how much sense it makes. "Well why can't they just make it part of Maryland?" etc.

That is one of the more actionable/feasible suggestions tho

(That is, retaining the "monumental core" as a voteless Federal district, while retroceding the places where people actually, y'know, LIVE to a state that has representation.)

FWIW the Virginia portions of the District already did precisely that. In 1847. So there is precedent.

This has been an active issue my whole life, I have heard almost every argument and almost every proposed remedy and it is still a perpetual stalemate. I suspect it will be so when I die.

One of DC's most popular license plate mottos is "taxation without representation."

Today I learned that Northwestern University got its name because at the time of its founding in 1851, Chicago was the biggest city in the then northwestern, only modestly expanded United States. I mean, duh, but I never thought about it before.

I also recently learned that the phrase "happy as a clam" is truncated from "happy as a clam at high tide;" they're happy because they're harder to catch.

I assumed "happy as a clam" was because they appear to be smiling widely

Today I learned that Northwestern University got its name because at the time of its founding in 1851, Chicago was the biggest city in the then northwestern, only modestly expanded United States. I mean, duh, but I never thought about it before.

For something even crazier, look up why Case Western Reserve is in northeast Ohio.

or why pittsburgh was the 'gateway to the west' before st. louis

how about why north parade, a street in oxford (uk) is south of south parade.

Something to do with the Earth's shifting magnetic field?

has it to do with lord north

And Joe South.

don't it make you wanna go home.... counties

turns out i was shockingly old when i learned it's another fake etymology.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Parade#Origin_of_the_name

while we're learning late about American geography this week I discovered that

The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the American Midwest, the Heartland, Middle West, or simply the Midwest

is the north to north east and not in the midwest

well it's definitely not the northeast

it‘a midway to the west from the east coast, where “the west” kind of changed over time

The Midwest:
https://i.imgur.com/KAzZYWD.jpg

The Mideast:
https://i.imgur.com/BVKIvLR.jpg

South Central La:
https://i.imgur.com/O6HekCa.jpg

wait till you hear about upper and lower canada

Western Canada also begins slightly east of the country's latitudinal centre

https://www.ontariocourts.ca/ocj/files/pic/regionsofthecourt.jpg

v. tricky

Image didn't post but yeah, Northern Ontario (Northeast + Northwest) amounts to 88% of the province's land area; Western Ontario is in the eastern third of the province (south of the entire Northeast and further east than some of the Northeast).xp

MY parents met at the University of Western Ontario and my dad drove me and my elder brother up there for its centenary back around 1980. Its in London which seems slightly to the NorthWest of New York State or at least Niagara Falls which we drove through and stopped at.

About 2h straight west of Niagara Falls, NY, yeah; v slightly south if anything; whereas the actual geographically western border of the province borders Minnesota.

About the middle of the "West" region in that map.

Canada regions map reminds me that there are places where you can cross the border from Finland into Norway from the west.

The Mississippi River normally forms the border between Illinois and Missouri, but the river has an annoying habit of moving around, so there are little bits of Illinois stranded on the western bank, and can only be reached from Missouri.

Think that's weird, head up to Carter Lake, Iowa – only place in the state where you can walk to Nebraska and not get your feet wet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_irregularities_of_the_United_States#Separated_by_the_Mississippi_River

Norwegian Wood ends in arson.

That ain't the only thing that ends with arson!

https://i.imgur.com/Yg4chFY.gif

Italy is smaller than Arizona.

― i am not throwing away my snot (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, June 7, 2020 2:56 PM

https://i.imgur.com/8JcfCkD.png

Well, you'd still have to ball it up first.

(Fun little map.)

according to some quick searching, arizona is 3k square miles smaller than italy

Italy does look bigger.

Maybe not common knowledge, but I was surprised to learn recently that Charles Rolls, co-founder of Rolls-Royce, in 1910 bought an airplane designed by the Wright brothers. And that he crashed in it and died. And that he was the first Briton ever to die in a plane crash.

I think I just learned that Holly Golightly was a hooker?

... are you confusing the book character with the singer?

I've got something to tell you about Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman

she was really Bruce Willis the whole time?

According to Wikipedia, Capote said Holly Golightly was "not a prostitute but an American geisha".

Die Hard with a Shopping Montage

the guy who created minecraft turned out to be a massive fuckhead

More like escort? At least, in the movie she accepts money for her company but finds a way to escape (e.g., through a window) before things get physical - I probably read the book 30 years ago and have quite forgotten it.

The remake with Bruce Willis changes the main character to a guy named Hoopy Goloopy.

I've never seen the movie, actually. I just assumed she was some rich single young woman navigating love and dating in the crazy big city!