A few randomish facts that might spark a worldbuilding idea

I like to collect random facts and annoy my family with them. 

Me: Mum, did you know that in 1879 a city in Belgium [Liège, to be exact] trained 37 cats to deliver mail to surrounding villages?

Mum: They did not. 

Me: They did! 

Mum: Cats? They trained cats? 

Me: ...

Me: Well they commissioned 37 cats. 

Me: It didn't work. 

Me: You already guessed that, didn't you. Because cats.

But some of the facts I've found could be useful for worldbuilding or various happenings in your stories, so I thought I'd share a few. 

(These have all been collected from '1339 QI Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop'. Interesting book - but crude in spots. Read at your own risk.)

‘Journey’ is from French journée and once meant the distance one could walk in a day.

In Tibet, distances were traditionally measured by the number of cups of tea needed for each journey.
All the mountains on Saturn’s moon Titan are named after peaks in The Lord of the Rings.

Thailand has a special language used exclusively for talking to the king.

In the USA, ransom payments to kidnappers are tax-deductable. 

No more than two flies are allowed by law in any public toilet in China.

Public applause is banned in Belarus.

The Andorran army is made up of ten soldiers. 

 In Kennesaw, Georgia, gun ownership is required by law.

Entrance to the Tower of London used to be free if you brought a dog or cat to feed to the lions.

The Kattenstoet was a medieval festival in Belgium in which cats were thrown from the town’s belfry.

Villages in County Durham include Pity Me and No Place. 

Portsmouth has a locksmith called ‘Surelock Homes’.
The British Standards Institution has a 5,000 word report on the correct way to make a cup of tea.
Only 22 of the world’s 193 countries have never been invaded by the British.

In WW1, it was patriotic in the UK to kick dachshunds. 

There are 300 lakes beneath Antarctica that are kept from freezing by the warmth of the Earth’s core.
The ancient city of Alexandria was built in such a way that the sun shone down the main street on Alexander the Great’s birthday.
Henry VIII put a tax on beards in 1535 (his own was exempt).
King David I of Scotland gave tax rebates to subjects with good table manners.
Queen Victoria could eat a seven-course meal in under half an hour.
The Queen does the washing-up once a year, in a special hut at Balmoral.
King John I of France was proclaimed king five months before he was born and lived for five days.  

Human bone is four times stronger than concrete.

After a double hand transplant, right-handed patients can become left-handed.

A human being can survive for nine seconds at 1000˚C without suffering lasting damage.

Since 1940, 157 people have fallen from planes without parachutes and survived.

Having a younger brother or sister can increase your blood pressure by more than 5%.

In the 1720s, the Gloucester Journal apologised for ‘the present scarcity of news’ and offered a selection of poems instead.

The oldest dance still performed is the Austrian shoe-slapping dance.

In the 19^th century, a 5-foot 6-inch footman cost £20/year; a full six-footer cost £40/year.

For 214 years, until 2012, it was illegal in Paris for women to wear trousers. 

The guillotine was last used in France in 1977.

François le Clerc is the only known pirate to have had a peg-leg.
Only one pirate is known to have buried any treasure.
There is only one recorded case of ‘walking the plank’.
There is no historical evidence for any pirate having ever owned a pet parrot.

The ingredient that makes Brussels sprouts bitter is cyanide.

15 apricot kernels contain enough cyanide to kill a child. 

A medium-sized tube of toothpaste contains enough chemicals to kill 13 dogs.  

You only need to be one metre underwater to be protected from bullets.

A flu virus can only survive on most surfaces for 48 hours, but can live on a banknote for 17 days.

Moths can be trained to detect plastic explosives. 

Diamonds boil at 4,027˚C.
In a 2004 experiment, 70% of Britons handed over their computer passwords in exchange for chocolate.

Latin and Gaelic have no words for ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

The Irish language has one set of numbers for arithmetic, one for counting humans and one for counting non-humans. 

The Andamanese language has only two words for numbers: them mean ‘one’ and ‘more than one’.  

Korean has no words for ‘brother’ or ‘sister’, only words for an older/younger brother/sister. 

The Amondawa people of the Amazon have no word for ‘time’.

The Mayan calendar had five days per year that were known as ‘days with no name’.
The world’s oldest legal system, in ancient Mesopotamia, established beer as a unit of currency.

I hope you enjoyed these, and found some intriguing, even if none of them end up being used in your writing! 

What's your favourite random fact - do you have one to share? Or what's your favourite worldbuilding feature of your story world?

Ideas from history - characters and events that NEED a story

So as a writer, I float around Pinterest a bit.

*shuffles paper aggressively* Fine: a lot.

But I see things sometimes that really intrigue me. For example, these historical happenings and characters that need a story. NEED. (It doesn’t have to be a novel. A short story could do it.)

(Okay, these characters might not need you to write a story about them. *deep breath* Complete confession: it's me. I'm the one who needs you to write a story about them. I want to read those stories. Without, selfishly, having to write them myself. But they also deserve a story.)

A warning: I have tried to reference these. The references may not always be accurate. These may well be legends (for example, Alwilda). Don’t base historical fiction off my notes without checking first!!

Another warning: history is not always pretty. This is not my fault. I have tried to only put the good stories here, but if you dig deeper you may find they’re ugly further down. Sorry.

Pirate princess Alwilda

5th century AD, Scandanavian princess called Alwilda. Her father tried to marry her to Alf, prince of Denmark. Alwilda didn’t want to so she and some female companions dressed as men, stole a ship, and sailed away. Met some pirates who needed a captain and they elected her to be their leader. Together became so infamous that Prince Alf was sent to stop them. When their ships met he captured her and she was so impressed by Alf’s skill that she revealed herself as the princess, agreed to marry him after all, and eventually became queen of Denmark.

(She's considered semi-legend or even full legend. But you’re writing fiction, so...)

Discovered on Pinterest (Tumblr via Pinterest, really, as happens a lot) and ‘researched’ on Wikipedia (such reputable sources I have!)

Young Caesar kidnapped by pirates

25-year-old Julius Caesar – before he became Caesar like you think of – was kidnapped by Cilician pirates. They said they’d ask a ransom of 20 talents of silver. Insulted, he made them raise it to 50 talents. In the 38 days it took to raise this sum, he joined in the pirates’ games, ordered the pirates around – for example, commanding them to be silent while he slept – and wrote poems and speeches. Any pirates who didn’t listen when he performed these he called ‘illiterate barbarians’.

(Now for the not-so-cute bit: He also promised to crucify them. Sure enough, the first thing he did once the ransom was paid was to raise a fleet, which raided the pirates and burned their stuff. The captured pirates reminded him of the times they played games together on the ship, so Caesar relented. And cut their throats. And then crucified them, because he was a man of his word.)

You can Google this – there seem to be a few references.

Lady Death, sniper

Lyudmila Pavlichenko, ‘Lady Death’. Ukranian/Russian; female sniper. Germans bombed Kiev University, so she joined as a sniper (instead of a nurse), joining a total of 5000 female snipers in the Russian army. She had 309 confirmed kills and rose from private to major. For more details there are facts on Wikipedia, but I preferred the artist’s version that I got from following a Pinterest link- it’s much more personal. Probably more inaccurate, but ‘personal’ - it talks about why she made that first shot (her 'spotter' partner got shot) and about her husband (probably met her as her 'spotter'? and once he got killed she went pretty dark).

Things that were surprisingly around at the same time

This one is copied directly from – well, Tumblr I guess, but I found it on Pinterest.

"Victorian England: 1837-1901
American Old West: 1803-1912
Meiji Restoration: 1868-1912
French pirvateering in the Gulf of Mexico: ended circa 1830"

"Conclusion: an adventuring party consisting of a Victorian gentleman thief, an Old West gunslinger, a disgraced former samurai, and an elderly French pirate is actually 100% historically plausible."

19y/o violinist turned ship surgeon

1838, John Hanchett joined the Henry as surgeon (before that he’d been studying violin in Paris). During the four-month voyage to Launcestion his diary mostly says ‘Very hot’ (and variations on that); but as a surgeon he drew a tooth, bled patients, and challenged the second mate to a duel over an oatmeal poultice.

I don’t know, there’s something about the thought of a nineteen-year-old violinist challenging the second mate on a ship to Van Diemens Land (Tasmania, Australia) to a duel over his duties as a surgeon – specifically, the oatmeal poultice – that just sounds like a story.

References: taken direct from the Maritime Museum in Hobart, Tasmania.

Nancy Bentley, 6y/o Navy mascot

In 1920 six-year-old Nancy Bentley was bitten by a snake while playing outside; she wouldn’t have survived the trip from Port Arthur (Tasmania) to the nearest town with a doctor. So her father rowed her out to the HMAS Sydney docked at Port Arthur Harbour. Unfortunately, King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions forbade women on board a naval ship, and officially the surgeon wasn’t there to treat civilians. So Nancy was enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy.

The navy surgeon treated her snake bite. They gave her a uniform. Her injury was listed as occurring “while skirmishing in the bush”. The Sydney took her to Hobart, where she received further medical treatment, then the entire crew took her to the cinema and gave her chocolates.



Her enlistment, if you can read it, says she was engaged “until fed up” and discharged eight days later as “required by her parents”. They had to cross out ‘boy’ to write ‘girl’... and she was only 3 feet 2 inches! (I suppose she was only six.) Her conduct record says she was “exceptional” in her seaman’s duties. It was 21 years before the next female was enlisted in the navy.

Reference here.

*****

So!

These are just a few historical/legend characters or events that made me think of stories (which of course I will not be leaving my Camp novel to investigate, absolutely not). Use as you wish, and tell me in the comments if you do! I'd love to hear.