The entire Australian government was dissolved in 1975. 

W hile the majority of government shutdowns are averted with budget compromises, that wasn’t the case during the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975. On November 11, Governor-General Sir John Kerr — Queen Elizabeth’s representative in the Australian government — formally dismissed the country’s prime minister, Gough Whitlam, a member of the Labor Party who failed to broker a bipartisan spending bill. Whitlam’s firing came at 1:15 p.m., and 15 minutes later, Kerr appointed Liberal Party leader Malcolm Fraser, a member of the opposition, as the new prime minister. The Liberal-controlled Senate then pushed through a spending bill, though the Labor-controlled House revolted against Fraser with a vote of no confidence. All the bickering came to a head at 4:50 p.m., when Kerr, at the request of Fraser, dissolved the entire Australian Parliament. This forced Australia to hold new elections a month later that were ultimately swept by Fraser and the Liberals.

Queen Elizabeth II’s involvement in this debacle remained ambiguous until 2020, when a series of letters between Kerr and Buckingham Palace were released. Although she technically served as Australia’s head of state, the queen’s role in the country’s affairs was largely symbolic. Even still, Kerr consulted with Buckingham Palace over his theoretical right to dissolve Parliament on the monarchy’s behalf. Letters between Kerr and Martin Charteris — the queen’s private secretary — implied that Kerr would be within his power if he chose to act, but also concluded it was “better for Her Majesty not to know.” Around that time, Kerr also communicated with Prince Charles regarding concerns over the Australian prime minister, asking the prince to relay the message to the queen.

Woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.

WORLD HISTORY

Woolly mammoths roamed the Earth for at least half a million years, coexisting with humans for millennia before finally going extinct some 4,000 years ago. That’s a long time, but it’s not that long in the grand scheme of things. For perspective, consider the fact that woolly mammoths were still alivewhen the pyramids of Egypt were being built. That speaks to both how long one of history’s most famous empires lasted — Egypt existed for more than 3,000 years, making it 15 times older than the United States — as well as how relatively recently the elephantlike creatures existed.

If your mind still isn’t sufficiently blown by ancient Egypt’s longevity, remember also that Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landing than she did to the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza. Woolly mammoths, meanwhile, were impressive in their own way, even if they weren’t as big as you might imagine — they were about the size of a modern African elephant. Nevertheless, these creatures still loom large in the collective imagination millennia after their extinction, which was long thought to have been caused by humans hunting them. More recently, a consensus has emerged that the true culprit was climate change: The planet warmed too rapidly for them to adapt, as melting icebergs wiped out the vegetation they subsisted on. 

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

The latest and greatest, if all is true on the net, is the 3 states that are suing the FDA over birth control because they are causing a lack of teenage pregnancies. So what are these states advocating, promiscuity or rape or incest, what? All have a religious background bordering on the excessive side and that does not match this issue.
One of the greatest losses that we are seeing is the lack of choice for women. There are no laws governing the male body but we sure have plenty to say about the female. Women have so many things thrown at them it is ridiculous. If they are virgin after a certain age they are old maids. If they are very sexual they are called names and said to have no morals. Now women that don’t have children are cat ladies and have no commitment to the nation.
The efforts to deprive women of the pleasure of sex is in some place a brutal procedure that should not be performed on anyone. Women are supposed to be the chased virtuous wife and mother on the street and act like a whore in bed. The men in these situations can be jackasses all the time.
Many men are saying that women should not be leaders and yet at this time in history we have several women that are the leaders of nations. One man for sure feels that a woman cannot do the job of President and that man is Trump. We know he can’t do it and yet he claims to be the best we have ever had. His claim is that he is the smartest on everything and the best at everything and the total opposite is true.
Men have claimed that women are inferior forever and yet the rest of the creatures on earth seem to favor the female. Lionesses do the hunting, leaders of elephant families are female, ants and bees have queens and the list goes on. This brings one to conclude that women may indeed be even better at the leader game than males. It is time to test the idea if for no other reason than right now we need a leader that brings us together not someone that pushes us apart.

Gender Icons

For centuries, ♂ and ♀ have represented the concepts of male and female in the world of science. Long before these icons had anything to do with biology, however, they were used throughout ancient cultures such as Greece and Rome. ♂ corresponded to the Greek god Ares (Mars, in Roman mythology), whereas ♀ was tied to the Greek goddess Aphrodite (Venus, in Rome). The association between the gods and those symbols came about because of metals used to forge weaponry, with Ares representing iron (thouros) and Aphrodite representing copper (phosphoros). Over time, the Greek words for the metals were written in shorthand using the symbols that we now use to convey gender.

The symbols first played a role in biological research in 1751, when the father of modern taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus, adopted and used the icons to refer to the gender of flowers in his dissertation Plantae hybridae. Many scientists thereafter followed in Linnaeus’ footsteps, with those symbols later extending to human genetics. In recent decades, new symbols have been created based on those centuries-old designs in order to be more inclusive of those who don’t identify as male or female.

We Share a Surprising Number of Genes With Other Animal Species

While we humans may look markedly different from one another, we are remarkably similar at the genetic level. Any two individuals share approximately 99.9% of their DNA sequence, meaning a miniscule 0.1% difference accounts for all the genetic variation among humans — our size, shape, facial features, and so on. Perhaps even more surprising are the genetic similarities between humans and other species. Humans and chimps, for example, share a surprising 98.8% of their DNA. Most of the genes in humans and chimps are nearly identical, but identical genes are used in different ways and in varying amounts across species, which explains our very notable differences. For example, a wide range of species have the PAX6 gene, which is responsible for the development of distinctly different eyes in everything from humans to fish, flatworms, parakeets, and water fleas. 

Peace Sign

The peace sign is now universally understood to express harmony and goodwill, but its origins stem back to a very specific movement. British artist Gerald Holtom — working with the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War — designed the symbol in 1958 to promote the idea of nuclear disarmament. The peace icon made its debut that same year during an Easter weekend march in England to protest the use of nuclear weaponry. 

The symbol’s design is based on how one would express the letters “N” and “D” (for nuclear disarmament) using semaphore, a method of visual communication that traditionally uses flags or lights. The straight downward line at the symbol’s center represents “D” in semaphore, whereas the angled lines coming off the center line reflect the shape of “N.” Though the peace sign has since been used more generally by anti-war groups, the logo remains staunchly anti-nuke at its core.

The language we speak can change our perception of time.

The languages we speak don’t just shape the way we communicate; they also influence how we perceive and understand the world, including something as fundamental as time. The direction in which a language is written, for example, can affect how we think about and refer to the passage of time. Because English speakers write from left to right, we tend to visualize the timeline of life to death from left to right, and describe the past and future as being “behind” us and “in front” of us, respectively — we say “looking forward” to the future and “looking back” at the past. However, speakers of Aymara, an Indigenous language of the Andes, perceive the past as lying ahead of them, because it’s known and visible, while the unseen, unpredictable future remains behind them. Meanwhile, Mandarin has adopted a vertical view of time. Speakers of this language often refer to past events as “up” and future events as “down” — next week, then, becomes “down week.”

Researchers have long been interested in our metaphorical manipulation of languages — “spending time” or “feeling down,” for example — and whether the way we talk about abstract concepts does indeed shape how we think about them. These nuances fall under the umbrella of linguistic relativity: the thought that the language we speak influences our reality. But some critics argue that this theory — also known as the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis — overstates the influence of language on thought. They argue that while language can indeed shape our perceptions, it does not rigidly determine how we think, or how we understand the world.

Right to (no) Required to

Throughout the Middle Ages, English men were required by law to practice longbow archery — a mandate that was in place for longer than you might expect. Early laws encouraged practicing archery indirectly: King Henry I, who ruled England from 1100 to 1135, declared that deaths accidentally caused by practicing archers didn’t count as murder or manslaughter. During the reign of Henry III, the 1252 Assize of Arms required that able-bodied men of a certain means between the ages of 15 and 60 be equipped with a bow and arrows and know how to use them — although residents of England’s royal forests had to practice with blunt arrows to protect the king’s game.

In 1363, King Edward III, who was in the midst of the Hundred Years’ War and convinced that archery skills were “almost wholly disused,” declared that able-bodied men must practice archery on holidays. The Archery Law, enacted that same year, further demanded practice on Sundays. Edward also outlawed, on pain of imprisonment, watching or participating in “vain games of no value,” a wide net that included handball, football, hurling stones, and cockfighting. 

Subsequent kings laid down similar acts: Richard II banned several games and required serfs and peasants to practice the longbow, and Edward IV set minimum imports for equipment. Henry VIII, after introducing several bans on games and tighter enforcement procedures earlier in his reign, passed one of the most notorious pro-archery laws of all in 1541: It nullified all previous acts, banned even more non-archery sports, and exempted wealthy people. In addition to requiring men under 60 (and, to a lesser extent, their male children) to own a certain amount of archery equipment, it empowered employers to garnish the wages of any servants who didn’t have it. The 1541 law was still on the books in bits and pieces until the 20th century, but England’s Betting and Gaming Act of 1960 finally nullified the last of the country’s longbow mandates.