Month: May 2025

On this day in 1785, Joseph Bramah patented a Beer Pump of the type still in use today in many British pubs.

Bramah was an English inventor and locksmith. He is best known for having improved the flush toilet and inventing the hydraulic press. He can be considered (along with William Armstrong) one of the two fathers of hydraulic engineering. He patented an improved flush toilet in 1778 and an improved lock in 1784.

Bramah’s most important invention was the hydraulic press. Bramah’s hydraulic press had many industrial applications and still does today. Bramah was a very prolific inventor, though not all of his inventions were as important as his hydraulic press. They included, in addition to the beer pump: a planing machine (1802), a paper-making machine (1805), a machine for automatically printing bank notes with sequential serial numbers (1806), and a machine for making quill pen nibs (1809). He also patented the first extrusion process for making lead pipes and also machinery for making gun stocks.

The historian Ian Mortimer summarizes Bramah thus:

“Joseph Bramah – that blessing of a genius who gives us the modern flushing loo – is also the inventor of the beer pump. Few people in history can claim to have done so much for our physical comfort – both in filling ourselves up at one end and in emptying ourselves at the other.”

The Brazilian Brahma beer brand is named for him.

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This is dum

Need some advice???

(thanks, Debra)

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The NEW POPE from Chicago!!!

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Today is the birthday, in 1995, of American singer-songwriter, filmmaker, and record producer Collins Obinna Chibueze better known by his stage name Shaboozey. In 2024 he released the country single “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”, which peaked at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. As it succeeded Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” at the top, it made for the first time in history that two consecutive black artists held the No.1 position. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7bQwwqW-Hc

Today is Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day), on which day the second world war Allies formally accepted an unconditional surrender by the armed forces of Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, after six years of the bloodiest conflict in human history.

It was not until August that year that Japan surrendered after the US dropped the first two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Second World War came to an end six years and one day after it started on September 2nd 1945, when official surrender documents were signed on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay by the Japanese.

In Russia and some other East European countries, this event is marked on Victory day on May 9th due to time differences.

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Ronald Reagan always struggled with chopsticks…

Paw-ception, the furrmula is broken
byu/kinghrag infunny

Restaurants!!!! I’ve actually been to three of these…

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On this day in 1965, The filming of the promotional film for Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ took place at the side of the Savoy Hotel in London. Actors in the background were Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth. The original clip was actually the opening segment of D. A. Pennebaker’s film, Dont Look Back, a documentary on Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England. In the film, Dylan, who came up with the idea, holds up cue cards for the camera with selected words and phrases from the lyrics. The cue cards were written by Donovan, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Neuwirth and Dylan himself. While staring at the camera, he flipped the cards as the song played. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0

On this day in 1429, Joan of Arc led the French forces against the English and relieved the siege of Orléans.

The siege of Orléans occurred during the Hundred Years’ War, an inheritance dispute over the French throne between the ruling houses of France and England. The conflict had begun in 1337 when England’s King Edward III decided to press his claim to the French throne, a claim based on his status as the son of Isabella of France and thus of the contested French royal line.

Following a decisive victory at Agincourt in 1415, the English gained the upper hand in the conflict, occupying much of northern France. Orléans, situated on the Loire River, was seen as the key, whose capture would open up Central France to conquest by the English and their Burgundian allies. The English armies surrounded Orléans intending to starve the city into submission.

Joan of Arc, a young peasant girl, believed she was divinely ordained to rescue the Dauphin Charles and deliver him to his coronation at Reims. She persuaded the Dauphin and French leaders to let her lead the French army to relieve Orléans.

On the morning of May 7, she led the French assault on Boulevart-Tourelles, an English redoubt at the southern end of the bridge over the Loire. Early in the morning, Joan was struck down while standing in the trench to the south of Les Tourelles, by a longbow arrow between the neck and left shoulder and was hurriedly taken away. Further assaults against Les Tourelles during the day were beaten back.

As evening was approaching, Joan went off for a period of quiet prayer, then returned to the area south of Les Tourelles, telling the troops that when her banner touched the fortress wall the place would be theirs. When one soldier shouted “It’s touching! (the wall)”, Joan replied “Tout est vostre – et y entrez!” (“All is yours, – go in!”). The French soldiery rushed in, swarming up the ladders into the fortification and forcing the English out.

The battle was a turning point in the war and the Dauphin Charles, with Joan at his side, was finally consecrated as King Charles VII of France on 17 July 1429.

Jeanne d’Arc at the Siege of Orléans by Jules Eugène Lenepveu, painted 1886–1890.

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More Executive Orders means more drinking…

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SIGNSSESS

Today is the birthday, in 1951, of English rock and blues guitarist Bernie Marsden. He is known for his work with Whitesnake, having written or co-written with David Coverdale many of the group’s hit songs, such as ‘Fool for Your Loving’, ‘Walking in the Shadow of the Blues’, ‘Ready an’ Willing’ and ‘Here I Go Again’. Marsden had also worked with UFO, Glenn Cornick’s Wild Turkey in 1973, Cozy Powell’s band Cozy Powell’s Hammer and Babe Ruth. He died on 24 August 2023 from bacterial meningitis age 72. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyF8RHM1OCg

On this day in 1527, Troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, broke into Rome and began looting, killing, raping and holding citizens for ransom without any restraint. Clement VII took refuge in Castel Sant’Angelo after the Swiss Guard were annihilated in a delaying rear guard action; he remained there until a ransom was paid to the pillagers. It was not until February 1528 that the spread of a plague and the approach of the relief forces under Odet de Foix forced the army to withdraw towards Naples from the city.

The Emperor denied responsibility for the sack and came to terms again with Clement VII, albeit under the Emperor’s control. On the other hand, the Sack of Rome further exacerbated religious hatred and antagonism between Catholics and Lutherans. Before the sack, Rome had been a center of Italian High Renaissance culture and patronage, and the main destination for any European artist eager for fame and wealth. Many of the great libraries and center’s of knowledge were destroyed.

Clement, never again to directly oppose the Emperor, rubber-stamped Charles’ demands – among them naming cardinals nominated by the latter; crowning Charles Holy Roman Emperor and King of Italy at Bologna in 1530; and refusing to annul the marriage of Charles’ beloved aunt, Catherine of Aragon, to King Henry VIII of England, prompting the English Reformation.

Sack of Rome by Francisco Javier Amérigo y Aparici 1884

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Yesterday…

Which right is that???

Lots of people have dogs…

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BADA BINGLE!!!!

I saw one of those martial arts guys do a spinning kick and thought it looked pretty easy. What I’m trying to say is, I need an ambulance.

Crazy how we used buy eggs to throw at houses now we cant even buy eggs or houses.

We are living is a day where people are proud of what they should be ashamed of.

Just because they make spandex and your size doesn’t mean you should be wearing it.

Being an adult is mostly realizing you don’t look as bad as you thought you did a few years ago because now you look worse.

tRUMP expected to rename San Andreas fault to Joe Bidens fault.

So much to do, so little desire to do it.

I used to be a people person but people ruined that for me.

I’m trying to decide between IDK, IDC, and IDGAF.

Cleaning is just putting stuff in less obvious places then wondering where you put them.

People at work tell me I have a lot of patience. Fact is… there are just way too many witnesses around.

Them: You told us you were busy! Me: I am. Busy avoiding people.

Knock knock. Who’s there? Candice. Candice who? Candice joke get any worse?

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It’s getting buggy…

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Every time I get out of the shower, I do the obligatory helicopter!
byu/NikonD3X1985 infunny

Today is the birthday, in 1951, of Scottish rock guitarist and vocalist Davey Johnstone best known for his work with Elton John. Johnstone’s debut album with Elton John as a full-time member of his band was on the 1972 Honky Chateau. On 10 June 2009, Johnstone played a landmark 2,000th show as a member of the Elton John Band at the SECC in Glasgow, Scotland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrpI7WbJcO8

Lot’s going on today – Children’s Day in Japan, Constitution Day in Kyrgyzstan, Independence Day in Latvia, Patriot’s Day in Ethiopia, Arrival Day in Guyana, The Buddha’s Birthday and some minor battle in Mexico. It is also Liberation Day in the Netherlands – the anniversary of the end of Nazi occupation in 1945.

At the outbreak of the second world war, the Netherlands had declared its neutrality from the conflict. However, this did not stop the country being invaded by Nazi Germany on May 10th 1940.

After landing in Normandy in June 1944, the allied forces advanced across Europe with key engagements taking place in the south of the Netherlands by September of that year.

The Netherlands was liberated in a large part by the Canadians, British and Polish armies.

On May 5th 1945, General Foulkes of the Canadian forces and the German Commander Blaskowitz reached an agreement on the surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands in Hotel de Wereld in Wageningen.

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Me too…

You were warned…

New Marvel Hero…

Canadians have had it with the U.S.A.

(Thanks, Debra)

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Today is the birthday, in 1951, of Rex Goh, guitarist, for the Australian soft rock band Air Supply who scored the 1980 UK No.11 single ‘All Out Of Love’ and the 1981 US No.1 single ‘The One That You Love’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY31ZH6hAFI