Hufflepuff Trivia Book

[KoNeko]

We used to have a big yellow book of interesting facts and I thought we could continue with this in a new topic.

Post your weird and whacky facts below!

[KoNeko]

Marlon Brando used to wander so much on his way to kindergarten that his older sister Jocelyn had to take him to school on a leash.

[KoNeko]

Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.

[Rue]

(The stuff I post will probably be weird random facts I find out in my classes )

Around 1100 a.d. England was divided into shires / counties, and each shire had an agent of the local earl, who supervised the local court. This guy was called the Shire reeve, and over time his name evolved into the word "sheriff." ;D

[KoNeko]

The famous philosopher Alan Turing was arrested for violation of British homosexuality statutes in 1952 when he reported to the police details of a homosexual affair. He had gone to the police because he had been threatened with blackmail. He was tried as a homosexual on 31 March 1952, offering no defence other than that he saw nothing wrong in his actions. Found guilty he was given the alternatives of prison or oestrogen injections for a year. He accepted the latter and returned to a wide range of academic pursuits.

The British legal system sentenced him to oestrogen?!

[Rue]

That is so weird. Though, generally I prefer the decisions of the British government to the American one, but that's really really weird.

So, in the 12th century in England they had this rule that convicted felons were punished by having their land taken away and returned to the king. But the legal system was kind of just getting on its feet, so guys who were suspects were allowed to choose the option of sitting in jail rather than getting tried. So a bunch of people honestly hung out in jail for a few years until they died, and then since they weren't found guilty of being felons, their lands got to be passed on to their heir rather than back to the king.

[KoNeko]

Oh hey, that is weird, because in Australia like 150 years ago suicide was illegal, and if you died at your own hand your property didn't go to your heirs or whatever but would go to the king/queen.

[Rue]

Do you know if suicide is still illegal in places? I just remember hearing people talk about it, but I can't remember what they said... but in this case, the guys in England didn't really commit suicide since they didn't die by their own hands. They just died of natural causes while in a prison rather than as free (but convicted and propertyless) men.

I really love England, though. Right now we're learning about Winston Churchill, and I'm researching the Siege of Sidney Street. Some immigrants had been caught trying to rob a jewellry store and murdered a few policemen so they could escape. The city was outraged because they said that "the belief that British criminals just did not shoot at policemen was widely held." So a few weeks after this incident some guy got brought in for attempted murder of a policeman, and the first thing the judge asked was, "Are you English?" and when the guy said, "Yes" the judge said, "That's a shame." And the first London policeman murdered on duty wasn't until 1911 and they rarely carried guns and I just keep comparing this society to the US when at least since the Civil War practically everyone had a gun, and the UK is just so much nicer.

[Rue]

"For roughly six to seven months after birth, an infant can breathe and swallow at the same time. Older children and adults cannot do this."

[Rue]

Whoa. I was looking up stuff about Komodo dragons recently, which are the largest form of lizard (about 6 to 10 feet long). And one of the coolest things I found was that after eating up to 80% of their body weight, they lie in the sun to speed up digestion, because their metabolisms are so slow that if they don't lie in the sun there's a chance that the food in their stomachs will rot and poison them.