What do you know today that you didn't know yesterday?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Doing some research if I plan on going the historical route with my second novel.

This calendar era is based on the traditionally reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus, AD counting years from the start of this epoch and BC denoting years before the start of the era. There is no year zero in this scheme; thus the year AD 1 immediately follows the year 1 BC. This dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus, but was not widely used until the 9th century.[4][5]

The bold part being more relevant for my purposes.

Not having a 0 year is why centuries start in ‘01 and not ‘00. It ground my gears when people were hailing the ‘new millennium’ in 2000.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

Doing some research if I plan on going the historical route with my second novel.

This calendar era is based on the traditionally reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus, AD counting years from the start of this epoch and BC denoting years before the start of the era. There is no year zero in this scheme; thus the year AD 1 immediately follows the year 1 BC. This dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus, but was not widely used until the 9th century.[4][5]

The bold part being more relevant for my purposes.

That’s because the concept of the zero was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, much less the Jews, and was thus inconceivable and anathema to the Christian, until the concept had been around the world a few times and slapped the Catholic Church in the face on both sides in the 13th century.

[Silver]

More research, more relevant to what I need to know:

Systems of dating before B.C./A.D. was fully adopted were often based on significant events, political leaders and a well-kept chronology of the order in which they ruled. For example, the Romans generally described years based on who was consul, or by counting from the founding of the city of Rome.

[polymath257]

More research, more relevant to what I need to know:

Systems of dating before B.C./A.D. was fully adopted were often based on significant events, political leaders and a well-kept chronology of the order in which they ruled. For example, the Romans generally described years based on who was consul, or by counting from the founding of the city of Rome.

Consulships tended to last 2 years with 2 consuls at a time. There can be some difficulty, however, because it was common for the same people to hold the consul positions multiple times.

[Anomalocaris]

Actually under the Republic Roman consuls typically serve in one year terms.   If for military reason it is expedient to maintain continuity of command at the end of a consul’s term, he would be appointed to the position of proconsul,  which allow him to continue to exercise consular authority inside a specific region or province on behalf of the actual consuls elected for that year.

[Anomalocaris]

Under the republic Roman consul was responsible for leading armies into battle. Usually each of the two annual consul was responsible for a force of 2 legions, called a consular army. That force can be expanded to 4 legions if the circumstances warrants.

But in times of National emergency the two consular armies can be combined into a single force. When this occurs each consul is responsible for the entire army on alternate days. This leads to interesting command and control issues when the two consuls do not see eye to eye regarding how to conduct a campaign. According to Livy, this arrangement was responsible for the single most calamitous battlefield defeat the Roman’s ever suffered, when 8 Roman legions were almost completely annihilated by a force half as big and commanded by Hannibal at the battle of Cannae.

[Fake Messiah]

South African daisies grow fake flies to fool horny males into mating with them.

[Rev. Rye]

Apparently, O Brother, Where Art Thou is in the midst of a critical re-evaluation. I never even knew it needed one.





Also, I just watched this movie for the first time in years and it’s the first time I noticed Everett got the record producer to pay for six musicians instead of four.

[Mister Agenda]

It's a loose retelling of Homer's Odyssey. I didn't pick up on it until Big Dan, the one-eyed Bible salesman (played by John Goodman), attacked them with a club that he broke off of a tree. When I re-watched it a few years later, I saw a lot more similarities, in particular that George Clooney's character Everett was named Ulysses Everett McGill. It was well worth the re-watch.

[Anomalocaris]

The highest speed humans have been able to propel a macroscopic object is about 130,000 miles per hour.     The propulsive force came from an underground nuclear weapons test.    The macroscopic object was a steel manhole cover sealing the shaft leading to the deep underground test chamber.    Ultra high speed cameras caught the still apparently intact cover being shot straight up at 40 miles per second by the explosion venting up through the shaft.    

The cover is estimated to have undergone several million Gs, reached outer space in 1.5 seconds after being shot up, and had enough velocity remaining after leaving atmosphere to escape the solar system all together.

Ironically the purpose of that specific nuclear test was to determine if the fallout from an underground nuclear test could be completely contained underground.     Sending fallout out of the solar system was unplanned.