Happy HumpDay!
Happy HumpDay! Do you love learning something new each week? Maybe your friends and family would like to learn some cool stuff too?! If you know someone who has a thirst for useless but entertaining knowledge, feel free to forward this email to them and have them subscribe!!!! As always, check out the HumpDay website at HumpDayNewsletter.com and follow the official HumpDay Instagram!
Superstitions
Everyone knows that if you break a mirror, its 7 years bad luck. But why such a harsh punishment for something that you can replace for $7 and a trip to Walmart? Breaking a mirror has been considered a bad idea for a very long time. Ancient Romans believed that mirrors not only reflected a person’s physical appearance but also reflected a person’s soul. By breaking a mirror, a person was symbolically breaking their soul resulting in bad luck. The ancient romans also believed that the soul was reborn every 7 years. By their logic, a broken soul wouldn’t heal again for 7 years and the bad luck would continue until the soul was healed. Although the whole “breaking a mirror causes 7 years bad luck” thing may have originated in ancient Rome, the popular superstition comes from the 1800’s. Mirrors are made of polished silver and glass, two materials that were difficult to come by in the 1800’s. Because the materials were so hard to come by, mirrors were very expensive items and items that only the very wealthy could afford. Over the years, these expensive mirrors were past down for generations. Mirrors became family heirlooms and treasured objects in people’s homes. Because they were so important, parents wanted to protect their prized mirrors from destructive kids. They warned them that breaking a mirror would cause them to have bad luck for 7 whole years. The threat of 7 years of falling off your bike and getting bad Christmas presents was a strong reminder for kids to be careful around expensive family heirlooms. Turn Glass Into A Mirror Best Black Mirror Episodes
Sports
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world and is generally considered the favorite sport of nearly every country besides the U.S. The U.S. is also the only country that calls the sport “soccer” instead of “football”. That use of the word “soccer” is often used to make fun of Americans, but it turns out calling the game “soccer” isn’t even an American thing. Games where players on two teams kick a ball past each other have been around for centuries. A Chinese game called “cuju” is the earliest known form of football and required players to use any part of their body besides there hands to get he ball in the net. Over time, different variations of the game sprung up and formed completely different, albeit similar, sports. In Europe during the late 1800’s, two different forms of football were gaining popularity. One where the players could use their hands to pick up the ball and advance it, known as Rugby, and the game we know as soccer today, where no hands are allowed. To specify which type of football was being played, the two games were given separate names. Rugby was called Rugby Football and Soccer was called Association Football, named for the Football Association that standardized the rules. Rugby Football and Association Football are a bit of a mouthful, so people began referring to both sports using abbreviated names. Rugby Football was shortened to just “Rugby”, or sometimes “Ruggers”, and the word Association was shortened to “Socc” and an “er” was added to create the name “Soccer”. The British abbreviation of Association football was used everywhere up until 1980 when the name “football” became the more popular way to refer to the game. Interestingly, American football is derived from Rugby Football which is why American’s refer the game played by the NFL as Football, even though the game doesn’t require too much kicking. With one popular game already called football, soccer stuck in the U.S. What Is Aussie Rules Football? A Decade of Corruption Is Crippling FIFA
History
The 1997, James Cameron’s epic about a young wealthy bride and a scrappy poor boy falling in love became the highest grossing film of all time up until the debut of 2007’s Avatar. The Titanic features a stacked cast of stars giving some of the best performances of their careers but, there is one character that goes unnoticed by most casual viewers and steals the show. The character of the Baker is not only one of the funnier characters in the film, but the real person who inspired the role is an absolute legend and a hero to everyone facing adversity. Charles Joughin was the Chief Baker on the RMS Titanic during its maiden voyage in 1912. As Chief Baker, Joughin led a team of 13 other bakers making bread for the 1,300 passengers aboard the luxury cruise liner. When he wasn’t baking bread for more than a thousand people, Joughlin liked to partake in his favorite hobby…drinking. Joughlin was asleep in his bunk when the Titanic hit the iceberg but as soon as he felt the shock, he sprung into action. He immediately thought of the safety of his staff and the safety of the people on board. He instructed all of his 13 crew members to head for the lifeboats and gave them 40lbs of bread to distribute to the people on deck, ensuring that they had food to keep them fed until rescue. After gathering all the supplies that he could and a bottle of whiskey, Joughlin ran to the boat deck. There he found a group of women who believed that they would be safer aboard the Titanic than in a life boat. Knowing that the Titanic was sinking, the chief baker picked up each of the women and put them into the lifeboat, saving their lives. Once he got all of the women onboard the lifeboat, which he was meant to get onto as well, he decided to stay onboard the Titanic to help other people. As a little treat for his good deeds, he started drinking the bottle of whiskey that he brought with him. He spent his time drinking and throwing deck chairs off the side of the boat for people to grab onto if they fell into the water. He threw over 50 deck chairs and finished the entire bottle of whiskey by the time that he was done. Suddenly, the boat shook and Joughlin knew that the ship had split in half. He ran to the back and grabbed onto the stern railing. As the boat folded in on itself, Joughlin rode the railing all the way up and was the last person off the boat as the cruise liner sank into the Atlantic. In his words, the boat sank like an elevator and as he entered the water (stinking drunk I might add) he didn’t even get his hair wet. While in the ocean, Joughin treaded water for more than 2 hours. He reported that he didn’t even feel the icy cold water because he was so drunk. He was eventually discovered by a boat of survivors that refused to take him in. One passenger on the life boat, a cook in the kitchen that saw Joughin put his employees first, reached out and took him in. Charles Joughin saved his staffed, a boat full of women, up to 50 swimmers without boats, and was the last person off the Titanic, all while being drunk and managed to survive. His story is an inspiration to everyone who is facing adversity. Being compassionate, looking out for those in need, and always rewarding yourself with drinks is a recipe for handling the most difficult hardships.
This Week in History
On this week in 2010, an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico called Deep Water Horizon exploded killing 11 people and triggering the largest oil spill in history. The disaster was caused by a pocket of natural gas that was struck by the oil drill causing a massive explosion that destroyed the rig. The explosion left an oil well uncapped for three months and resulted in more than 4.9 million barrels of crude oil being dumped into the Gulf of Mexico. More than 10 years later, the effects from the Deep Water Horizon oil spill continue to harm the ecosystem of the Gulf.
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