What are some of the most mind-blowing facts about Singapore?

 William Farquhar was appointed by Sir Stamford Raffles as the first British Resident and Commandant of Singapore in 1819 to develop the colony, while he left it in his charge, for the next 4 years.

Singapore gets it's name from the Kingdom of Singapura founded by Sang Nila Utama, a Sri Vijayan prince, it was earlier known as Temasek, under the Majapahit and Siamese kingdoms. The last king was Parameswara or Iskandar Shah.

Repeated attacks by the Majapahit forced Parameswara to move to Malacca. In 1613, the Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, as the island faded into obscurity becoming part of the Johor Sultanate.

While Raffles gets the credit for founding the colonial settlement, the main work was actually done by William Farquhar, who negotiated with the Sultan to set up a trading post there.it was Farquhar, who actually built up the original colonial settlement in Singapore, as he allowed the local traders to set up their outposts, and played an important role in it's development.

Farquhar however had a fall out with Raffles, as he disregarded the latter's original plans. He was fired by Raffles and in turn sued him back, before he was stabbed to death by a local Muslim merchant.

Singapore, was formerly a provice of Malaya, that was expelled on August 9, 1965, making it one of the few countries that got their independence rather unwillingly. In the long term though it proved more beneficial, as the tiny island nation emerged as an economic powerhouse on it’s own strength.

It was earlier part of the Malay federation along with Borneo and Sarawak. However the Singapore state Govt differed with the Malaysian Govt, especially on the special privileges given to Malays. Lee Kuan Yew then Singapore CM, led the demand advocating equal treatment for all races in Malaysia. Add to it the increasing racial tensions between the Chinese and Malays, especially the 1964 riots, on June 21, that saw many Chinese attacked, and their shops, properties looted. There were economic tensions too.

Also there was a fear that Singapore then being the economically dominant province, it would dominate Kuala Lumpur. Singapore had restrictions on trade, with rest of Malayisa, and in turn it refused loans to Sabah and Sarawak.

The backdrop was Tunku Abdul Rehman advocating the Bhumiputra policy for the native Malays, who were poorer compared to the Chinese. Lee Kuan Yew who led PAP, believed in equality for all, and was against such reservations. When PAP won the majority of the seats in Singapore during the 1963 Election, the tensions deepened between Tunku's UNMO and PAP.

Lee's policy of equal treatment for all, did not go down well with Malay supremacist UNMO, and the riots began at the Padang in Singapore downtown, when Muslim Malays after celebrating Mawlid, began to indulge in attacks on Chinese.

Provoked by a series of fiery speeches by the organizers, as well as a campaign against the Chinese and PAP, predominantly Muslim Malays, began to attack Chinese residents, leading to severe riots. There was massive damage to property, many Chinese owned shops were burnt down, leading to curfew. The riots subsidized by July 24, with around 23 dead, 454 injured.

What are some of the most mind-blowing facts about Australia? What are some things that might even surprise people who live there?

 Hobart, the capital of Tasmania was founded as a penal colony for settlers in 1804, on the Derwent River. Australia's 2nd oldest city after Sydney, it was named after the British Secretary of State for War, and currently is the base for French Antarctic campaigns.

Perth is nicknamed the "City of Lights" after all it's residents lit up their homes and street lights as astronaut John Glenn, passed over the city while orbiting the Earth in Friendship 7.

Canberra, the Australian capital, gets it's name from an aborginal word meaning "meeting place".

The Blue Mountains in New South Wales, get their name from the rather bluish tinge, you get, when you see them from a distance. This tinge is believed to be due to scattering of ultraviolet radiation by particles in the atmosphere.

Mt.Kosciuszko the highest mountain in Australia located in the Snowy Mountains range, is named in honor of Tadeusz Kościuszko, who is a national hero in Poland,Lithuania as well as the United States. He was recognized for his contribution to the American Revolutionary War, fighting as part of the Continental Army.

Australia is one of the few places, where you have the largest concentration of venomous snakes, which outnumber the non venomous ones. Out of the 10 most venomous snakes in the world, 5 are found in Australia, Inland taipan, Eastern brown snake,Costal taipan, Peninsula Tiger Snake, Western Tiger Snake.

Capt James Cook discovered the eastern part of Australia in 1770, he would name it New South Wales, and claim the territory for Britain. The first settlement here was made in 1788 by Capt Arthur Philip who led the First Fleet.

The Gurindji tribe led by Vincent Lingiari began the Wave Hill walk-off in 1975 demanding return of their native lands. It lasted for 9 years, before the Australian PM Gough Whitlam symbolically returned their lands to them.

The protest and the handover was a key moment in the Aboriginal Land rights movement and led to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act of 1976, that gave those residing in Northern Territory to claim rights to the land based on traditional occupation.

This event was later celebrated in the 1991 song From Little Things Big Things Grow by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody. And August 16 is celebrated as Freedom Day at Kalkarindji annually with aboriginal songs and dance.

Uluru also known as the Ayers Rock was handed back to the Pitjantjatjara tribe in 1985. One of Australia's most famous landmarks, known for it's natural springs, cave paintings, the site was sacred to the native Aboriginals.

The first narrow gauge main line railway in the world was opened at Grandchester, Queensland, Australia in 1865 till Bigges Camp before it was extended to Gatton. The railway station is a heritage site now.

Story Bridge, one of Brisbane's most popular landmarks was opened to public in 1940. The bridge connects Fortitude Valley to Kangaroo Point, and is the longest cantilever bridge in Australia. Named after the civil servant John Story, road across is called Bradfield Highway.

Australia's national airline Qantas was founded in 1920, as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services by Paul McGinness, Sir Hudson Fysh and Sir Fergus McMaster. Their first international flight was from Darwin to Singapore in 1935.

The Duigan pusher biplane constructed by John Duigan was the first flight designed and constructed in Austrlia, by John Duigan and his brother Reginald, on their family farm at Mia Mia, Victoria. It made it's first flight on this date in 1910.

The brothers built this plane entirely by themselves, without much inputs from the aviation community, just the theory from Sir Hiram Maxim's book Artificial and Natural Flight and a photo postcard of the Wright Flyer.

What are some mind-blowing facts that sound like lies but are actually true?

 1. The crime rate is so low in the Netherlands that they have closed 23 prisons since 2004 because they do not have enough criminals to fill them.

2. Back in the 1990s, Denzel Washington covered the expenses of a young aspiring actor who didn't have enough money to attend the Oxford Summer Theatre School. That young actor was Chadwick Boseman (RIP).

Chadwick publicly thanked Denzel at the 2019 AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards.

3. In 1963, a Turkish man was renovating his house. After knocking down a wall in his basement, he found a tunnel. He followed the tunnel and discovered an ancient underground city called "Derinkuyu," which once had a population of 20,000.

4. In 2009, an autistic artist named Stephen Wiltshire was able to sketch the New York skyline from memory with a pen after taking a helicopter ride for about 20 minutes.

5. Lady Di was known for ignoring royal protocols. She often traveled by subway. At amusement parks, she refused preferential treatment and made William and Harry wait in line like everyone else.

6. The Blue Lake, in New Zealand, has the clearest body of fresh water known to man, with visibility in the lake of up to 80,000 meters.

7. The record for the largest car theft of all time was 1,000 Volvo cars. The vehicles were ordered and delivered, then the invoice was ignored and, to this day, has still not been paid. The cars were ordered by and delivered to North Korea.

8. In 1963, the Bronx Zoo opened an exhibit titled "The World's Most Dangerous Animal." It was a mirror.

9. Two assailants in New York City once tried to attack former world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey (who was in his 60s/70s at the time).

As expected, it ended with both assailants unconscious. The dates and circumstances leading up to this event are somewhat uncertain, although Dempsey referenced the incident in his book.

10. Personally, my favorite: In 1996, an avid birdwatcher in Devon, England, spent a whole year hooting at owls and recording their responses, unaware that it was one of his neighbors pretending to be an owl and answering him.

1. Blue Lake (New Zealand).

What are some mind-blowing scientific experiments?

 In 1998, two scientists at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, did something that sounds almost impossible. They successfully convinced people that a dummy rubber hand was part of their own body.

This is how it worked.

The scientists asked each participant to sit on a chair by the table. They would ask the participant to place one of their hands on the table while the other hand was hidden out of sight, either under the table or behind a screen. Then they would place the rubber hand in front of the participant, where their hidden hand would normally have been.

Next, they would stroke both their hidden hand and the rubber hand simultaneously with a paintbrush. Strangely, within moments the participants started experiencing the touch on the rubber hand. When asked where they were feeling the sensation, they pointed towards the rubber hand.

The key condition for the illusion to work was that the paintbrush strokes had to be in sync. If the strokes were out of sync, the illusion vanished.

After the initial success, the same experiment was replicated many times with slight variations. In some tests, researchers even hit the rubber hand with a hammer and participants would react in shock and distress, despite no real injury.

The experiment demonstrate an interesting thing that our brains can be tricked into believing that an object is part of us, if the conditions are appropriate.

What are the most mind-blowing photos you have seen?

 A man who won second place in the World Arm Wrestling Championship.

Six coins in a World War I soldier’s pocket saved his life.

When we say “Everest is crowded,” this is what we mean.

A glimpse of 1645s before breeding changed watermelons forever.

The world's smallest camera.

The world's tallest man and shortest man standing next to each other.

The teletanks in the 1930s look like toys.

A black bear without hair looks like a giant rat.

A playground in the USA in the 1970s.

The railway tracks after an earthquake.

The leg of an anteater looks like a giant panda.

A pre-radar listener for enemy aircraft.

What historical fact blows your mind?

 Japan launched more than 9,000 bomb-carrying balloons toward North America during World War II.

The idea sounds almost impossible.

The balloons were made largely from paper, filled with hydrogen, and designed to ride powerful high-altitude winds across the Pacific Ocean.

There was no pilot.

No aircraft crossed the ocean with them.

The wind did almost all the work.

Most of the balloons disappeared, landed harmlessly, or caused little damage.

But one of them reached a forest in Oregon.

And on May 5, 1945, it found six people who had no idea that the war had followed them all the way to the American mainland.

A young pastor named Archie Mitchell had taken his pregnant wife, Elsye, and five Sunday-school children on a picnic near Bly, Oregon.

Archie was parking the car when Elsye and the children noticed something strange lying in the woods.

They walked toward it.

Archie realized that something was wrong and shouted for them not to touch it.

He was too late.

The bomb exploded.

Elsye Mitchell and all five children were killed.

She was 26 years old and pregnant with her first child.

The children were between 11 and 14 years old.

What makes the story even stranger is how the weapon had reached them.

Japanese military planners had discovered that powerful winds high above the Pacific could carry balloons thousands of miles toward North America.

The balloons flew at roughly 30,000 feet.

A complicated system of sandbags, valves, and pressure controls helped them automatically rise and fall during the journey.

Explosive and incendiary bombs hung underneath.

Japan hoped they would kill people, start large forest fires, create panic, and force the United States to divert resources away from the war.

There was another strange part to the story.

The American government already knew that the balloons were reaching North America.

But newspapers and radio stations were asked not to report the incidents widely.

The logic was simple.

If Japan heard no reports of explosions, casualties, or forest fires, its commanders might assume the weapon was failing.

And that appears to have worked.

Japanese officials eventually concluded that the campaign was accomplishing very little.

But it also meant that many ordinary Americans had heard almost nothing about the strange objects falling from the sky.

Then came the explosion in Oregon.

The six people killed near Bly became the only known people killed by enemy action in the continental United States during World War II.

Today, the site is marked by the Mitchell Monument.

There is one final part of the story that makes it even more remarkable.

Decades later, some Japanese women who had been schoolgirls during the war learned what had happened in Oregon.

As children, they had helped manufacture parts of the paper balloons without knowing exactly where those balloons would go or who might be hurt by them.

They later folded 1,000 paper cranes as a gesture of regret and reconciliation.

Some eventually traveled to Oregon and met people connected to the tragedy.

Thousands of miles of ocean separated Japan from rural Oregon.

No bomber carried the weapon there.

No pilot guided it.

A balloon crossed the Pacific on the wind.

And one quiet Sunday picnic became the deadliest result of one of the strangest weapons used during World War II.

If you enjoyed this story, an upvote tells me to keep finding more overlooked WWII stories like it.

Had you ever heard about Japan’s balloon bombs before this?