Figures & Facts

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A day in the life of Abbey Road, an ordinary-looking street in north London.

"A policeman held up the traffic, the band walked back and forth a few times and that was that" - Brian Southall

On the 8 August 1969 that the Fab Four walked out of No 3 Abbey Road, having finished basic work on what would be their penultimate album. The photographer who took the famous cover shot was the late Iain Macmillan, a close friend of Brian Southall's, who knew the Beatles through working with Yoko Ono. "He was given about 15 minutes," says Mr Southall. "He stood up a stepladder while a policeman held up the traffic, the band walked back and forth a few times and that was that."

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Photos courtesy of Sang Tan/ Associated Press and BBC News

Original Source: BBC

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Eight endangered Rothschild giraffes, the rarest (only a few hundred left in the wild) on earth second only to the Niger Giraffe, are free to roam their 140-acre estate and are regular visitors at their English-style manor built in the colonial era. Back in 1794, the grandson of a Scottish earl, Jock Leslie Melville, and his American wife Betty bought the stately home. Later that year they moved two highly endangered Rothschild giraffe into the estate. The ones at the site grow up to more than 16ft tall, weigh two tons & have a life expectancy of up to 30 years. Every day shortly before 9am, the mammoth beasts stroll up to the house and poke their heads through the windows and doors in search of morning treats. Now, married owners Tanya & Mikey Carr-Hartley literally share their dining table with them.

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History won’t forget each one who deploys diplomacy rather than weaponry to end war which inevitably imposes tremendous suffering on humanity. History remembers that a team of three once did the impossible, ending the Afghan war, ending misery of refugees due to war. The trio also won "Charlie Wilson's War" (a movie based on the true story stars Tom Hanks (Charlie Wilson), Julia Roberts (Joanne Herring) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Gust Avrakotos).

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Charles Wilson  read more »

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Spending in Iraq and Afghanistan stands at $6.4 trillion through fiscal year 2020, according to a new study from the Cost of War project at Brown University.

The health care system in Canada is funded by a mix of public (70%) and private (30%) funding. The U.S. spends more per capita than any other nation in the world, but is the only wealthy industrialized country in the world that lacks some form of universal health care. In 2006, 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 46% in the United States. U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 83% of total Canadian spending (public and private).

All Canadian citizens are covered with a provincial Medical Services Plan, which receives funds from the federal government via tax transfers. The system is therefore a single-payer one, whereby everyone contributes to the care of all citizens. Individuals choose their own physicians, who decide what care is required - not the government, regardless of what you might hear on radio and TV talk shows - and they do not have to ante up large sums for emergency and intensive care or even for infant delivery. The system works very well.

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Photos courtesy of costofwar.com and docotube.com  read more »

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The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century was visible in a 155 miles corridor as it traveled half the globe and passed through the world's two most populous nations, India and China. The eclipse began at 5:28am local time (2358 GMT) in India and lasted up to a maximum of 6 minutes and 39 seconds when it hit the Pacific Ocean. Total eclipses are caused when the moon moves directly between the sun and the Earth, covering it completely to cast a shadow on Earth. Wednesday's was the longest since July 11, 1991, when a total eclipse lasting six minutes and 53 seconds was visible from Hawaii to South America. There will not be a longer eclipse until 2132.  read more »

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Moon trees are trees grown from 500 seeds taken into orbit around the Moon by Stuart Roosa, the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

July 20, 1969 saw the first human footsteps on the moon. John F. Kennedy remarked, "we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard." Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, after he snapped the historic Earthrise photo on December 1968, said, "we came all this way to explore the moon and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa, a former U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper, took with him tree seeds from a Loblolly Pine, Sycamore, Sweet Gum, Redwood, and Douglas Fir. After Roosa's return to Earth, the original seeds were germinated by the U.S. Forest Service and the result was "moon trees." Moon trees now grow in many places. A Moon Sycamore also shades Roosa's grave at Arlington National Cemetery.  read more »

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Journey of Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) covered Allied invasion of Normandy, WWII... He wept as he announced John F Kennedy's assassination, shouted encouragement when the Apollo astronauts lifted off for the moon and was the nightly conduit of information on America's Vietnam War nightmare for families across the nation. 30 years ago, news anchorman Walter Cronkite would finish up his hourly news broadcast to the nation of America by saying, "...and that's the way it is."

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