Traveling Document I 131 To Cuba: Fill & Download for Free

HistoryAncient to early modern historyIn ancient Rome, the architectural feature called a vomitorium was the entranceway through which crowds entered and exited a stadium, not a special room used for purging food during meals.[1] Vomiting was not a regular part of Roman dining customs.[2]It is true that mean life expectancy in the Middle Ages and earlier was low; however, one should not infer that people usually died around the age of 30.[3] In fact, the low life expectancy is an average very strongly influenced by high infant mortality, and the life expectancy of people who lived to adulthood was much higher. A 21-year-old man in medieval England, for example, could by one estimate expect to live to the age of 64.[4]There is no evidence that Vikings wore horns on their helmets.[5] In fact, the image of Vikings wearing horned helmets stems from the scenography of an 1876 production of the Der Ring des Nibelungen opera cycle by Richard Wagner.[6]King Canute did not command the tide to reverse in a fit of delusional arrogance.[7] His intent that day, if the incident even happened, was most likely to prove a point to members of his privy council that no man is all-powerful, and we all must bend to forces beyond our control, such as the tides.There is no evidence that iron maidens were invented in the Middle Ages or even used for torture. Instead they were pieced together in the 18th century from several artifacts found in museums in order to create spectacular objects intended for (commercial) exhibition.[8]The plate armor of European soldiers did not stop soldiers from moving around or necessitate a crane to get them into a saddle. They would as a matter of course fight on foot and could mount and dismount without help. In fact soldiers equipped with plate armor were more mobile than those with chainmail armor, as chainmail was heavier and required stiff padding beneath due to its pliable nature.[9]Modern historians dispute the popular misconception that the chastity belt, a device designed to prevent women from having sexual intercourse, was invented in medieval times. Most existing chastity belts are now thought to be deliberate fakes or anti-masturbatory devices from the 19th and early 20th century. The latter were made due to thewidespread belief that masturbation could lead to insanity, and were mostly bought by parents for their teenage children.[10]Christopher Columbus's efforts to obtain support for his voyages were not hampered by a European belief in a flat Earth. Sailors andnavigators of the time knew that the Earth was roughly spherical, but (correctly) disagreed with Columbus's estimate of the distance toIndia, which was approximately one-sixth of the actual distance. If the Americas did not exist, and had Columbus continued to India, he would have run out of supplies before reaching it at the rate he was traveling. Without the ability to determine longitude at sea, he would not have learned that his estimate was an error in time to return. Many of the educated classes believed the Earth was spherical since the works of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle.[11][12] Eratosthenes made an accurate estimate of the Earth's diameter in approximately 240 BCE.[13] See also Myth of the Flat Earth.The First Thanksgiving (c. 1914) ByJean Leon Gerome Ferris. Many of the elements depicted in this painting are erroneous or anachronistic.Columbus did not "discover America" in the sense of identifying a new continent. Although some historians argue he knew he had found a land between Europe and Asia,[14] most of his writings show he thought he reached the eastern coast of Asia.[15] Most of the landings Columbus made on his four voyages, including the initial October 12, 1492 landing (the anniversary of which forms the basis of Columbus Day), were in the Caribbean Islands. Columbus was not the first European to visit the Americas: at least one explorer, Leif Ericson, preceded him by reaching what today is believed to be Newfoundland.There is a legend that Marco Polo imported pasta from China[16] which originated with theMacaroni Journal, published by an association of food industries with the goal of promoting the use of pasta in the United States.[17] Marco Polo describes a food similar to "lagana" in his Travels, but he uses a term with which he was already familiar. Durum wheat, and thus pasta as it is known today, was introduced by Arabs from Libya, during their conquest ofSicily in the late 7th century, according to the newsletter of the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association,[18] thus predating Marco Polo's travels to China by about six centuries.Contrary to the popular image of the Pilgrim Fathers, the early settlers of the Plymouth Colony did not necessarily wear all black, and their capotains (hats) were shorter and rounder than the widely depicted tall hat with a buckle on it. Instead, their fashion was based on that of the late Elizabethan era: doublets, jerkins and ruffs. Both men and women wore the same style of shoes, stockings, capes, coats and hats in a range of colors including reds, yellows, purples, and greens. Children of both sexes wore identical clothing: achemise, an ankle-length gown, an apron and a close fitting cap tied under the chin. At the age of seven, boys were "breeched", i.e. allowed to wear adult men's clothing.[19] According to Plimoth Plantation historian James W. Baker, the traditional image was formed in the 19th century when buckles were a kind of emblem of quaintness.The thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony, widely believed to be the "First Thanksgiving", was not the first day of thanksgiving on the North American continent. Preceding thanksgiving days were held at the Spanish colony of Saint Augustine, Florida in 1565,[20][21] inFrobisher Bay in 1578,[22] in French Canada beginning in 1604, in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607,[23] and at Berkeley Hundred in 1619,[24]in addition to numerous similarly themed indigenous celebrations.[25] The association of Thanksgiving Day with the Plymouth celebration was largely the work of 19th-century writer Sarah Josepha Hale, who campaigned over multiple decades for a permanent national Thanksgiving holiday.[26]Marie Antoinette did not say "let them eat cake" when she heard that the French peasantry were starving due to a shortage of bread. The phrase was first published in Rousseau's Confessions when Marie was only 10 years old and most scholars believe that Rousseaucoined it himself, or that it was said by Maria-Theresa, the wife of Louis XIV. Even Rousseau (or Maria-Theresa) did not use the exact words but actually Qu'ils mangent de la brioche ("Let them eat brioche [a rich type of bread]"). Marie Antoinette was an unpopular ruler; therefore, people attribute the phrase "let them eat cake" to her, in keeping with her reputation as being hard-hearted and disconnected from her subjects.[27]George Washington did not have wooden teeth. His dentures were made of gold, hippopotamus ivory, lead, and human and animal teeth (including horse and donkey teeth).[28]The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence did not occur on July 4, 1776. The final language of the document was approved by the Second Continental Congress on that date and it was printed and distributed on July 4 and 5,[29] but the actual signing occurred on August 2, 1776.[30]The United States Constitution was written on parchment, not hemp paper. However, drafts were likely written on hemp paper, as most paper at the time was made from hemp.[31]Modern historyNapoleon on the Bellerophon, a painting of Napoleon I byCharles Lock Eastlake. Napoleon was taller than his nickname, The Little Corporal, suggests.Napoleon Bonaparte (pictured) was not short; rather he was slightly taller than the average Frenchman of his time.[32][33] After his death in 1821, the French emperor’s height was recorded as 5 feet 2 inches in French feet, which is 5 feet 7 inches (1.69 m).[34][35] Some believe that he was nicknamed le Petit Caporal (The Little Corporal) as a term of affection.[36]Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day, but the celebration of the Mexican Army's victory over the French in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Mexico's Independence from Spain is celebrated on September 16.[37][38]The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was not caused by Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern. A newspaper reporter invented the story to make colorful copy.[39]The claim that Frederick Remington, on assignment to Cuba, telegraphed William Randolph Hearstthat "...There will be no war. I wish to return" and that Hearst responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war" is unsubstantiated. Although this claim is included in a book byJames Creelman, there is no evidence that the telegraph exchange ever happened, and substantial evidence that it did not.[40][41]The popular image of Santa Claus was not created by The Coca-Cola Company as an advertising gimmick; by the time Coca-Cola began using Santa Claus's image in the 1930s, Santa Claus had already taken his modern form in popular culture, having already seen extensive use in other companies' advertisements and other mass media.[42]Italian dictator Benito Mussolini did not "make the trains run on time". Much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the Fascists came to power in 1922. Accounts from the era also suggest that the Italian railways' legendary adherence to timetables was more propaganda than reality.[43]There is no evidence of Polish cavalry mounting a brave but futile charge against German tanks using lances and sabres during the German invasion of Poland in 1939. This story may have originated from German propaganda efforts following the charge at Krojanty in which a Polish cavalry brigade surprised German infantry in the open and charged with sabres until driven off by armoured cars. While Polish cavalry still carried the sabre for such opportunities, they were trained to fight as highly mobile, dismounted cavalry (dragoons) and issued with light anti-tank weapons.[44][45]During the occupation of Denmark by the Nazis during World War II, King Christian X of Denmark did not thwart Nazi attempts to identify Jews by wearing a yellow star himself. Jews in Denmark were never forced to wear the Star of David. The Danish resistance didhelp most Jews flee the country before the end of the war.[46]Albert Einstein did not fail mathematics in school, as is commonly believed. Upon being shown a column claiming this fact, Einstein said "I never failed in mathematics... Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus."[47][48] Einstein did however fail his first entrance exam into Federal Polytechnic School in 1895, although at the time he was two years younger than his fellow students and did exceedingly well in mathematics and science on the exam.[49]Actor Ronald Reagan was never seriously considered for the role of Rick Blaine in the 1942 film classic Casablanca, eventually played by Humphrey Bogart. This belief came from an early studio press release announcing the film's production that used his name to generate interest in the film. But by the time it had come out, Warner Bros. knew that Reagan was unavailable for any roles in the foreseeable future since he was no longer able to defer his entry into military service.[50] Studio records show that producer Hal B. Wallis had always wanted Bogart for the part.[51][52]U.S. Senator George Smathers never gave a speech to a rural audience describing his opponent, Claude Pepper, as an "extrovert" whose sister was a "thespian", in the apparent hope they would confuse them with similar-sounding words like "pervert" and "lesbian".Time, which is sometimes cited as the source, described the story of the purported speech as a "yarn" at the time,[53] and no Florida newspaper reported such a speech during the campaign. The leading reporter who covered Smathers said he always gave the same boilerplate speech. Smathers had offered US$10,000 to anyone who could prove he had made the speech; it was never claimed.[54]John F. Kennedy's words "Ich bin ein Berliner" are standard German for "I am a Berliner."[55][56] An urban legend has it that due to his use of the indefinite article ein, Berliner is translated as jelly doughnut, and that the population of Berlin was amused by the supposed mistake. The word Berliner is not commonly used in Berlin to refer to the Berliner Pfannkuchen; they are usually called ein Pfannkuchen.[57]Eva Perón never uttered the quote "I will return and I will be millions". The quote was first formulated by the indigenous leader Túpac Katari in 1781 shortly before being executed. The misattribution to Eva Perón originates from a poem by José María Castiñeira de Dioswritten in Eva Perón's first-person narrative nearly ten years after her death. The quotation could have been inspired by a similar one in the contemporary film Spartacus.[58]The Rolling Stones were not performing "Sympathy for the Devil" at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert when Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by a member of the local Hells Angels chapter that was serving as security. While the incident that culminated in Hunter's death began while the band was performing the song, prompting a brief interruption before the Stones finished it, it concluded several songs later as the band was performing "Under My Thumb".[59][60] The misconception arose from mistaken reporting in Rolling Stone.[61]GeneralDespite appearance to the contrary, death per capita due to warfare was much higher in earlier times.A common misconception often quoted by media, politicians, activists is that violence is on the rise and has historically been much lower.[62] Similarly, the trend in post-colonial anthropology has been to regard historically indigenous and tribal societies as more peaceful than contemporary Western society.[63][64] However, archaeological evidence shows that previous societies had very high level of violence.[65] Likewise, modern tribal societies typically too have extremely high rates of violence, with more than half of deaths being violence related in some cases.[66][67] Ancient and medieval empires had lower rates of violence, and the violence decreased further as empires became more organized.[68] Modern societies saw still lower rates of violence from the medieval period onwards, with significant decreases after World War II.[69][70] This trend is general across all categories of violence, from large-scale warfare to murder and animal cruelty, and the trend is discernible on both millennium, century and decade scale, making modern societies the most peaceful the world has even seen.[71]Legislation and crimeIt is rarely necessary to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person's report; in instances where there is evidence of violence or of an unusual absence, law enforcement agencies in the United States often stress the importance of beginning an investigation promptly.[72]The UK government Web site says explicitly in large type "You don’t have to wait 24 hours before contacting the police".[73]Entrapment law in the United States does not require police officers to identify themselves as police in the case of a sting or other undercover work.[74] The law is specifically concerned with enticing people to commit crimes they would not have considered in the normal course of events.[75]Embassies and consulates are not the territory of the country they represent, but remain part of the host country, although they do enjoy special legal protections in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, such as inviolability of diplomatic premises, which dictates that agents of the host state cannot enter without permission from the country represented.[76][77] Inviolability has been challenged, however: when Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was given asylum in the embassy of Ecuador in London, England, the British government threatened to arrest him based on the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987.[78]Food and cookingRoll-style Western sushi. Contrary to a popular misconception, sushi can contain any number of ingredients, including vegetables and other non-meat products.Searing meat does not "seal in" moisture, and in fact may actually cause meat to lose moisture. Generally, the value in searing meat is that it creates a brown crust with a rich flavor via the Maillard reaction.[79][80]Some people believe that food items cooked with wine or liquor will be totally non-alcoholic, because alcohol's low boiling point causes it to evaporate quickly when heated. However, a study found that some of the alcohol remains: 25 percent after one hour of baking or simmering, and 10 percent after two hours.[81][82]Monosodium glutamate (MSG) has a widespread reputation for triggering migraine headache exacerbations, but there are no consistent data to support this relationship. Although there have been reports of an MSG-sensitive subset of the population, this has not been demonstrated in placebo-controlled trials.[83][84]Sushi does not mean "raw fish", and not all sushi includes raw fish. The name sushi means "sour rice", and refers to vinegared rice.[85]Microwave ovens do not cook food from the inside out. Upon penetrating food, microwave radiation decays exponentially due to the skin effect and does not directly heat food significantly beyond the skin depth. As an example, lean meat has a skin depth of only about 1 centimeter (0.4 in) at microwave oven frequencies.[86]Placing metal inside a microwave oven does not damage the oven's electronics. There are, however, other safety-related issues:electrical arcing may occur on pieces of metal not designed for use in a microwave oven, and metal objects may become hot enough to damage food, skin, or the interior of the oven. Metallic objects designed for microwave use can be used in a microwave with no danger; examples include the metalized surfaces used in browning sleeves and pizza-cooking platforms.[87]The functional principle of a microwave oven is not related to the resonance frequencies of water, and microwave ovens can therefore operate at many different frequencies. The resonance frequencies of water are about 20 GHz, which would be much too large to penetrate common foodstuffs. Microwave ovens work on the principle of dielectric heating.[88]The Twinkie does not have an infinite shelf life; its listed shelf life is approximately 45 days[89] (25 in its original formulation)[90] and generally remains on a store shelf for only 7 to 10 days.[91]Words and phrasesMain articles: List of common false etymologies and Common English usage misconceptionsNon-standard, slang or colloquial terms used by English speakers are sometimes alleged not to be real words. For instance, despite appearing as a word in numerous dictionaries,[92] "irregardless" is sometimes dismissed as "not a word".[93][94] All words in English originated by becoming commonly used during a certain period of time, thus there are many informal words currently regarded as "incorrect" in formal speech or writing. But the idea that they are somehow not words is a misconception.[95] Examples of words that are sometimes alleged not to be words include "conversate", "funnest", "mentee", "impactful", and "thusly".[96] All of these appear in numerous dictionaries as English words.[97]The word "fuck" did not originate in Christianized Anglo-Saxon England (7th century CE) as an acronym for "Fornication Under Consent of King"; nor did it originate as an acronym for "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", either as a sign posted above adulterers in the stocks, or as a criminal charge against members of the British Armed Forces; nor did it originate during the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt as a corruption of "pluck yew" (an idiom falsely attributed to the English for drawing a longbow).[98] Modern English was not spoken until the 16th century, and words such as "fornication" and "consent" did not exist in any form in English until the influence of Anglo-Normanin the late 12th century. The earliest recorded use of "fuck" in English comes from c. 1475, in the poem "Flen flyys", where it is spelledfuccant (conjugated as if a Latin verb meaning "they fuck"). It is of Proto-Germanic origin, and is related to either Dutch fokken and German ficken or Norwegian fukka.[99]The word "crap" did not originate as a back-formation of British plumber Thomas Crapper's surname, nor does his name originate from the word "crap", although the surname may have helped popularize the word.[100] The surname "Crapper" is a variant of "Cropper", which originally referred to someone who harvested crops.[101][102] The word "crap" ultimately comes from Medieval Latin crappa, meaning "chaff".[103]It is frequently rumored that the expression "rule of thumb", which is used to indicate a technique for generating a quick estimate, was originally coined from a law allowing a man to beat his wife with a stick, provided it was not thicker than the width of his thumb.[104] In fact, the origin of this phrase remains uncertain, but the false etymology has been broadly reported in media including The Washington Post (1989), CNN (1993), and Time magazine (1983).[105]"Golf" did not originate as an acronym of "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden".[106] The word's true origin is unknown, but it existed in the Middle Scots period.[107][108][109]The word "gringo" did not originate during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), the Venezuelan War of Independence (1811–1823), the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), or in the American Old West (c. 1865–1899) as a corruption of the lyrics "green grow" in either "Green Grow the Lilacs" or "Green Grow the Rushes, O" sung by US-American soldiers or cowboys;[110] nor did it originate during any of these times as a corruption of "Green go home!", falsely said to have been shouted at green-clad American troops.[111] The word originally simply meant "foreigner", and is probably a corruption of Spanish griego, "Greek".[112]"Xmas" used on a Christmas postcard (1910)"420" did not originate as the Los Angeles police or penal code for marijuana use.[113] Police Code 420 means "juvenile disturbance",[114] and California Penal Code section 420 prohibits the obstruction of access to public land.[113][115] The use of "420" started in 1971 at San Rafael High School, where it indicated the time 4:20 pm, when a group of students would go to smoke under the statue of Louis Pasteur.[113]Despite being commonly believed today, people during the Old and Middle English speaking periods never pronounced or spelled "the" as "ye".[116] The confusion derives from the use of the characterthorn (þ) in abbreviations of the word "the", which in Middle English text () looked similar to a y with a superscript e.[117][118]"Xmas" is not a secular plan to "take the Christ out of Christmas".[119] X stands for the Greek letterChi, the starting letter of Χριστός, or "Christ" in Greek.[120] The use of the word "Xmas" can be traced to the year 1021 when "monks in Great Britain...used the X while transcribing classical manuscripts into Old English" in place of "Christ".[119] The Oxford English Dictionary's "first recorded use of 'Xmas' for 'Christmas' dates back to 1551."[121]The expression "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not come from an ancient Arab saying. Instead it comes from the Indian Kautilya. [122]ScienceSee also: Tornado myths and List of misconceptions about illegal drugsAstronomyA satellite image of a section of theGreat Wall of China, running diagonally from lower left to upper right (not to be confused with the much more prominent river running from upper left to lower right). The region pictured is 12 by 12 kilometres (7.5 mi × 7.5 mi).It is commonly claimed that the Great Wall of China is the only human-made object visible from the Moon. This is false. None of the Apollo astronauts reported seeing any specific human-made object from the Moon, and even Earth-orbiting astronauts can barely see it. City lights, however, are easily visible on the night side of Earth from orbit.[123] Shuttle astronaut Jay Apt has been quoted as saying that "the Great Wall is almost invisible from only 180 miles (290 km) up."[124] (See Man-made structures visible from space.) ISScommander Chris Hadfield attempted to find it from space, but said that it was "hard as it's narrow and dun-colored."[125]Black holes, contrary to their common image, do not necessarily suck up all the matter in the vicinity.[126] If, for example, the Sun were replaced by a black hole of equal mass, the orbits of the planets would be essentially unaffected, but in other situations a black hole can act like a cosmic vacuum cleaner and pull a substantial inflow of matter.[127]Seasons are not caused by the Earth being closer to the Sun in the summer than in the winter. In fact, the Earth is farthest from the Sun when it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Seasons are caused by Earth's 23.4-degree axial tilt. As the Earth orbits the Sun, different parts of the world receive different amounts of direct sunlight. When an area of the Earth's surface is oriented perpendicular to the incoming sunlight, it receives more radiation than when it is oriented at an oblique angle. In July, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun resulting in longer days and more direct sunlight; in January, it is tilted away. The seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, which is tilted towards the Sun in January and away from the Sun in July.[128][129]Further information: Effect of sun angle on climateMeteorites are not necessarily hot when they reach the Earth. In fact, many meteorites are found with frost on them. As they enter the atmosphere, having been warmed only by the sun, meteors have a temperature below freezing. The intense heat produced during passage through the upper atmosphere at very high speed then melts a meteor's outside layer, but molten material is blown off and the interior does not have time to warm appreciably. Most meteorites fall through the relatively cool lower atmosphere for as long as several minutes at subsonic velocity before reaching the ground, giving plenty of time for their exterior to cool off again.[130]When a spacecraft reenters the atmosphere, the heat of reentry is not (primarily) caused by friction, but by adiabatic compression of airin front of the spacecraft.[131][132]BiologySee also: Common misunderstandings of geneticsVertebratesIt is a misconception that older elephants, sensing when they are near death, leave their herd and instinctively direct themselves toward a specific location known as an elephants' graveyard to die.[133]Bulls are not enraged by the color red, used in capes by professional matadors. Cattle are dichromats, so red does not stand out as a bright color. It is not the color of the cape, but the perceived threat by the matador that incites it to charge.[134]Contrary to popular belief, dogs do not sweat by salivating.[135] It is not true that dogs do not have sweat glands or have sweat glands only on their tongues. They do sweat, mainly through the footpads. However, dogs do primarily regulate their body temperature through panting.[136] See also Dog anatomy.Lemmings do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. They will, however, occasionally unintentionally fall off cliffs when venturing into unknown territory, with no knowledge of the boundaries of the environment.[citation needed] This misconception was popularized by the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the migration scenes (also staged by using multiple shots of different groups of lemmings) on a large, snow-covered turntable in a studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff.[137]The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late 19th century.[138]Bats are not blind. While many (most) bat species use echolocation as a primary sense, all bat species have eyes and are capable of sight. Furthermore, not all bats can echolocate and these bats have excellent night vision (see megabat, vs. microbat).[139]Ostriches do not hide their heads in the sand to hide from enemies.[140] This misconception was probably promulgated by Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79), who wrote that ostriches "imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed."[141]It is not harmful to baby birds to pick them up and return them to their nests, despite the common belief that doing so will cause the mother to reject them.[142] Some birds have limited sense of smell, and many species primarily rely on visual cues. It is however still best to leave a baby bird alone, as the parents will usually be close by.[143]The claim[144] that a duck's quack does not echo is false, although the echo may be difficult to hear for humans under some circumstances.[145]The notion that goldfish have a memory span of just a few seconds is false.[146][147] It is much longer, counted in months.A common misconception about chameleons and anoles is that the advantage of changing color is camouflage. In reality, changing color helps to regulate temperature and is used as a form of communication.[148] Some species, such as the Smith's Dwarf Chameleon, do change color as an effective form of camouflage.[149]Sharks can actually suffer from cancer. The misconception that sharks do not get cancer was spread by the 1992 Avery Publishingbook Sharks Don't Get Cancer by I. William Lane and used to sell extracts of shark cartilage as cancer prevention treatments. Reports of carcinomas in sharks exist, and current data do not allow any speculation about the incidence of tumors in sharks.[150]InvertebratesBombus pratorum over an Echinacea purpurea inflorescence; a widespread misconception holds that bumblebees should be incapable of flight.It is a common misconception that an earthworm becomes two worms when cut in half. However, only a limited number of earthworm species[151] are capable of anteriorregeneration. When such earthworms are bisected, only the front half of the worm (where the mouth is located) can feed and survive, while the other half dies.[152] Species of the planariafamily of flatworms actually do become two new planaria when bisected or split down the middle.[153]Houseflies do not have an average lifespan of 24 hours. The average lifespan of a housefly is 20 to 30 days.[154] However, a housefly maggot will hatch within 24 hours of being laid.[155]According to urban legend, the daddy longlegs spider (Pholcus phalangioides) is the mostvenomous spider in the world, but the shape of their mandibles leaves them unable to bite humans, rendering them harmless to our species. In reality, they can indeed pierce human skin, though the tiny amount of venom they carry causes only a mild burning sensation for a few seconds.[156] In addition, there is also confusion regarding the use of the name daddy longlegs, because harvestmen (order Opiliones, which are arachnids, but not spiders) and crane flies (which are insects) are also known as daddy longlegs, and share the misconception of being venomous.[157][158]The flight mechanism and aerodynamics of the bumblebee (as well as other insects) are actually quite well understood, in spite of the urban legend that calculations show that they should not be able to fly. In the 1930s, the French entomologist Antoine Magnan, using flawed techniques, indeed postulated that bumblebees theoretically should not be able to fly in his book Le Vol des Insectes (The Flight of Insects).[159] Magnan later realized his error and retracted the suggestion. However, the hypothesis became generalized to the false notion that "scientists think that bumblebees should not be able to fly".PlantsSunflowers with the sun clearly visiblebehind them.Poinsettias are not highly toxic to humans or cats. While it is true that they are mildly irritating to the skin or stomach,[160] and may sometimes cause diarrhea and vomiting if eaten,[161] an American Journal of Emergency Medicine study of 22,793 cases reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centers showed no fatalities and few cases requiring medical treatment.[162] According to the ASPCA, poinsettias may cause light to mid-range gastrointestinal discomfort in felines, with diarrhea and vomiting as the most severe consequences of ingestion.[163]Flowering sunflowers do not track the Sun across the sky.[164][165] The heads point in a fixed direction (East) all day long.[166] However, in an earlier development stage, before the appearance of flower heads, the buds do track the sun and the fixed alignment of the mature flowers is a result of this heliotropism.[167]EvolutionFurther information: Introduction to evolution and Objections to evolutionThe word theory in the theory of evolution does not imply mainstream scientific doubt regarding its validity; the concepts of theory andhypothesis have specific meanings in a scientific context. While theory in colloquial usage may denote a hunch or conjecture, ascientific theory is a set of principles that explains observable phenomena in natural terms.[168][169] "Scientific fact and theory are not categorically separable",[170] and evolution is a theory in the same sense as germ theory or the theory of gravitation.[171]Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life[172] or the origin and development of the universe. While biological evolution describes the process by which species and other levels of biological organisation originate, and ultimately leads all life forms back to auniversal common ancestor, it is not primarily concerned with the origin of life itself,[173] and does not pertain at all to the origin andevolution of the universe and its components. The theory of evolution deals primarily with changes in successive generations over time after life has already originated.[174] The scientific model concerned with the origin of the first organisms from organic or inorganic molecules is known as abiogenesis, and the prevailing theory for explaining the early development of our universe is the Big Bangmodel.A reconstruction of Aegyptopithecus, a primate predating the split between the human and Old World monkey lineages inhuman evolutionHumans did not evolve from chimpanzees.[175] The two modern species (common chimpanzees and bonobos) are, however, humans' closest living relatives. The most recent common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees lived between 5 and 8 million years ago.[176]Finds of the 4.4 million year old Ardipithecus indicate the ancestor was a moderately competent bipedal walker rather than a knucklewalker, and was small and rather more long limbed than a chimpanzee and with a shorter snout. Contrary to the idea of chimpanzees as "primitive", they too have evolved since the split, becoming larger, more aggressive and more capable climbers.[177] Together with the other apes, humans and chimpanzees constitute the family Hominidae. This group evolved from a common ancestor with the Old World monkeys some 40 million years ago.[178][179]Evolution is not a progression from inferior to superior organisms, and it also does not necessarily result in an increase in complexity. A population can evolve to become simpler, having a smaller genome, but biological devolution is a misnomer.[180][181]Evolution does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. A common argument against evolution is that entropy, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, increases over time, and thus evolution could not produce increased complexity. However, the law does not refer to complexity and only applies to closed systems,[182] which the Earth is not, as it absorbs and radiates the Sun's energy.[183]See also: Entropy and lifeEvolution does not "plan" to improve an organism's fitness to survive.[184][185] For example, an incorrect way to describe giraffe evolution is to say that giraffe necks grew longer over time because they needed to reach tall trees. Evolution does not see a need and respond, it is instead a goalless process. A mutation resulting in longer necks would be more likely to benefit an animal in an area with tall trees than an area with short trees, and thus enhance the chance of the animal surviving to pass on its longer-necked genes. Tall trees could not cause the mutation nor would they cause a higher percentage of animals to be born with longer necks.[186] In the giraffe example, the evolution of a long neck may equally well have been driven by sexual selection, proposing that the long necks evolved as a secondary sexual characteristic, giving males an advantage in "necking" contests over females.[187] The misconception is encouraged as it is common shorthand for people who understand how evolution works to speak of a purpose as a concise form of expression (sometimes called the "metaphor of purpose");[188] it is less cumbersome to say "Dinosaurs may have evolved feathers for courtship" than "Feathers may have been selected for when they arose as they gave dinosaurs a selective advantage over their non-feathered peers".[189]Humans and (non-avian) dinosaurs did not coexist.[190] The last of the non-avian dinosaurs died 66 million years ago in the course of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, whereas the earliest Homo genus (humans) evolved between 2.3 and 2.4 million years ago. This places a 63 million year expanse of time between the last non-bird dinosaurs and the earliest humans.Tyrannosaurus rex. Non-aviandinosaurs died out in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at the end of theCretaceous period.Dinosaurs did not become extinct due to being generally maladapted or unable to cope with normal climatic change, a view found in many older textbooks. In fact, dinosaurs comprised an extremely adaptive and successful group, whose demise was brought about by an extraordinary event that also extinguished many groups of plants, mammals and marine life.[191] The most commonly cited cause is that of an asteroid impact on the Yucatán Peninsula, triggering the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.[192] Also, not all dinosaurs went extinct. Birds evolved from small feathered theropods in the Jurassic, and while most dinosaur lineages were cut short at the end of the Cretaceous, some birds survived. Consequently, dinosaur descendants are part of the modern fauna.[193]Mammals did not evolve from any modern group of reptiles. Soon after the first reptiles appeared, they split into two branches, the sauropsids and the synapsids.[194] The line leading to mammals diverged from the line leading to modern reptilian lines (the sauropsids) about 320 million years ago, in the mid Carboniferous period. Only later (in the late Carboniferous or early Permian) did the modern reptilian groups (lepidosaurs, turtles and crocodiles) diverge. The mammals themselves, being the only survivors of the synapsid line, are the "cousins" rather than "siblings" of modern reptiles.[195]Human body and healthWaking sleepwalkers does not harm them. While it is true that a person may be confused or disoriented for a short time after awakening, this does not cause them further harm. In contrast, sleepwalkers may injure themselves if they trip over objects or lose their balance while sleepwalking. Such injuries are common among sleepwalkers.[196][197]In South Korea, it is commonly and incorrectly believed that sleeping in a closed room with an electric fan running can be fatal. According to the Korean government, "In some cases, a fan turned on too long can cause death from suffocation, hypothermia, or fire from overheating." The Korea Consumer Protection Board issued a consumer safety alert recommending that electric fans be set on timers, direction changed and doors left open. Belief in fan death is common even among knowledgeable medical professionals in Korea. According to Yeon Dong-su, dean of Kwandong University's medical school, "If it is completely sealed, then in the current of an electric fan, the temperature can drop low enough to cause a person to die of hypothermia."[198] Whereas an air conditioner transfers heat from the air and cools it, a fan moves air without change of temperature to increase the evaporation of sweat. Leaving a fan running in an unoccupied room will not cool it; in fact, due to energy losses from the motor and viscous dissipation, a fan will slightly heat a room.Eating less than an hour before swimming does not increase the risk of experiencing muscle cramps or drowning. One study shows a correlation between alcohol consumption and drowning, but there is no evidence cited regarding stomach cramps or the consumption of food.[199]Drowning is often thought to be a violent struggle, where the victim waves and calls for help.[200] In truth, drowning is often inconspicuous to onlookers. In most cases, raising the arms and vocalising are impossible due to the instinctive drowning response.[200] Waving and yelling (known as "aquatic distress") is a sign of trouble, but not a dependable one: most victims demonstrating the instinctive drowning response do not show prior evidence of distress.[201]It is a common misconception that hydrogen peroxide is a disinfectant or antiseptic for treating wounds.[202][203] While it is an effective cleaning agent, hydrogen peroxide is not an effective agent for reducing bacterial infection of wounds. Furthermore, hydrogen peroxide applied to wounds can impede healing and lead to scarring because it destroys newly formed skin cells.[204]The caduceus, a symbol featuring two snakes around a staff, is often mistakenly used as a symbol of medicine instead of the Rod of Asclepius, which features a single snake around a staff. This error was popularised largely because of its adoption in the insignia of theUS Army medical corps at the insistence of an officer.[205][206]Human blood in veins is not blue. In fact, blood is always red due to hemoglobin. Deoxygenated blood has a deep red color, and oxygenated blood has a light cherry-red color. The misconception probably arises for two reasons: 1) Veins below the skin appear blue. This is due to a variety of reasons only weakly dependent on the color of the blood, including light scattering through the skin, and human color perception. 2) From the way diagrams use colors to show the difference between veins (usually shown in blue) and arteries(usually shown in red).[207]Exposure to a vacuum, or experiencing uncontrolled decompression, does not cause the body to explode, or internal fluids to boil. Instead, it would lead to a loss of consciousness once the body has depleted the supply of oxygen in the blood, followed by death fromhypoxia within minutes.[208]Antibiotics do not cure the common cold, because it is caused by a virus infection against which antibiotics are useless. Using antibiotics against the common cold might contribute to antibiotic resistance.[209][210][211]A person doesn't become resistant to certain antibiotics. It is a strain of microorganisms that can become resistant, not a person's body.[212][213]SensesAn incorrect map of the tongue showing zones which taste bitter (1), sour (2), salty (3) and sweet (4). In reality, all zones can sense all tastes.All different tastes can be detected on all parts of the tongue by taste buds,[214] with slightly increased sensitivities in different locations depending on the person, contrary to the popular belief that specific tastes only correspond to specific mapped sites on the tongue.[215] The original tongue map was based on a mistranslation of a 1901 German thesis[216] by Edwin Boring. In addition, there are not 4 but 5 primary tastes. In addition to bitter, sour, salty, and sweet, humans have taste receptors for umami, which is a savory or meaty taste.[217]Humans have more than the commonly cited five senses. Although definitions vary, the actual number ranges from 9 to more than 20. In addition to sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing, which were the senses identified by Aristotle, humans can sense balance and acceleration (equilibrioception), pain (nociception), body and limb position (proprioception or kinesthetic sense), and relative temperature (thermoception).[218] Other senses sometimes identified are the sense of time, itching, pressure, hunger, thirst, fullness of the stomach, need to urinate, need to defecate, and blood carbon dioxide levels.[219][220]Skin and hairWater-induced wrinkles are not caused by the skin absorbing water and swelling.[221] They are caused by the autonomic nervous system, which triggers localized vasoconstriction in response to wet skin, yielding a wrinkled appearance. This may have evolved because it gives ancestral primates a better grip in slippery, wet environments.[222][223]Shaving does not cause terminal hair to grow back thicker or coarser or darker. This belief is due to hair which has never been cut having a tapered end, whereas after cutting there is no taper; the cut hair appears to be thicker, and feels coarser due to the sharper, unworn edges. The shorter hairs being "harder" (less flexible) than longer hairs also contributes to this effect.[224]Hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after a person dies. Rather, the skin dries and shrinks away from the bases of hairs and nails, giving the appearance of growth.[225]Hair care products cannot actually "repair" split ends and damaged hair. They can prevent damage from occurring in the first place, and they can also smooth down the cuticle in a glue-like fashion so that it appears repaired, and generally make hair appear in better condition.[226]The redhead gene is not becoming extinct. In August 2007, many news organizations reported that redheads would become extinct, possibly as early as 2060, due to the gene for red hair being recessive. Although redheads may become more rare (for example, mixed marriages where one parent is from a group without the redhead gene will result in no children, but some grandchildren, with red hair), they will not die out unless everyone who carries the gene dies or fails to reproduce.[227] This misconception has been around since at least 1865, and often resurfaces in American newspapers.[228] (See also Disappearing blonde gene.)Nutrition, food, and drinkEight glasses or two to three litres of water a day are not needed to maintain health.[229] The amount of water needed varies by person (weight), activity level, clothing, and environment (heat and humidity). Water actually need not be drunk in pure form, but can be derived from liquids such as juices, tea, milk, soups, etc., and from foods including fruits and vegetables.[229]Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children.[230][231] Double-blind trials have shown no difference in behavior between children given sugar-full or sugar-free diets, even in studies specifically looking at children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or those considered sensitive to sugar.[232]Alcoholic beverages do not make one warmer.[233] The reason that alcoholic drinks create the sensation of warmth is that they cause blood vessels to dilate and stimulate nerve endings near the surface of the skin with an influx of warm blood. This can actually result in making the core body temperature lower, as it allows for easier heat exchange with a cold external environment.[234]Alcohol does not necessarily kill brain cells.[235] Alcohol can, however, lead indirectly to the death of brain cells in two ways: (1) In chronic, heavy alcohol users whose brains have adapted to the effects of alcohol, abrupt cessation following heavy use can causeexcitotoxicity leading to cellular death in multiple areas of the brain.[236] (2) In alcoholics who get most of their daily calories from alcohol, a deficiency of thiamine can produce Korsakoff's syndrome, which is associated with serious brain damage.[237]It is untrue that a vegetarian or vegan diet cannot provide enough protein for adequate nutrition.[238][239] In fact, typical protein intakes ofovo-lacto vegetarians and vegans meet and exceed requirements.[240] However, a strict vegan diet does require supplementation ofvitamin B12 for optimal health.[238]Swallowed chewing gum does not take seven years to digest. In fact, chewing gum is mostly indigestible, and passes through the digestive system at the same rate as other matter.[241][242]Human sexualityThere is no physiological basis for the belief that having sex in the days leading up to a sporting event or contest is detrimental to performance.[243] In fact it has been suggested that sex prior to sports activity can elevate the levels of testosterone in males, which could potentially enhance their performance.[244]BrainGolgi-stained neurons in human hippocampal tissue. It is commonly believed that humans will not grow new brain cells, but research has shown that some neurons can reform in humans.Mental abilities are not absolutely separated into the left and right cerebral hemispheres of the brain.[245] Some mental functions such as speech and language (e.g. Broca's area,Wernicke's area) tend to activate one hemisphere of the brain more than the other, in some kinds of tasks. If one hemisphere is damaged at an early age, these functions can often be recovered in part or even in full by the other hemisphere (see Neuroplasticity). Other abilities such as motor control, memory, and general reasoning are served equally by the two hemispheres.[246]Until recently[when?], medical experts believed that humans were born with all of the brain cells they would ever have.[247] We now know that new neurons can be created in thepostnatal brain. Researchers have observed adult neurogenesis in avians,[248] Old World Primates,[249] and humans.[250] Adults of these species retain multipotent (see cell potency) neural stem cells in the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricles and subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus.[251][252] The newborn neurons generated in these areas migrate to theolfactory bulb and the dentate gyrus, respectively, and are believed to integrate into existing neural circuits. The function and physiological significance of adult-born neurons remains unclear. Some studies have suggested that post-natal neurogenesis also occurs in the neocortex,[253][254][255] an idea that is disputed.[256]Vaccines do not cause autism or autism spectrum disorders. Although fraudulent research by Andrew Wakefield claimed a connection, repeated attempts to reproduce the results ended in failure, and the research was ultimately shown to have been manipulated.[257]People do not use only ten percent of their brains. While it is true that a small minority of neurons in the brain are actively firing at any one time, the inactive neurons are important too.[258][259] This misconception has been commonplace in American culture at least as far back as the start of the 20th century, and was attributed to William James, who apparently used the expression metaphorically.[260]DiseaseSee also: Misconceptions about HIV and AIDSDrinking milk or consuming other dairy products does not increase mucus production.[261][262] As a result, they do not need to be avoided by those suffering from flu or cold congestion.Humans cannot catch warts from toads or other animals; the bumps on a toad are not warts.[263] Warts on human skin are caused by viruses that are unique to humans (human papillomavirus).Neither cracking one's knuckles nor exercising while in good health causes osteoarthritis.[264][265]Eating nuts, popcorn, or seeds does not increase the risk of diverticulitis.[266] These foods may actually have a protective effect.[267]The Trendelenburg position (lying on the back with the feet elevated) for treating hypotension or shock is not supported by evidence and may in fact be harmful.[268]Stress plays a relatively minor role in hypertension - contrary to common belief.[269] Specific relaxation therapies are not supported by the evidence.[270] Acute stress has been shown to temporarily increase blood-pressure levels.[269] Evidence from observational studies has shown a possible association between chronic stress and a sustained rise in high blood-pressure.[269] From the medical perspective, stress plays a small part in hypertension, whereas a recurring theme in studies of the attitudes of lay people was that stress was by far the most important cause.[269]In those with the common cold the color of the sputum or nasal secretion may vary from clear to yellow to green and does not indicate the class of agent causing the infection.[271][272]Materials scienceGlass does not flow at room temperature as a high-viscosity liquid.[273] Although glass shares some molecular properties found in liquids, glass at room temperature is an "amorphous solid" that only begins to flow above the glass transition temperature,[274] though the exact nature of the glass transition is not considered settled among theorists and scientists.[275] Panes of stained glass windows are often thicker at the bottom than at the top, and this has been cited as an example of the slow flow of glass over centuries. However, this unevenness is due to the window manufacturing processes used at the time. Normally the thick end of glass would be installed at the bottom of the frame, but it is also common to find old windows where the thicker end has been installed to the sides or the top.[274][275] No such distortion is observed in other glass objects, such as sculptures or optical instruments, that are of similar or even greater age. One researcher estimated in 1998 that for glass to actually flow at room temperatures would take many times the age of the earth.[274][275][276]Most diamonds are not formed from highly compressed coal. More than 99 percent of diamonds ever mined have formed in the conditions of extreme heat and pressure about 90 miles (140 km) below the earth's surface. Coal is formed from prehistoric plants close to earth surface, and is unlikely to migrate below 2 miles (3.2 km) through common geological processes. Most diamonds that have been dated are older than the first land plants, and are therefore older than coal. It is possible that diamonds can form from coal insubduction zones and in meteoroid impacts, but diamonds formed this way are rare and the carbon source is more likely carbonate rocks rather than coal.[277]MathematicsWhen an event with equally probable outcomes comes out the same way several times in succession, the other outcome is not more likely next time. For example, if a roulette[note 1] ball ends up on black many times in a row, and not once on red (as reportedly happened 26 times on August 18, 1913, in the Monte Carlo Casino[278]), the next ball is not more likely to land on red; red is not "due"[279] For a fair wheel, neither is red less likely. This misconception is known as the gambler's fallacy; in reality statistical independence holds, and red is just as likely or unlikely on the next spin as always—sometimes expressed as "the system has no memory". If the event is physically determined, and not perfectly random, the repeated outcome may be more likely. For example, a die that has rolled a six ten consecutive times might be loaded or controlled by hidden magnets, and would be more likely to roll another six. The misconception is due to the true fact that, before starting to roll, probability theory predicts that a run of the same colour several times in succession is unlikely, increasingly so the longer the run.There is no evidence that the ancient Greeks designed the Parthenon to deliberately match the golden ratio.[280][281] The Parthenon was completed in 438 BC, more than a century before the first recorded mention of the ratio by Euclid. Similarly, Leonardo da Vinci'sVitruvian Man makes no mention of the golden ratio in its text, although it describes many other proportions.[282][283]PhysicsThe Big Bang theory does not provide an explanation for the origin of the universe; rather, it explains its early evolution.[284]An illustration of the (incorrect) equal-transit-time explanation of airfoil lift.It is not true that air takes the same time to travel above and below an aircraft's wing.[285] This misconception, sometimes called the equal transit-time fallacy, is widespread among textbooks and non-technical reference books, and even appears in pilot training materials. In fact the air moving over the top of an airfoil generating lift is always moving much faster than the equal transit theory would imply,[285] as described in the incorrect and correct explanations of lift force.Blowing over a curved piece of paper does not demonstrate Bernoulli's principle. Although a common classroom experiment is often explained this way,[286] it is false to make a connection between the flow on the two sides of the paper using Bernoulli’s equation since the air above and below are different flow fields and Bernoulli's principle only applies within a flow field.[287] The paper rises because the air follows the curve of the paper and a curved streamline will develop pressure differences perpendicular to the airflow.[288] Bernoulli's principle predicts that the decrease in pressure is associated with an increase in speed, i.e. that as the air passes over the paper it speeds up and moves faster than it was moving when it left the demonstrator's mouth. But this is not apparent from the demonstration.[289]The Coriolis effect does not determine the direction that water rotates in a bathtub drain or a flushing toilet.[290] The Coriolis effect, while it indeed exists, is induced by the Earth's daily rotation and is far too weak to affect the direction of water in a typical bathtub drain. The effect becomes significant and noticeable only at much larger scales, such as in weather systems or oceanic currents. Other forces dominate the dynamics of water in drains.[291]Gyroscopic forces or geometric trail are not required for a rider to balance a bicycle or for it to demonstrate self-stability.[292][293]Although gyroscopic forces and trail can be contributing factors, it has been demonstrated that neither are required nor sufficient by themselves.[292]The idea that lightning never strikes the same place twice is one of the oldest and most well-known superstitions about lightning. There is no reason that lightning would not be able to strike the same place twice; if there is a thunderstorm in a given area, then objects and places which are more prominent or conductive (and therefore minimize distance) are more likely to be struck. For instance, lightning strikes the Empire State Building in New York City about 100 times per year.[294][295]A penny dropped from the Empire State Building will not kill a person or crack the sidewalk.[296] The terminal velocity of a falling penny is about 30–50 miles per hour (48–80 km/h), and the penny will not exceed that speed regardless of the height from which it is dropped. At that speed, its energy is not enough to penetrate a human skull or crack concrete, as demonstrated on an episode of MythBusters. As MythBusters noted, the Empire State Building is a particularly poor setting for this misconception, since its tapered shape would make it impossible to drop anything directly from the top to street level.When the ambient temperature is low, temporarily decreasing the temperature setting on a building's programmable thermostat (e.g. at night or when it is unoccupied) rather than maintaining a steady temperature can save a significant amount of energy.[297] A common myth is that if the building is allowed to cool, its furnace has to "work harder" to reheat it to a comfortable temperature, counteracting or even exceeding the energy saved while the temperature was allowed to drop. Actually this practice can result in energy savings of five to fifteen percent as the heat lost by a warm structure in a cold environment is proportional to the heat difference between the inside and outside of the structure.PsychologyThere is no scientific evidence for the existence of “photographic” or eidetic memory (the ability to remember images with so high a precision as to mimic a camera).[298] Many people have claimed to have a photographic memory, but those people have been shown to have good memories as a result of mnemonic devices rather than a natural capacity for detailed memory encoding.[299] There are rare cases of individuals with exceptional memory, but none of them has a memory that mimics a camera. In recent years, a phenomenon labeled hyperthymesia has been studied, where individuals have superior autobiographical memory—in some cases being able to recall every meal they have ever eaten. One example is actress Marilu Henner.[300]Schizophrenia is not the same thing as dissociative identity disorder, namely split or multiple personalities.[301] Etymologically, the term "schizophrenia" comes from the Greek roots skhizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-; "mind") and is ajuxtaposition proposed by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, which may have given rise to this common misconception.SportsMarcos Torregrosa wearing a black belt with a red bar. In some martial arts, such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Judo, red belts indicate a higher rank than black. In some cases, a solid red belt is reserved for the founder of the art, and in others, higher degrees of black belts are shown by red stripes.Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball.[302][303] (See Origins of baseball.)The black belt in martial arts does not necessarily indicate expert level or mastery. It was introduced for judo in the 1880s to indicate competency of all of the basic techniques of the sport. Promotion beyond black belt varies among different martial arts. In judo and some other Asian martial arts, holders of higher ranks are awarded belts with alternating red and white panels, and the highest ranks with solid red belts.[304]ReligionHebrew BibleThe forbidden fruit mentioned in the Book of Genesis is commonly assumed to be an apple,[305] and is widely depicted as such in Western art. However, the Bible does not identify what type of fruit it is. The original Hebrew texts mention only tree and fruit. Early Latin translations use the word mali, which can be taken to mean both "evil" and "apple". German and French artists commonly depict the fruit as an apple from the 12th century onwards, and John Milton's Areopagitica from 1644 explicitly mentions the fruit as an apple.[306] Jewish scholars suggested that the fruit could have been a grape, a fig, wheat, an apricot or an etrog.[307]BuddhismThe historical Buddha was not obese. The "chubby Buddha" or "laughing Buddha" is a 10th-century Chinese folk hero by the name of Budai. In Chinese Buddhist culture, Budai came to be revered as an incarnation of Maitreya, the Bodhisattva who will become a Buddha to restore Buddhism after the teachings of the historical Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, have passed away.[308]The Buddha is not a god. In early Buddhism, Siddhārtha Gautama possessed no salvific properties and strongly encouraged "self-reliance, self discipline and individual striving."[309] However, in later developments of Mahāyāna Buddhism, notably in the Pure Land (Jìngtǔ) school of Chinese Buddhism, the Amitābha Buddha was thought to be a savior. Through faith in the Amitābha Buddha, one could be reborn in the western Pure Land. Although in Pure Land Buddhism the Buddha is considered a savior, he is still not considered a god in the common understanding of the term.[310]ChristianityThere is no evidence that Jesus was born on December 25.[311] The Bible never claims a date of December 25, but may imply a date closer to September.[311] The fixed date is attributed to Pope Julius the First because in the year 350 CE he declared the twenty-fifth of December the official date of celebration.[312][313] The date may have initially been chosen to correspond with either the day exactly nine months after Christians believe Jesus to have been conceived,[314] the date of the Roman winter solstice,[315] or one of various ancient winter festivals.[314][316]Nowhere in the Bible does it say exactly three magi came to visit the baby Jesus, nor that they were kings, rode on camels, or that their names were Casper, Melchior and Balthazar. Matthew 2 has traditionally been combined with Isaiah 60:1–3.Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. 2For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. 3And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.Three magi are supposed because three gifts are described, and artistic depictions of the nativity after about the year 900 almost always depict three magi.[317] The wise men in the biblical narrative did not visit on the day Jesus was born, but they saw Jesus as a child, in a house as many as two years afterwards (Matthew 2:11).[318][319]The Immaculate Conception is not synonymous with the virgin birth of Jesus,[note 2] nor is it a supposed belief in the virgin birth of Mary, his mother. It is the Roman Catholic belief that Mary, unlike all other humans, was not in a state of original sin from the moment of conception.[320]Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. She is often confused with a different, unnamed woman in the Gospel of Luke (immediately before Mary Magdalene's introduction) who indeed was a prostitute. The misconception stems from a 6th-century homily from Pope Gregory I, who assumed that the seven demons that Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene corresponded to the still-nascent concept of the seven deadly sins.[321]Roman Catholic dogma does not say that the pope is either sinless or always infallible.[322] Catholic dogma since 1870 does state that a dogmatic teaching contained in divine revelation that is promulgated by the pope is free from error, although official invocation of papal infallibility is extremely rare. Otherwise, even when speaking in his official capacity, dogma does not hold that he is free from error.IslamA fatwā is a non-binding legal opinion issued by an Islamic scholar under Islamic law. The popular misconception[323][324] that the word means a death sentence probably stems from the fatwā issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran in 1989 regarding the authorSalman Rushdie, whom he stated had earned a death sentence for blasphemy. This event led to fatwās gaining widespread media attention in the West.[325]The word "jihad" does not always mean "holy war"; literally, the word in Arabic means "struggle". While there is such a thing as "jihad bil saif", or jihad "by the sword",[326] many modern Islamic scholars usually say that it implies an effort or struggle of a spiritual kind.[327][328] Scholar Louay Safi asserts that "misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding the nature of war and peace in Islam are widespread in both the Muslim societies and the West", as much following 9/11 as before.[329]The Quran does not promise martyrs 72 virgins in heaven. It does mention virgin companions, houri, to all people—martyr or not—in heaven, but no number is specified. The source for the 72 virgins is a hadith in Sunan al-Tirmidhi by Imam Tirmidhi.[330][331] Hadiths are sayings and acts of the prophet Mohammed as reported by others and as such not part of the Quran itself. Especially the hadiths that are weakly sourced, such as this one,[332] must not necessarily be believed by a Muslim. Furthermore, the correct translation of this hadith is a matter of debate.[330]LiteratureSee also: Wikiquote: List of misquotationsFrankenstein was not the name of the monster in the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley; rather it was the surname of the monster's creator, Victor Frankenstein. The monster is instead called Frankenstein's monster. Additionally, Frankenstein was a medical student in the novel, not a doctor as frequently portrayed.[333]MusicSee also: Mondegreen#In songs"Edelweiss" is not the national anthem of Austria, but is in fact an original composition created for the musical The Sound of Music. The actual Austrian national anthem is "Land der Berge, Land am Strome."[334]"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" was not composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; he only composed variations on the tune, which originated from a French folk song.[335]TechnologyInventionsGeorge Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter, though he reputedly discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more for soybeans, pecans, and sweet potatoes.[336][337]Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet;[338] flushing toilets were first used in the Indus Valley Civilization, around the 26th century BCE. Crapper, however, did much to increase its popularity and came up with some related inventions, such as the ballcockmechanism used to fill toilet tanks. The derivation of the word 'crap' is unrelated to his name; this is mere coincidence.[339]Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb.[340] He did, however, develop the first practical light bulb in 1880 (employing a carbonizedbamboo filament), shortly prior to Joseph Swan, who invented an even more efficient bulb in 1881 (which used a cellulose filament).Henry Ford did not invent either the automobile or the assembly line. He did improve the assembly line process substantially, sometimes through his own engineering but more often through sponsoring the work of his employees.[341][342] Karl Benz (co-founder ofMercedes-Benz) is credited with the invention of the first modern automobile,[343] and the assembly line has existed throughout history.Guglielmo Marconi did not invent the radio, but only modernized it for public broadcasting and communication.[344] For more about the controversy about who invented radio, see invention of radio.Al Gore never said that he "invented" the Internet, although Gore did say, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."[345][346] Gore was the original drafter of the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, which provided significant funding for supercomputing centers, and this in turn led to upgrades of a major part of the already existing, early 1990s Internet backbone, the NSFNet, and development of NCSA Mosaic, the browser that popularized the World Wide Web; however the history of the Internet predates these. Also see Al Gore and information technology.James Watt did not invent the steam engine,[347] nor were his ideas on steam engine power inspired by a kettle lid pressured open by steam.[348] Watt developed upon the first commercially successful Newcomen steam engine in the 1760s and 1770s; his new steam engine later gained huge fame.[349]ComputingComputers running Macintosh, Linux, or other non-Windows operating systems are not immune to malware such as trojan horses.[350]These operating systems are capable of being infected by malware designed for them; however, due to the market dominance of Microsoft Windows operating systems, most malware is designed to target them rather than other operating systems.[351]TransportationToilet waste is never intentionally jettisoned from an aircraft. All waste is collected in tanks which are emptied on the ground by toilet waste vehicles.[352] Blue ice is caused by accidental leakage from the waste tank. Passenger trains, on the other hand, have historically flushed onto the tracks; however, modern trains usually have retention tanks on board.Automotive batteries stored on a concrete floor do not discharge any faster than they would on other surfaces,[353] in spite of worry among Americans that concrete harms batteries.[354] Early batteries might have been susceptible to moisture from floors due to leaky, porous cases, but for many years lead-acid car batteries have had impermeable polycarbonate cases, and are maintenance-free, so they do not leak battery acid.[355][356]

The Kingdom of Kongo.Kongo people - WikipediaDetailed and copious description about the Kongo people who lived next to the Atlantic ports of the region, as a sophisticated culture, language and infrastructure, appear in the 15th century, written by the Portuguese explorers.Later anthropological work on the Kongo of the region come from the colonial era writers, particularly the French and Belgians (Loango, Vungu, and the Niari Valley), but this too is limited and does not exhaustively cover all of the Kongo people. The evidence suggests, states Vansina, that the Kongo people were advanced in their culture and socio-political systems with multiple kingdoms well before the arrival of first Portuguese ships in the late 15th century.HistoriographyLeo Frobenius (1873-1938)Leo Frobenius, Histoire de la Civilisation AfricaineMore to the South in the Kingdom of Congo, a swarming crowd dressed in silk and velvet; great states well ordered, and even to the smallest details, powerful sovereigns, rich industries, -- civilized to the marrow of their bones.“The idea of the ‘barbarous Negro’ is a European invention, which has as a consequence, dominated Europe until the beginning of this century.Not because I am Congolese but for the following reasons:The Kingdom of Kongo was Atlantic Africa’s first truly globalised kingdom.The Kingdom of Kongo had embassies in Rome, in Holland, in Portugal and Brazil. Kongo ambassadors, Ne Vunda (Ambassador in Vatican) or Don Miguel de Castro (Ambassador in Brazil) became famous men and immortalized in European artistic representations. There is a bust of Ne Vunda in the Vatican. He died shortly after he arrived in Rome. The Pope's visited him on his deathbed,The “Maroon Kingdom” of Palmares was, in fact, an African colony, a satellite kingdom that the Kongos established even before Columbus “discovered” America.Duarte Pacheco Pereira, one of the most distinguished Portuguese sea captain wrote in his journal that the Kongos had established trade and diplomatic relationship with Native Americans in Brazil before the 15th. Palmares is also called angola janga (little Angola). Angola was once known as the Ndongo Kingdo, a vassal state of the Kingdom of Kongo.Here are suprising facts on the maritime history of the Kingdom of Kongo and its vassal states (Ndongo, Soyo, Loango) from the following links.Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth CenturyWarfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800Kongo: Power and MajestyOne rarely reads of Kongolese naval forces or exploits after the second half of the sixteenth century, though the tradition does seem to have been continued on the coast north of Kongo.In 1525 the King of the Congo captured a small French ship and delivered it with its crew to the Portuguese.One of these boats co-operated with a Portuguese vessel to capture a very strongly armed French ship off Soyo in 1525, partially by attacking and capturing a shore party that had landed on a longboat.The incident probably explains why a guide for French shippers in the central African region of about 1530 cautioned all who traded there not to pass any village but to wait for a boat to come to them from the shore and bring royal permission from Kongo.The king of Kongo of the same period was supposed to be able to assemble 800 of these [boats], probably along the Zaïre.Seventeenth-century Ngoyo was famous for its large fleet, whose sailors or rowers rode on large watercraft and in 1670 were sent to support Soyo in its war against a Portuguese invasion.Ndongo also employed fleets of rivercraft as its navy. One large army assembled in 1586 crossed the Lukala River on eight “great canoes”, each of which held 80–90 people.Cabindans, who had always been the most maritime of the societies of the Loango coast, developed a boat-building industry, operated river and coasting craft and were enlisted as crew on oceangoing steamers.https://www.cairn.info/revue-tumultes-2006-2-page-53.htmCourtesy of Google TranslateThe Municipality of Palmares: Benjamin Peret and the revolt of the slaves of colonial BrazilIn the following century, the German historian Heinrich Handelmann, in his Histoire du Brésil de 1860, analyzed the facts from the point of view of "white colonization": "We should regret the sad fate of the Palmares, but its destruction was a necessity . A complete Africanization of Alagôas, an African colony in the midst of European slave states, was something that could not be tolerated at all without seriously endangering the existence of white Brazilian colonization; the duty of his own conservation forced him to exterminate it2. The Kingdom of Kongo was a literate kingdom.The Kongos had a complex writing system and recorded their history on storyboards made of clay, ivory and wood. The Ngoyo, the Vili and many other Kongo groups had a writing system described as a hieroglyphic by Father Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, an Italian missionary, who spent years in the Kingdom of Kongo in the 17th.Amazon.fr - Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign - Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz - LivresThe ancient Bakongo called graphic writing Sinsu kia Nguisami, a phrase that translates as “communication by code and symbol.” Still in use today in many parts of Central Africa, graphic writing includes signs known as bidimbu (symbols) and bisinsu (codes) . (Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz)Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign by Bárbaro Martínez­Ruiz is the most complete exploration and explanation of a specific indigenous African writing system, i.e., the bidimbu of the Bakongo people of Central Africa. As the text illustrates, this writing system had a profound influence in the formation of similar forms in the Caribbean and the Americas, such as firmas or gandó of Cuba, vèvè of Haiti, and pontos riscados of Brazil.The Kongos learn to read, draw, write and count in initiation schools who also taught technology and medicine. There were four of them: Lemba, Kimpasi, Kimba and Ndembo. They were suppressed by the Portuguese and later the Belgians. They went underground.Kongo graphic writing system exists in many forms, the oldest of which are:The "pictographic" form, which transcribes directly through the signs the sounds (verbal forms) of the language.The phonographic form: The signs have kept the same phonetic value or a value very close to the graphic form hat inspired them. Used for historical archives some of which are maintained between the museums of Tervuren, Rotterdam and the Vatican.The "logographic" / figurative form: signs are here associated with proverbs and understandable only in the context of the culture that produced them. This is the form that produces for example "proverb pot covers/lids", "initiatory vases and masks" etc.http://www.zyama.com/woyo/pics.htmlThe Woyo possess a form of writing that has not yet been studied. A special application of this writing occurs in their “proverb covers,” the lids of their realistically carved wooden “storied pots,” which serve as an ingenious means of communication between husband and wifeHere is a key passage on the literacy in the Kingdom of Kongohttps://www.cambridge.org/core/books/kongo-kingdom/to-make-book-a-conceptual-historical-approach-to-kongo-book-cultures-sixteenthnineteenth-centuries/5AA9AF7CB51D456B8681C06174EF14C7/core-readerhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/product/16E2909F83856F64F2FCBBA966D169B5/core-readerSoon after contact between Portugal and Kongo was established in 1482 there is evidence of the presence of books in the Kongo kingdom as the King of Portugal sent his colleague ‘everything that is necessary for a church’, crosses, organs, cruets, and also ‘many books’ (Brásio 1952 : 71). On other occasions as well, books were sent from Portugal to Kongo: a list of items sent in 1512 refers to ‘the books that are in the treasury to be packed and delivered to Álvaro Lopez, trained as a linguist’ (Br á sio 1952 : 252). Reportedly two German printers were also sent over, but they soon returned, as ‘the land was not healthy for Germans’ (Brásio 1954: 19).The Kongo nobility learnt to read and write in Portuguese and the upper layer of society studied Portuguese books related to Christianity .Apart from the letters written by King Afonso I to his Portuguese colleague (Brásio 1952 ; Jadin and Dicorato 1974 ), he himself was said to do ‘ … nothing but study and many times he falls asleep over the books, and many times he forgets to eat and drink for talking about the things of our Lord, and he is so absorbed by the things of the scripture that he even forgets himself’ (Br á sio 1952 : 361).There may be a hagiographic tendency in this letter, as it was sent by the king’s vicar to the Portuguese king. It is clear, however, that the king and his entourage were eager to become literate, and to put the new skills to use: the king took to writing letters and reading books. The quote falls within the parameters of classic studies on the acquisition of literacy, in which reading is viewed as a private and individual experience (Ong 1982). Other people in the Kongo kingdom may also have read books, letters, and other materials on a private and individual basis. At the same time, ‘the book’ may not have been limited to this.By far most books concerned Christian literature, although Afonso I also studied the entire book of Portuguese law, after requesting the Portuguese king for a copy, as the judge in Kongo told him it was no longer in his possession, he only having books in Latin (Brásio 1952: 356, 374– 5). This hints at private ownership of books: they were in individual possession and could only be borrowed with the owner’s consent. Another reference of non- Christian character is the letter by the Portuguese king that told Afonso I to keep a record book as a form of administration: ‘As in your kingdom there is reading and writing, you must adopt the manner of all Christian kings.To have account books and inscribe all the taxes and the names of the nobles’(Br á sio 1952 : 530). Yet Christian literature, including the Bible, hymn books, mass books, and catechisms, constitute the most frequently mentioned books in the Kongo kingdom. Apart from the spiritual books meant to inspire the Christian congregation in the Kongo kingdom, church life was also registered in books. Thus each baptism was noted in a book, as described by Dionigi Carli when he fell ill in 1668 in the province of Mbamba and still baptized ten to twelve children per day from his sickbed: ‘two blacks support me under the shoulders, another holds the book, and a third the baptistery’(du Cheyron d’Abzac 2006 : 134). Similarly, each matrimony was written down in a book (Jadin 1970: 437). There were books that listed all confessions made (Zucchelli 1712 : 175) and the names of people becoming knights in the military Order of Christ were listed in liuros da matricula (registration books) (Brásio 1955a : 553).Books in Kikongo were clearly in demand: the Spanish Capuchin Antonio de Teruel requested the printing of as many as seven books in Kikongo: ‘a manual for the people of Congo’, a catechism , a book of sermons and calendar ‘following their customs’, a book of feast days for the Virgin, a book of prayers for lay congregations, a ‘vocabulary in four languages, Latin, Italian, Spanish and Congolese’, and finally a ‘grammar and syntax to learn the language easily’ (Saccardo 1982 : 378; Thornton 2011d ). Books in other regional languages also became available: a first catechism in Kimbundu was printed in 1642 (Tavares and Santos 2002: 477).Kongo people integrated the notion of ‘books’ into their history, even if books remained rare and costly. Books were indeed precious items in the Kongo kingdom and highly valued. A document written by the end of the sixteenth century, found in the archives of the Vatican, stated: ‘Nearly all of them learn how to read so as to know how to recite the Divine Office; they would sell all they have to buy a manuscript or a book and if they have one, they always carry it by hand with their rosary which they say often and with devotion’ (Cuvelier and Jadin 1954: 131).Early references mostly concern the kingdom’s capital, Mbanza Kongo. Numerous references indicate the spread of literacy throughout the kingdom: Afonso I and his successors implemented an educational system for the nobility, largely led by the intellectual elite of the already mentioned mestres. Letter writing and literacy –usually in Portuguese – became important political instruments.Paper, ink, stamps with inscriptions, written certificates and permits, etc. were used in the administration of the church and of the court. Letters were exchanged between the capital and the provinces to ensure communication among the political- intellectual elite (Hilton 1985: 79– 80). In other words, literacy came to play a role in the process of centralization of the kingdom: cohesion in the kingdom was partly established through the Christian church, education, and the spread of literacy.Writing and literacy spread not only through the Kongo kingdom. After Luanda had been founded in 1575, Angola also formed a centre from where literacy spread, as testified by reports of pombeiro traders and Portuguese travellers (Tavares and Santos 2002: 475, 499). While some of the letters from and to the various regions of the kingdom can be found in Brásio’s volumes, the spread of books is more difficult to trace. Even so, the presence of books is attested to. Thus Queen Njinga of neighbouring Matamba brought ‘crosses, medals, rosaries, and spiritual books’ taken by her troops from the battlefield in the 1640s to Christian prisoners of war (de Castro and du Cheyron d’Abzac 2010 : 112).In the regions further north, in the polities of Kikongo , Ngoyo, and Loango , documents say very little about books in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was only with the upcoming overseas trade relations in the later seventeenth century that books came to play a more central role in these more northern regions. The broker states that were based on trade relations came to relate to books in a very different manner from the earlier Kongo Christian book tradition. Literacy was here related to trade: logbooks, inventories, account books, and contracts This later ‘bookness’ in the wider Kikongo- speaking regions took various, novel directions, not necessarily coinciding with European ideas about a book. Many of these belonged to non- syntactical, non- textual uses of writing (Goody 1986: 54).3. The history of the Kingdom of Kongo can only be described as tragic as it was destroyed by the Portuguese but it is also key to understanding why Africans ended up as being seeing as inferior by Europeans.As someone put it : The Portuguese encounter with Kongo began in wonder and ended in tragedy.Africa has two histories in the European discourse : before and after 15th.https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/lost-cities-in-the-sandsThe coming of the Portuguese is sometimes considered the beginning of African history — a story not about Africa itself, but about bemused Europeans exploring and taming a ‘dark’ continent. In The Golden Rhinoceros, the French historian François-Xavier Fauvelle turns the tables. He places the arrival of the Portuguese at the end of the story, as a rude interruption of what was in fact a golden age of African civilizationTHE DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM OF KONGOThe Portuguese, for their part, continued to be impressed with the African kingdom. They recast the Kongo court in the image of the late medieval world: Kongo nobility were designated dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons; their servants major-domos, chamberlains, squires, and cup-bearers.In 1508, when a young black woman arrived in Scotland, (off a wrecked pirate ship, possibly), King James IV held and won a royal joust in honor of “that ladye with the mekle lippis.” A century later, Shakespeare and Rembrandt gave to their portraits of Africans an intelligence and dignity that later centuries would scarcely credit, and dozens of lesser painters of the Italian and Northern Renaissance sprinkled their canvases with images of blacks that were no more or less condescending than their image of Europeans. In the fifteenth and sixteenth century the Pope and the secular kings of Europe welcomed African potentates to their courts, and treated them with all the deference due royalty.But slavery needed a myth to sustain and justify itself.So in the bedrooms of the Brazilian sugar estates, where oriental drapery wilted from balustrades in the humid air, and from the lecterns of the cathedrals that the missionaries built on the fetid islands of the Atlantic, stories took root of the African as a tom-tom player and a devil-worshiper, an uncivilized savage, a sex-fiend and cheerful submissive. ““The people of Guinea,” wrote one German scientist in the eighteenth century, “are more insensible than others towards pain and natural evils, as well as towards injurious and unjust treatment. In short, there are none so well adapted to be the slaves of others, and who therefore have been armed with so much passive obedience.” And Thomas Carlyle proclaimed, dizzily, “Before the West Indies could grow a pumpkin for any Negro, how much European heroism had to spend itself in obscure battle; to sink, in mortal agony, before the jungles, the putrescences and waste savageries could become arable, and the Devils in some measure chained up!”In this ideological transformation the Kingdom of the Kongo played a pivotal role.For it was with the discovery and exploitation of the Kongo, coming hard upon the establishment of the Atlantic sugar plantation, that the European demand for slaves was re-kindled, and the identification of slavery and race made explicit. In the century prior to 1482, the number of black slaves taken annually from Africa numbered, at most, in the hundreds. Most worked in Mediterranean Europe as household servants, hospital orderlies, garbage collectors, or in similar, menial positions. Color at that time was no bar to servitude: Greeks, Turks, Russians, Slavs, and Cretans were also enslaved, and most of the very first slaves shipped to Brazil were white. But after 1482, the number of slaves coming from Africa rose dramatically.By 1550, a Portuguese ditty could sum up Europe’s changing perception of Africa, and of the Kongo in particular:uns aos outros se vendem;& ha muitos merdadores que nisso somente entemdem;& hos enganam & prendem;& trazem aos tratadores.(They sell each other there are many merchants whose specialty it is to trick and capture them and sell them to the slavers.)Thus the question of who could enslave whom, and under what conditions, which had been a topic of lively debate in the early years of the European discovery and conquest of the New World, received a decisive answer. The die was cast: even today-some three hundred years after the Battle of Mbwila—thriller novels and college bars still borrow the Kongo’s name for its suggestion of the primitive. The old kingdom, its territory neatly bisected by the border between present-day Angola and Zaire, continues to exert an atavistic attraction, like an out-of-the-way theater in a once-fashionable neighborhood, where, on sporadic afternoons, the lights darken and the silent films still run.

Robert,I suspect my main reason is after Russia Gate, Ukraine Gate and $50m+ wasted in engaging 15 biased FBI, numerous top anti-Trump lawyers, investigations, spying, lying and unpatriotic acts to bring down a duly elected President, and trying to impeach without evidence since 2016, that even the dumbest of mentally ill, personal animus filled, TDS Democrats would now be thinking, there is no there there.Following that, making an economic miracle of debt left by Obama, Bush & Clinton, which was:Bush Clinton $7Trillion, not paid down under punitive interest is now US $9TObama US$8.5 Trillion, not paid down under punitive interest is now US$10.5T##biggest debt ever.That meant no investment in infrastructure, pensions in the toilet, no investment in the military, average hourly wage rate in decline, house building permits lowest ever, banks unable to lend, more blacks & minorities unemployed, that Trump, also obstructed at every turn by Democrats took US$2T debt and made tax benefits to all, including to Industry to rebuild via Capital Additions, has not fallen below 3% growth vs an weak, rounded up Obama 1% average, growth.Just think what would be achieved had Democrats worked on something, anything, in a bi-partisan way, for all?Apart from that?.My favorite is making the biggest self-sacrifice, selfless beyond any I have seen from a US President since WW2, that despite clearly Democrat TDS, their mental illness and ever-increasing amoral standards, that Trump showed courage & moral rectitude, knowing exactly the reaction from those ‘nut jobs & psycho’s’, and their Fake MSM, many who wanted Nuclear WW3, killing billions, just to spite Trump, he was courageous and saved the lives of all those mothers sons & daughters that the Democrat lunatics would fill up as a blockade, a wall of ‘billions’ of dead, of everyone but their own children - Trump extended the hand of discourse to ‘jaw-jaw’, to avoid war wars, Armageddon.‘Otherwise take your pick:-Fighting Sanctuary cities. Not being amoral by making one's own voters pay tax to protect criminals & illegal migrant criminals in Sanctuaries and provide welfare, to those same detritus that will, or have, sodomized, robbed, mugged, harmed, raped, sold drugs too, or killed, their own sons, mothers, wives & daughters; come to think of it ‘what a perfect definition for ‘delusional’.TDSWhooped crooked Hillary.Neil GorsuchConsumer confidence 17 year high>2m jobsLowest jobless claims in 50 years.Mortgage apps 7 years highUnemployment 17 year lowTrump added 298k jobs in his first month (after President Obama said jobs were not coming back!).Women in Entrepreneurship ActGutted Obama Era job herniating RegsEnded the war on coalResurrected coal jobs.Weakened Dodd-Frank regsPromoted buying & hiring AmericanPut in place Economic plan that in the long term seeks to reduce the $22T National Debt, of which 46% including interest payments was created by Obama.Record Dow, the DOW took just 66 days to climb from 19,000 to above 21,000, the fastest 2000 point run EVER.Stock market gained >$3T, improving instantly pensions.Investment from the US Business’Investment from foreign business’.Reduced Debt by $100B in less than the first 4 months.(President Obama increased the US debt in his first 100 days by more than $560 Billion.)The S&P500 broker $20T for the first time in its history.In the history of the DOW, going back to January 1901, the DOW record for most continuous closing high trading days was set in January of 1987 when Ronald Reagan was President. The DOW set closing highs an amazing 12 times in a row that month. On February 28th Trump matches Reagan when the DOW reached a new high for its 12th day in a row!Reduced illegal immigration.Signed a resolution encouraging women in entrepreneurship and STEMBorder wall being built, slowly despite Democrat obstruction.Against killing unwanted born babies.Victims of Immigrant Crime Engagement [Pelosi would not even see the Angels]Changed R.E. against ISISRepealed Obama’s ‘terms of engagement’ that put the US lives at greater risk than terrorists.Plan to defeat ISIS.Reduced F35 cost5 Year lobbying ban.Sanctioned Iran.Repealed Iran deal, evidence now proves Nuclear capability of Iran.Responded to Syria with the bombingTax reform plan.Resurrected Pig Iron Smelting & jobs.Withdrew from TPPExited the [Voluntary & unenforced] Paris Accord.Created Crime task force.DOJ targetting MS13Energy Independence.Economic growth.E.O. establishing The American Technology Council.E.O to protect policeE.O. targetting drug cartels. President Trump signed three Executive Orders – 13773, 13774, and 13776 – aimed at cracking down on international criminal organizations, including drug cartels and gangs, and preventing violence against law enforcement officers.E.O. Religious Freedom.E.O. on Obamacare subsidies.E.O. to reduce Federal government waste/excess created by Obama, saving taxpayers potentially hundreds of millions.E.O all federal agencies to create task forces to cut regulations that hurt the economy.Inter State insurance competion on Medic Care.Action against Big Pharma drug prices - cheaper in Mexico etc.Sending Education back to the States.Fixing the V.A.Firing crooked Comey.Travel ban.Keystone pipelineCreated Commission on Opioid Addiction.Combating Human Trafficking.Rollback of Obama Cuba policy.Food stamp use lowest in 7 years.Reduced Whitehouse payroll burden on taxpayers by removing 16,000 unnecessary Obama created jobs.Working for free.A successful trip to Asia.China trade dealCanada & Mexico level-playingfield trade deal.E.U. leveler playing field deal.Designated N. Korea a terrorist stateISIS almost defeated, but not gone.Jerusalem capital of Israel.Tax Reform billBusiness investments up 39% due to tax cuts.Signed 130 bills into law.136 Presidential Proclamations64 E.O’sArmed Ukraine with heavy weapons.Confirmed no more waste of US military lives in lost causes &/or no interest conflicts.Food to Puerto Rico.Various national natural disasters handled.NATO paying its fair share.Encouraged RINO’s to leave.Reinforced Judeo-Christian beliefs.Funded the Military.Placing a hiring freeze on federal employees.Twice tried to pay government employees during the shutdown, but was blocked by Democrats.Sanctioned Russia more time than Obama.Signed the First Step Act criminal justice reform into law, helping especially Blacks, a FIRST.Subsequently pardoned unjustly treated black convicts. Unlike Cuomo & Obama, non were killers.More American employed than ever before & no ‘created fake jobs, unlike Obama.The release of Pastor Brunson from Turkey.Construction jobs up 300k in 2018.Kavanaugh was sworn in despite disgusting, disgraceful, amoral efforts by Democrats.Middle-class income rise is a record.Cut $300m to Pakistan.Cut $200m to Palestinians.Worlds largest oil producer.10million barrels a day.Given Russia, Iran & Turkey stopped re-building aid to Syria, saving taxpayers $230mManufacturing grew faster than in 14 years.Record low black unemploymentWar heroes remains returned from NOKO.Possible peace with NOKO.The release of 3 political US prisoners from NOKO.2026 World CupBlack Business Ownership Under Trump Jumps 400 PERCENT in ONE YEAR [Getty]Youth Unemployment hits 52 year low.Peace between North & South Korea’s.Work REquirement for Welfare.Nominates first woman to head CIA.Black support up to 29%Tax surplus in January.Pay rate highest since 2008.Hispanic unemployment hits low.Proposes reform of Civil Service ‘Hire the best, fire the worst’.Signs Bill to combat synthetic opioids - needs to with Democrats resisting closed border.2017 Record of lifetime appointed Judges.Rolled back $900m in Offshore Obama restrictions.US Imposes Sanctions on 52 People and Entities for Abuse and CorruptionHome build permits hit highest since 2007.Economy growth 5.7% in 1st Q of 2018, remained high since.Stock Market bubble outlasts subversive Federal Reserve rate hikes.$700 Billion Defense Bill.For Trekkies, Space Policy Directive.20% take rate for Corporations, to enable economic growth, create jobs and make efficiencies to infrastructure delivery of products.Capital Additions reduced to 1 year from >20 to enable tax deductibility on buying in & replacing inefficient production machinery.Trumps HHS defines life begins at inception / Moron Dems pass infanticide laws.$285m cut in the UN Budget, benefit for taxpayers.Reduction in refugee applications.WIC Welfare Participation Hit 17Year Low (dropped to 7,283,000 in 2017, its lowest level since 2000 when 7,192,000 participated in the program.)Broadcom to move back to US.A new strategy on Iran.Trump Signs Healthcare Order Expands Choice and Access through associationsWithdrew from Ani-Semitic UNESCO.Tech giants pledge millions to Trump initiative.Federal Reserve; Household Wealth in America at record high of 17 trillion Rising property values and Financial gain.Rolls back Environmental Laws herniating infrastructure re-building time etc.$15b Hurricane Harvey.US Small Business Admin. Centre assistance.Job satisfaction highest since 2005.Repeals Obama’s ridiculous ‘Waters of the US’ Rule.Cuts more Federal Debt for a longer period than any other President. When President Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017, the amount of US Federal Debt owed both externally and internally was over $19 Trillion at $19,947,304,555,212. As of August 17th, the amount of US Debt had decreased by more than $100 Billion to $19,845,188,460,167.Privatize Air Traffic Control for desperately needed investment.Vote Fraud investigation.Gas prices 12 year low.Ben Carson Finds 500 Billion In Errors during Audit of Obama HUD. (Obama era fraud?)$200m in Apprentice funding.Reversal of Clean Power Rule, to allow safe power.Bill to prioritize training for veterans & police seeking jobs.Anti-Terrorism pact with Qutar.Thousands of jobs created &/or protected in pact with Saudi Arabia on trade.Poland increased arms & US presence v Russia.DOJ sued California for interference with illegal immigration enforcement.DOJ more than 1000 arrests in sex trafficking.DOJ charging 4 for leaks.DOJ took down Alphabay, the largest Dark Web market.DOJ new civil forfeiture rules.DOJ charges 400 in largest Medical Healthcare Fraud.DOJ support of Texas voter ID law.DOJ charged sex traffickers who took hundreds from Thailand to US.DOJ harsher sentences for drug dealers etc.DOJ, Attorney General Sessions designated MS-13 as a priority for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, to allow Federal law enforcement to utilize an expanded toolkit in its efforts to dismantle the organization.The United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras joined together to charge more than 4,000 MS-13 and 18th Street gang members in the United States and Central America, including the alleged leader of MS-13’s “East Coast Program.”August 2018 - More than 20 individuals associated with MS-13 were arrested in California on Federal and State charges in connection with their gang activitiesThe Department of Justice convicted eight members of an international criminal organization, known as the Rendon-Reyes Trafficking Organization, on Federal charges arising from their scheme to force young women and girls from Mexico and Latin America into prostitution.Signed Rep. Rutherford's STOP School Violence Act and Sens. Cornyn-Murphy "Fix NICS Act."$2 billion for school safety.The Ideological Balance Of The U.S. Sixth And Seventh Circuit Courts Of Appeals Shifted From Liberal To Conservative, Thanks To Judicial Nominees Selected By President Donald Trump.The Department of Justice announced more than $98 million in grant funding through the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services COPS Hiring Program to allow 802 additional full-time law enforcement officers.President Trump signed Executive Order 13809 to restore State and local law enforcement’s access to surplus equipment from the Defense Department, such as armored vehicles.In June 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of the new National Public Safety Partnership, a cooperative initiative with cities to reduce violent crimes.Attorney General Sessions expanded Project Safe Neighborhoods to encourage U.S. Attorney’s to work with communities to develop customized crime reduction strategiesAttorney General Sessions returned to longstanding Department of Justice charging policy for our Federal prosecutors, trusting them once again and directing them to return to charging the most serious, readily provable offense.Attorney General Sessions returned to longstanding Department of Justice charging policy for our Federal prosecutors, trusting them once again and directing them to return to charging the most serious, readily provable offense.( Criminals charged with unlawful possession of a firearm had increased 23 percent).Under President Trump, the Department of Justice has supported students whose free-speech rights have been under attack on university campuses. The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is reviewing a complaint by a coalition of more than 60 Asian-American associations that alleges racial discrimination against Asian-Americans in Harvard University’s admissions policies and practices.The Department of Justice secured a guilty plea for the first case prosecuted under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act involving a victim targeted because of gender identity.According to NERA Economic Consulting, the Obama CPP struck down by Trump would have increased electricity rates by as much as 14 percent, costing American households up to $79 billion.The Administration estimates that repealing the Clean Power Plan could eliminate up to $33 billion in compliance costs in 2030.Trump took Obama shackles of ICE. Deportations up 40%, crossings reduce.Success with his Ad Valorem tariffs.China opens rice market for US exports for the first time ever.MSM proven fake regards Trump's tariffs.Ordering review of unfair contracts & their abuses/abusers - WTOWages highest in 2018 since 2009>$350 B Saudi Arms deal protecting jobs in Miltary/Arms Industries.To combat Russia -E.U. The energy supply of gas; First Natural Gas Shipped to Poland.Coal export up 60% from an industry destroyed by Obama.A probe of China intellectual property theft.Argentina agrees to allow first US pork imports in 25 years.Crude oil shipment from Texas opens new vistas in IndiaUS ties; India’s first ever U.S. crude purchase to arrive in Sept 18. With this, India, the world’s third largest oil importer, joins Asian countries like South Korea, Japan, and China to buy American crude after production cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) drove up prices of Middle East heavy-sour crude, or grades with a high sulfur contentBlocked China from buying Semi-Conductor Company - Lattice.Trump Blocks Chinese Purchase of Chipmaker Due to National Security; President Trump has issued an executive order blocking Singapore-based Broadcom’s $117 billion takeover of U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm on national security grounds. The heated battle for ownership of Qualcomm has ended with a presidential decree barring Broadcom from ever owning the company after CFIUS cited national security concerns with the prospect of such a deal. $QCOM. $AVGO(— David Faber (@davidfaber) March 12, 2018).Additionally, Reuters reports that the Trump order says all 15 candidate directors proposed by Broadcom are disqualified for Qualcomm board. Trump’s decision confirms what Hayman Capital’s Kyle Bass explained last week.193. VA Accountability & Protection Law allows sackings of civil servants etc.194. Trump signed Forever GI Bill boosting aid to student vets.195. Tougher border controls bring about for crossing The Border Illegally Is Harder Than Its Been In 50 Years.196. MAGA.197. The Administration actually eliminated 22 regulations for every new regulatory action.198. The Administration issued 67 deregulatory actions while only imposing three new regulatory actions.199. In FY 2017, the Administration saved $8.1 billion in lifetime net regulatory cost savings, equivalent to $570 million per year.200. Throughout 2017, President Trump has made good on his promise to cut red tape, and in doing so has reenergized the United States’ agricultural, energy, and infrastructure sectors by freeing them from oppressive and stifling regulations.201. President Trump has signed 15 Congressional Review Act resolutions into law, more than any other president, ending burdensome Obama-era rules and regulations.202. According to a study by NERA Economic Consulting, implementing the Obama Administration’s plan under the Paris Climate Agreement could have cost the United States economy nearly $3 trillion and 6.5 million industrial sector jobs by 2040.203. President Trump signed 15 Congressional Review Act resolutions into law that is estimated to save American taxpayers $3.7 billion.204. President Trump signed an Executive Order that reduced the time it took to approve infrastructure projects from 10 years to two years.205. To date, 860 regulatory actions have been withdrawn or removed from active status.206. The WSJ said President Trump is "rolling back more regulations than any President in history.207. President Trump has signed a record-breaking 15 CRA bills to roll back regulations.208. Since the CRA became law in 1996, only one had ever been signed (George W. Bush in 2001)209. Along with Executive Orders, these bills will reduce regulatory costs by $18 billion annually.210. The Department of Agriculture issued guidance that would give more flexibility to state operations of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The new program maximized flexibility and holds states more accountable for the delivery of food benefits.212. President Trump created the Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity that Secretary Sonny Perdue chairs and developed suggestions. Suggestions include focusing on broadband access, improving the lives of rural Americans, developing methods to support a rural workforce, harness technological innovation for rural communities, and focusing on economic development in rural areas.213. August 2018 - USDA Announced An Investment Of More Than $124 Million To Help Rebuild And Improve Rural Water Infrastructure In 23 States214. September 2018 - The USDA Announced That They Formalized An Agreement With A Nonprofit Organization To Purchase Homes From The USDA And Convert Them Into Transitional Housing For People Recovering From Opioid Misuse. These houses will allow houses in Kentucky's Hart and Rockcastle counties to be converted into transitional housing for individuals and families215. The Department of the Interior proposed its largest oil and gas lease of over 76 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico.216. President Trump and his Administration acted aggressively to increase exports of energy resources to the global market. The Department of Energy announced the approval of the Lake Charles Liquefied Natural Gas terminal.217. The Administration announced the approval of the New Burgos Pipeline, a cross-border project that will export U.S. gasoline to Mexico.218. EPA Administrator Pruitt launched a task force to provide recommendations on how to streamline and improve the Superfund program, which is responsible for cleaning up land contaminated by hazardous waste.The Superfund task force released 42 detailed recommendations with the following goals in mind:Expediting cleanup and remediationRe-invigorating responsible party cleanup and reuseEncouraging private investmentPromoting redevelopment and community revitalizationEngaging partners and stakeholders219. EPA has re-launched launched the Smart Sectors Program to partner with the private sector to achieve better environmental outcomes. The lead for each sector serves as the ombudsmen within the respective agency across program offices, conducts educational site tours, analyzes data and advises options for environmental improvement, and develops reports that profile the impact of each sector.220. To ensure the Government serves the needs of all Americans, President Trump has called for a comprehensive plan to reorganize the executive branch and has begun to implement this plan.221. President Trump has commenced a comprehensive overhaul of digitally delivered Government services.222. President Trump has called for “conducting a full audit of the Pentagon.” The Department of Defense (DOD) responded to the President’s call to action and has begun its first full financial statement audit.223. $1.6 billion for border wall spending. This is the first time the wall has been funded since 2003.224. $703 million increase in ICE funding, from $6.4 billion to $7.1 billion, an increase of more than 10%.225. $21 billion down payment on the President's promise to rebuild infrastructure.226. The President’s infrastructure plan will establish a Rural Infrastructure Program to invest in rebuilding and modernizing rural infrastructure. The Rural Infrastructure Program will seek to:Use outcomes-driven planning efforts and capital improvements to rebuild and modernize rural infrastructure.Grow business revenues and personal incomes in rural areas by expanding access to markets, customers, and employment opportunities.Enhance regional connectivity for rural communities through interregional and interstate projects developed by the public and private sectors.Spur economic growth and competitiveness by closing infrastructure gaps to attract more development and manufacturing investments in rural America.227. President Trump and his Administration allocated $50 billion to empower rural America to address the infrastructure needs of their communities. The $50 billion dedicated to rural America represented 25 percent of all Federal funds in the President’s plan.80 percent of the Rural Infrastructure Program funds will go directly to the governor of each State as determined by a formula.20 percent of the Rural Infrastructure Program funds will be provided to selected States that apply for Rural Performance Grants.NOTES:- States will be provided funding without burdensome bureaucratic commands on how they should spend it.The federal funding provided by the President’s plan will not be awarded in pre-packaged, asset-specific amounts, as is often the case with Federal programs.Funds provided under the President’s proposal will go directly to the governor’s office of the State receiving funds.This will allow Governors to make investments based on the individual infrastructure needs of their rural communities.228. President Trump’s infrastructure plan will enable the rebuilding and modernization of rural infrastructure across a broad range of asset classes.229. The array of broad asset classes eligible for funding under President Trump’s plan will include:Transportation projects will rebuild roads, bridges, railways, and other vital infrastructure.Broadband deployment projects which will improve access for rural communities.Water and waste projects to help ensure rural families have access to clean water.Power and electric projects to provide rural areas with reliable, affordable power.Water resources project to better manage flood risk and improve rural water supplies and waterways.230. In July 2018, Department of Transportation introduced a new pilot program that will boost military recruitment and help with the nationwide shortage of commercial vehicle drivers by allowing 18 – 20-year-olds who possess a U.S. Military equivalent of a commercial driver’s license (CDL) to operate large trucks in interstate commerce.231. President Trump has made clear that broadband should be an infrastructure priority.The President’s plan will provide States with the flexibility to invest in the needs of their rural communities, including broadband.The Rural Infrastructure Program allowed governors to spend 100 percent of Federal funds they received on broadband access.President Trump signed an Executive Order in January on “Streamlining and Expediting Requests to Locate Broadband Facilities in Rural America.”This was built upon the efforts of the Rural Infrastructure Program by the Trump Administration.232. In April 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) laid out a comprehensive five-point strategy to combat the opioid abuse crisis.233. The Department of Justice announced that fentanyl substances are a drug class under the Controlled Substances Act. This meant anyone who possesses, imports, distributes or manufactures illicit fentanyl-related substances would be subject to criminal prosecution similar to other controlled substances.Anyone who possesses, imports, distributes or manufactures any illicit fentanyl-related substance will be subject to criminal prosecution similar to other controlled substances.The DOJ announced its first-ever indictments against two Chinese nationals and their North American-based associates for distributing large quantities of fentanyl and other opiate substances. On National Drug Take Back Day, the Drug Enforcement Administration collected a record-breaking 912,305 pounds – 456 tons – of potentially dangerous expired, unused, or unwanted prescription drugs at more than 5,300 collection sites.234. In his first week in office, President Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy that prevented $9 billion in foreign aid from being used to fund the abortion industry.235. President Trump de-funded a U.N. agency for colluding with China’s brutal program of forced abortion and sterilization.236. President Trump worked with the Congress to sign a bill overturning an Obama midnight regulation that prohibited States from defunding abortion service providers.The Trump Administration published guidance which promises to enforce the Obamacare requirement that taxpayer dollars should not support abortion coverage in exchange plans.237. Reinstated the Mexico City Policy to ban any U.S. foreign aid to organizations that perform abortions.238. Signed a Congressional Review Act bill to allow states to restrict Planned Parenthood Funding.239. In President Trump’s FY 2018 budget request, school choice was a priority for increased funding, including supporting $1 billion in Furthering Options of Children to Unlock Success grants for public school choice and $250 million to promote private school choice through the Education Innovation and Research Program.240. Implemented the year-round distribution of Pell grants, instead of limiting these grants to the Spring and Fall semesters.Low-income students will now have access to these funds over Summer and Winter breaks so they can earn their degrees faster with fewer loans.241. The Department of Education reformed the student loan servicing process to improve customer experience and lower costs.242. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is being reformed to be more accessible to students.243. Experts from the financial services industry were brought into the Department of Education to modernize the way FSA offers and services student loans.244. The Department of Education is working to ensure regulations on the books adequately protect students while giving States, institutions, teachers, parents, and students the flexibility they need to improve outcomes.245. The Dept. of Education has identified and withdrawn nearly 600 regulations that are deemed unnecessary.246. Rescinded the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter and 2014 Q&A regarding Title IX enforcement, and interim guidance was issued.247. Paused the Obama Administration’s Borrower Defense to Repayment and Gainful Employment regulations.248. The Department of Education’s Regulatory Review Taskforce identified nearly 600 outdated guidance documents for rescinding.249. August 2018 - The Department of Education announced $359.8 million in Federal assistance to 20 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands to assist with the cost of educating students displaced by Hurricane Harvey, Irma, Maria, or the 2017 California wildfires.250. August 2018 - The Department of Education announced that it would potentially rescind the Gainful Employment Regulation.​​​​​​​The Department Of Education Claimed That The Removal Of This Regulation Would Help Provide Transparency And Fairness To Students In Higher Education.I am sure I have missed numerous ones and so I have included an URL from the Washington Examiner below too. I have not checked it against my own list, I only have 250 accomplishments vs their 289, but what’s 39 between friends, after all 39 exceeds Obama’s accomplishments by, coincidentally 39!!251. POTUS did not leave Vietnam empty-handed. He secured a $15 billion deal. Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways and VietJet Aviation JSC signed deals to buy 110 aircraft from Boeing Co. during President Donald Trump’s visit to Hanoi for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.I am sure I have missed numerous ones and so I have included an URL from the Washington Examiner below too. I have not checked it against my own list, I only have 250 accomplishments vs their 289, but what’s 39 between friends, after all 39 exceeds Obama’s accomplishments by, coincidentally 39!!252. The U.S. economy added 20,000 jobs in February 2019 while the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.8 percent, making February the 101st month of consecutive U.S. job growth.253. April 2019. Going nuclear on Trump government picks. Republicans set to stop the Democrat obstruction of employee picks that has seen:1. The least number ever confirmed for a President - period.2. Although Trump policy is to not overstaff, Democrat obstruction of any & all picks has seriously damaged government efficiency.This is to end; but why did the Republicans wait?......could it be to ensure the Democrats who deny obstruction, are proven liars yet again, and that the historical record will record it!254. Removal of the falsely claimed right to Pain-Free execution for Death Row killers. SCOTUS 5-4, April 2019.255. June 19, 2019 5.8 million removed from food stamps that were robbing the deserving.Over 5.8 million individuals have discontinued their participation in America’s food stamp program since President Donald Trump’s first full month in office, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. The most recent USDA data shows that 5,829,890 people discontinued their participation in food stamps received through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) since February 2017, Trump’s first full month in office.256. Increased value of Stock Market by US$6 Trillion.257. Ensured NATO pays its fair share.256. “I’m a Jew,” the Miller, White House senior policy adviser said.“As a Jew, as an American Jew, I am profoundly outraged by the remarks by Ocasio-Cortez. It is a historical smear. It is a sinful comment. It minimizes the death of six million of my Jewish brothers and sisters. It minimizes their suffering. And it paints every patriotic law enforcement officer as a war criminal,” he said emphatically.257. The Trade agreement with Canada & Mexico.258. The Killing of terrorist Soleimani.259. The killingn of top ranking Al Qeda terrorist.260. China trade agreement.261. Military funds to build the wall.262. Proving like Russia Gate that Ukraine Gate was another Democrat Sham case. Best though was Jim Jordan destroying the need for witnesses in the senate. The biased 17-0 Democrat witnesses whose evidence was hearsay, extraneous, 2 nd 3rd, & 4 th party, inadmissible nonsense, were officially asked in the House to name a crime, illegal or unlawful act committed by Trump – NON COULD!!