Was Australia really a prison?

Australia was founded by the British as a giant prison, also known as a penal colony. However, there were people there before the British.

Aborigines are native Australians who migrated to the continent about 40,000 years ago. Each aborigine community has its own culture, customs and language, much like Native Americans.

In 1788, England sent its first shipload of prisoners to Australia to ease overcrowding in British prisons. The first ships of convicts landed at Botany Bay in New South Wales. Two more convict fleets reached the continent in 1790 and 1791. Although the first prisoners settled in Botany Bay, by the early 1800s, convicts had settled in other locations. The prisoners worked as brick makers, carpenters, nurses and farmers.

Was the 100 Years War

really 100 years long?

From 1337 until 1453, the French and British fought what historians call the Hundred Years War. The historians were off by 16 years, as the war started in May 1337, when France’s King Philip VI tried to capture British territory in southwestern France. Of course, the British did not like this. Over the next 116 years, both sides fought, with brief periods of uneasy peace. The war ended when the French forced the British from the European continent.

Why don’t we laugh when

we tickle ourselves?

Try tickling yourself. Not much happens, right? You might think you would feel the same sensation as if someone else was tickling you. Not so. Scientists don’t know why we can’t tickle ourselves.

Some suspect that the element of surprise has a lot to do with it. When we tickle ourselves, we have lost the surprise. Our brain — specifically the cerebellum — knows what is happening and that there’s no reason to laugh.

 

— TIME Book of Why