The English word X comes from the Hindi word chāmpo चाँपो (more familiarly known as champi चंपी).
Which itself ultimately comes from the Sanskrit word chapati (चपति), meaning to press, knead, sooth.
X was introduced in Britain by Sake Dean Mahomed in 1815 and has now become ubiquitous the world over.
Can you identify X?
Category: History
[198]
X is a word of Venetian origin.
It was practiced by European sailors in 14-15th century.
Earlier supposed to be 30 days long, it was extended by 10 days, which where its name is derived from.
Identify X.
[188]
At the end of the World War I, the German navy sank their own naval fleet rather than handing it over the British Royal Navy, going against Treaty of Versailles. This was done at Scapa Flow, an archipelago north of UK.
The scrap from the sunken fleet became more valuable after World War II and is being currently used in a scientific tool.
Can you identify how these scraps are being used?
[180]
On December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne published X in the New York World newspaper. By 1925, the craze for X was in full force, with people both criticizing the irrelevant mental gymnastics, and also addicted to the hobby.
The word X became part of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1933 and still finds a place in our current world.
What is X?
[167]
Norse myth believed that this event was caused by wolves Skoll and Hati.
The Chinese believed that this was the result of a dragon & used bang drums & shoot arrows to scare it away.
Indian mythology blamed an immortal floating head for this.
Incans thought it was due to wrath of God, and used to perform sacrifices (rarely human).
These are the belief systems behind which event?
[165]
On March 18, 1937, a natural gas leak caused an explosion and destroyed the London School in New London, Texas, United States. The explosions was one of the deadliest in the history of Texas, leading to 600+ deaths & injuries.
The question is, what regulation did this tragedy give rise to, which is followed till today.
Show AnswerOdourization of combustible gases, for example, natural gas, LPG, etc.
In fact, the incident was considered so big at the time, even then German Chancellor Adolf Hitler wrote a telegram giving his condolences.
Read More about the incident.
[147]
Dungaree fabric is a coarse thick fabric which was used to make hard work trousers or overalls or jumpsuits.
Can you guess where did the garment get its name from?
[143]
Rather than counting days of the month individually, early Romans had 3 principle days in a month & used to measure days from there. These were:
Kalends – beginning of the month
Nones – roughly one week into the month
“X” – middle of the month
While the first two are obscure, the third “X” is widely popular in a particular context which is regarded as a day of tragedy.
Identify X & why it might be popular?
[141]
Signed in 1215, X was a document between the then King of England to establish a rule of law & to give rights to the barons.
Over the years the document has become an inspiration behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Constitution & even historical figures like Gandhi & Mandela.
Identify X.
[140]
The “X Meter” is a phenomenon where there was a sudden influx of business for providers of X in areas with concentrated US government activity (like Washington DC, where the White House and the Pentagon are located) just before major world events in the 1980s and 90s (notable examples being the first Gulf War and the US invasions of Panama and Grenada.)
This was first noticed in 1990 just prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when CIA personnel gathered at the Pentagon to discuss the ongoing issue, and one Frank Meeks realized a lot of his business traffic during that time (especially at night) was directed at the Pentagon. Business continued to boom right into 1991, with business spikes very reliably tied to major announcements from the White House and the Pentagon, a series of events the public dubbed the “X Meter”. Similar trends were spotted in hindsight in the 80s.
Naturally, the powers that be weren’t too amused by this trend being publicized, and government offices were instructed to change their tactics to break this pattern.
What is the X in question?
[134]
Connect.
[125]
In 1983, Mr Harpal paid a princely sum of Rs 47,500 to purchase this. It was such a big deal that it was handed to him by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
What did he purchase?
[122]
Apeks, Atomic Aquatics, Cressi, Mares, Sherwood, and Zeagle are all popular brands of scuba regulators — but arguably the oldest and best known is another brand that shares its name with a famous 1971 rock “concept” album (and its title song).
What brand?
[117]
First time X was observed by the ‘outside world’ was when a group of French sailors happened to enter a town & saw the event.
The person was bathed, dressed in white robes, and served his favorite foods for a last meal. He would also prepare by writing a poem.
What am I talking about?
[116]
In his 1631 treatise Historiae naturalis et medicae Indiae orientalis, Dutch physician and explorer Jacobus Bontius wrote, of a tribe he’d encountered in the jungles of what is now Indonesia, that “the Malays informed him that the X could talk, but preferred not to, lest they be compelled to labor.”*
Bontius’ mention of X was the Western world’s first introduction to the name of this tribe, a word that passed from Dutch to Portuguese to English and is still used today in slightly modified form – ironically, even speakers of modern Malay and Indonesian use the European corruption of the name, even though its etymology lies in Old Malay.
Who are the X?
*Considering Bontius was there as part of a Dutch East India Company expedition, this was probably a very good idea.
[114]
Following a rather tepid album release in 1986, influential English artist X had a bit of a brainwave and released a seventh solo album titled (in Cyrillic) СНОВА В СССР in 1988, consisting entirely of live-in-studio covers of older (English) rock and roll songs, and distributed only in the Soviet Union on the Soviet government-run Melodiya label.
Soon after, though, copies of the album began popping up outside the Soviet bloc (which, in a way, had been X’s initial intention), going for anywhere between $100-$250 in the US and up to £500 in the UK. This eventually led to a global release of the album in 1991, notably with the title misprinted as “СНОВА Б СССР”.
Who is X?
[112]
The name of what casino, famous in its own right, took on another use in work by mathematicians John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1940s?
[108]
St. Burchardi Church is a nearly thousand-year old church in Halberstadt, Germany, just a short walk away from the famed Halberstadt Cathedral.
On February 5, 2024, fans flocked to the church to bear witness to a moment they’d been waiting for for two years. Another such moment is expected to occur in 2026, and there will be quite a few more after that.
What’s going on behind that unassuming stone face?
[107]
The origin of term X dates back to 16th century England, when spirits were taxed at different rates depending on their alcohol content. Spirits were tested by soaking a pellet of gunpowder in them and then setting the pellet on fire. Id X, a term commonly seen on alcohol bottles.
[106]
In the 1860s, Corsican chemist Angelo Mariani formulated Vin Tonique Mariani, a wine containing a little special ingredient that was said to give it medicinal properties. Mariani claimed it would “restore health, strength, energy and vitality” to those that drank it – and to be fair, it did receive glowing endorsements from many notables of the time, including Thomas Edison, Ulysses Grant, and even Popes Leo XIII and Pius X (Pope Leo actually awarded Mariani a Vatican gold medal for inventing it.)
Naturally, this being the late 19th century, Mariani’s recipe was swiftly duplicated and recreated by others to sell copycat products – including enterprising American pharmacist X, who added yet another special something to the formula. He named the resulting concoction after himself and marketed it as a panacea, accompanied with fantastic claims of it being “a most wonderful invigorator of the sexual organs”, among other things.
Late 19th-century prohibition laws forced X to come up with a non-alcoholic version of the drink, though, and eventually Mariani’s special addition was also removed, resulting in an early version of something that is still popular today.
Who is X, and what did he invent?