First pants, then shoes
The Japanese word for “mother” is “haha.” はは
Or so Duolingo says. I find this extra funny because it taught me this in the hiragana lesson in which it also introduced “ma” (ま). They were RIGHT THERE with “mama” and just laughed.
I just finished an Ottoman documentary on Mehmed the conqueror. I learned a few things about his battle with Vlad the Impaler that I didn’t know.
I know Vlad was brutal and staked people, leaving bodies just there for the intruding army to see. I even spent time touring his castle and visited Romania. (Current day Wallachia)
Maybe I wasn’t paying attention during to visit, but I always thought Vlad defended the lands for the intruding army. I assumed he won. He didn’t. Mehmed faught his way to the capital and place Vlad’s brother Radu on the throne.
See Vlad and Radu grew up in the Ottoman court with Mehmed and they were close for some time. Vlad always felt like a prisoner and wanted his country to be free and not a vasal state. Radu, the younger brother, was more accepting of the Ottoman way of life and stayed on the throne.
Vlad was eventually tracked down and beheaded by the Ottomans, but not for years after he vacated his throne in Wallachia.
When the Himalayan mountains lose the last of their glaciers, as they are on course to do in the next hundred or so years, the drinking water for an entire subcontinent of nearly two billion people disappears. All of these people will have to leave their homes if they’re lucky enough to be able to do so, or die of thirst. An entire civilization will be uprooted, with all its history, landmarks, holy places, and more left behind in what will eventually become a desert.
