The shortest war in the world.

This fleeting war lasted only 45 minutes and entered the Guinness Book of Records. At the end of the XIX century, Zanzibar was under British rule. In 1896, the new Sultan of Zanzibar, Khalid ibn Bargash, tried to get out of control, seeking support from Germany. He gathered a small army of two and a half thousand soldiers and took out an old cannon of the XVI century from the cellars. The British responded by issuing an ultimatum, expiring at 9:00 a.m. on August 27, according to which the Zanzibarians had to capitulate.

In response, they hoisted the cannon onto their only ship, the yacht Glasgow, and fearlessly set sail to meet five British frigates. Exactly at the time appointed by the ultimatum, the Imperial Fleet opened fire on the shore. Five minutes later, the Glasgow responded and was immediately sunk by crossfire from two ships. The Zanzibar ship continued firing all the time until it disappeared under the water. Half an hour after the bombing, only the masts of the Glasgow were visible from under the water, and the coastal structures were almost destroyed. However, the Zanzibar flag continued to fly on the palace flagpole. The Fleet resumed firing. Fifteen minutes later, the coast was completely burned out, not a single gun was responding. The top of the flagpole was destroyed and the flag was nowhere to be seen. The Sultan ordered the soldiers to leave the battlefield, and he asked for asylum in the German consulate. The shelling lasted 38 minutes, killed about 570 people from the Zanzibar side, and it went down in history as the shortest war in the world.

After the war, the former sultan lived in Dar es Salaam until 1916, when he was captured by the British. He died in 1927 in Mombasa.

Interesting facts about rubber.

There is a misconception that Europeans owe the invention of rubber to Columbus. In fact, the navigator only left a description of how the natives of the islands of Haiti played with a ball made of thickened milky juice that flowed from cuts on the bark of the Brazilian hevea. When the sap dripped from the tree, it seemed to the Indians that it was crying. Therefore, they began to call this plant a "crying tree– - from the Indian words kau ("tree") and uchu ("cry"). Much later, Europeans who visited America got to know rubber better and even learned, like the locals, to soak their raincoats with the juice of a rubber-bearing tree. But rubber came to the Old World only in 1751. A little frozen juice was brought by mathematician Charles La Condamine. He watched his "trophy" for a long time, but could not figure out what benefit rubber could bring to him personally and to humanity as a whole. Interesting facts about rubber Elasticity syndrome

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Interesting facts about cockroaches.

Cockroaches have white blood that flows freely through the body. In other words, they do not have blood vessels designed to conduct blood. Interestingly, even the heart of this insect is like a simple tube that pumps blood to the front and back of the body. The eye of this insect has 4000 segments that help to see all directions at one time. An interesting fact is that a cockroach can live without a head, since the brain of a cockroach is not in the head, but throughout the body. But without a head, they can die within ten days, due to lack of water, because they have nothing to drink. Interestingly, cockroaches spend most of their time (about 75%) in hibernation. Cockroaches are widely used in folk medicine. Cockroach tea is used to treat dropsy, and cockroaches fried with garlic are used to treat stomach upset. In the east, cockroaches are used in dried and powdered form for the treatment of the urinary tract. Cockroaches can live for

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Interesting facts about Bruce Lee.

At the age of 32, during the filming of the movie "The Game of Death", Bruce Lee died unexpectedly. Interestingly, the film company rewrote the script as if Bruce's character faked his death to get away from the mafia. Moreover, the film included footage from the real funeral of Bruce Lee — including close-up shots of an open coffin. Most martial arts movies speed up to make beautiful fighting scenes, but not in the case of Bruce Lee. His movements were too fast for the eye and therefore the battle scenes were shot at a frequency of 32 frames per second, and then slowed down so that the audience could see his movements. Bruce Lee's family gave him the feminine name "Little Phoenix" because they believed that evil spirits did not like boys in the family (their first-born son died in infancy). And the name Bruce was recorded in his documents by a nurse from the hospital in San Francisco, where he was born (Bruce's father was traveli

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