Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 November 21

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November 21

Handgun handle angle

Is there any historical or engineering reason that handguns from centuries ago- the flintlock, matchlock, etc.,- had handles that were nearly in line with the barrel compared to 20th century handguns, in which the handle is nearly at 90 degrees to the barrel? Thedoorhinge (talk) 11:19, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The arquebus, matchlock, wheellock and flintlock have stocks. The handgun has a handle. You need to compare the handgun to a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore pistol.
Sleigh (talk) 11:54, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

See also Stock (firearms)#Anatomy of a gunstock for some variations in shape. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:14, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

See also RefDesk Archives: What is the big ball on most wheellock pistols?. The answer is that in early pistols, the firing mechanism had to be forward of the trigger, so makers had to extend the "handle" in the opposite direction with a counter-weight at the end, to make it balance in the user's hand. Alansplodge (talk) 16:05, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

logistically, what difficulties would moving Israel entail?

extended content
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Note: please do not hat this question. this question is far smaller than a question 'what logistics would be involved in digging a canal through North and South America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans', which was asked and answered in the 19th century, and involved moving as much Earth as it would take to tunnel clean through the Earth at a diameter of 6 feet. So please, if you do not have any knowledge, feel free not to provide references. This is a far smaller question than is typically asked on the Science desk, for example. If you have no civil engineering background, interests, or imagination, then feel free to ignore this questoin. Do not hat it. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 17:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC) So, I'm a zionist, I love all Jewish people and especially a Jewish state. In practice however Israel is located in an extremely contentious part of the world, and as a result it and the people in it are totally belligerent and extremely militant. I think this is a total waste of resources. So, I would like to know the logistics of moving Israel entirely, what difficulties this would entail. I'm only a kid, so I might want to become a billionaire first, but assuming I did and a bunch of other billionaires were on board...how might this process work? I realize that a few sites in Israel are "holy" and replicas of them would not really do the original justice. At the same time, I also think that 99% of Israelis would gladly replace true holy sites with shrines to the original, if it meant an end to the constnat fear, security, military, and general lock-down they have to live under, which includes mandatory military time under dangerous conditions. Israel has outstanding scholars, a venture capitalist presence by Israeli funds, great businesses, people, Universities, and could be a true Jewish Utopia if it didn't happen to be where it was. With this in mind I'd like to know what difficulties, specifically, would be encountered while moving it. Assume for a moment that the Israeli people themselves are on board. In tihs case how might it happen? Is it possible to disassemble and move houses, swiming pools, skyscrapers, roads,synagogues, telecom infrastructure, etc etc etc. I'd like to consider it from the point of view of not abandonment, but actually picking it up and moving it, after building modern, holy, reverent versions of the sites that are holy. I do believe for 99% of Israelis, the most important thing is the Zionist utopia that they and their kinsmen are building. Now I would like to know the logistics of my blue sky thinking. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 11:52, 21 November 2013 (UTC) Moving Israel would be pointless. It's the land itself that's meaningful. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:32, 21 November 2013 (UTC) Maybe it's the land. Maybe it's the world's most brilliant, creative, industrious, constructive, fair, studious, sagacious people and the institutions and state they've created that is meaningful. Assume for a second that you're wrong and I'm right. Could you answer my question assuming this hypothesis? Logisticsnightmare (talk) 12:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC) If the land were not meaningful, they wouldn't have fought so hard for it. A second Israel? Easy. It already exists. It's the USA. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:40, 21 November 2013 (UTC) This like saying, if he didn't believe in God's providence providing it to him, Columbus or the pilgrims wouldn't have fought to colonize the New World. Maybe this is true but for the purposes of this question we assume it's totally irrelevant and has nothing to do with the social and capital wealth that is there now, which for the purposes of my question consists of the Jewish people primarily and the infrastructure they have built secondarily. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 15:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC) Haven't we already been over this? Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2013_June_18#what.27s_to_stop_creation_of_a_second_Israel Rojomoke (talk) 13:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC) My question is about the logistics (in particular, not any of the reasons) behind literally moving Israel itself. Not the creation of a second Israel. Also, please realize that I'm asking from a logistics standpoint, i.e. actually moving things, not political standpoint about why or whether anyone would want to do so. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 15:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC) See Uganda Scheme (especially the part just above "See also") and Jewish Autonomous Oblast. We've "been over this" more than a century ago. Anyway, what's the point of moving your entire infrastructure for vast distances? It's ridiculously more expensive to dig up and move a motorway, telecom infrastructure, houses, etc. than it is to build a new one after you get to Uganda or wherever you're going. Virtually nobody's particularly attached to most of the built environment; either they'll stay with their current built environment, or they'll decide that the costs of staying are too great, and they'll leave without their built environment. The only things to which people are deeply attached are the holy sites and the concept of being in the land of the Bible, neither of which can be moved, and the society/culture of the country, which wouldn't need to be moved like this. 2001:18E8:2:1020:24F2:D21E:C1AE:2FA7 (talk) 13:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC) Can you be more specific on the point you mention "ridiculously more expensive". This "ridiculously more expensive" part is the entirety of my question. How ridiculous, how much more expensive, and how many billions or trillions of dollars would it take? What specific logistics problems would be entailed? Logisticsnightmare (talk) 15:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC) There is the sheer logistics of moving 6 million Jewish citizens and all their possessions (assuming the other 2 million non-Jewish are happy to remain). That is 12,000 fully laden jumbo jets for the people, and thousands of ships/trucks to move their possessions. But as others have said, Jews choose to live in Israel because it is the land of the bible. Astronaut (talk) 15:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC) Right, that seems like the easy part don't you think? I mean, it seems that hte fixed infrastructure (telecoms, houses with foundations, swimming pools, built synagogues, university campuses, etc) would be the harder part. Could you give me an estimate on that basis, and how expensive it would be (for a large group of billionaires, for example), and what specific infrastructural issues would be involved? I'd like you to answer the question as posed. Thanks. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 15:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC) There is no economic reason to move e.g. a swimming pool, as it's cheaper to simply build a new one. Hence we don't have off-the-shelf technology to do so. If you throw enough resources at it, you certainly can, but the amount you have to throw to have a good chance of success is astronomical. A couple of billionaires is not going to suffice. BTW, do you need to transport the water in the pool, too? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC) You are saying "astronomical" but could you please be a bit more specific? What do you think 'enough resources' would be for this particular questoin. See, for example, the note I just added at the top of this page asking that this question not be hatted - the Panama project was certainly 'astronomical' but it could also be detailed for more precisely. I am pretty good at basic arithmetic, and although it might be less in vogue to know how to calculate civil engineering questions than it was for those educated in the 19th century, I am sure we can do better than 'astronomical'. Perhaps this should be moved to the Science desk? Yet I think Humanities is the right place for civil engineering questions. Thanks. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 17:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC) And don't forget transporting the water in the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. I'm thinking Mr. Logistics scenario is too complicated. What's really needed is a gigantic trowel, shaped like Israel, slid under it at some appropriate depth, then lifted by a gigantic forklift, and transfered to wherever they've decided to move it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC) I don't really like this solution, it seems exceedingly complicated solution. Could you share your calculations on how much it would cost in billions or trillions to have a trowel that is the size of exactly 6 city blocks that excavates, over a period of months, under a given area, then lifts and slowly transports what it has lifted? With a few such "trowels" your solution might work in city areas over a course of decades. I think your solution is not very practical - but let's at least quantify it. How much do you think one such system might cost? How long would it take to excavate and at what speed might it move after it has done so? To be very clear: I think this is a highly impractical proposal, but might set an upper bounds. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 17:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC) It's as practical as moving swimming pools would be. And I bet your Islamic Republic neighbors would be willing to chip in, as they want Israel gone anyway. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:56, 21 November 2013 (UTC) If you asked 100 Israelis, I think you'd quickly find out that your assertion "I do believe for 99% of Israelis, the most important thing is the Zionist utopia that they and their kinsmen are building" is incorrect. The people of Israel have a deep and complex attachment to the land of Israel. Not any old land, but that particular patch of ground where their ancestors lived. For a poetic way into it, (not a bad way to understand emotion) I'd refer you to the words of Hatikvah. Outsiders often mistakenly assume this is something only relevant to religious Israelis. It's one of many misconceptions about Israel and Israelis. --86.12.139.34 (talk) 16:59, 21 November 2013 (UTC) While I thank you for this additional context, it doesn't really concern my question, which is about the logistics assuming we and Israelis wanted to do so. In addition, I said only 'most important' not 'only important thing'. Naturally the holy land is quite important. This question concerns the theoretical logistics of moving infrastructure. I am sure if you asked Israelis whether they would prefer to be able to live with greater resources, peace, education, scholarship, and the greatest country - by far - that has existed in the last 6000 years in terms of research, social equity, infrastructure, achievements, genius, and art that far surpasses anything the Renaissance produced, literature that far surpasses that of any of the ancient or modern writers, philosophy that dwarfs what meager progress had been made in human understanding in the previous millennia, riches that make the United States seem like beggars -- but they would have to visit the holy land to do so, as their country would no longer contain it....then a good portion would strongly consider it. Nevertheless, whether they would do so is not really what the quesiton is about here. Rather I am merely interested in the logistics such a theoretical move might entail, were the people of Israel and many billionaires interested in effecting it. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 17:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC) The question you seem to be insisting upon asking is unanswerable without major government studies. Since it would be cheaper to build new infrastructure than to dig up, salvage, transport, and reconstruct existing infrastructure (seriously? digging up roads? really?), no government has wasted the funding necessary to carry out such a study. Therefore we have no answers to give you. No sources are available for such a query, because no sources exist; and no sources exist because the action contemplated is such a ludicrous boondoggle that no group of people that even pretends to rationality would ever seriously contemplate it, let alone carry it out. The best we can offer is a few estimates of discrete pieces of the project, as others have responded with above, and maybe a reasoned series of fudge factors. For example, let the cost of building an entire country with area A and population P, from the telephone and sewer lines on up, be $X billion (probably the easiest figure to arrive at in all of the following - that should scare you). Now subtract, optimistically, 85% of the cost of the raw materials (allowing for some unavoidable loss/waste) M; now add the labor cost of disassembly and salvage of the entire nation's infrastructure D. Now add the cost of transporting everything - the big stuff is all on trucks and then trains, but is your population riding, biking, or walking? It's a big discount if they're left to their own devices, but for a sea journey you'll have to hire ships to get them and their cars and bikes across. And there's such a godawfully massive variety of things to be moved that you can't just price it out at $Y per ton; moving the steel in your skyscrapers (say I = deadweight of infrastructure) is a whole different animal than moving everyone's great-grandmothers' good china (say H = deadweight of compensable personal shipments). Assume a pulled-out-of-my-ass fudge factor of 3.5 times the cost of moving gross infrastructure to move personal stuff that needs padding and care. We haven't talked about incidental/emergency health care (C) for all the people who fall sick along the journey or get attacked by bears and sharks along their ill-advised shortcuts. Then also you'd better have a slush fund, $100 billion optimistically, for when the inevitable problems crop up. So now we're up to (X - .85M) + D + IY + 3.5HY + C + $100 billion. What the hell are all those numbers? Well, economics experts could tell you OK estimates for X and M, civil engineers might be able to take a stab at I, and a dedicated survey of world shipping companies from Maersk to FedEx to CSX to U-Haul might give you something remotely resembling Y and a better fudge factor for HY. Then realize those costs will go up as you take over probably the world's entire long-range transportation capacity. But the unbelievable scope of all of this means that putting all these numbers together is not only original research, but the kind of original research that only enormous resources and a full-time dedicated study could even begin to undertake. I'm therefore marking this section as closed and the question unanswerable. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 16:57, 21 November 2013 (UTC) I think this is a totally inappropriate response. For the value of your response consider t*h*e ^ n*u*m*b*e*r + o*f + a*c*t*u*a*l * f*i*g*u*r*e*s + y*o*u + m*e*n*t*i*o*n plus a slush fund of $100B. Honestly, why would you even type all that out? If you have no estimate, then don't try for one. You are not really adding anything to my question of logistics other than saying that a precise number would require further study. Well, obviously. I can come up with meaningless variable names too. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 17:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC) And I think your complaints to the other editors are inappropriate. You're dealing in fantasies here, and you're demanding an answer. Why do you think anyone here would be better at guesstimating this project's cost than you would be? In fact, you being a lover of all things Israeli would be in a better position to know the value of their stuff than we would. So here's a question to you: You keep asking how much it would cost. How much are you willing to spend? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:54, 21 November 2013 (UTC) The reason that others might be better than me at guesstimating this project's "cost" (in fact I didn't ask for a cost estimate, but rather what logistical difficulties it would entail) is that I am just a kid, have not studied civil engineering, have not read about large construction or relocation projects, have no experience with urban planning or construction, don't know much about transportation, and in general have no experience in any of the engineering or civil disciplines that my question concerns. If you don't know any more than me, I suggest that you wait for responses from others who know a bit more than a kid. If you don't care, then perhaps you can read other questions you do care about. At any rate I have good reason to believe that others know more than I do about the above disciplines. Thank you for refraining from further editing this question. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 18:37, 21 November 2013 (UTC) It's bad enough we have a single purpose account begging us not to hat the discussion--i.e., he's a sock who knows all about hatting. But we have no referenced material in answer so far, just a lot of heat. See talk.μηδείς (talk) 19:19, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok. Try this... In the 1960's UNESCO came up with a plan to save the world heritage site of Abu Simbel from the rising waters of Lake Nasser. They moved this ancient temple just 200 m further up the hill and away from the water. It took four years and cost $40 million (in 1968 dollars - that's well over $250 million today). That was for an irreplaceable temple that they really wanted to save - and they still had to make some compromises. Quite why anyone would want to dig up someone's house, his garden, his garage, and the street outside; move it some vast distance and reconstruct it, is beyond belief. A very rough guess gives me "millions of dollars" per house. Then it is just the maths to multiply by the number of houses and then add more very rough guesses for all the other infrastructure.

Then there is the time involved - four years to move one temple 200 m, so moving a house ~2000 km (ie. far enough to be out of the Middle East) with the same level of care could take much longer. And there are resources like trucks, ships, etc. People would have to wait their turn - or build more trucks and ships while waiting. You would need a vast army of workers for the hard bit for which you don't have the expertise, consider the food the workers eat and the people to grow that food, the waste they produce, etc, etc, etc. How about the pay they all require to do the work. You are asking trillions upon trillions of dollars, per year, for multiple generations.

This is why when people have to leave due to war or disaster, they become refugees with only what they can carry. This is why it is vastly cheaper to abandon the old infrastructure and build anew. The planet Earth is littered with abandoned infrastructure because it is too much trouble to move it.

If you really wanted to move Jews to a new homeland, and could get round the "land of the bible" bit, move just the people and a minimum of their possessions. Oh, and move them somewhere where the sudden arrival of 6 million people won't upset the neighbours, or you'll just end up moving them all over again. Astronaut (talk) 18:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, this answers my question. If anyone has anything to add to it feel free to reply. (The hatted portion above is a lot of people saying that nobody can write a response like this.) Incidentally I am shocked that it would cost $250 million to move a single temple some 200 meters. I would have thought it's at least 2 orders of magnitude cheaper if not 3. I guess I saw a house being moved on a special truck, and thought that relocating infratsructure or buildings like this is not that impossible. Thanks. Logisticsnightmare (talk) 23:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Moving a factory-assembled home is easy: it's designed to come apart into portable pieces. Moving a wood-frame building isn't much harder, since it's reasonably flexible and all the pieces are nailed together. The expense comes when you try to move things like unreinforced masonry structures: you basically need to build a supporting framework around it, and then move the building very slowly and carefully so it doesn't crack. A wood-frame house can probably flex by several centimeters across the length of the building without damage; a similar-sized brick house can't survive more than a few millimeters of bending. --Carnildo (talk) 03:40, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

But aren't things (like even castles!) moved by disassembling them brick by brick and reassembling them somewhere else in the same order? Logisticsnightmare (talk) 09:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The cost of moving the Cape Hatteras lighthouse 2,900 feet was 11.8 million dollars. And that was just for moving it intact, never mind disassembling it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Verified cases of passenger landing commercial jet

It's a fairly common TV/movie trope, but are there any real cases in which both pilot and copilot were in some way incapacitated and a passenger took the controls and landed the plane with help from the control tower? 75.75.42.89 (talk) 14:05, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Talk down aircraft landing is the relevant article. According to it, "[t]here is no record of a talk down landing of a large commercial aircraft." Tevildo (talk) 14:16, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Last month, in a small plane. Clarityfiend (talk) 14:17, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

(ec) : I'm not sure how "commercial" the flight was, and it was a "light aircraft", so presumably not a jet, but there was a case of this very recently. TVTropes has a "real life" section for this trope. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

It's possible, though, especially if the jet is equipped with Autoland, so take along these pointers, just in case. Clarityfiend (talk) 14:21, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Did you know, incidentally, that the Handley Page Victor could land itself without a pilot or autopilot? Once established on the approach, the aerodynamics of the wing and tail would perform the round-out and touchdown without any control inputs. One of my favourite aviation facts. Tevildo (talk) 14:24, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

They don't make 'em like that any more. My dad was involved in the avionics suite of the Victor. Alansplodge (talk) 17:09, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Ahh, the first thing I worked on professionally was the triangle resolver for the Vulcan. It's a small world. :) Tevildo (talk) 21:03, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I think Dad worked on a sort of rolling map that followed the terrain below, but I may have got the wrong end of the stick on that. I'll ask next time I'm in touch. He worked for Kelvin Hughes. Other readers, please excuse our digression. Alansplodge (talk) 12:24, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

That's OK. Such a connection almost makes you two cousins. Or something. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I know what you mean, although I never worked on that particular system - a similar/the same system was used in the Phantom, though. The triangle resolver was made by Sperry - which is now "commemorated by a 4.5 metre aluminium sculpture". "Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek / In pity and mournful awe might stand / Before some fallen Runic stone - / For both were faiths, and both are gone." (Arnold). Tevildo (talk) 20:17, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I have to admit, I find the pessimistic attitude of the linked PopSci blog entry (the 'pointers') rather irritating. The emphasis is on the difficulty of a perfect landing, not on what it takes to get a jumbo jet on the ground in such a condition that the passengers survive. (Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing!) If I'm in the Airplane! scenario where all the flight crew are disabled by food poisoning, I don't care about pretty and I don't care if United has to write off the airframe after I'm done with it. I don't care if I don't have the flaps all the way down; I don't care if I blow a tire or two because I'm twitchy on the brakes. I don't care if I apply the thrust reversers or not. If I overrun the end of the runway at forty knots, I don't care; modern runways are designed with arresting areas. Hell, if I come in a little nose down and hot and crush the nose gear then slide off the runway, I still might be okay: [1]. And I'm not even going to attempt to taxi to the correct gate after I land. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:52, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

According to Pilot certification in the United States#Number of active pilots, roughly 1 in 50 Americans is a pilot, so there is likely to be someone better qualified than Ted Striker to make the attempt. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:24, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you missed a zero there: 1/500. Rmhermen (talk) 14:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Oops. Cut me some slack, Jack! Clarityfiend (talk) 21:57, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Is there a Sir Quiller-Couch character in J.M. Barrie's book Peter and Wendy ?

Hello Learned Ones ! I see that JP Hogan has included a Sir (along with a Lady) Edward Quiller-Couch in his Peter Pan (2003 film). I don't recall if in the book (I read it so many years ago, & maybe it was a simplified version...) there existed such a character. Does it refer to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (Q and Barrie were friends) ? Thanks a lot beforehand for your answers Arapaima (talk) 16:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

No, this character is original to the 2003 film. In the book, Mr Darling is a stockbroker, and we don't see him at work (only going to work in the dog kennel). Tevildo (talk) 18:55, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The official list of most interesting things

Is there a billboard chart like there are for songs, where people can vote for the 1000 topmost interesting facts, researches, phenomena, etc? A list that would probably include trees falling without a sound, the Milgram experiment, Schrödinger's cat, people getting quite old in the 17th century, deja-vu, the Moebius ring, dividing by zero, Epimedes, etc.

In short, not the "Best articles" on Wikipedia nor the articles a small encyclopedia would include, nor a daily top 10 list of funny facts on the internet, but a list that is compiled by simply voting. Joepnl (talk) 21:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

GQ has a list, but they tend to be material things. "Interesting" depends on interests, of course, so it would be hard to compile a definitive "official" list for the world.

Anyway, you've piqued my interest. How old did 17th-century people get? InedibleHulk (talk) 23:23, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

According to our article, the "official" record holder is one Ferdinand Ashmall, born in 1695 and died in 1798 at the age of 103. There are unofficial record holders such as Tom Parr (1483–1635), of course. Tevildo (talk) 23:31, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Parr sounds official enough to me, just going by what's in our article. Pretty impressive, even if untrue. I like the way his death is relayed, as if being 152 isn't cause enough. And I love how it makes him sound like a transplanted sturgeon (definitely on my Top 100 North American Fish list).

Back on that topic, I found Discovery's Top 100 Discoveries here. They're about as globally mainstream as this kind of thing gets, so maybe the most official. It's not a thousand, but it's something. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:19, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks all. "Things you should have heard about when you reach 40, compiled and voted for by 300.000 Wikipedians", something like that, I'd love to read it and find out what I've missed (like today I found this about Tesla, making him even cooler than I already thought he was). About 17th century lifespans: it was a surprise to me to learn (I hope it was correct) that while the average age was a lot lower, this was mostly due to a large number of people dying at a very early age, while the eldest didn't die that much younger than currentday eldest. So science didn't change the age at which one dies of old age al lot, but it got the average up by inventing cures for actual diseases. Joepnl (talk) 19:26, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, things like averages, percentages and rates are often misleading. I wish we'd all stick to actual numbers, especially when teaching children. Fifty dead newborns and fifty dead 100-year-olds certainly doesn't mean anyone was more likely to die at 50. Probably my second-biggest historical assumption peeve, right behind "Ancient Greece was full of white ruins". InedibleHulk (talk) 21:34, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it was? Reasons I can think of to demolish an old building are the need for its materials and its space. If both materials and space were abundant I can imaging buildings getting really old. I wonder what a graph would look like, X: history, Y: "average building age". Joepnl (talk) 00:16, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Important figures buried in present-day Israel

Who was or were the companion(s) of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or other important figure of Islam died and buried in present-day Israel? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.20.21 (talk) 23:05, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Very few of them have died in present day Israel. Did you mean to ask a slightly different question? Other important figure is too vague to address. μηδείς (talk) 01:28, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Ubayda ibn as-Samit, a sahabi and an ancestor of the Nusaybah clan, seems to be buried in Jerusalem...apparently his grave was dug up by Israel to build a hotel, if we are to believe various anti-Israel blogs and such. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Would they have preferred that the hotel be built over top of the grave? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:43, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Which Pope worshipped Satan?

Historical Pope, I mean. I saw on a documentary once that one of the Popes hundreds of years ago was reported (by his enemies, maybe? not sure) to hail Satan from the Vatican. Anyone know who this was?

I tried to Google this myself, but all I found were pages and pages of modern-day conspiracy theories and anti-Catholic nonsense. --146.90.108.78 (talk) 23:49, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

You may have Pope John XII in mind. As you say, his biographer, Liudprand of Cremona, wrote that John toasted the devil with wine. But Liudprand was hardly a neutral observer. I think there may also be similar stories detailed with regard to some of those mentioned in The Bad Popes. Even if there aren't, it's an interesting book. - Nunh-huh 00:26, 22 November 2013 (UTC)