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Largest rice dumpling

The largest rice dumpling weighed 1,316 kg (2,901 lb 4 oz) and was made by Yunlin County Government in association with Taizhong Plaza International Hotel (both Taiwan) in Yunlin, Taiwan on 25 April 2008. The ingredients: Sticky rice 840 kg (1851 lb 14 oz) Meat 210 kg (462 lb 16 oz) Dried prawns 60 kg (132 lb 4 oz) Chinese mushrooms 90 kg (198 lb 7 oz) Squid 90 kg (198 lb 7 oz) Ginger 30 kg (66 lb 2 oz) Monkey nuts 90 kg Continue reading →

First recorded strike

The first recorded strike in history took place in ancient Egypt on 14 November 1152 BC when the artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina organised an uprising. The event, which took place under the rule of Pharaoh Ramses III, was recorded in detail on a papyrus that dates from that time.

First radio transmission

The earliest description of a radio transmission system was written by the American Dr Mahlon Loomis (1826- 1886) on 21 July 1864 and demonstrated between two kites more than 22km 14 miles apart at Bear’s Den, Loudoun County, Virginia in October 1866. He received US patent No. 129,971 entitled Improvement in Telegraphing on 30 July 1872.

Largest wing-in-ground effect (WIG) vehicle

The 540 tonne “Caspian Sea Monster” was the largest wing-in-ground (WIG) effect vehicle (known as ekranoplan in Russian, wingship in US) ever built. This 106 m (348 ft) long leviathan was capable of skimming just meters above the ocean at speeds of up to 500 km/h (311 mph) and was built by the Soviet Central Design Bureau of Hydrofoil Vehicles in Gorky in the mid-1960s. This vehicle was around twice the size of the largest aircraft of its era, with relatively stubby "wings" with a Continue reading →

Longest-operating Earth observation satellite

Landsat 5 is an Earth Observation satellite developed by NASA and launched on 1 March 1984 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USA. Managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (1984 to 2000) and by the U.S. Geological Survey (2001-13)as part of the Landsat Program, it has completed more than 150,000 orbits of the Earth and sent back more than 2.5 million images of the Earth’s surface. On 21 December 2012 the USGS announced Landsat 5 was to be decommissioned after the failure of Continue reading →

First person to climb the seven summits

The first person to successfully climb the “Seven Summits” – the highest peaks on all seven continents, according to the Messner list, which recognizes the highest point in Oceania as being Puncak Jaya in Indonesia, as opposed to the Bass list, which instead states Mount Kosciuszko in New South Wales, Australia – was Patrick Morrow (Canada) who completed the last, Puncak Jaya, Indonesia (Oceania), on 5 August 1986. Morrow climbed the Seven Summits and also Mount Kosciuszko. The Seven Summits are; Africa: Mt Kilimanjaro 5,894m Continue reading →

First manned spaceflight

The earliest manned spaceflight was by Cosmonaut Flight Major (later Col.) Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (1934-68) in Vostok 1 on 12 Apr 1961. The take-off was from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan at 6:07a.m. GMT and the landing near Smelovka, near Engels, in the Saratov region of Russia, 115 minutes later. Col. Gagarin landed separately from his spacecraft 118 minutes after the launch, by parachute after ejecting 108 minutes into the flight as planned. The maximum altitude during the 40,868.6 km (25,394,8 mile) flight of Vostok 1 Continue reading →