People use different web browsers to
do all their online bidding, my personal preference is Mozilla Firefox. Not
sure why I shared that with you, just a random thought!
On Firefox I’ve been able to set up
homepage to http://www.google.co.uk/ and
when you open this up you get a host of different information that may or may
not be of use to you.
Normally I usually have a quick
glance at the latest headlines before opening up web pages that I need, (usually
Twitter & Facebook). Anyway today I decided to explore the home page a
little more closely and this lead me to an unusual discovery.
On the left hand side of the home
page is a list of web links; all pretty straight forward so far, I first checked
the weather it’s hot in Doncaster 9°C!! I then clicked on Wikipedia link and it leads me to the most
wonderful discovery.
The first thing I noticed when I clicked on the Wikipedia link was the ‘recently updated’ links. Looking down the list of topics that had changed I noticed a link to “List of countries by population” http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_population&diff=477498769&oldid=477494658.
Everyone knows the country with the
largest population is China with 1,339,724,852 inhabitants but who can
tell me the country with the smallest population?
It is in
fact the Pitcairn Islands with 67 inhabitants.
No, that
wasn’t a typo there is only 67 people on the entire Island! I then decided to
see where this island is situated, so out came Google Earth and very soon I discovered
that it isn’t just a single island but in fact four separate islands located about
half way between Australia and South America.
But here’s
the interesting bit, it’s the Island where the mutineers of the Bounty settled!
The story goes something like this.
The islands
were first discovered in 1767, but marine chronometer weren’t in regular use so
the Islands’ location was plotted incorrectly. They were chartered as being 25°
2’ south and 133° 21’ west of Greenwich. The actually coordinates are 25° 04’
south and 130° 06 west. This clearly made the Islands very difficult to find.
The Bounty spotted the Islands on their way to
Tahiti and plotted its actual location and knowing that the Islands would be
hard to find allowed the mutineers to escape the British Navy and settle there.
The ship
Bounty was set on fire and sunk and is still visible to this day.
The descendents
of four of the original settlers still live on the island to this day, Christian,
Warren, Young, and Brown.
I’ve now
added this to my must visit before I die list of locations.
Ammo
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