Where is the Aral Sea?

Search: aral sea



Why: On reddit, TIL That the disappearing of the Aral Sea has left behind a desert filled with shipwrecks:

Muynak is a city in northern Karakalpakstan in western Uzbekistan. Home to only a few thousand residents at most, Muynak's population has been declining precipitously since the 1980s due to the recession of the Aral Sea.

But I am American and t.f. haven't looked at a world map since AP History in 12th grade.



Answer: Over here!

Source: Google Maps



The More You Know: From that page:

The Aral Sea was once the world's fourth-largest saline body of water, it has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s, after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects. By 2004, the sea had shrunk to 25% of its original surface area, and a nearly fivefold increase in salinity had killed most of its natural flora and fauna. By 2007 it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into three separate lakes, two of which are too salty to support fish. The once prosperous fishing industry has been virtually destroyed, and former fishing towns along the original shores have become ship graveyards. With this collapse has come unemployment and economic hardship.

Did Elizabeth and Philip marry before or after she became Queen?

Search: queen elizabeth



Why: I just saw this darling thing on reddit, After all these years, they still look at each other the same way:

Answer: They were married first! In sequence:

• 1921 (June 10th) - Philip is born in Corfu, Greece (he is 90)
• 1926 (April 21) - Elizabeth is born (she is 85)
• 1934 - They meet for the first time
• 1937 - They meet for the second time
• 1939 (July) - They meet for the third time and begin to exchange letters (she is 13)
• 1947 (Nov. 20) - They marry

• 1952 (Feb. 6) - Elizabeth's father George VI dies; Elizabeth (25) is proclaimed queen regnant throughout her realms
• 1953 (June 2) - Elizabeth is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ceylon, and Pakistan, and Head of the Commonwealth.

Elizabeth wore a gown commissioned from Norman Hartnell, which was embroidered with floral emblems for countries of the Commonwealth: English Tudor rose, Scots thistle, Welsh leek, Irish shamrock, Australian wattle, Canadian maple leaf, New Zealand silver fern, South African protea, lotus flowers for India and Ceylon, and Pakistan's wheat, cotton, and jute.

Source: Wikipedia



The More You Know: Here is what Wikipedia says about the day George VI died:

In early 1952, Elizabeth and Philip set out for a tour of Australia and New Zealand by way of Kenya. On 6 February 1952, they had just returned to their Kenyan home, Sagana Lodge, after a night spent at Treetops Hotel, when word arrived of the death of Elizabeth's father.

The thing is that I'm 99% sure I stayed in that hotel at some point in 2000. There was a watering hole right outside where elephants came, and they put hot water bottles in the beds at night. There is a picture somewhere in the universe of a monkey reaching in through our window (it was kind of slatted) and taking a Tic Tac out of my hand. I will hunt it down when I go home in a few weeks. Stay tuned.

Anyway, also, this is interesting, I think:

With Elizabeth's accession, it seemed likely that the royal house would bear her husband's name. Lord Mountbatten thought it would be the House of Mountbatten, as Elizabeth would typically have taken Philip's last name on marriage; however, Queen Mary and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill favoured the retention of the House of Windsor, and so Windsor it remained. The Duke complained, "I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children." In 1960, after the death of Queen Mary and the resignation of Churchill, the surname Mountbatten-Windsor was adopted for Philip and Elizabeth's male-line descendants who do not carry royal titles.