Why I miss having the time to surf the Internet occasionally

Man, there's some cool stuff out there.

I really like Strange Maps, a blog that highlights ... well, strange maps. Recently they had a couple of cool ones:

Here's a map of the Hutt River Province Principality, an area 500 kilometers north of Perth in Western Australia that is a relatively old micronation. A wheat farmer declared his independence from Australia in 1970 and became Prince Leonard I. Australia, which recognizes its tourism potential, pretty much leaves it alone. Visit the web site, which includes a section on the navy of Hutt River. Odd for a landlocked "country" to have a navy, but what the hell.

Then we have this post, which tells about a woman getting an unusual tattoo. You can read about it at the post, but I thought I'd steal the picture because it's almost unbelievable:

Yes, it's a map of Hanover, Germany, in 1896. It's not done yet, either. Man, people are kooky.

I wish I had more time to dig up more wacky stuff on the Internet. You'll just have to settle for little bits and pieces!

Land grab!

I learned something interesting in the newspaper the other day. 18 January was the 140th anniversary of a land grab by Nevada, as they snatched land from Arizona to create their territory as it stands now. As usual, it was California's fault. The most interesting thing about it is that the section of Arizona that Nevada annexed was all the land south of the 37th parallel, which includes Clark County. What's in Clark County? Only a town you may have heard of called Las Vegas. Of course, had this section of Arizona remained with Nevada, Las Vegas wouldn't have been VEGAS!, because Arizona doesn't have legalized gambling. Another interesting point is that this made Nevada a state that bordered on the Colorado River, meaning Arizona gets less water from the river because of it. Of course, the less water we have here the better, because maybe people will figure out how to conserve it. Another interesting point is that the land grab wasn't formalized in Nevada's constitution until 1982, which means that if Arizona had forced the issue, it could have gotten the land back after Las Vegas became such an economic beacon.

Stuff like this is fascinating to me. The history of the U. S. is full of weird little things like this, and it's kind of cool to track how the states were shaped. Check out what the states could have looked like if those lousy Nevadans hadn't been so greedy:


History is, as usual, cool.