From Winchester

50 years ago, the USSR’s Salyut 1 was launched, becoming the first ever manned space station.

75 years ago, the League of Nations met for the last time, and was formally dissolved.

100 years ago, Vladimir Lenin announced the USSR’s New Economic Policy.

Older or Younger?

Are the following explorers older or younger than Christopher Columbus?

Leif Erikson Ferdinand Magellan Yuri Gagarin Sir Francis Drake Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Ranulph Fiennes Marco Polo James Cook

Queen Elizabeth II

LEDs - younger Chocolate Chip Cookies - younger LASERs - younger Etch-a-sketches - younger Frisbees - younger Colour TV - younger Ford Mustangs - younger Slinkys – younger Dinosaurs - older Dark matter - older

Interestingly…

Igor Stravinsky was born before Brahms had completed two of his four symphonies and died after the Beatles had split up!

During WWI, Romanian officers above the rank of major were authorized to wear eye shadow into battle.

Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective, uses fingerprint evidence in The Sign of Four - eleven years before the police began using them in real life in 1901.

In the 17th century, Cockneys were also known as 'eaters of buttered toast.'

In 1911 nuclear physicist George de Hevesy suspected that his landlady was bulking up his meals with leftovers. He proved it by sprinkling radioactive material over his supper and detecting it in another meal a few days later.

In 1328, London’s Guild of Pepperers was registered as ‘grossarii’, i.e. those who sell in bulk, or ‘in gross’. This word would later become ‘grocers’, which means that originally grocers sold pepper.

An 'article' is a 'regulation wooden seat in a Toys.' Answers to previous 'Older or Younger':

Douglas Page (Coll.)

Following the governing body’s recent announcement, ‘Winchester College in the 21st Century’, which begins the process of introducing girls and day-pupils to the College, I have looked at the history of aristocratic bias at Winchester. This history can be told through documents, pictures, and paintings. For a different perspective, including a Deb. Soc. debate from the 1950s on co-education, you can watch a video I made on the topic through this link:

bit.ly/wincollbias.

The statutes, written in 1400, just after the foundation, are relevant to this inquiry. Rubric 2 stipulates that the scholars of the College must be ‘poor and needy.’ Perhaps because of this, aristocratic bias has never been a severe problem at Winchester.

The Founder’s Statutes of Winchester College

A notable exception to this lack of aristocratic bias arises through a footnote to Rubric 16 of the statutes. This footnote made provisions for ‘the sons of noble and influential persons, special friends of the said College, up to the number of ten,’ to be ‘instructed in grammar within the same college, without burden upon the aforesaid College.’ This footnote allowed fee-paying commoners to attend the school. The number of commoners waxed and waned over the years, peaking at a substantial number of about 100 in 1412, not matched until the 18th century.

John Burton, the headmaster, commissioned 13 portraits of commoners by Isaac Whood in the 1730s. The collection of paintings is entitled the ‘Gentlemen Commoners,’ and twelve of the thirteen portraits can be found in the Master in College’s dining room – the thirteenth was last seen on the art market in 1963.

Sir Robert Burdett – One of the 'Gentlemen Commoners' –by Isaac Whood

The numbers of commoners at the school had shot up in John Burton’s years: from 46 in 1727 to 111 in 1732. Winchester had never seen so much blue blood since 1412. Burton perhaps was commemorating this through these portraits, which can be likened to Eton’s 52 leaving portraits, although they were painted whilst the subjects were still boys in the school.

Since the Amicabilis Concordia between Eton and Winchester, they have acted alike, often in unison, on many occasions. John Burton’s ‘Gentlemen Commoners’ was an example of this, and so was the decision to make Latin non-compulsory in the Election and King’s Scholarship Examinations in 1968. The revised exam format is similar to the current system. Candidates had to take four compulsory papers and at least three optional ones. The primary difference between then and now is that either French or Latin was compulsory then, rather than Science now.