Airport hotels, chocolate brownies, the Ark of the Covenant, the White Stripes and an annoyingly long fact check on the flag of Belize feature in this week’s slightly interesting discoveries.
Hilton’s claim to the first airport hotel is complete nonsense
The Hilton chain has long claimed to pioneer the airport hotel concept. It does so on its own website, look.
According to Hilton lore, the San Francisco Airport Hilton that opened in 1959 was the world’s first airport hotel. But that’s just not true.
USA Today researched the claim back in 2018, and found that the oldest airport hotel was built 30 years earlier than the San Francisco Airport Hilton. Also, it was a short hop away on the other side of San Francisco Bay. The Oakland Airport Inn was much smaller, but opened in 1929.
The chocolate brownie was designed for ladies
We have the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 to thank for the chocolate brownie. Socialite Bertha Palmer, whose husband owned Chicago’s Palmer House Hotel, asked one of the hotel’s pastry chefs to make a dessert for ladies. Apparently, it needed to be easy to eat than a slice of pie, smaller than a slice of cake and easily carried in a box.
The brownies at the Palmer House Hotel are still made from the original recipe.
The world’s most colourful flag has 13 colours on it
Some national flags – France, Scotland and particularly Japan – have an elegant simplicity to them. Others are, to put it mildly, a bit bloody busy. I’m looking at you Central African Republic, Turkmenistan and Zimbabwe.
But while others get a bit excitable with the colour palette, none go quite as over the top as Belize.
This is mostly due to the coat of arms contained within the middle of the flag, which throws everything into the mix. A mestizo man and an African man, mahogany leaves, axes, tools, a ship… the works.
No other national flag has as many colours on it. The question is just how many colours the Belize flag has, and confirming that required an annoyingly long hunt down a web rabbit hole.
Suffice to say some sites say the flag of Belize has 12 colours, and others say it has 19. I’ve tracked down a video from the press conference announcing the standardisation of the flag in 2019. I’ve screenshotted the bit where the ISO colours for all the elements of the flag are listed, and I’m fairly confident in saying there are 13 colours on the flag of Belize.
Ethiopia claims to have the Ark of the Covenant – but won’t let anyone else check
Axum, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, claims to be the home of the Ark of the Covenant. The Biblical relic, said to have contained the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, has long been missing – with plenty of fanciful stories surrounding its disappearance.
One of these stories maintains that Menelik I, son of Solomon, sneaked it away to Abyssinia while leaving a replica in Jerusalem.
The Ark of the Covenant now supposedly rests inside the Church of Our Lady, Mary of Zion, in Axum. However, it is kept under guard in the Chapel of the Tablet, and no-one outside the top brass of the Ethiopian Church is allowed to see it. It’s almost as if they’ve got a good reason to not allow independent verification, isn’t it?
Seven Nation Army was born in Australia
The ubiquitous seven note riff of Seven Nation Army has somehow conquered the world. The lead single from the 2003 White Stripes album, Elephant, is instantly recognisable in sporting arenas and at political rallies across the planet.
It’s worth reading the back story on how the “po po po po po po po” song became such an unlikely sporting hit.
What I didn’t realise, however, was that the riff was born during a soundcheck at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne, Australia. Plenty of music venues can claim to have hosted all-time great bands. Not so many can claim to be the home of all-time great songs.
