The AC Cobra (known in the USA as the Shelby Cobra and the Ford Cobra) was a British sports car built between 1962 and 1968. The AC Cobra resulted after the Texan racer, Carroll Shelby, approached AC Cars with an idea for fitting a 4.2 litre Ford V-eight engine into the light AC Ace sports car to make a competition racing car. The AC Cobra was produced with various engines between 4261 and 6997 cc capacity with power between 164 and 490 bhp providing a top speed of between 218 and 290 kmh. In 1967 the AC Cobra with seven-litre engine, won the record as the fastest accelerating production car, reaching 0-60 mph in 4.2 seconds. Research AC Cobra
Body-snatching was the old custom of purloining bodies newly buried in order to sell them to surgeons for dissection. The first instance of body-snatching on record in Britain was in 1777 when the body of Mrs Jane Sainsbury was taken from the burial ground near Gray's Inn Lane. The men convicted for the crime were imprisoned for six months. Research Body-Snatching
A calendar (named from the Latin calendarium, from calendce, the first day of the month), is a record or marking out of time as systematically divided into years, months, weeks, and days.
The periodical occurrence of certain natural phenomena gave rise to the first division of time, the division into weeks being the only purely arbitrary partition. The year of the ancient Egyptians was based on the changes of the seasons alone, without reference to the lunar month, and contained 365 days divided into twelve months of thirty days each, with five supplementary days at the end of the year.
The Jewish year consisted of lunar months of which they reckoned twelve in the year, intercalating a thirteenth when necessary to maintain the correspondence of the particular months with the regular recurrence of the seasons.
The Greeks in the earliest period also reckoned by lunar and intercalary months, but after one or two changes adopted the plan of Meton and Euctemon, who took account of the fact that in a period of nineteen years, the new moons return upon the same days of the year as before. This period of nineteen years was found, however, to be about six hours too long, and subsequent calculators still failed to make the beginning of the seasons return on the same fixed day of the year. Each month was divided into three decads.
The Romans at first divided the year into ten months, but they early adopted the Greek method of lunar and intercalary months, making the lunar year consist of 354, and afterwards of 355 days, leaving ten or eleven days and a fraction to be supplied by the intercalary division. This arrangement continued until the time of Julius Caesar. The first day of the month was called the calends. In March, May, July, and October the 15th, in other months the 13th, was called the ides. The ninth day before the ides (reckoning inclusive) was called the nones, being therefore either the 7th or the 5th of the month. From the inaccuracy of the Roman method of reckoning the calendar came to represent the vernalequinox nearly two months after the event, and at the request of Julius Caesar, the Greek astronomer Sosigenes with the assistance of Marcus Fabius, contrived the so-called Julian calendar. The chief improvement consisted in restoring the equinox to its proper place by inserting two months between November and December, so that the year 707 (46 BC), called the year of confusion, contained fourteen months.
In the number of days the Greek computation was adopted, which made it 365.25. To dispose of the quarter of a day it was determined to intercalate a day every fourth year between the 23rd and 24th of February. This calendar continued in use among the Romans until the fall of the empire, and throughout Christendom until 1582.
By this time, owing to the cumulative error of eleven minutes, the vernalequinox really took place ten days earlier than its date in the calendar, and accordingly PopeGregory XIII issued a brief abolishing the Julian calendar in all Catholic countries, and introducing in its stead the one now in use, the Gregorian or reformed calendar. In this way began the new style, as opposed to the other or old style. Ten days were to be dropped; every hundredth year, which by the old style was to have been a leap year, was now to be a common year, the fourth excepted; and the length of the solar year was taken to be 365 days, five hours, forty-nine minutes, and twelve seconds, the difference between which and subsequent observations is immaterial. The new calendar was adopted in Spain, Portugal, and France in 1582; in Catholic Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands in 1583; in Poland in 1586; in Hungary in 1587; in ProtestantGermany, Holland, and Denmark in 1700; in Switzerland in 1701; in England in 1752; and in Sweden, 1753.
In the English calendar of 1752, also, the 1st of January was now adopted as the beginning of the legal year, and it was customary for some time to give two dates for the period intervening between 1st January and 25th March, that of the old and that of the new year, as January 1752/3. Russia alone retained the old style, which by 1906 differed twelve days from the new.
In France, during the revolution, a new calendar was introduced by a decree of the rational Convention, on November the 24th, 1793. The time from which the new reckoning was to commence was the autumnal equinox of 1792, which fell upon the 22nd of September, when the first decree of the new republic had been promulgated. The year was made to consist of twelve months of three decades each, and, to complete the full number, five fete days, or sansculotides (in leap years six) were added to the end of the year. The seasons and months were as follows: Autumn; 22nd September to 22nd December Vendimiaire, vintage month; Brumaire, foggy month; Frimaire, sleet month. Winter; 22nd December to 22nd March: Nivose, snowy month; Plumose, rainy month; Ventose, windy month. Spring; 22nd March to 22nd June: Germinal, budmonth; Floreal, flowermonth; Prairial, meadowmonth. Summer; 22nd June to 22nd Sept.: Messidor, harvest month; Thermidor, hot month; Fructidor, fruit month. The common Christian or Gregorian calendar was re-established in France on the 1st of January, 1806, by Napoleon. Research Calendar
A chartulary is a record or register in which the charters, title-deeds, etc, of any corporation were copied for safety and convenience of reference. They were often kept by private families. Research Chartulary
A chondrite is a stony meteorite that contains tiny, more or less spherical inclusions, called chondrules, formed by rapid cooling of molten materials. The chondrules consist of minerals such as pyroxene as well as various iron minerals. Such meteorites are of scientific importance because many are thought to represent a record of conditions in the earliest days of the solar system. Research Chondrite
The Domesday Book is a record of the survey conducted in England in 1086 by officials of William The Conqueror so as to assess taxes etc. The Domesday Book contains a survey of almost all the lands in England. The survey was made by commissioners, who collected the information in each district from a sworn jury consisting of sheriffs, lords of manors, presbyters, bailiffs, villeins - all the classes, in short, interested in the matter. The extent, tenure, value, and proprietorship of the land in each district, the state of culture, and in some cases the number of tenants, villeins, serfs, etc, were the matters chiefly recorded. The survey was completed within a year. Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, and Westmoreland were not included in the survey, probably for the reason that William's authority was not then (in 1086) settled in those parts. The original Domesday Book consists of two volumes, one folio and one quarto. It has been republished a few times, a perfect facsimile of the original being published in 1861-1865. Research Domesday Book
From about 1760 onwards, the normal method of enclosing commons or open fields in Britain was by private Act of Parliament. The Act authorised the appointment of commissioners to survey the lands to be enclosed. A large- scale plan of the lands was prepared, to assist the commissioners to draw up an award allocating the land to individuals. These awards, with their plans, record the boundaries of the fields and the courses and widths of the roads and trackways as laid out afresh by the enclosure commissioners. Occasionally this is accompanied by a map showing the pre-enclosure picture of open-field farming, with much land remaining as commons. Research Enclosure Awards
In Judaism, the Gemara is the main body of the Talmud, consisting of a record of ancient rabbinical debates about the interpretation of the Mishna and constituting the primary source of Jewish religious law. Research Gemara
History (from the Greek historia, from historeo, meaning I inquire into) is a term first used by Herodotus in the sense which it has since retained, of a narrative of events and circumstances relating to man in his social or civic condition. A. record of bare facts by themselves does not constitute history. Such a record (forming a chronicle or annals) is chronologically valuable; but to attain the dignity of history we must have social events and evolution detailed with considerable fulness, and the growth and movements of society, from one phase to another, distinctly traced and recorded.
The modern school of historians devote much attention to the social life of the people; their method being further characterized by the utmost accuracy of research, the extreme importance assigned to contemporary documentary evidence, and careful weighing of data. The field of history proper is so far restricted as to its subject, that only the doings of a community possessing something of an independent organic life can constitute it.
History may be conveniently divided into ancient, mediaeval, and modern; but these divisions have little scientific value. The first includes the Jewish history and that of the nations of antiquity, reaching down to the destruction of the Roman Empire in 476 AD; the second begins with 476 and comes down to the discovery of America in 1492, or to the Reformation; the third section extends from either of these eras to our own times. The earliest written history is found graven on the monuments of Egypt, Assyria, etc. These, though of the barest description, have the value of contemporary chronicles. Next come the histories found in the canonical books of the Old Testament; but the real inventors of the artistic form of history were the Greeks. Research History
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research AC Cobra
