Sarah Bond 💙 🌻🧡

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#ThoughtForTheDay Pigeons get called sky rats. But birds like these once carried messages through gunfire when every radio failed. And the part most people miss is this. For thousands of years humans relied on pigeons to move information faster than any technology available at the time. Their homing instinct is so precise that a trained bird released hundreds of miles away can still navigate straight back to its loft. That simple biological skill made them invaluable in war. During World War I and World War II, armies deployed hundreds of thousands of pigeons. When telephone wires were cut and radio signals failed, commanders often had only one reliable way to send a message through chaos. In 1918 a Pigeon named Cher Ami carried a desperate note from trapped American troops in the Argonne Forest. The bird was shot through the chest and lost part of a leg during the flight but still delivered the message, helping stop friendly artillery fire and saving nearly two hundred soldiers. Today their descendants wander city sidewalks, pecking quietly for crumbs. Most people see a nuisance. History once saw a lifeline with wings.

There is an old handwriting system that is faster than typing. Masters have reached up to 280 Words per minute... What you’re looking at is shorthand, a family of writing systems designed to capture speech at high speed. Systems like Gregg shorthand (developed in 1888) and Pitman shorthand (introduced in 1837) replaced full spelling with streamlined, phonetic symbols. At its peak, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, shorthand was essential for journalists, secretaries, and court reporters. Skilled practitioners commonly reached 120–160 words per minute, while top experts could exceed 200+ WPM. The often-cited 280 WPM is rare but achievable in controlled conditions by elite stenographers. The key advantage is efficiency: shorthand records sounds, not letters, eliminating unnecessary strokes. Gregg, for example, uses flowing curves without lifting the pen, while Pitman varies line thickness and position to encode different sounds. However, modern speed records are typically held by stenotype machines, not handwritten shorthand. Using chorded keyboards, professional court reporters can exceed 300 WPM, making them faster than most typing speeds. Before audio recording became widespread, entire speeches, including parliamentary debates and courtroom testimony, were preserved almost exclusively through shorthand, making it one of the most important (and now largely forgotten) information technologies of its time. © History Pictures #archaeohistories

Sun, sea and... suspense 🚨🚓 John Simm and Richie Campbell are back in the line of fire as Brighton's finest 🔥 when the trail goes cold, Grace and Branson turn up the heat on their toughest investigations to date 👮 It would be a crime to miss it - Grace Series 6 starts Sunday 29th March at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX #Grace #BrandNew #CrimeDrama