Țăudu

History

In ancient times, ice was not adopted for food preservation but used to cool wine which the Romans had also done. According to Pliny, Emperor Nero invented the ice bucket to chill wines instead of adding it to wine to make it cold as it would dilute it. Some time around 1700 BC Zimri-Lim, king of Mari Kingdom in northwest Iraq had created an "icehouse" called bit shurpin at a location close to his capital city on the banks of the Euphrates. In the 7th century BC the Chinese had used icehouses to preserve vegetables and fruits. During the Tang dynastic rule in China (618–907 AD) a document refers to the practice of using ice that was in vogue during the Eastern Chou Dynasty (770–256 BC) by 94 workmen employed for "Ice-Service" to freeze everything from wine to dead bodies. Shachtman says that in the 4th century AD, the brother of the Japanese emperor Nintoku gave him a gift of ice from a mountain. The Emperor was so happy with the gift that he named the first of June as the "Day of Ice" and ceremoniously gave blocks of ice to his officials. Even in ancient times, Shachtman says, in Egypt and India, night cooling by evaporation of water and heat radiation, and the ability of salts to lower the freezing temperature of water was practiced. The ancient people of Rome and Greece were aware that boiled water cooled quicker than the ordinary water; the reason for this is that with boiling of water carbon dioxide and other gases, which are deterrents to cooling, are removed; but this fact was not known till the 17th century. Shachtman says that King James VI and I supported the work of Cornelis Drebbel as a magician to perform tricks such as producing thunder, lightning, lions, birds, trembling leaves and so forth. In 1620 he gave a demonstration in Westminster Abbey to…

Most-observed species

• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  41
• Fieldfare

  Turdus pilaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  32
• Common Buzzard

  Buteo buteo (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  26
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  24
• White Stork

  Ciconia ciconia (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  22
• Eurasian Jay

  Garrulus glandarius (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  22
• False-acacia

  Robinia pseudoacacia L. · Magnoliopsida
  22
• European Goldfinch

  Carduelis carduelis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  21

Most recent

• M 2.6 — 2006-12-08
  10 km NNW of Horea, Romania
• M 3 — 2006-07-14
  5 km NNE of Dobre?ti, Romania
• M 3.1 — 2005-05-17
  4 km SSE of M?rg?u, Romania