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I grew up in this part of the world! Quite a strange juxtaposition seeing my home on the front page of this site. So maybe I can offer some lesser known intere

by tombh 4y ago

I grew up in this part of the world! Quite a strange juxtaposition seeing my home on the front page of this site. So maybe I can offer some lesser known interesting context: Wales is only some 300km west of London, yet I have childhood memories (some 35 years ago) of needing to try to speak Welsh to my elderly (in his 80s) neighbour who struggled with English. There is a theory that English's use of "do" (so-called "Do-support") comes from the Welsh language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-support#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-support#Origins The stones for Stonehenge come from the Preseli mountains, a small range of blue-ish hills exactly on the coast where these lost islands are proposed. There is a Welsh settlement in Argentina: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Wladfa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Wladfa Not strictly Welsh, but the Severn Estuary, which is the calm, funnel of sea between Wales and England, that invites ships into the harbour of Bristol, points exactly towards Newfoundland in North America. This Welsh-English estuary is where John Cabot made the second recorded voyage of a modern European to the New World[1]. Nowadays, we think of Airports as being the doorways to whole new worlds, but there was a time when it was the coastline and harbours of the South West British Isles that rang and echoed with the adventures, legends, captains, pirates, spices, gems and foreigners of unimaginable far away lands. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot#Second_voyage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot#Second_voyage

r3trohack3r 4y ago
> Nowadays, we think of Airports as being the doorways to whole new worlds I have a habit of parking on the top floors of parking garages for the views. A few months back, I was parked on the top floor of PHX at night waiting to pick up a friend. I sat and watched the planes depart and arrive for 45 minutes or so. From my angle, they were quite small and I was able to take in several runways of activity simultaneously. Looking to the left there were constellations of aircraft lining up to approach the runways. The scale of "Sky Harbor" was lost on me until that moment, watching these aircraft come to port. Some passenger planes, some cargo, all connecting distant lands. It felt like watching a shipyard. And then I realized the awe I felt at the progress of humanity was probably on-par with someone standing in a shipyard circa 1650. And the relative antiquity we feel towards them in 1650 will be felt towards us in 2300. What they had wasn't any more antiquity than what I have - we both sit at the pinnacle of human civilization so far staring forward into the potential. Not sure where this ramble is going - but thank you for sharing your story and throwing me back to that moment.
ljf 4y ago
Also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc#:~:text=Madoc%2C%20also%20spelled%20Madog%2C%20ab,Columbus's%20voyage%20in%201492 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc#:~:text=Madoc%2C%20als....

by tombh 4y ago

r3trohack3r 4y ago

> Nowadays, we think of Airports as being the doorways to whole new worlds I have a habit of parking on the top floors of parking garages for the views. A few months back, I was parked on the top floor of PHX at night waiting to pick up a friend. I sat and watched the planes depart and arrive for 45 minutes or so. From my angle, they were quite small and I was able to take in several runways of activity simultaneously. Looking to the left there were constellations of aircraft lining up to approach the runways. The scale of "Sky Harbor" was lost on me until that moment, watching these aircraft come to port. Some passenger planes, some cargo, all connecting distant lands. It felt like watching a shipyard. And then I realized the awe I felt at the progress of humanity was probably on-par with someone standing in a shipyard circa 1650. And the relative antiquity we feel towards them in 1650 will be felt towards us in 2300. What they had wasn't any more antiquity than what I have - we both sit at the pinnacle of human civilization so far staring forward into the potential. Not sure where this ramble is going - but thank you for sharing your story and throwing me back to that moment.

ljf 4y ago

Also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc#:~:text=Madoc%2C%20also%20spelled%20Madog%2C%20ab,Columbus's%20voyage%20in%201492 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc#:~:text=Madoc%2C%20als....