Never the swords of a thousand men when they are needed

 Tomorrow we approach Cordoba. Today we don’t.  Today we sweep across wide open landscapes.  Maybe we need some great horde of horsemen are required to thunder down from one ridge to another.  Meanwhile. Five things.




Until 31st December 1900 Spain used local time. Up till then Catalonia was truly in advance of Madrid - by minutes.  A Royal decree brought Greenwich Meantime to the whole of the Peninsular, Balearics, Ceuta and Melilla.  The Canary Islands kept their own time until 1st March 1922, when they moved an hour behind Madrid.  All this was a happy state until 1940 Franco wanted to cozy up to his bestie in Berlin and adopted Central European Time.   So it remains, even though in Summer Time Galicia is two and half hours behind solar time.




In 1551 Domingo de Soto became the first person to state that a body in free fall accelerates uniformly.  Domingo was born in Segovia in 1494. He studied in the universities of Alcala and Paris and obtained a philosophical chair at the former. He then gave it all up, tried to become a Benedictine but ended up as a Dominican. He moved to Salamanca and died in 1550.



Spain has yet to embrace QI and have its own version - unlike the Danes, Czechs, Dutch and Swedes.



The most common surname in Spain is Garcia.  It accounts for 3.48%, then Fernandez and Gonzalez.   Ortiz is 38th, accounting for 0.22% of the population.



Since 1st July 2015 the age of consent is 16. There is an exception to criminal prosecution if minors are of similar age and level of maturity. The age rises to 18 if there is deception, abuse or a position of trust or influence.  Historically Spain followed Medieval Christendom with the age of hetrosexual consent being 12.  This was set into law in 1995. In 1999 the age was raised to 13 and then 16. Same-sex sexual acts were lawful between 1822 and 1954 and after 1979.



Cordoba tomorrow.









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