The RECC’E - DAY 53 | 2.22.22 | WORLD RECORDS

Day 53 / 365

197YEARS ago today Russia & Britain divided a large area of North America by the 141st Meridian; Russia owning everything to the west. 42 years later the United States agreed to purchase this land from Russia for $7,200,000 and renamed the territory Alaska.

RECC’E OF THE DAY

8NEIGHBORHOODS make up the ‘Wonder of the Seas’, a cruise ship about to be launched as the worlds largest. After 3 years of construction the 18 deck, 1188 ft long vessel - the Titanic was 883 ft - with capacity for 6,988 guests and 2,300 crew members will take to the seas in just a few days time.

1504ftLONG, the Knock Nevis or Seawise Giant oil tanker dwarfed the wonder, it was the largest moving man-made object on the planet. From stern to bow the ship was longer than the Empire State Building's height.

236.9KTONNAGE for the Wonder of the Seas is huge but its again dwarfed by the worlds heaviest ship, ‘pioneering Spirit’ with a tonnage of 403.3k; it displaces 900k metric tones of water - the equivalent of around 300k elephants.

NEED-TO-KNOW

2REGIONS in eastern Ukraine - the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics - have been breached by Russian troops after Putin declared them as independent states home to Russian-backed rebels who have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014. Russia said the troops would engage in "peacekeeping", the U.S declared this “nonsense”.

7YEAR high for the price of oil on Tuesday at $97.76 (£72) a barrel in reaction to fears that the Ukraine-Russia crisis will disrupt supplies across the world. Russia accounts for one in every 10 barrels of oil consumed globally.

39.1%FTSE 100 boardroom roles are now occupied by women, up from just 12.5% a decade ago. Women still occupy only 8 chief executive positions at the UK’s top 100 listed companies leading some to argue advances in senior leadership roles have stalled.

400KWOMEN get clandestine abortions in Colombia each year. It has now become the latest country in Latin America to expand access to abortion as the nation's Constitutional Court voted to legalize the procedure until the 24th week of pregnancy.

185VOTES TO 151. Canada's Parliament has backed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau‘s decision to impose emergency powers to deal with weeks-long protests. The never-before-used Emergencies Act, passed in 1988, gives the government added powers in times of national crisis.

SHOULD-KNOW

7DAYS AGO a solar eruption took place on our Sun which extended millions of miles into space. Now the largest solar prominence ever observed in a single image has been released by NASA. The Sun’s activity will peak mid 2025 halfway through its 11 year cycle which started in 2019.

30%OF POLAND’s national demand for electricity last week was met by wind energy setting a new national record; it usually only represents 10%. The 20% increase was due to a storm of deadly high winds that struck Northern Europe and devastated parts of the continent.

91%OF MEDIEVAL manuscripts in Dutch, English, French, German, Icelandic and Irish throughout the ages have not survived according to new research by an international team of scientists who say measuring the cultural domain which may have been lost is a considerable challenge.

3PERSON board review of a 2019 decision not to let an artificial intelligence copyright a work of art has been upheld. The board found that the AI-created image didn’t include an element of “human authorship” — a necessary standard for protection.

6.5%FALL for Bitcoin in 24 hours with it trading as low as $36,649 on Monday as tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalate and investors shun riskier assets. It’s at almost half its November high of $68,990. Ethereum was also down 8%.

GOOD-TO-KNOW

29MPASSENGERS passed through Dubai International Airport (DXB) last year meaning it’s retained its top place as the world’s busiest for international travel; up 12% on 2020. Still hugely short of the pre-pandemic milestone of 86.4m logged by the airport in 2019.

6M&M’S stacked one on top of the other is a new Guinness world record for 22 year old Brendan Kelbie of Queensland, Australia.

30MINUTES is the new minimum time limit option for Instagram users looking to measure their daily social media usage, the previous limit was 5 minutes. This contrasts it’s “Take a Break” test feature back in November as critics argue its prioritising high usage over welfare.

SIGN-OFF STAT

400YEARS is how long you’d have to wait for another ‘Twosday’. Today’s date - 2/22/22 - reads the same forwards, backwards and is a single figure palindrome but what’s rarer is how it works worldwide no matter the date format used. The ultimate palindrome will occur at 2:22 a.m. or p.m.