Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 July 9

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July 9

Eucatastrophe

Outside of fiction (J.R. Tolkien, etc.), what examples (if any) are there of real-life eucatastrophes? 24.5.122.13 (talk) 08:26, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

The best examples I can think of are when battles are turned by events outside of the control of the participants, for example the way the weather wreaked havoc on the Spanish Armada, quite possibly saving England from a certain overwhelming invasion, or when bad weather similarly saved Japan from Mongol invasion. There was the American retreat from Brooklyn during the Revolutionary War which was only successful due to unusually foggy conditions to cover their retreat; without such a miraculous retreat Washington and his army would have been captured and eliminated early in the War, all but ending the war in it's infancy. --Jayron32 15:13, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

You'd need a real-life protagonist, wouldn't you? In fiction, there's only the one narrative, so distinguishing between good catastrophes and bad is easy. But the Mongol, Spanish and British quests above were all terribly ruined. Take any disaster, and you'll find a silver lining. Find the lining, and you find the saved.

The Johnstown flood (to pick one that's not "too soon") got the ball rolling for disaster victims to seek compensation from a not-quite-guilty party. Also inspired many works of art, which put food on starving artists' tables. For every shop destroyed and shopowner killed, a business opportunity arises for another merchant (and the builders). Without the flood, who knows where they'd have been instead? InedibleHulk (talk) 15:50, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

These things may not seem dramatic to us in retrospect, but what about events like the discovery of the Spindletop oil field? Marco polo (talk) 16:05, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Also don't forget that the Johnstown flood also created the first successful response for the American Red Cross in mitigating the effects for the disaster victims. --Jayron32 18:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually the first Red Cross response was the Great Fire of 1881. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 15:36, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Hulk's point is apt; the events Jayron mentions are eucatastrophic from one perspective, but catastrophic from another. The space pen was once unexpectedly used to avert disaster during the moon landing, see e.g. here [1]. I'd say that's eucatastrophic (at least for those who weren't hoping that the astronauts died, being stranded on the moon). SemanticMantis (talk) 17:39, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but success for Frodo was also catastrophe for Sauron, so my responses are at least as apt as Tolkein's own specific example. --Jayron32 18:33, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

The thing is, Sauron's position as protagonist doesn't exist. In fiction, these things must be written by someone, for someone. Once it's written, it's self-contained. In life, lives go on regardless of the chronicler. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:39, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I see Jayron's point too. As for Sauron as protagonist, that does exist, see The_Last_Ringbearer. It's even been freely released in English by the author [2]! I have not read it yet, as I just became aware, but now it is on my list :) SemanticMantis (talk) 20:02, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'll be damned. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:35, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

An interestingly similar but different phenomenon can be found at Pyrrhic victory. --Dweller (talk) 10:31, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Question on the use of the National Hydrography Dataset

I have learned that the lengths of streams in the United States can be gotten from the National Hydrography Dataset, but I am unsure exactly what is the procedure for doing so? No settings that I have tried on http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ have worked, and after several hours of Googling recently, the only information I have found on this has been to convoluted to understand. --Jakob (talk) 16:21, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

There is a Measure Distance button on the Advanced map toolbar. You can use it to trace the length of a stream and it'll give you the figure. Dalliance (talk) 12:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Double wedding anniversaries

This cropped up recently and I haven't been able to find anything much online to help out-are there any records of people celebrating two classic wedding anniversaries(diamond,ruby,golden) with two different spouses(monogamously of course!)?

Given human lifespan and marriage age,

• two ruby anniversaries would be possible: marry at 16,ruby at 56,new wedding,ruby at 96

• ruby and golden anniversary just about possible:marry at 16,ruby at 56,new wedding,golden at 106

• two golden anniversaries hypothetical if unlikely:marry at 16,golden at 66,new wedding,golden at 116

And if no-one has managed to achieve this,what's the record for the longest pair of marriages to different spouses? Lemon martini (talk) 20:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Are you after "Longest combined duration of two marriages for the same person", or "Greatest duration exceeded by both of a person's marriages"? The answers are liable to be very different. (For the former, look for examples of the marriages of elderly, widowed, US Civil War vets.) AlexTiefling (talk) 20:51, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

That's what I wanted:Longest combined duration of two marriages for the same person-that doesn't yield much on Google-we have List_of_people_with_the_longest_marriages but that's not too helpful as it stops at a minimum of 80 years.

The greatest span of one couple's marriages is going to be very different-if you have a very old person who marries a very young person,the span could be colossal-you end up with something like the John Tyler situation. Lemon martini (talk) 21:07, 9 July 2014 (UT

Convenience link for everyone: OP seems to be referring to John Tyler. He was the 10th president of the US and was married twice. Dismas|^(talk) 21:16, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

No, by my second option I don't mean lengths of marriages for both parties in the same marriage; I mean "what's the longest time, t, such that a person has had two discrete marriages both of length at least t?" AlexTiefling (talk) 21:20, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

And to get the ball rolling, here's someone who celebrated two silver weddings (eg t>25 years): [3] AlexTiefling (talk) 21:35, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

And here's a couple who had three silver weddings between two of them: [4] (in other words, each of them has t>25 years.) AlexTiefling (talk) 21:40, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Ah my brain has finally got onto your wavelength :)It's had a heavy day's work so forgive it-it keeps wanting to sleep. 'What is the highest number wedding anniversary that anyone has celebrated twice with two different spouses?' That's better-that's the jist of what I'm trying to get to. Lemon martini (talk) 21:56, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Using Google search terms of "two (type) weddings", I haven't been able to find a better example than the couple who each had two silver weddings. There are no examples I can find of two ruby or even pearl weddings for the same person. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

In my English it's "silver anniversary", not a "silver wedding", so that search won't find those. I tried phrase searches on "two 30th anniversaries", then "second 30th anniversary", then "second 30th wedding anniversary". I only saw irrelevant hits in the first two searches, but the third one found this news story about a John T. Johnson of Rakewood (apparently someplace near Rake, Iowa) who was married in 1915, widowed in 1946, remarried in 1948, and still married when the story was printed in 1978. I did not try repeating these searches with higher numbers. --50.100.189.160 (talk) 05:20, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Aha - that would be why I was getting so many UK stories; your Mr Johnson is our new record holder... AlexTiefling (talk) 09:45, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

WP:OR warning! My own father was married in 1948, widowed in 1982, remarried in 1985, and is still going (as is his second wife) in 2014. So that's (almost) 34 years, plus 29 years not out. His wife (my stepmother) was first married in 1945 and widowed in 1977 - so she has had 32 years, plus 29. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Excellent. Please report back in 2019. --50.100.189.160 (talk) 23:32, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Why 2019? Your Mr Johnson had 31 years plus 30(+). My dad has had 34 plus 29 - so, hopefully, his second pearl anniversary next year. I'd never really thought of it as remarkable, until this discussion. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:14, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Because reaching almost 34 years a second time would be even more notable. In all seriousness, best wishes to them for it. --50.100.189.160 (talk) 19:40, 12 July 2014 (UTC)