Latest news with #Visigoths
Edinburgh Live
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Live
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire contestant loses biggest amount in show's history after blunder
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info In a dramatic turn on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, contestant Nicholas Bennett lost the largest sum ever on the show due to a costly blunder. The quiz show, now in its 30th series, witnessed Nicholas reach the £500k question without using any lifelines, much to the amazement of host Jeremy Clarkson. But disaster struck and Nicholas walked away with a staggering £375k less than he could have won. After successfully answering the £125,000 question, Clarkson remarked: "He's just roaring along." READ MORE - DVLA issues urgent driving licence warning to anyone who passed test before 2016 READ MORE - BBC 'error' leaves fans seething just minutes before Gary Lineker's farewell The £250,000 question then challenged Nicholas with: "Which of these groups never successfully invaded the city of Rome?" The choices were: "a) Visigoths, b) Huns, c) Vandals, d) Gauls". Nicholas, exuding confidence, declared: "I do like history, I know the Gauls invaded pretty early on. I'm pretty sure the Vandals destroyed the city - that's why we have vandalism. I don't think the Huns did, I don't think they made it that far into Europe, whereas I knew the Visigoths were around. As it's a free shot, I'm 70-80% sure..", reports the Mirror. Despite Clarkson reminding him of his unused lifelines and advising against guessing, Nicholas confidently replied: "I don't think this is a guess though. Maybe on the next question I'll need them, so I'm gonna say Huns - final answer." His gamble paid off, and the correct answer propelled him to the £500k question. Clarkson noted Nicholas's apparent calmness, prompting him to admit: "It's not relaxed inside my head." The £500k question posed was: "Which of these long-running US sitcoms had the most episodes? a) The Big Bang Theory b) Friends c) The Office or d) Seinfeld". Unsure of the answer, he turned to the audience who believed it was Friends - but only 37% agreed, while 30% thought it was Seinfeld. Still uncertain and not wanting to risk it, he opted for the 50/50 lifeline, which left The Big Bang Theory and The Office (proving the audience wrong). Nicolas admitted that he struggled to articulate his thoughts before finally settling on The Big Bang Theory as his final answer. His gamble paid off and he moved on to the ultimate question, the £1million query. Clarkson then asked: "Which of these words, each coined by a famous writer, was derived from the title of a fairytale about three princes? a)Pandemonium b) Serendipity c) Utopia d) Yahoo." Nicholas responded: "The one that's standing out to me is yahoo, but I don't know." He sought advice from host Jeremy, who confessed he couldn't recall a fairytale involving three princes and noted that all four words were indeed coined by authors. Nicholas then recalled a puppet show he attended recently in Spain, which he believes was about three princes. He confessed his Spanish wasn't fluent enough to understand the storyline. "But I think someone was yelling yahoo", he added. He rationalised that he'd still have £125k even if his answer was incorrect, to which Clarkson highlighted the potential £375k loss and reminded him of an available lifeline. Nicholas opted to use the lifeline, but his friend Meg was clueless about the question. "Normally, I'm really averse to any kind of gambling, but I do think I'm going to go for it," he declared, confidently stating "Yahoo, final answer." The correct answer turned out to be serendipity, a term created by Horace Walpole inspired by The Three Princes of Serendip. With a nonchalant attitude, Nicholas remarked: "I've still got £125k" while Jeremy confessed he'd be "sobbing on the floor" after such a hefty loss. Clarkson, clearly astonished, exclaimed post-event, "Oh my giddy aunt," questioning whether this was the most significant loss in 'Millionaire' history. He praised Nicholas, saying, "I don't think I've had a contestant I've enjoyed more than you. Well done, enjoy your winnings." Upon returning from the commercial break, Clarkson greeted the audience with, "We've just seen someone lose what we think is the biggest amount in Who Wants to be a Millionaire history".
Daily Mirror
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Millionaire contestant loses biggest amount in show's history after huge mistake
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host Jeremy Clarkson admitted he would be 'sobbing on the floor" after Contestant Nicholas Bennett lost the biggest amount in show history Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Contestant Nicholas Bennett lost the biggest amount of money in the show's history after making a huge mistake. The show, which has now been running for 30 seasons, saw Nicholas get all the way to 500k without using any of his lifelines, leaving host Jeremy Clarkson hugely impressed. However, things took a turn, and Nicholas ended up losing a whopping £375k. After the £125,000 question, Clarkson says: 'He's just roaring along.' Next up was the £250,000 question, which read: 'Which of these groups never successfully invaded the city of Rome?'. The options were: "a) Visigoths, b) Huns, c) Vandals, d) Gauls". Nicholas, looking quite confident, said: 'I do like history, I know the Gauls invaded pretty early on. I'm pretty sure the Vandals destroyed the city - that's why we have vandalism. I don't think the Huns did, I don't think they made it that far into Europe, whereas I knew the Visigoths were around. As it's a free shot, I'm 70-80% sure…' Clarkson proceeded to remind him that he's still got all four lifelines and that he doesn't need to guess, however, Nicholas responds: 'I don't think this is a guess though. Maybe on the next question I'll need them, so I'm gonna say Huns - final answer.' Lo and behold, the answer was correct, and Nicholas went on to the next question worth £500k. Host Jeremy Clarkson observed: 'You seem quite relaxed', to which Nicholas responds: 'It's not relaxed inside my head.' The £500k question read: 'Which of these long-running US sitcoms had the most episodes? a) The Big Bang Theory b) Friends c) The Office or d) Seinfeld'. Unsure on the answer, he asked the audience who thought it was Friends - but only 37% - while 30% thought Seinfeld. Still unsure and not wanting to take chances yet, he used 50/50, which left The Big Bang Theory and The Office (which meant the audience was wrong). Nicolas stated that it was difficult to get his words out before revealing The Big Bang Theory as his final answer. The answer was correct and then it was on to the final question, the £1million question. Clarkson asks: 'Which of these words, each coined by a famous writer, was derived from the title of a fairytale about three princes? a)Pandemonium b) Serendipity c) Utopia d) Yahoo.' Nicholas says: 'The one that's standing out to me is yahoo, but I don't know.' He asks host Jeremy, who says he can't think of a fairytale that's about three princes and points out that all four words have come from authors. Nicholas then remembers a puppet show he went to recently in Spain, which he thinks was about three princes. He said he doesn't speak Spanish well enough to know what the story was about. 'But I think someone was yelling yahoo', he said. He reasons that he's still got £125k if he gets it wrong, and Clarkson points out that he would lose £375k and that he has another lifeline. Nicholas then used his lifeline, but unfortunately, his friend Meg had no idea of the answer. 'Normally, I'm really averse to any kind of gambling, but I do think I'm going to go for it,' he says, 'Yahoo, final answer.' The computer then reveals the answer to be serendipity, coined by Horace Walpole from The Three Princes of Serendip. Nicholas shrugs and says: 'I've still got £125k' as Jeremy admits he would be 'sobbing on the floor' if he'd just lost that much money. 'Oh my giddy aunt,' Clarkson said afterwards. 'Is that the biggest loss in Millionaire history?' and he tells Nicholas: 'I don't think I've had a contestant I've enjoyed more than you. Well done, enjoy your winnings.' After the ad break he welcomed viewers back by saying: "We've just seen someone lose what we think is the biggest amount in Who Wants to be a Millionaire history".
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Mini ice age was final death blow to Roman Empire, unusual rocks in Iceland suggest
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A sixth-century "mini" ice age may have been "the straw that broke the camel's back" that led to the final disintegration of the Western Roman Empire, a new study claims. Between A.D. 536 and 547, three separate volcanic eruptions generated enough ash to block out the sun for between 200 and 300 years, cooling the Earth's surface by several degrees. Now, newfound evidence of this mini ice age has been found in Iceland. By studying rocks carried by icebergs from Greenland all the way to Iceland's west coast, a team of researchers has uncovered what they believe is more evidence for the severity of this mini ice age. Their findings, published April 8 in the journal Geology, point to the prolonged cooling being a key factor in the eventual decline of the Western Roman Empire — although not all historians agree. The exact date for the Western Roman Empire's fall is up for debate, with some saying it happened in A.D. 410 with the Sack of Rome by the Visigoths, and others putting it at A.D. 476, with the abdication of Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus. But the cooler climate brought on by the mini ice age could have further strained the unstable region in the aftermath of its fall, fueling the mass migrations that happened at the time, the study's authors said. "The significant environmental and climatic shifts could have influenced migrations, particularly in areas vulnerable to crop failures and famines," study lead author Christopher Spencer, an associate professor of tectonochemistry at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, told Live Science. "The combination of these stressors could have exacerbated the social pressures already present during this period, contributing to the empire's eventual disintegration." Related: Why did Rome fall? Economic crisis, government corruption, pandemic, civil war, invasion — the causes behind the Roman Empire's fall are complex, intertwined and innumerable enough to cause a major headache. In fact, in 1984 the German historian Alexander Demandt compiled a tongue-in-cheek list of 210 reasons behind the empire's decline. Yet the intractability of the debate hasn't stopped scholars and scientists from coming up with new suggestions. In 2016, a paper published in Nature Geoscience used data gathered from tree rings to suggest a shift in climate as a key factor in Rome's demise, namely a "Late Antique Little Ice Age" caused by volcanic activity. The theory is ostensibly supported by historical records. Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea reported a sunless sky occurring as "a portent of great terror" in the year 536, preceded by complaints of unusual cold and crop failures such that "neither war nor plague nor anything bringing death was lacking among men." This climate shift was felt around the world, having been linked to historical events that include the collapse of China's Northern Wei dynasty; the decline of Teotihuacan in Mexico; and the Eastern Roman Empire's Plague of Justinian. The new study's connection to those tumultuous years began tangentially, after the scientists behind it used satellite images to discover that a raised beach terrace on Iceland's west coast was unusually white in color compared to its basalt black neighbors. The team explored the beach on foot and found a number of unusual granite rocks on a layer of the beach dated between A.D. 500 and 700. After crushing a sample of the rocks and subjecting the zircon crystals found within to chemical analysis, the researchers pinpointed the rocks' origins to Greenland, roughly 177 miles (285 kilometers) away at its shortest distance. "The movement of rock fragments from Greenland to Iceland is primarily due to ice-rafting, a process in which icebergs, laden with debris from glaciers, are carried across the ocean by currents," Spencer said. If large numbers of Greenland icebergs were drifting to Iceland when this layer of the beach was formed, the scientists suggest it could add to evidence of a Late Antique Little Ice Age, and particularly one that was severe enough to have had an impact on the dwindling Western Roman Empire. "As the glaciers in Greenland expanded during the Late Antique Little Ice Age, large quantities of debris were entrained in the ice," Spencer said. "Icebergs calved off the Greenland Ice Sheet and were transported by the East Greenland and East Iceland currents, ultimately depositing these rock fragments on Iceland's coast when the icebergs melted." However, the researchers emphasized that this mini ice age occurred when the Western Roman Empire was already in decay. The event postdates much of the empire's fall — the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed 60 years before the cold spell, and Rome was sacked by Goths and Vandals and its army defeated at Adrianople many years before this. That said, it's possible that the mini ice age stopped Rome from recovering, as it had before, said Shane Bobrycki, an assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa. "Rome had faced near-existential crises in the third century, and came back from it in the fourth," Bobrycki told Live Science. "So you could say that the decisive role of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (and maybe plague) was in detoothing Justinian's comeback." RELATED STORIES —Ancient garbage heaps show fading Byzantine Empire was 'plagued' by disease and climate change —Why did the Roman Empire split in two? —Roman Empire grew after catastrophic volcanic eruption, study finds Bobrycki said that while he suspects a changing climate played "a major role" in shaping shifts between the Roman and early medieval periods in Western Europe, the causal relationship is far from clear. And migration then — much like today — "is always multifactorial" and split between complex push and pull factors. Even so, understanding the mini ice age's effects on the Western Roman Empire may shed some light on how anthropogenic climate change will affect our globalized world, "making it crucial to understand how these events unfolded in the past," Spencer said. "The impact of climate change, really a huge complex of phenomena, operating on a scale that the human mind struggles to comprehend, is likely to be both large and unpredictable," Bobrycki said. "I think the story of the Late Antique Little Ice Age warns us not to underestimate the ability of climate change to reshape history."
Chicago Tribune
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Column: Administration should not mess with Lake County's federal funding
Now that more and more of us have determined the federal government is our enemy, it looks like area communities that had hoped for some grant money may be disappointed. Once, Uncle Sam was their partner. No longer, as President Donald Trump and his merry band of Muskians are ready to sack and pillage the federal government like Visigoths at the gates of Rome. While there may be fiscal waste at all levels of our governments, we forget the aid provided and what the influx of funding from Washington, D.C., can bestow. About this time last year, U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Highland Park, submitted a number of worthy proposals for community project funding for towns in the three counties — Lake, Cook and McHenry — he represents in Congress. They were seeking federal funding totaling $55.7 million. The monetary nominations still haven't received funding. Depending on what the Senate does by March 14 on a continuing resolution to extend keeping the federal government running at current funding levels through Sept. 30, the money may never surface. One of the Lake County proposals included $580,694 for downtown Antioch improvements. Another was $240,000 to upgrade mobile data terminals in Round Lake Beach Police Department patrol squads. North Chicago police sought a similar grant totaling $446,620. Gurnee asked for $5 million to design and build a pedestrian path along Fuller Road, from Route 132 to Stearns School Road. Highland Park wanted $4.3 million to update its water treatment plant. Other infrastructure requests in the county included $3.5 million for removing lead water pipes in North Chicago; $3.5 million for upgrading the Northwest Regional Water Reclamation Facility in Fox Lake; $13 million toward flood mitigation in Lake Bluff; and $1.3 million for ecological restoration of 250 acres at Gander Mountain Forest Preserve off Wilmot Road. One of the most interesting proposals came from the College of Lake County to build an urban farm center in downtown Waukegan at a cost of $6.13 million. Gurnee Park District officials are expected to apply soon for $600,000 in federal funding under an open space grant program. The money will be used to revitalize Viking Park on Old Grand Avenue. That is if there are going to be any federal grants available anytime soon. Lake Countians pay taxes just like others across the nation, and they deserve their fair share. Since 2021, more than $50 million in federal funds have found their way into the 10th Congressional District through Schneider's efforts. In the long run, these 'pork projects' make lives better. They create good-paying jobs and benefit communities in numerous ways. These community-related projects aren't haphazard requests for federal largesse. They need support to come to fruition, which public works jobs have over the decades, making the quality of life better for Lake Countians. Somebody has to approve and oversee these projects at the federal level. Those people are part of the national workforce, which is rapidly being drained. Yet there are those who contend these communitywide projects, like historical federal safety-net programs — so-called 'entitlements' like Social Security, Medicare and food stamps — are ripe with trillions of dollars in fraud and waste. Those vast amounts have yet to be proven. If so, those millions of violators should be prosecuted, and soon. One of the 'entitlements' many may recall were those $1,200 stimulus checks handed out in 2020 to couples earning less than $150,000, and paycheck protection business loans during the coronavirus pandemic. As the fifth anniversary of COVID-19 invading the U.S. is this month, I don't remember anybody refusing those federal gifts. In his joint address to Congress last week, President Trump railed at the 'appalling waste' of tax dollars within federal agencies. The administration has been canceling grants and federal contracts; and ending real estate leases, a number in Illinois. One 'entitled' agency, Social Security, which Americans and their employers have paid into during their working lives, plans to cut its workforce by 7,000 to 50,000 employees. Seeking to slash $800 million from its budget, the SSA has closed local offices, including one in Rockford. Meanwhile, stock indexes, whose components comprise many 401(k)s and retirement nest eggs, continued to sink earlier this week amid trade war fears with our former nice-guy allies, like Canada. With the administration in office for less than 90 days, many economists are predicting a 'Trumpcession,' or at the least a return to the 1970s and 'stagflation' — slow growth and rising prices — as markets are whipsawed when the president proclaims tariffs on nations on one day and then changes his mind the next. It's hard for businesses and local governments to plan for the future without clear and prudent signals from Washington. One way for that to happen is the return to federal monetary support of local infrastructure proposals.
