Word: englande
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...More intriguing is the presence of North Korea, a team that, despite the odiousness of the regime in Pyongyang, carries more than a little World Cup goodwill. The country's last appearance in the tournament was in 1966 in England where, as complete outsiders with 1000-1 odds to win the trophy, its team shocked the world by reaching the quarterfinals, beating Italy along the way and capturing the hearts of the English public. The current North Korean team lacks flair, but has shown a dogged resilience in qualification matches. A latter-stage match-up against South Korea, though unlikely...
...relief at making the finals was shot through with embarrassment and even shame. "The Hand of God" was the ironic headline in France's sports daily l'Equipe, a reference to the notorious hand punch Argentine striker Diego Maradona admitted he'd used to score the winning goal over England in a 1986 World Cup quarterfinal match. "Les Bleus: Hands Up," echoed Libération in its coverage of what it called France's "holdup" of the Irish team that had utterly dominated Wednesday's game prior to Henry's pawing of the ball...
...Medieval England wins the gross-out award for its invention of the castle garderobe - a protruding room with a tiny opening out of which royalty would do their business. The garderobe was usually suspended over a moat that collected all manner of human discards, making for a particularly uninviting hurdle for an invading army. Peasants and serfs relieved themselves in communal privies located at the end of their streets, or in the case of those living along the London Bridge, right into the River Thames...
Garderobes and public toilets were eventually replaced with something slightly more recognizable to the modern-day defecator: a box with a lid. France's Louis XI hid his toilet behind curtains and used herbs to keep his bathroom scented; England's Elizabeth I covered her commode in crimson velvet bound with lace...
...England lept into modern sanitation when Sir John Harrington, godson of Elizabeth I, published Metamorphosis of Ajax, in which he described a new kind of water closet: a raised cistern with a small pipe down which water ran when released by a valve. The Queen installed Harrington's invention in her palace at Richmond, but it took another 200 years before a man named Alexander Cummings developed the S-shaped pipe underneath the basin to keep out foul odors. At the end of the 18th century, the flushable toilet went mainstream...