19 January: Archery Day

Today is Archery Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about the sport of archery:

1. The word “archery” comes from the Latin word “arcus,” which means “bow.” An expert in archery is called a “Toxophilite”.
2. Archery artefacts were found in Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa which are 64,000 years old.
3. The oldest recorded official archery competition is a papingo shoot. Archers shoot at a fake bird at various heights instead of at a target on the ground. It was created by the Ancient Society of Kilwinning Archers in 1483 and is still takes place today.
4. Archery has been an Olympic sport since 1900, when live pigeons were used as targets. In 1904, at St Louis, it was the only sport women were allowed to compete in. This Olympics showed you didn’t have to be a spring chicken to do well at archery. Galen Carter Spencer won the archery gold medal at 64, while the silver medallist was Samuel Duvall, aged 68. Lida “Eliza” Peyton Pollock is the oldest woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics winning the women’s event that year at 63.
5. Because archery didn’t have international rules then, it was discontinued in 1924 and reintroduced in 1972 in Munich. The Olympic flame at the Opening Ceremony of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games was lit with a flaming arrow, shot by Antonio Rebollo, a Paralympic archer from Spain.
6. Archery is the national sport of Bhutan. Just about every village there has an archery range. As Bhutan is a Buddhist country, it is only for sport. Even so, Bhutan isn’t the most successful nation in terms of archery at the Olympics. South Korea is the nation which has won the most gold medals.
7. In historic times, archery wasn’t just a sport but a vital skill in waging war. At the Battle of Crecy in 1346, English bowmen killed almost 2000 French soldiers. The English lost just 50 men. Hence kings of England and Scotland saw archery as very important. Other sports, like Football and Golf, were sometimes banned by royal decree in favour of archery practice. King Henry V ordered 500,000 arrows for his army in 1421. The arrows were stored in the Tower of London with a “Keeper of the King’s Arrows” appointed to guard them. Arrow making was quite an industry industry with multiple people/skills needed for each arrow – metalwork for the points, woodwork for the shafts, horn carving for nocks and feather splitting/binding. An arrow maker was known as a fletcher, and so the surname Fletcher became quite a common one in Britain.
8. Archery terms became embedded in the English language. Being “Wide of the Mark” meaning not to the point comes from a mark being an archery target. “Parting Shot” comes from the term “Parthian shot” which is a shot taken behind you from horseback as you ride away. The final arrow shot in an archery competition is called an upshot. A “Rule of Thumb” comes from the correct bracing height for a longbow. Possibly the thumbs up gesture originated here too. The jury is out on whether “Highly strung” is a reference to a bow or to a musical instrument.
9. According to the National Safety Council, archery is more than three times safer than golf, with just one injury for every 2,000 participants.
10. Matt Stutzman, an American Paralympian archer, born without arms, used his feet to hold and aim his bow, and set the Guinness World Record for the farthest accurate shot, hitting a target 283.47 meters away.

Character birthday

Quadrant, an enigmatic solo hero. She is a flamboyant probability alterer while her alter ego is an introverted and conservative insurance clerk named Heather Collins. Her origins are not known, although she tends to avoid people from Infinitus, which could suggest she comes from there.