• after his release from prison in 1087, the English rebel Siward Barn is thought by some historians to have founded a colony on the Black Sea with other refugees from the Norman Conquest of England?
• New England used to be part of the Roman Empire, and China is still part of Japan?

Facts on topics related to New England (medieval)

Siward Barn

• after his release from prison in 1087, the English rebel Siward Barn is thought by some historians to have founded a colony on the Black Sea with other refugees from the Norman Conquest of England?

England

• 11-year old Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein is regarded by Jacobites as third in line for the throne of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland?
• 19th-century smugglers in Worthing, West Sussex, England, were known to store their contraband in table-tombs at West Tarring's St Andrew's Church (pictured)?
• 2,273 passengers booked travel from Templecombe railway station, England in 1982, despite it being closed from 1966 to 1983?
• Rear-Admiral Sir Hugh Cloberry Christian (pictured) was given command of the largest troop convoy to leave England, but twice had it forced back to port by severe gales?
• Ain-Ervin Mere, commander of the Estonian Sicherheitspolizei, was sentenced to death in 1961 for organizing the holocaust in Estonia, but died as a free man in England?
• Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett was born in the United States to a Scottish father, educated in England and eventually became the Australian Chief of the Air Staff?
• General Augusto Pinochet was once kept under house arrest at a house on the Wentworth Estate, an exclusive residential area surrounding the Wentworth Golf Club in Surrey, England?
• Australian-born lumber executive John A. Campbell was said to have introduced surfing on the Cornwall coast of England?
• Caryl Churchill's play Mad Forest, developed partly in Bucharest in collaboration with Romanian and English drama students, was in production less than six months after the Romanian Revolution of 1989?
• German rugby club SC 1880 Frankfurt adopted a red and black strip after a set of friendlies in 1894 against the English club Blackheath F.C., who also played in those colours?

Sicily

• bugged conversations with surgeon-crime boss Giuseppe Guttadauro revealed how the Mafia funded the 2001 election campaign of Sicilian President Salvatore Cuffaro?
• Sicilian Mafia boss Giuseppe Falsone has been on the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy since January 1999, a list of criminals considered extremely dangerous by the Polizia di Stato?
• Ferdinandea was a volcanic island near Sicily which was claimed by four countries when it appeared in 1831, but was destroyed by erosion less than a year later?
• Michele Amatore, who was a Sudanese slave, became a captain in the Bersaglieri regiment and was decorated for his work in Sicily?
• Salvatore Cardinal Pappalardo broke the code of omertà in 1992, becoming the first senior Sicilian clergyman of the Catholic Church to openly condemn the Mafia?
• Pleurotus nebrodensis was declared to be a critically endangered mushroom in Sicily by the IUCN?
• Saint Thomas Becket professed to owe a "debt of gratitude" to Margaret of Navarre, who was the regent of Sicily between 1166 and 1171?
• ancients thought that the river Himera divided the island of Sicily in half, when in reality Himera was the name of two separate rivers, the Grande River and the Salso River?
• in 878, the Byzantines lost Syracuse in Sicily to the Arabs because the imperial fleet was occupied with transporting marble for the construction of the Nea Ekklesia cathedral?
• instead of abducting people, Francesco Paolo Varsallona, who became an outlaw in 1893, introduced tribute payments for guaranteed safety and was credited with modernizing brigandage in Sicily?

Mediterranean Sea

• "Carolina in My Mind", James Taylor's nostalgic 1968 song about growing up in North Carolina, was written in London and on the Mediterranean islands of Formentera and Ibiza?
• ANTARES, a neutrino telescope under construction in the Mediterranean Sea, will find neutrinos from outer space by looking downward, into the Earth?
• Romanus, the second Bishop of Rochester, drowned in the Mediterranean Sea?
• Zakynthos Marine Park in Greece is the first national park established for the protection of sea turtles (Loggerhead Sea Turtle pictured) in the Mediterranean?
• Percnon gibbesi is the most invasive decapod species ever to enter the Mediterranean Sea?
• the Islamic prophet Muhammad, while in Mecca, was a merchant involved in trade between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea?
• the Battle of Sena Gallica, fought in 551 AD, was the last major naval battle to take place in the Mediterranean Sea for more than a century?
• the European Cenozoic Rift System extends from the Mediterranean to the North Sea?
• the honeycomb stingray (pictured) has expanded its range into the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal?
• the northern whiting (pictured) has been declared an invasive species in the eastern Mediterranean, having passed through the Suez Canal as part of the Lessepsian migration?