Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 June 21

= June 21 =

People who had one child of one gender and then 5+ children of the other gender in a row
This is a trivia question and thus I am unsure whether to put it in this section of the Reference Desk or in another section. Anyway, though, here goes:

What cases have there been of a person having one child of one gender and then 5+ children of the other gender in a row?

So far, I can think of:


 * Peter I, Duke of Bourbon--had one son and then had seven daughters in a row
 * Bohuslav, Count Chotek of Chotkow and Wognin--the same as Peter I, Duke of Bourbon
 * Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia--had one daughter and then had six sons in a row
 * Yolande of Dreux, Queen of Scotland--had one son and then had five daughters in a row

Anyway, who else qualifies for this list? Futurist110 (talk) 03:38, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Looking at this statistically, of families consisting of six children there is one chance in 32 of this happening. 86.132.186.246 (talk) 09:31, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Going the other way, a chap I know is the youngest of 13 children. He has 12 sisters. DuncanHill (talk) 11:58, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a typical reason for unusually large families.  A woman I know had a series of sons, and didn't consider the family complete until she had had a daughter. 86.132.186.246 (talk) 13:01, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * My mother was the youngest of 5 daughters. They kept trying for a boy, but it never happened.  They were so sure the 4th child would be a boy, they even named "him" Colin in utero, so when she turned out to be a girl, they just amended her name to Coline.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:24, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * That would be true if the split was exactly 50:50, but it's more complicated than that, even ignoring complications of the binary assignment of sexes at birth. Matt Deres (talk) 13:46, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Futurist, You can find a *lot* by searching Wikipedia for strings such as "son and five daughters". It's a skewed sample though, because most non-royal biographies don't list a birth order for children. More examples for you: 70.67.222.124 (talk) 21:01, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Jonathan Mason (Massachusetts politician)
 * Pepin of Italy ( see the French article for their names and birthdates)
 * William FitzHugh, 4th Baron FitzHugh
 * Helene von Poschinger
 * Duchess Woizlawa Feodora of Mecklenburg
 * Prince Heinrich I Reuss of Köstritz
 * (reverse case, daughters first and then a son: John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe (the explanation is in Earl Jellicoe)


 * It was indeed a classic bind for gentry, nobility, and royalty in the days of male primogeniture. Couples who had girls were under great pressure to produce a son-and-heir. The five Mitford sisters eventually acquired a little brother; the (fictional) five Bennetts did not. Even Diana, Princess of Wales grew up in a family of this sort. British nobility still has titles which pass to the eldest son, circumventing daughters entirely. I'd love to see some statistical analysis of how this has played out over the last 200 years: how many titled and propertied families had lots of daughters, and finally one son, versus how many had lots of sons, and kept on trying for a daughter. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 11:17, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Apologies; I mis-remembered the Mitfords. There was Pamela, known as the quiet one, making six sisters, and Tom wasn't the last child. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 12:02, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Nobody of any notability in Wikipedia terms, but my great grandparents Thomas Magill, shipyard driller and Jane, née English, who married in Belfast in 1899, had a daughter, Agnes, born in 1900, followed by seven sons between 1901 and 1917. Only three of the eight, all boys, lived to adulthood. --Nicknack009 (talk) 12:34, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I have now found this prince: Archduke Hubert Salvator of Austria. He had one son, then five daughters in a row, then another son, and then some more children. Futurist110 (talk) 02:00, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Princess Antonia of Luxembourg, Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria's second wife, likewise qualifies for this, having one son and then five daughters in a row. For a near miss, you can take a look at Prince Franz of Bavaria, who had one son, then four daughters, and then another son. Another identical near-miss is Philip Kirill Prinz von Preußen (born 23 April 1968), who had one son, then four daughters, and then another son. In all three cases mentioned here, the relevant person completely stopped having children after having six children in total. Futurist110 (talk) 02:11, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

is the DR still in the IACHR?
This question is regarding this edit of mine.

We have an AP news story from the end of 2014 that the DR had withdrawn from the IACHR. However, the IACHR annual report of 2017 still lists the DR as a member, though they do mention the two previous countries to have withdrawn. As the later source, and given how often news stories get even the simplest things wrong, I'd think the IACHR report would take precedence as a RS. But, does anyone actually know? If the DR has truly withdrawn, I should change the map as well. — kwami (talk) 05:44, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Background: —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 07:25, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Both that article and the AP article mentioned by the original poster say that the Dominican Republic Constitutional Court "In a 59-page ruling... said the country had to withdraw from the human rights court because the senate never issued a resolution to ratify the February 1999 agreement with the rights court as required by the Dominican constitution." It seems to me that this means the Constitutional Court was really claiming that the DR never was legally a member of the IAHCR.  In this report issued the following year by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (also abbreviated IAHCR, at least on the cover), paragraph 133 on page 70 says that according to the Commission, the Dominican court did not have the power to make that decision, and paragraph 134 says that the DR's president was supposed to be presented with options regarding its position with respect to the Inter-American System, but this had not yet happened.
 * So in short, whether this is really a valid withdrawal seems to be disputed. I note in passing that if ratification really was the issue, then it would seem to make sense for the Dominican court to be the venue to decide it. But it seems likely quite possible that that was just a justification of a political decision. --76.69.118.94 (talk) 07:54, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * That's in line with what I've read. I've lost the source, but one claimed that the court was happy to make numerous rulings based on the ratification being valid, until the IACHR pissed off the DR govt -- only then was the validity of the ratification called into question. Thanks for the ref,, I'll add it to the article. — kwami (talk) 20:12, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Daily Star (United Kingdom)
Is the Daily Star a bit like American supermarket tabloids, or is it a tabloid in the size-of-paper sense only and thus worthy of being considered similar to other newspapers: good at reporting what seems important at the time, but mostly worthless at providing a balanced view of events? Nyttend (talk) 12:00, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It's "news" about "reality" tv stars, soap actors, fad diets, tits, and the like. It's the downmarket sister paper of the Daily Express, if you can imagine such a thing. Not to be confused with The Star, The Morning Star, or The Morning Star''. DuncanHill (talk) 12:09, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * What are "American supermarket tabloids" (I've not encountered the term before).  Are they like the Daily Sport? 86.132.186.246 (talk) 13:02, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Pretty much. Tabloid journalism, although probably with less porn.  Rojomoke (talk) 13:28, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * See Weekly World News or National Enquirer for a couple of examples. Nyttend (talk) 13:42, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Bat Boy from Hell Helping the War On Terror, Hitler's Still Alive (in his 110s, yeah right), Little Girl Lives Without Head, Psychic: Castro Will Die In 1999, Saturn-Like Rings Forming Around Earth (Easily Visible Next Year), Hillary Clinton Had Sex With Space Aliens, Alien-Human Orgy on International Space Station, African Tribe Can Levitate, interview with 400 lbs prostitute that only charges a box of donuts, things like that. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:37, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The other one is celebrity gossip like Starlets With Horrible Cellulite. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:47, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Our article already notes that the Daily Star rarely covers political news and has no known political affiliation. "Although some of its headlines and stories could be considered 'reactionary' and traditionalist, the Daily Star has few articles on politics, and has rarely shown clear support for any specific party or leader." As for British newspapers in general, there is a classic joke from Yes Minister on them and their audience: "Don't tell me about the Press. I know *exactly* who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they *ought* to run the country. The Times is read by the people who actually *do* run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who *own* the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by *another* country. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who think it is. ... Sun readers don't care *who* runs the country - as long as she's got big tits." Dimadick (talk) 23:42, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * It's grounded in reality, not fantasy, but only in the most tenuous and trivial way: Beckhams, not Bigfoot. It's somewhere between The Sun and the unlamented Daily Sport - the Spurt was more like a US supermarket tabloid, but with bread-and-circuses nudity too. Not of the remotest use here, even for coverage of the Beckhams (we have the Daily Mail for that). Andy Dingley (talk) 00:14, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Although it does sometimes take a trip into the absurd, see With ongoing Ebola crisis and terror of ISIS, the Daily Star newspaper has covered a much more important story on its front page for three days this week. Alansplodge (talk) 21:07, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I've often wondered why it is that marketers of products generally are legally constrained under pain of heavy penalties to ensure they do not mislead the market about the nature, origin, content etc etc of products, yet these supermarket tabloids can just make up the most appalling outright lies about living people and they seem to have carte blanche. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:04, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


 * My teacher said the case would be a slam dunk but the public image damage of stuff as far out as "[married major politician X]'s love affair with extraterrestrial" is less than the public image damage of actually responding to libel that implausible. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:31, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, that stretches credibility too far. But often they make claims that could be plausible, but turn out to be just made up by the copywriters, possibly in a drug- or alcohol-induced haze:
 * "Kate having twins: Palace confirms!" - she never was, and the palace never confirmed anything of the kind
 * "Posh and Becks commence acrimonious divorce proceedings!" - they've never been happier
 * "Prince Frederik comes out as gay; Princess Mary devastated! - no such revelation is known to have actually been made
 * that sort of thing. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  05:42, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Has Sweden or Oslo been completely landlocked by ice before?
(within recorded history) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:54, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not all that uncommon for the Oslo Fjord to become frozen. I have found news reports from 2010 about it. Don’t know if the entire coast of Sweden has ever become ice bound, but (to speculate) it could well have occurred during the Little Ice Age. Blueboar (talk) 21:10, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * If we're to speculate, I'd be very surprised if it hadn't happened much later than that, but I can't find any reliable ice maps that show it. 2003 would probably be the last potential ice-covered year and 1985–1987 probably the best candidates in the last decades. Julle (talk) 23:31, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * There's a map for Feb 13, 1940 here showing the Kattegut choked with ice and the Baltic cut off. 70.67.222.124 (talk) 02:00, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * "It is known that since 1720, the Baltic Sea has frozen over entirely only 20 times. The most recent case was in early 1987, which was the most severe winter in Scandinavia since that date".  Alansplodge (talk) 08:40, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * My previous was in fact copied from our Baltic Sea article. Alansplodge (talk) 08:44, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Sweden?? You realize that Oslofjord, like Oslo itself, is in Norway, yes? You might find this link useful. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:49, 22 June 2018 (yes)
 * Yes, I know the coast stops being Sweden before reaching Oslo. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 12:26, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. The border runs to south of Sponvika. But obviously it's the same sea. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:47, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Slightly off-topic, but March Across the Belts. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:46, 22 June 2018 (UTC)