little-known facts about the area you live in.

"The Pioneer Valley includes approximately half of the southern Connecticut River Valley—an ancient rift valley created by the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge during the Triassic and Jurassic periods of the Mesozoic Era. The Connecticut River has been flowing through the valley for millions of years and was naturally dammed to form glacial lake Hitchcock during the last ice age."

also home to some of the most well preserved mesozoic armored mud balls on earth:

http://earthview.rocks/mudballs.html

and, yes, i totally call myself Pangean now.

"Mesozoic mudballs!" is going to be my new swearword stand-in.

My town is, by ratio to overall population, more densely Armenian than anywhere outside of Armenia. Previously, and entirely coincidentally, I lived in the second, third, and fourth most densely Armenian cities. Yay for lahmajoun, cool wind instruments, and Queen Shamiram!

I live on top of a dormant coalmine where two major mining disasters occurred before it got closed down in' 71. So back in the day it probably used to be a Carboniferous era jungle with giant insects! Also down the road is a moated island with that was first occupied long before the Battle of Hastings in 990 odd AD. During the English Civil War one of its later buildings was besieged by Parliamentarians and during the standoff some Royalist was clumsy with a ciggie in the gunpowder stores and blew the whole place to smithereens. The fireplace survived the blast and there are still some remains of the original medieval building there.

sorry some extraneous words in there for some reason.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5NSRXAvAo2M/Tgoykh9AQHI/AAAAAAAACn4/j-7tyobPQUo/s1600/rectory2.JPG
the fireplace that survived the blast !

not where i live now but the area where i grew up (and my folks still live), was the only place in the UK that had a church, a police station, a post office and a pub on 4 opposing corners. then a few years ago some bell ends replaced the post office with an estate agents.

this is one side

http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Penketh-and-Sankey/images/SankeyChapelAndPostOffice.jpg

My area was a city for 700 years until someone forgot to file the status renewal paperwork and it got bumped down to a town again.

I love giant insects and industrial accidents of the past!

The town where I grew up is on a prehistoric lake bed.

The road I live just off has had the same name since 1307.

Actually some confusion about the date, it might actually date back to the 11th century, the area around the road has been called after it since 1307, and still is. Also the road had fallen into such disrepair by 1318 that the Bishop of London had to rebuild it - I imagine he had some help though. Also, 700 years later it's still plagued by roadworks.

the lowest-paid Fire Dept employee makes $70k/yr (clerical position); the average fire fighter makes $130k/yr

I live in a suburb built around (and named after) a lake. The lakeside property is filled with expensive multi-million dollar homes. The suburb is known for its wealth and is considered a bit snooty.

The little known facts are that the town was originally platted on a vast hellscape totally denuded of trees, cut down as fuel to feed a local iron foundry. The famous lake is essentially a glorified mill pond made by damming a creek named Sucker Creek. The first inhabitants of the town were iron workers, soon followed by other working class laborers seeking cheap land on which to build their barebones little houses. It was the essence of low rent, lowbrow, cheap-ass living.

If you substituted "iron foundry" with "shoddy mungo mills of doom". I'd almost think you were talking about T'Heavy Woolen District of West Yorkshire! But of course it is the same old story as ever!