Æthelred the Unready's nickname is a pun. His name meant 'noble counsel'; Old English unræd meant 'ill counsel'. Only later, as the word fell out of use, did 'unræd' turn into 'unready'.
More amazing facts
- 964 · 965 The Andromeda Galaxy was first described in 964, a year before Sviatoslav crushed the Khazars.
- 970 The library of Caliph al-Hakam II in Córdoba held an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 volumes.
- 986 · 988 According to the chronicle, Prince Vladimir rejected Islam over its ban on wine: 'Drinking is the joy of the Rus'. He chose the Greek faith after envoys described a service in Constantinople: 'We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth.'
- 987 · 988 Rus was baptised in 988, a year after Hugh Capet became King of France.
- 988 · 1021 Thirty-three years after the Christianization of Rus', Vikings were cutting wood in Newfoundland — tree rings date it precisely to 1021.
- 999 Pope Sylvester II's love of mathematics earned him a sorcerer's reputation.