On This Day

1498 - On his third voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Trinidad.

1703 - Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel. He had ruthlessly satirised the High Church Tories in a pamphlet, but allegedly, instead of throwing rotten veg and fruit at him, the crowd threw flowers.

1741 – Charles Albert of Bavaria invaded Upper Austria and Bohemia.

1790 – The first U.S. patent was issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

1792 - Director David Rittenhouse laid the cornerstone in Philadelphia for the U.S. Mint, the first building of the federal government.

1895 – The Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco) was founded by Basque nationalist leader Sabino Arana.

1913 – The Balkan States signed an armistice at Bucharest.

1919 – The German national assembly adopted the Weimar constitution.

1938 – Bulgaria signed a non-aggression pact with Greece and other states of Balkan Antanti (Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia).

1941 – Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, ordered SS General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

1948 – At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) was dedicated.

1962 - Former British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley was assaulted at a rally in London's east end

1970 – The last officially sanctioned rum ration was handed out in the Royal Navy.

1972 – Three car bombs were detonated in Claudy, Northern Ireland, killing nine people in what was believed to be an IRA attack.

1998 - The British Government announced a total ban on landmines, a month before the first anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.

2007 – The British Army in Northern Ireland withdrew, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, came to an end.

Interesting Fact # 1119 - Broadband

Nearly one fifth of people on an eight megabits per second (Mbps) broadband connection in the UK actually receive less than 2Mbps.

(Because of the use of copper wiring instead of fibre optic, the signal degrades the further it travels, so to get 8Mps you would need to be located no further than 2km from an exchange. That is of course assuming they are sending out an 8Mbps signal in the first place.)

On This Day

762 – Baghdad was founded.

1866 – New Orleans's Democratic government ordered police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150.

1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.

1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He was never seen or heard from again.

2003 – In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line.

2006 – The world's longest running music show, Top of the Pops, was broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years.

2006 – At least 28 civilians, including 16 children were killed by the Israeli Air Force in Lebanon.

2005 - Anthony Walker, a British student was murdered in a racially motivated crime.

2007 - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to deploy as many as 26,000 peacekeepers to end the violence in Sudan's Darfur region that reportedly killed about 200,000 people since 2003.

Interesting Word # 92 - Finders Keepers

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the saying "Finders keepers (losers weepers)" dates as far back as the early 19th century, recorded as "No halfers-findee keepee, lossee seekee".

(It's something that you might say when you find something that belongs to someone else and decide you are going to keep it, but by law, you don't have any right to keep something you 'find'.)

Interesting Fact # 1118 - Desertification

According to the UN, "desertification is the greatest environmental challenge of our times."

(Desertification is the gradual transformation of habitable land into desert. It is usually caused by climate change or by destructive use of the land. In order to combat it they have set up the UNCCD (The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification). They will achieve their aims by holding lots of scientific consultations and conferences, building a website, coming up with lots of accronyms, like WDCD, DLDD and COPD. They will also publish reams and reams of papers and designate a special day to combat desertification where we will all be asked to go out with a bucket and spade to build sandcastles.)

Interesting Fact # 1117 - Health

The health of French presidents is often a state secret.

(Georges Pompidou died from leukaemia in 1974, whilst still in office. Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who was elected after Pompidou's death, promised transparency, but did not release one health bulletin during his seven years in office. Francois Mitterrand took over from Giscard in 1981, and rumours circulated that he had a serious illness. He did, but he kept secret that had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in late 1981. Jacques Chirac took over in 1995, again with a promise to "give any significant information about my state of health." but he then refused to publish any bulletins, using his right to protect his private life as the reason. And now Nicolas Sarkozy has been rushed to hospital after being taken ill while jogging.)

Interesting People # 134 - Winston Churchill - Podcast

Winston Churchill felt he had been "sold a pup" when he found out that the bunkers he used as his wartime headquarters in Whitehall were not bomb-proof.

(The idiom, to be sold a pup, means to be swindled, or tricked into buying something that is not worth what you paid. The saying comes from medieval times, where sometimes if you bought a piglet and the seller placed it in a bag or sack he might slip a puppy into the sack instead of a piglet.)

On This Day

1745 – The first recorded women's cricket match took place near Guildford, England

1803 – The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opened in south London.

1847 – Liberia declared independence.

1944 – The first German V-2 rocket hit Great Britain.

1945 – The Potsdam Declaration was signed in Potsdam, Germany.

1945 - Clement Attlee became Britain's new prime minister after Labour won a sweeping victory. (It's always a bit surprising to think of this when you consider how popular Churchill was during the war. Maybe people just wanted to look to the future and forget the past.)

1952 - Eva Peron died.

1963 - Thousands were killed during an earthquake in the Yugoslavian city of Skopje.

1989 – A federal grand jury indicted Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm. He was the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Interesting Fact # 1116 - Swine Flu

In the UK more than 5,500 people were issued the anti-viral drug Tamiflu in one day.

(They didn't go to the doctor, they phoned a swine-flu hotline (I kid you not) and answered a few questions about their symptoms. Then they went to get their Tamiflu. Hmmm... I wonder if there's been an increase of Tamiflu being sold online.)

On This Day

1943 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini stepped down as head of the armed forces and the government.

1969 - Senator Edward Kennedy plead guilty to leaving the scene of a crime following the Chappaquiddick car crash.

1978 - The first so called 'test tube baby' was born in Manchester, England.

1992 - The Olympic Games opened in Barcelona with all countries present for the first time in modern history.

2000 - 113 people died when Concorde crashed minutes after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris. Concorde was out of service for more than a year after the Paris crash, it struggled to attract enough passengers and was retired in October 2003 as it was no longer profitable.

Interesting Food # 49 - Coffee

According to the World Cancer Research Fund some coffee drinks bought in high street cafes can have as many calories as a full meal.

(They found that iced coffees at Starbucks, Caffe Nero and Costa Coffee generally contained over 200 calories, but some had as many as 450. The worst offender was the Starbuck's venti dark berry mocha frappuccino blended coffee with whipped cream, which came in at a whopping 561 calories. The recommended daily intake is 2,500 calories a day for men, and 2,000 a day for women.)

Interesting Place # 108 - Australia and New Zealand

A recent earthquake has brought New Zealand closer to Australia.

(A 7.8 quake in The Tasman Sea added 12" (30cm) of land to New Zealand's South Island. But neither country should fear having to have a "meet your neighbour" party any time soon as there's still more than 1,400 miles separating them.)

On This Day

1829 – In the United States, William Austin Burt patented the Typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.

1840 – The Province of Canada was created by the Act of Union.

1892 – Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia was born.

1903 – The Ford Motor Company sold its first car.

1914 – Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia demanding Serbia allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Serbia rejected those demands and Austria declared war on July 28.

1926 – Fox Film bought the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.

1929 – The Fascist government in Italy banned the use of foreign words.

1942 – The Treblinka extermination camp was opened.

1961 – The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was founded in Nicaragua.

1967 – Riots broke out in Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history, by the end 43 people were killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burnt to the ground.

1974- The military government in Greece collapses and the former prime minister Constantine Karamanlis was invited to return.

1982 – The International Whaling Commission voted to end commercial whaling by 1985-86.

1983 – The Sri Lankan Civil War began with the killing of 13 Sri Lanka Army soldiers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In the subsequent government-organised pogrom of Black July, about 1,000 Tamils were slaughtered, some 400,000 Tamils fled to neighbouring Tamil Nadu, India and many found refuge in Europe and Canada.

1984 – Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign when she surrendered her crown after nude photos of her appeared in Penthouse magazine.

1986 – Prince Andrew, Duke of York married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey, London.

1995 - Britain sent 1,200 troops to relieve the besieged Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

2005 – Terrorist bombs in the Naama Bay area of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killed 88 people.

Interesting Fact # 1115 - Immigration

According to the German Federal Statistical Office in 2008 56,000 more people left Germany than arrived.

(The number of immigrants was almost constant compared to 2007 at 682,000, but the number of emigrants rose by 100,000 to 738,000.)

On This Day

1298 – King Edward I of England and his longbowmen defeated William Wallace and his Scottish schiltrons outside the town of Falkirk.

1456 – John Hunyadi, Regent of Kingdom of Hungary defeats Mehmet II of Ottoman Empire in Belgrade.

1894 – The first ever motorized racing event was held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen. The race was won by Jules de Dion.

1916 – In San Francisco, California, a bomb exploded on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 and injuring 40. The true identity of the bomber (or bombers) remains unknown.

1933 – Wiley Post became the first person to fly solo around the world, traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.

1934 – "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger was mortally wounded by FBI agents, outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre.

1942 – The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began.

1944 – The Polish Committee of National Liberation published its manifesto, starting the period of Communist rule in Poland.

1946 – The National Military Organization in the Land of Israel bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of the British civil and military administration, killing 90 people.

1987 - Naji Salim al-Ali, a Palestinian cartoonist was shot in the face and critically wounded in London. He never regained consciousness. He had received over 100 death threats during his career, because he regularly lampooned Middle Eastern leaders and politicians, who are not well known for their sense of humour.

2003 - Uday and Qusay Hussein, the sons of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, were killed in a gun battle in northern Iraq.

2005 – Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician, was shot and killed by Scotland Yard police at Stockwell Tube station. They supposedly mistook him for a terrorist.

Interesting Fact # 1114 - Clothes

According to the BBC the new costume for Doctor Who will consist of a tweed jacket, bow tie, rolled up trousers and black boots.

(Why is this interesting? I hear you cry. Well it is, so much so that Doctor Who's new clothes was a well-kept secret until now. It's a "British" thing.)

On This Day

365 – A tsunami devestated the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The tsunami was caused by an earthquake estimated to be 8.0 on the Richter Scale. 5,000 people perished in the Alexandria, and 45,000 more died outside of the city.

1403 – King Henry IV of England defeated rebels to the north of the county town of Shropshire, England.

1545 – French troops landed on the coast of the Isle of Wight.

1904 – Louis Rigolly, a Frenchman, became the first man to break the 100mph barrier on land. He drove a 15-liter Gobron-Brille in Ostend, Belgium.

1925 – In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.

1925 – Sir Malcolm Campbell became the first man to break the 150mph land barrier at Pendine Sands in Wales. He drove a Sunbeam to a two-way average of 150.33mph.

1969 – Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon, during the Apollo 11 mission.

1972 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army set off 22 bombs in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 9 people were killed and 130 people seriously injured in what became known as Bloody Friday.

1973 – In the Lillehammer affair in Norway, Israeli Mossad agents killed a waiter whom they mistakenly believed was involved in 1972's Munich Olympics Massacre.

1976 – Christopher Ewart-Biggs British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland was assassinated by the Provisional IRA.

1983 – The world's lowest temperature was recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2°C (−129°F).

1994 – Tony Blair was declared the winner of the leadership election of the British Labour Party, paving the way for him to become Prime Minister in 1997.

2005 – Four terrorist bombs targeted London's public transportation system. All four bombs failed to detonate and all four suspected suicide bombers were captured.

2008 – Bosnian-Serb war criminal Radovan Karadžić was arrested in Serbia.

Interesting Fact # 1113 - Pubs - Podcast

According to the British Beer and Pub Association, in the UK pubs are closing at the rate of 52 per week.

(Posh, upmarket, cafe style bars are opening at a rate of 2 per week.)

On This Day

1712 – The Riot Act took effect in Great Britain.

1859 - American baseball fans were charged an admission fee for the first time. 1,500 spectators paid 50 cents each to see Brooklyn play New York.

1881 – Sioux Chief Sitting Bull led the last of his fugitive people in surrender to United States troops at Fort Buford, North Dakota.

1885 – The Football Association legalised professional football under pressure from the British Football Association.

1903 – Ford Motor Company shipped its first car.

1924 – Tehran fell under martial law after the American vice consul, Robert Imbrie, was killed by a mob enraged by rumours he had poisoned a fountain and killed several people.

1926 – A convention of the Methodist Church voted to allow women to become priests.

1928 – The Hungarian government issued a decree ordering Gypsies to end their nomadic ways, settle permanently in one place, and subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians.

1933 - Two-hundred Jewish merchants were arrested in Nuremberg, Germany and paraded through the streets.

1934 – In Minneapolis police fired upon striking truck drivers, wounding fifty. In Seattle police, led by the mayor, fired tear gas on and clubbed 2,000 striking longshoremen, and the governor of Oregon called out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks.

1944 - Hitler survived another assassination attempt, when a bomb exploded in Rastenberg.

1949 – Israel and Syria signed a truce to end their nineteen-month war.

1951 - King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem.

1957 - British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, made an optimistic speech telling fellow Conservatives that Britons had never had it so good'.

1960 – Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.

1960 – Belgium defended its intervention in the Congo to the United Nations Security Council while the government of the Congo appealed to the Soviet Union to send troops to push back the Belgians. The governments of the United States and France and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization warn the Soviets to stay out of the dispute.

1968 – The Special Olympics was founded.

1969 - Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. became the first humans to land on the Moon, while Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, orbited above.

1974 - Thousands of Turkish troops invaded northern Cyprus.

1982 – The Provisional IRA detonated two bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park in central London, killing eight soldiers on ceremonial duty, wounding forty-seven bystanders, and leading to the deaths of seven horses.

1986 – In South Africa, police fired tear gas into a church service for families of those held under the government's emergency decrees.

1989 – Burma's ruling junta put opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.

1990 - An IRA bomb blew a 10-foot hole in the London Stock Exchange.

1996 – In Spain, an ETA bomb at an airport killed 35.

1998 – Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups left Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban.

1999 – Falun Gong was banned in the People's Republic of China.

2003 – Sixteen people were injured after two bombs exploded outside a tax office in Nice.

2005 – Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.

Interesting People # 133 - Sirimavo Bandaranaike

Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world's first woman prime minister in 1960.

(She was the widow of assassinated prime minister Solomon Bandaranaike who was shot by an extremist Buddhist on 26 September 1959. She was voted into power in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). She spent 40 years in politics (on and off) and managed to die of natural causes.)

On This Day

1545 – The Tudor warship Mary Rose sank off Portsmouth.

1553 – Lady Jane Grey was replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after having been Queen for just nine days.

1692 – Five women were hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, USA.

1799 – A group of Napoleon Bonaparte's soldiers discovered what is now known as The Rosetta Stone, enabling the translation of hieroglyphics for the first time.

1843 – Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain was launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and also becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.

1870 – France declared war on Prussia.

1947 – Bogyoke Aung San, Prime minister of the shadow Burma government, and 6 of his cabinet along with 2 non-cabinet members were assassinated.

1963 – Joe Walker flew a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 metres (347,800 feet). Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualified as human spaceflight under international convention.

1996 - Bosnian Serb President and wanted war criminal Radovan Karadzic was forced out of office.

1997 - The IRA made a surprise announcement of a ceasefire in Northern Ireland. It was the second in three years.

2009 - Francis "Frank" McCourt died.

Interesting Fact # 1112 - Alcohol

In 2004, around 1 in 25 (3.8%) of all global deaths were attributable to alcohol.

(In Europe 1 in 10 deaths were directly attributable to alcohol. And the former Soviet Union countries had the highest proportion at 15%, or around one in seven deaths.)

Interesting Fact # 1111 - Alcohol

Average alcohol consumption worldwide is around 12 units a week.

(In Europe it's 21.5 units, aross the Americas, it's 17 units, in the Middle East it's just 1.3 units per week. I'm on about 8 units a week.)

You can calculate your consumption here:-

http://www.bupa.co.uk/health_information/asp/healthy_living/lifestyle/alcohol/alctest.asp

Interesting Fact # 1110 - Alcohol

Canadian experts from the University of Toronto believe that one in 25 deaths across the world are linked to alcohol consumption.

(They warn that the effect of alcohol disease is similar to that of smoking a decade ago and the level of disease linked to drinking affects poorest people the most. Probably because poorer people can't afford the good stuff.)

Interesting Place # 107 - Milan

A third of 11-year-olds in Milan have alcohol related problems.

(Milan has banned the consumption and sale of alcohol to young teenagers, and the parents of children under the age of 16 who have been caught drinking wine or spirits in Milan will be liable to heavy fines of up to 500 Euros ($700;£450).)

Interesting Animal # 99 - Cats

Cats use their purr to manipulate humans.

(Researchers at the University of Sussex have learnt that cats use a special kind of purr -- a "soliciting purr," -- to get their bowls filled. This purr is different from the normal "carry on stroking me" purr in that it contains frequencies more irritating to the ears of humans. The message being, wake up and feed me.)

Interesting Fact # 1109 - Air

According to research by the Max-Planck-Institut and Johannes Gutenberg-University, there are between 1,000 and 10,000 fungal spores per cubic meter of air.

(The average pair of human lungs can hold about 6 liters of air and 1 cubic meter = 1000 liters, so we're talking roughly 6 to 60 spores floating around in there. I hope you've had your breakfast already.)

Interesting Animal # 98 - Monkeys - Podcast

Monkeys can recognise 'bad grammar'.

(In research carried out at Harvard University cotton-top tamarins were able to spot if the order of syllables in a word was "wrong". The monkeys were familiarised with two-syllable terms, and their reaction recorded to words that were not consistent with that syllable. See a monkey can do it.)

On This Day

55 - Julius Caesar was born.

1543 – King Henry VIII of England married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr at Hampton Court Palace.

1812 – The United States invaded Canada at Windsor, Ontario.

1961 – The Panshet and Khadakvasala dams in India burst destroying most of the older sections of the city of Pune. Half of the city was submerged. More than 100,000 families dislocated and the death tally exceeded 2000.

1962 – The Rolling Stones performed their first ever concert, at the Marquee Club in London.

1998 - Three young brothers, Richard Quinn, 11, Mark Quinn, 9, and Jason Quinn, 7, were murdered in a loyalist arson attack as the stand-off between Orangemen and police at Drumcree in Ireland.

2006 - Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid; Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon in response.

Interesting Fact # 1108 - Transport

Computerised scanners around 15 Tokyo railway stations have introduced a system to check that staff are smiling enough.

(The system measures the smile's curvature to ensure it is broad enough. Say "cheese" everyone.)

Interesting Fact # 1107 - Conservation

Americans consume three times more paper per person than the average European, and 100 times more than the average person in China.

(The average per capita paper use in the USA in 2001 was 700 pounds (320 kg). The average per capita paper use worldwide was 110 pounds (50 kg). Barely a third of the paper products sold in America are from recycled sources — most of it comes from virgin wood. There's nothing wrong with recycled paper, the United States Environmental Protection Agency‎ (EPA) found that recycling causes 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution than making virgin paper.)

On This Day

988 – The city of Dublin was founded on the banks of the river Liffey in Ireland.

1212 – The most severe of several early fires of London burnt most of the city to the ground.

1460 – Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick defeated the king's Lancastrian forces and took King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton.

1553 – Lady Jane Grey took the throne of England for - nine days. Awww bless.

1778 – Louis XVI of France declared war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1856 – Nikola Tesla was born.

1913 – Temperatures in Death Valley, California hit 134 °F (~56.7 °C), which is the highest temperature recorded in the United States.

1938 – Howard Hughes set a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world.

1940 - The German air force, the Luftwaffe, attacked shipping convoys off the south-east coast of England launching the Battle of Britain.

1962 – Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, was launched into orbit.

1973 - The Bahamas became an independent nation.

1985 – Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sunk in Auckland, New Zealand Harbor by French DGSE agents.

1991 – The South African cricket team was readmitted into the International Cricket Council (ICC) following the end of Apartheid.

1996: The bodies of Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan were found half a mile from their home in Kent. Nine-year-old Josie Russell - also found at the scene - recovered from serious head injuries. In October 1997 a man was arrested for the murders.

1997 – Scientists in London reported their DNA analysis findings from a Neandertal skeleton which supported the out of Africa theory of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

2000 – A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline exploded, killing about 250 people.

Interesting Fact # 1106 - Reproduction

English scientists claim to have created human sperm in a laboratory.

(The researchers said their work could also lead to men with fertility issues fathering children. Trust men to create something that will ultimately make them redundant.)

Interesting Fact # 1105 - Conservation

According to green campaigners, damage done to the environment by America's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food and McMansions, is far outweighed by the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply toilet paper.

(98% of the toilet paper used in the USA comes from virgin wood, in Europe and Latin America, up to 40% of toilet paper comes from recycled products. Longer fibres in virgin wood are easier to lay out and fluff up for a softer tissue for a soft backside. After all fluffy loo paper vs the future of the planet? No contest really.)

Source: The Guardian

Interesting Food - Fruit and Veg

The European Union has scrapped rules on fruit and vegetable size.

(Twenty-six fruits and vegetables are now free to grow their own way. But ten — including peaches, pears and tomatoes — still have to watch the scales. I shall look forward to funny shaped carrots going back on the shelf.)

On This Day

1949 – Celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson were named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.

1953 – The United States Supreme Court ruled that Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons.

1965 - Ronald Biggs who was serving a 30-year prison sentence for his part in the Great Train Robbery escaped from Wandsworth prison.

1968 – James Earl Ray was arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.

1984 – Homosexuality was declared legal in the Australia state of New South Wales.

1996 - Three young children and four adults were attacked by a man with a machete at an infant school in Wolverhampton, England.

2001 – Mamoru Takuma stabbed 8 school pupils to death at Ikeda Elementary School.

2003 - Conjoined Iranian twins who volunteered to go ahead with a major operation to separate them both died during surgery.

2008 – Tomohiro Katō drove a two-ton truck into a crowded pedestrianised area in the Akihabara shopping quarter in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Before leaving the truck and attacking people with a knife, killing seven and injuring ten.

On This Day

1543 – French troops invade Luxembourg.

1947 – The Roswell UFO incident took place.

1967 – The civil war in Biafra began.

1969 – In Canada, the Official Languages Act is adopted making the French language equal to the English blanguage throughout the Federal government.

1978 – The Solomon Islands became independent from the United Kingdom.

2005 - Four bombs were set off on the London public transport system during the morning rush hour, killing 56 people, and injuring 700. It was the deadliest single act of terrorism in the UK since the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, which killed 270 people. A group called "Al Qaeda in Europe" claimed responsibility for the attacks.

2006 – The Western Black Rhinoceros, the rarest of the Black Rhino subspecies, was declared extinct by the World Conservation Union, due to poaching.

Interesting Fact # 1104 - Clothes

According to a survey by CareerNet, almost three-quarters of South Korean male office workers feel uncomfortable when female colleagues show too much leg or cleavage in the workplace.

( 56 % objected to micro-miniskirts (I call them belts) and 51% objected to excessive cleavage (you don't hear that complaint much in the UK). Hipster trousers revealing underwear, "killer heels" and flashy outfits in general were also cause for complaint. Women complained about stains on the shirts and ties of their male colleagues, but I'm sure they'd complain if their male colleagues turned up in high heels and low cut blouses.)

Interesting Fact # 1103 - Taxis - Podcast

The BBC spent a massive £14m on taxis in 2008.

(That works out at more than £38,000 a day. BBC staff took more than 406,000 taxi rides. I wonder how many times round the world that would go?)

Source - Daily Mirror

Interesting People # 132 - Roger Federer

He was born Aug. 8, 1981 in Basel, Switzerland.

Roger Federer was 18 when he won his first Grand Slam match in the first round of the Australian Open.

Roger Federer was 19 when he won his first career title.

He is the only player to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open consecutively three straight years.

In 2001 he ended Pete Sampras' 31-match winning streak at Wimbledon in the fourth round before losing in the quarter-finals.

His 2009 French Open win makes him only the sixth man to have won all four grand slam titles. The other five are: Fred Perry, Don Budge, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and Andre Agassi.

He's won a record 15th grand slam title after winning Wimbledon today, with a 5-7 7-6(6) 7-6(5) 3-6 16-14 defeat of American sixth seed Andy Roddick. His other wins are: Wimbledon, 2003-2007, 2009; US Open 2004-2008; Australian Open 2004, 2006, 2007; French Open 2009.

On This Day

1776 - The Declaration of Independence was adopted. However, it was not declared a public holiday in the USA until 1941.

Interesting Place # 106 - Bangladesh

With a population of 150 million, Bangladesh is the most crowded place on Earth.

(Worryingly it will become even more packed as global warming affects sea levels, and a predicted 20% of the country will be under water in the next 30 years.)

On This Day

1844 – The last nesting pair of Great Auks was killed. They were found incubating an egg off Iceland. Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson strangled the adults and Ketill Ketilsson smashed the egg with his boot.

1884 – The Dow Jones published its 1st stock average.

1928 - The first colour television transmission took place in London.

1969 - Former Rolling Stones guitarist, Brian Jones (born Lewis Brian Hopkin-Jones) drowned.

1971 - Jim Morrison, the lead singer of American rock group The Doors, was found dead in a bathtub in Paris of heart failure. He was only 27.

1976 - Israeli commandos rescued 103 hostages held by Arab militants at Entebbe airport, Uganda.

1987 - Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was sentenced to life imprisonment at a court in Lyon.

1988 - Missiles fired from an American naval warship, the USS Vincennes, brought down an Iranian passenger jet in the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

1996 – The Stone of Scone was returned to Scotland.

2005 – A national law legalizing same-sex marriage took effect in Spain.

Interesting Fact # 1102 - Global Warming

According to a report in Science journal, climate change is causing a breed of wild sheep in Scotland to shrink.

(Classic evolutionary theory would predict that wild sheep gradually get bigger, as the stronger, larger animals survive into adulthood and reproduce, but milder winters caused by global warming, have helped smaller sheep survive, and breed, causing a decrease in size of the overall population. A bit like washing a jumper in a hot wash.)

On This Day

862 – St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester died.

1698 – Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine.

1776 – The Continental Congress adopted a resolution severing ties with Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence was not approved until July 4.

1777 – Vermont became the first American territory to abolish slavery.

1839 - 53 African slaves being transported to Cuba on the Spanish merchant ship La Amistad revolted against their captors led by Joseph Cinque.

1850 – The self-contained gas mask was patented by Benjamin J. Lane.

1853 – The Russian Army invaded Turkey, beginning the Crimean War.

1881 – Charles J. Guiteau shot and fatally wounded U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually died on September 19.

1897 – Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtained a patent for radio in London.

1900 - The world's first rigid airship was demonstrated by Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.

1937 - U.S. aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan were reported lost over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight. They were never heard from again.

1961 - Author Ernest Hemingway, 61, shot himself at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.

1962 – The first Wal-Mart store opened for business in Rogers, Arkansas.

1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act, meant to prohibit segregation in public places.

1966 – The French military exploded a nuclear test bomb codenamed Aldébaran in Mururoa, their first nuclear test in the Pacific.

1976 – North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, reunited to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1976 - The Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual.

1990 - A stampede in a pedestrian tunnel at the Muslim holy city of Mecca during the annual Hajj killed 1,426 pilgrims.

1993 - South African President F.W de Klerk and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela announced that South Africa's first election open to all races would be April 27, 1994.

1994 - The Colombian soccer player who inadvertently scored a goal for the United States, contributing to his team's loss in World Cup competition, was shot to death in Medellin, Colombia.

1997 – James Stewart died.

2005 - Egypt's new ambassador to Iraq was abducted in Baghdad, reportedly by Al-Qaida. He was later murdered.

2008 – Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other FARC hostages were rescued by the Colombian armed forces, she had been held for six and a half years.

Interesting Animal # 97 - Ants

Scientists led by Eiriki Sunamura of the University of Tokyo, have discovered that a single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world.

(The species, Argentine ants, are living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan and they belong to the same interrelated colony. They will even refuse to fight one another. In Europe, one vast colony is thought to stretch for 6,000km (3,700 miles), while another in the US, known as the 'Californian large', extends over 900km (560 miles) along the coast of California. The colony could rival humans in the scale of world domination. After all, we never seem to refuse to fight one another.)

Interesting People # 131 - Sir Cliff Richard

British pop star Sir Cliff Richard has been ordered to knock down a £30,000 conservatory built at his house in Surrey because he did not have planning permission.

(The conservatory measures 17ft (5.2m) by 13ft (4.2m) and breaks planning regulation because it increased the property's floor area by more than 30%. Basically his conservatory is about the same size as my house!)