Interesting Facts

30th April 1774 – British settlers massacred family members of Chief Logan, head of the Native American Mingo tribe, at Yellow Creek, Ohio. It sparked off the conflict known as Lord Dunmore's War. 1900 – Casey Jones died in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express. 1945 - Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide after being married for one day. 1945 - Soviet soldiers raised the Victory flag over the Reichstag building. 1952 - The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank was published in English. 1975 - The war in Vietnam ended as the government in Saigon announced its unconditional surrender to the Vietcong. 1993 - CERN published a statement that made the technology behind the WWW available on a royalty free basis. 1999 - Two people were killed and at least 30 injured in the third nail-bomb attack in London in two weeks. 2008 – Two skeletal remains found near Ekaterinburg, Russia were confirmed by Russian scient...

29th April 1429 – Joan of Arc arrived to relieve the Siege of Orleans. 1770 – James Cook arrived at and named Botany Bay, Australia. 1882 – The "Elektromote" – forerunner of the tram – was tested by Ernst Werner von Siemens in Berlin. 1885 - Women were admitted for the first time to examinations at England's Oxford University. 1916 – Martial law in Ireland was lifted and the Easter rebellion officially ended with the surrender of Irish nationalists to British authorities in Dublin. 1945 – The German Army in Italy unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. 1945 – Adolf Hitler married his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designated Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. 1945 - Dachau Concentration Camp was liberated by US Troops. 1967 – After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before (citing religious reasons), Muhammad Ali was stripped of his boxing title. 1985 - Four gunmen escaped with nearly $8 million in cash st...

Roughly 1.1m people work in Britain’s gig economy, and according to a survey carried out by Ipsos Mori and the RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), 69 per cent of them are male. (In recent years, the word gig was used to refer to a live performance by or engagement for a musician or group , but “Gig economy” work is used to describe part-time self-employed work, often office work, short tasks and ‘click work’ done online.  In Britain that kind of work has tended to attract women in the past.  Nowadays there is a real gender imbalance in some sectors: For example men account for 95 per cent of Uber drivers and 94 per cent of Deliveroo couriers.)

28th April 1789 – Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors were set adrift and the rebel crew returned to Tahiti briefly and then set sail for Pitcairn Island. The incident became known as the Mutiny on the Bounty. 1920 – Azerbaijan was added to the Soviet Union. (I collect stamps and coins, not countries). 1932 – A vaccine for yellow fever was announced for use on humans. 1945 – Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement. 1949 – Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, 61, was assassinated while en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and 10 other people were also killed. 1952 – The United States occupation of Japan ended. 1965 – United States troops landed in the Dominican Republic to "forestall establishment of a Communist dictatorship" and to evacuate U.S. Army troops. 1970 – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon formally au...

According to research funded by Butterkist popcorn, the average British adult feels a true 'wave of happiness' eight times a week. (The main source of happiness was cuddling with a partner on the sofa.  Awww. How sweet. Unsurprisingly only 16% of respondents said that work made them happy.) Source

27th April 1124 – David I became King of Scotland. 1296 – The Scots were defeated by Edward I of England at the Battle of Dunbar. 1667 – The blind and impoverished John Milton sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10. 1773 – The Parliament of Great Britain passed the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade. They were not a Fair Trade company. 1791 - Samuel Finley Breese Morse, the inventor of the Morse code, was born. 1840 – The foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, was laid. 1992 – Betty Boothroyd became the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.

Pretzels are thought to have been invented by Italian monks in the 5th century. (Seemingly, they were made to resemble folded arms and given to children to reward them for good deeds. What happened to, "a good deed is its own reward"?) 

26th April Pretzel Day

26th April 1949 - Heads of government from Australia, Britain, Ceylon, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and the Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs signed the Declaration of London and the modern Commonwealth was born.

DNA is commonly used as an abbreviation of deoxyribonucleic acid, but as usual it all depends on context. It also stands for Does Not Apply, Did Not Attend or Data Not Available

25th April DNA day.

25th April 1719 - Daniel Defoe's famous book, Robinson Crusoe, was published. 1886 - Sigmund Freud opened his practice at Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna. 1953 - James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin and colleagues published papers in the journal Nature on the structure of DNA. 1967 - The first law legalizing abortion in the United States was signed into law by Colorado Gov. John Arthur Love. 2005 - A Japanese commuter train crashed near Osaka, killing more than 70 people and injuring more than 300 others.

23rd April 1564 - The Bard, William Shakespeare, is said to have been born on the 23rd of April. So, if he were still alive, he would be well over 400 years old today. Of course no one really knows the exact date of his birth because these things weren't so well regulated back then, but this date has been chosen for him, and it's the thought that counts.  Happy Birthday Will! We do know that he was baptised on April 26th, and that he died on April 23rd 1616. 

21st April 753 B.C - Legend says Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, founded Rome. 1509 - Henry VIII became King of England. 1782 - Friedrich Froebel German educator and founder of the kindergarten, was born. 1789 - John Adams was sworn in as the first vice president of the United States. 1816 - Charlotte Bronte, author of "Jane Eyre, was born. 1838 - John Muir, the father of the environmental movement, died. 1910 - The author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died. 1918 - The German fighter ace Baron von Richthofen, "The Red Baron," was shot down. 1926 - Queen Elizabeth II was born. 1945 - The Red Army entered the outskirts of Berlin. 1959 - Robert Smith, musician from The Cure, was born. 1960 - Brazilia became the capital of Brazil, taking over from Rio de Janeiro.

20th April 1653 - Oliver Cromwell, puritan, revolutionary, Lord Protector of England and the man who banned Christmas, dissolved Parliament to rule by decree.  (Of course he did.) 1999 - Two teenage boys murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., before turning their guns on themselves.

19th April 1587 – Francis Drake sank the Spanish fleet in Cádiz harbour. 1775 – The Battle of Lexington and Concord began, which started the American Revolution against the British. 1839 – The Treaty of London established Belgium as a kingdom. 1961 – The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ended. 1984 – Advance Australia Fair was chosen as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours. 1987 – The Simpsons premièred as a short cartoon on The Tracey Ullman Show. 1989 – Daphne du Maurier, British novelist died. 1992 – Benny Hill, and Frankie Howard died. They were both English comic actors. 1995 – A bomb in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, killed 168 people. 1999 – The German Bundestag returned to Berlin. 2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave.

18th April 1506 – The cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica was laid. 1909 – Joan of Arc was beatified in Rome. 1783 – Fighting ceased in the American Revolution, eight years since it began. 1924 – Simon & Schuster published the first crossword puzzle book. 1945 – Over 1,000 allied bombers attacked the small island of Heligoland, Germany. 1955 - Albert Einstein died. 1980 – The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) came into being. Canaan Banana was the country's first President. 1983 – A suicide bomber destroyed the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people. 1996 – At least 106 civilians were killed when the Israel Defense Forces shelled the UN compound at Quana, Lebanon, where more than 800 civilians had taken refuge.

17th April 1397 – Geoffrey Chaucer recited the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. (And it's been torturing British schoolchildren ever since.) 1521 – Martin Luther spoke to the assembly at the Diet of Worms, refusing to recant his teachings. 1961 – A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. 1984 - WPC (Woman Police Constable) Yvonne Fletcher was shot and killed outside the Libyan embassy in central London. 1986 - British journalist John McCarthy was kidnapped, by the militant group Islamic Jihad, in Beirut. He spent more than five years in captivity. 1986 - Three bodies of murdered hostages, were found on the streets of Beirut. They were Leigh Douglas, Philip Padfield from the UK and an American, Peter Kilburn. 1986 – The 335 Years' War (1651–1986) between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly officially ended. It was both one of the world's longest ...

15th April 1452 – Leonardo da Vinci was born. 1755 – Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in London. 1802 – William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy saw a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". 1892 – The General Electric Company was formed. 1912 – The RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, after hitting an iceberg two and a half hours earlier, killing over 1,500 people. 1923 – Insulin became generally available for use by people with diabetes. 1941 – 200 Luftwaffe bombers attacked Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing over 1,000 people. 1942 – The George Cross was awarded to "to the island fortress of Malta – its people and defenders" by King George VI. 1945 - British troops liberated the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. 1984 – Tommy Cooper died. 1989 - 96 Liverpool fans died in a crush at the Leppings Lane end of Hillsborough Football Stadium at the FA Cup...

14th April 2014 - 276 female students, who were sitting their final exams in the village of Chibook, Nigeria were abducted. Most are still missing.

Researchers have worked out how shoelaces come undone. (Seemingly "knot failure" happens in a matter of seconds, and is triggered by a complex interaction of forces:  These include  the stomping of the foot, which gradually loosens the knot.  The movement of the foot creates a whipping force which acts like hands tugging on the ends of the laces. Then as the tension in the knot eases and the free ends start to slide, a runaway effect takes hold whereby the knot suddenly unravels. They offered some advice to those plagued by this issue: The  square knot is less likely to come unravelled compared with a granny knot. All in all it is a knotty problem.)

11th April 1945 – The Buchenwald concentration camp, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil, was liberated. 1951 – The Stone of Scone, the stone upon which Scottish monarchs were traditionally crowned, was found on the site of the altar of Arbroath Abbey. It had been taken by Scottish nationalists from its place in Westminster Abbey. 1957 - Britain agreed to self-rule in Singapore. 1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. One week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. 1968 – German student leader Rudi Dutschke is shot in Berlin. 1976 – The Apple I was created. 1979 – Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was deposed. 1981 – A huge riot in Brixton, South London, resulted in almost 300 police injuries and 65 serious civilian injuries. 1987 – Primo Levi, Italian chemist and author died. 2001 – Harry Secombe, Welsh actor and co...

10th April 837 – Halley's Comet made its closest approach to Earth at a distance equal to 0.0342 AU (5.1 million kilometres/3.2 million miles). 1512 – James V of Scotland was born. 1606 – The Virginia Company of London was established by royal charter by James I of England with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America. 1710 – The Statute of Anne, the first law regulating copyright, came into force in Great Britain. 1829 – William Booth, the English minister who founded The Salvation Army was born. 1858 – The original Big Ben, a 14.5 ton bell for the Palace of Westminster cracked during testing and was recast into the current 13.76 tonnes (30,300 lb) bell by Whitechapel Bell Foundry. 1912 – RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton, England on her maiden and only voyage. 1925 – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was first published. 1932 – Omar Sharif was born. 1953 – Warner Bros. premiered the first 3D film from a major American studio...

9th April 1413 – Henry V was crowned King of England. 1483 – King Edward IV of England died. 1413 – Henry V is crowned King of England. 1626 – Francis Bacon died. 1860 – Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville created the oldest known recording of an audible human voice. 1940 – Vidkun Quisling seized power in Norway. 1967 – The first Boeing 737 made its maiden flight. 1969 – The first British-built Concorde made its maiden flight from Filton to RAF Fairford. 2005 – Charles, Prince of Wales married Camilla Parker Bowles.

8th April 1820 – The famous statue, the Venus de Milo, was discovered on the Aegean island of Melos. 1886 – William Ewart Gladstone introduced the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons. 1904 – The French Third Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland signed the Entente cordiale. 1908 – Harvard University voted to establish the Harvard Business School. 1994 - Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, 27, was found dead in his Seattle home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. 1995 - British-born Nicholas Ingram was executed in the electric chair.

7th April 1795 – France adopted the metre as the basic measure of length. 1827 – John Walker, an English chemist, sold the first friction match. 1947 – Henry Ford, the American automobile manufacturer and industrialist died. 1948 – The World Health Organization was established by the United Nations. 1994 – The massacre of Tutsis began in Kigali, Rwanda.

6th April 1199 – King Richard I of England died from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder. 1320 - The Declaration of Arbroath was signed to declare Scottish independence. 1652 – At the Cape of Good Hope, Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck established a resupply camp that eventually becomes Cape Town. 1772 - The beard tax was lifted in Russia. 1814 – Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba. 1869 – Celluloid was patented. 1917 – The United States declared war on Germany. 1919 – Gandhi ordered a General Strike. 1930 – Gandhi raised a lump of mud and salt and declared, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire," and he was right. 1994 – The aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down, beginning one of the most shameful moments in history. 1998 – Tammy Wynette, American country singer died.

Police in the UK only solve 1 in 10 burglaries. (According to crime statistics, £2 billion worth of goods have been stolen over the past 6 years, but only £137 million worth recovered. Some newspapers are blaming the cuts in front-line-officers over the past 6 years, but there is no surprise for me here. We were broken into 4 times, and no one ever got back to us on any of the cases, including the one where the burglars left a knife covered in oily prints. (We also lived just down the road from a police station.) People being quoted in the press are saying things like "They just don't seem to care", well my friends, they didn't care in the past either.)

5th April 456 - St. Patrick returned to Ireland as a missionary bishop. 1614 - In Virginia, Native American Pocahontas married English colonist John Rolfe. 1621 - The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts on a return trip to Great Britain. 1722 - The Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island. 1904 - The first international rugby league match was played between England and an Other Nationalities team (Welsh & Scottish players) in Central Park, Wigan, England. 1923 - Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company began production of balloon-tyres. 1930 - In an act of civil disobedience, Gandhi broke British law by marching to the sea and making salt. 1955 - Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom amid indications of failing health. 1956 - Fidel Castro declared himself at war with the President of Cuba. 2008 - Charlton Heston died.

4th April International Carrot Day

According to a report by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Britons spend two-and-a-half months a year sitting down. (The study revealed that most Brits only walk half a mile a day and nearly half of women and a third of men are inactive. The average man is sitting for 78 days of the year - a fifth of his lifetime, and although women tend to me more on their feet than men we do far less exercise.)

According to The Wright Stuff 80% of people will use social media to find out more about potential partners. (What do they check? What you post about . . . the quality of the pictures . . . your grammar . . . your teeth and smile . . . and your clothing. According to a survey from Pew Research in 2013 it was just 41%.)

2nd April 1932 - Charles Lindbergh left $50,000 in a New York City cemetery in hope of regaining his kidnapped son, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. Sadly the infant was later found dead. Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping and murder and executed by electrocution on April 3, 1936.

1st April 1318 - Berwick-upon-Tweed was captured by the Scottish from the English. 1826 - Samuel Morey patented the internal combustion engine. 1867 - Singapore became a British crown colony. 1873 - The British steamer RMS Atlantic sank off Nova Scotia, 547 people died. 1891 - The Wrigley Company was founded in Chicago, Illinois. 1918 - The Royal Air Force was created by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. 1924 - Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in jail for his participation in the "Beer Hall Putsch". However, he spent only nine months in jail, during which time he wrote the book Mein Kampf. (Just shows you prison is no deterrent.) 1949 - The twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State became the Republic of Ireland. 1976 - Apple Computer was formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. 1979 - Iran became an Islamic Republic by a 98% vote, officially overthrowing the Shah. 1981 - Daylight saving time was introduced ...