Interesting Facts

20th August 1858 – Charles Darwin first published his theory of evolution in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory. 1882 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuted in Moscow. 1940 – Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramon Mercader in Mexico. 1978 - A 29 year old airline stewardess, Irit Gidron, died during an attack on a bus carrying Israelis in central London. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) later said it had carried out the attack. 1986 – U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill gunned down 14 of his co-workers and then commited suicide in In Edmond, Oklahoma. 1988 – A cease-fire was agreed between Iran and Iraq, after almost eight years of war. 1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sank on the River Thames, in London, following a collision. 51 people were killed. 1991 – Estonia seceded from the Soviet Union.

8th August 1503 – King James IV of Scotland married Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland. 1585 – John Davis entered the Cumberland Sound in search of the Northwest Passage. 1709 – The first documented balloon flight in Europe was demonstrated by Bartolomeu de Gusmão, in Lisbon. It did not end well, but he was the first. 1786 – Mont Blanc on the French – Italian border was climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard. 1793 – The insurrection of Lyon occured during the French Revolution. 1794 – Joseph Whidbey led an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska. 1876 – Thomas Edison received a patent for his mimeograph. 1908 – Wilbur Wright made his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It was the Wright Brothers' first public flight. 1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin began a round-the-world flight. 1942 – The Quit India Movement was laun...

3rd July 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 S...

23rd June 1973 – A fire at a house in Hull, England, which killed a six year old boy was passed off as an accident; it later emerged that it was the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale. 1983 - Pope John Paul II privately met banned union leader Lech Walesa, the founder of Solidarity, on a visit to Poland. 1984 - An auction of John Lennon's possessions raised $430,000, including $19,000 for a guitar used while Lennon was with the Beatles. 1985 – A terrorist bomb brought a Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board. 1988 – James Hansen testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that it was 99% probable that global warming had begun. 1991 – Moldova declared independence. 1992 - New York crime boss John Gotti (the Teflon Don) was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole. 1996 - The Nintendo 64 went on sale in Japan. 2004 - A U.S. lawyer...

15th May 1567 – Mary Queen of Scots married James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, her third husband. 1718 – James Puckle, a London lawyer, patented the world's first machine gun. 1756 – The Seven Years' War began when England declared war on France. 1800 – George III survived two assassination attempts in one day. 1905 – Las Vegas, Nevada, was founded when 110 acres (0.4 km²), in what later would become downtown, were auctioned off. 1928 - Mickey Mouse appeared in his first animated cartoon "Plane Crazy". 1935 – The Moscow Metro was opened to the public. 1936 – Amy Johnson arrived back in England after a record-breaking return flight to Cape Town. 1940 – McDonald's opened its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California. 1957 - Britain dropped its first H-bomb. 1974 – Terrorists attacked an Israeli school, killing a total of 31 people, including 22 schoolchidren. 1988 – The Red Army began its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

6th March 1988 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers were murdered by the SAS on the territory of Gibraltar. 1987 – The British car ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsized just outside the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, in about 90 seconds killing 193 people. 1974 -  The miners' strike came to an end following a pay increase of over 30%. 1970 - The British Government announced an indefinite ban on the importation of domestic pets to prevent rabies. 1964 – Nation of Islam's Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole) officially gave boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali. 1961 – George Formby, British comedian and singer, died. 1957 – Ghana became the first Sub-Saharan country to gain Independence from the British 1945 – Cologne (Köln) was captured by American Troops. 1899 – Bayer registered aspirin as a trademark. 1836 - Mexican forces captured the Alamo in San Antonio killing the last of 187 defenders who had held out...

When writing a CV, over 50s in the UK are removing references to their O-levels to give themselves a better chance of getting an interview. (The O'level is a pre-1988 secondary school qualification replaced by GCSEs.  Once something to be proud of, nowadays by writing O'level on a CV you are giving away your age, and in our ageist society people just think - past it. )