Interesting Facts

21st July 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 – Th...

In 1994, a Paddington Bear stuffed toy was chosen as the first item to pass from the English side of the Channel Tunnel to the French side when the two sides were linked up. (I wonder if they were confused.) 

17th June 1579 – Sir Francis Drake claimed a land he called "Nova Albion" (modern California) for England. 1631 – Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spent more than 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal. 1882 - Igor Stravinsky, the Russian composer, was born. 1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbour aboard the French ship Isere. 1939 – Last public guillotining in France took place. Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, was guillotined in Versailles outside the prison Saint-Pierre. 1940 – The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fell under the occupation of the Soviet Union. 1944 – Iceland declared independence from Denmark and became a republic. 1947 - Pan Am Airways was chartered as the world's first worldwide passenger airline. 1950 - The first documented kidney transplant took place in Chicago, on Ruth Tucker, a 44-year-old woman with polycystic kidney disease. Un...

2nd June 455 – The Vandals entered Rome, and plundered the city for two weeks. 1692 – Bridget Bishop was the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. 1793 – Jean-Paul Marat recited the names of 29 people to the French National Convention. Almost all of these people were guillotined, followed by 17,000 more over the course of the next year during the Reign of Terror. 1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States. 1946 – Italians voted to turn Italy from a monarchy into a Republic. After the referendum the king of Italy Umberto II di Savoia was exiled. 1953 - Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. 1966 - The United States landed a spacecraft on the Moon on its first try (four months behind the Soviet Union). 1985 - English clubs were banned from playing in Europe indefinitely, after the riot at Brussels...

17th May 1521 – Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, was executed for treason. 1536 – George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford and four other men were executed for treason. 1590 – Anne of Denmark was crowned Queen of Scotland. 1792 – The New York Stock Exchange was formed. 1814 – The Constitution of Norway was signed and Danish Crown Prince Christian Frederik elected King of Norway by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly. 1974 – Thirty-three people were killed by terrorist bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland. 1978 - Charlie Chaplin's stolen body was found. 1984 – Prince Charles called the proposed addition to the National Gallery, London, a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend," sparking controversies on the proper role of the Royal Family and the course of modern architecture. 1992 – The WHO (World Health Organisation) took homosexuality out of its list of mental illnesses. 1994 - The U.N. Security Council approved sendi...

6th May 1536 – King Henry VIII ordered English language Bibles be placed in every church. 1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp was introduced for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1882 – Thomas Henry Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish were stabbed and killed during the Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin. 1889 – The Eiffel Tower was officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris. 1910 – George V became King upon the death of his father, Edward VII. 1937 – The German Zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people were killed. 1940 – John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath. 1954 – Roger Bannister became the first person to run the mile in under four minutes. 1966 – Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors Murders in England. 1994 – The Channel Tunnel (aka the Chunnel)...

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.

In 1960, Joanna Woodward was the first star to be honoured on the historic Walk of Fame in Hollywood. (When it was first constructed there were 1,558 blank stars, but new stars were added and Sophia Loren was honoured with the 2,000th star in 1994. As far as I know there is still room for a few new stars, so there's time for my acting career to take off.)

According to figures released by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents; more people were killed on UK roads in 2011 than at any time since 2003. (Statistics revealed almost 2,000 people died in traffic accidents – 3% up on 2010. The number of deaths and serious injuries reported to the police hit 25,023, a 2% increase on the previous year and the first increase in those killed or seriously injured since 1994. Now I wonder what's changed recently that might cause these increases. Anyone here been using their mobile phone recently?) Source