Interesting Facts

23rd July 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 ...

13th May 1958 – The trade mark Velcro was registered. 1981 – Pope John Paul II survived an assasination attempt after emergency surgery. 1989 – Large groups of students occupied Tiananmen Square in China and began a hunger strike. 1995 – British mother of two, Alison Hargreaves, conquered Everest.

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.

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.

26th March 1812 - An earthquake destroyed Caracas, Venezuela. 1827 - German composer Ludwig van Beethoven died in Vienna. 1934 - The driving test was introduced in the United Kingdom. 1973 - The London Stock Exchange allowed women on to the trading floor for the first time in the institution's 200 year history. 1979 - President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel ended 30 years of fighting with a handshake, after the signing of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.  Mr. Begin said, "No more war, no more bloodshed, no more bereavement, peace unto you, shalom, saalam, forever."  ("Shalom" and "salaam" are the Hebrew and Arabic words for "peace.") 1995 - The Schengen Treaty went into effect, creating a borderless zone between many European countries.  (But not the UK - never the UK. Pull up the drawbridge!)

20th November 1945 - The Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals began. 1992 - A major fire broke out at Windsor Castle. 1995 - Diana Princess of Wales admitted to having committed adultery in a TV interview.  

According to a Freedom of Information request from the Evening Standard newspaper a committee of British MPs has spent around £250,000 since 1995 commissioning portraits and statues of other MPs. (Now no one would really begrudge Sir Winston a statue or two, and even a prime minister like Mrs T should have her photo taken for the wall of infamy, but pictures and statues have also been commissioned for junior ministers and backbenchers. Frank Doran, Labour MP and chairman of the Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art said, "We've been collecting art in the House of Commons, and Parliament generally, since the 14th century.  We're preserving the history of Parliament through art. We're also doing a number of other things as part of that process: one is supporting young artists.")

According to a survey run by Direct Line insurance, we need an extra 2 hours 45 minutes every day to do everything we want to do and have enough time to relax. (A basic need for most humans is to have seven hours of free time every day, but the average person nowadays (2013) only manages four hours, 14 minutes. In 1995, people had six hours and 57 minutes downtime, by 2000 that was reduced to six hours and 34 minutes. but nowadays it's a measly four hours, 14 minutes.  The culprit?  Technology.  So go on, switch off your computer and go and sit on the couch, or go and chill out in the garden, if you don't have a garden, take a walk in the park to feed the swans and get some fresh air.)