Interesting Facts

19th August 1561 – 18-year-old Mary Queen of Scots returned to Scotland, after spending 13 years in France. 1692 – 5 people, 1 woman and 4 men, including a clergyman, were executed after being convicted of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. 1745 – Prince Charles Edward Stuart landed Glenfinnan, raised his standard and marched on London – the start of the Second Jacobite Rebellion known as "the 45". 1919 – Afghanistan gained full independence from the United Kingdom. 1934 – The creation of the position of Führer was approved by the German electorate with 89.9% of the popular vote. 1977 – Groucho Marx died. 1989 – Several hundred East Germans crossed the frontier between Hungary and Austria during the Pan-European Picnic, part of the events which began the process of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. 1999 – Tens of thousands of Serbians rallied in Belgrade, to demand the resignation of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević.

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 l...

9th June 62 – Claudia Octavia commited suicide. 68 - Roman Emperor Nero commited suicide. 1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen. 1958 – Queen Elizabeth II officially opened London Gatwick Airport, (LGW). 1975 - BBC radio broadcast the first live transmission from the House of Commons. 1978 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Mormons) opened its priesthood to "all worthy men", ending a 148-year-old policy excluding black men. 1985 – Thomas Sutherland was kidnapped in Lebanon (he was not released until 1991). 1999 – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) signed a peace treaty.

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...

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.

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 ...

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, on average British mums spend 3 hours a day on housework and cooking, whereas fathers spend an average of three quarters of an hour. (In 8 out of 10 couples, women do all the washing and ironing, but things are changing, a magazine survey in 1999 revealed that among the over-60s age group, none of the men surveyed ever did the washing! Of course in 1980 only 31% of women had a full-time or part-time job compared to 55% today. According to therapist Julia Cole, most men still expect women to do the housework, and if men do it, they act as though they are doing their partner a favour; saying things like: 'I've done the washing up for you' instead of regarding it as something which benefits both of them.)

According to a study carried out by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, UK schoolchildren are taking up pop instruments due to the influence of reality TV shows like the X Factor. (In 1999 the instrument plaed by most kids was the recorder, in 2014 it is the electric keyboard. 1999 Recorder – 19% Keyboard – 9% Piano – 8% Acoustic guitar – 5% Drums – 4% Violin – 2% Flute – 2% Electric guitar – 1% Percussion – 1% Bass guitar – 0% 2014 Keyboard – 30% Piano – 28% Recorder – 28% Acoustic guitar – 20% Drums – 14% Electric guitar – 13% Violin – 12% Flute – 7% Percussion – 6% Bass guitar – 5% I would think that with synthesisers, the electric keyboard encompasses all the instruments.)