Interesting Facts

30th July 762 – Baghdad was founded. 1866 – New Orleans's Democratic government ordered police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150. 1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid. 1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He was never seen or heard from again. 2003 – In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line. 2006 – The world's longest running music show, Top of the Pops, was broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years. 2006 – At least 28 civilians, including 16 children were killed by the Israeli Air Force in Lebanon. 2005 - Anthony Walker, a British student was murdered in a racially motivated crime. 2007 - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to ...

30th June 1860 – The 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History took place. 1908 – The Tunguska event occured in Siberia. 1936 - Gone with the Wind was published. 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place. 1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan, USA. (I wonder if it was a little red one.) 1960 – Congo gained independence from Belgium. 1963 – A car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, killed seven police and military officers near Palermo. 1969 – Nigeria banned Red Cross aid to Biafra, leaving over 4 million people to face starvation. 1971 - Three Russian cosmonauts were found dead in their Soyuz 11 space capsule after it made what looked like a perfect landing in Kazakhstan. 1985 - 39 Americans being held captive by the Shia Muslim Amal militia in Lebanon were released, after almost three weeks in ...

25th June 1678 – Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to be awarded a doctorate of philosophy. 1876 – Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer died at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 1947 – The Diary of Anne Frank was published. 1951 - The first colour TV broadcast took place on America's CBS Network. 1991 – Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. 1996 – The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. servicemen. 2006 – Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, was kidnapped in a cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip in Palestine. 2007 – Severe flooding hit England. Parts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire flooded including Louth, Horncastle and worst affected, Hull. 2009 - Michael Jackson died.

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...

2nd February 2007 - Hundreds of scientists who had taken part in a U.N.-sponsored study concluded in a report that human activity was to blame for global warming, largely through greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.

Libby Lane is the first female bishop to be consecrated by The Church of England. (She has been vicar of St Peter's Hale and St Elizabeth's Ashley, in Greater Manchester, since April 2007. Women have been able to become priests in the Church of England for 20 years. Next stop archbishop?)

According to a study conducted by the Royal Statistical Society, in the UK we are starting to think of Christmas as early as 19th August. (Internet searches for terms such as “Santa Claus”, “elf” and “presents” start clogging up bandwidth almost three months earlier than in 2007. We've all gone mad!)

In 2007 Gordon Brown did not send a Christmas card to Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel or Russia's outgoing president, Vladimir Putin. (Did I mention he's Scottish?)