Interesting Facts

12th November 1439 – Plymouth, England, became the first town incorporated by the English Parliament. 1793 – Jean Sylvain Bailly, the first Mayor of Paris, was guillotined. 1893 – The treaty of the Durand Line delineating the border between present day Pakistan and Afghanistan was signed by Sir Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat in British India. 1912 – The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men were found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. 1918 – Austria became a republic. 1927 – Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union. 1933 – Hugh Gray took the first known photographs alleged to be of the Loch Ness Monster. 1956 – Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia joined the United Nations. 1956 – 111 people, including 103 refugees, were killed by the Israeli army in the Palestinian refugee camp of Rafah, in the midst of the Suez Crisis. The United Nations were unable to determine the circumstances surrounding...

Michael Gove, beloved by teachers everywhere, has issued civil servants working under him in his new role as head of the Department of Justice, with detailed guidance on his idea of what constitutes good grammar. (The guidelines, entitled Ministerial Correspondence Preferences, tell officials to write “make sure” instead of “ensure” and to avoid using the word “impact” as a verb. He is also unhappy with the use of contractions, such as “doesn’t”, and the deployment of “yet” and “however” at the beginning of sentences. It also suggests that “the phrases best-placed and high-quality are joined with a dash, very few others are” and discourages unnecessary capitalisation and repetition. This is two years after he circulated “10 golden rules” to officials in the Department for Education, but it isn't the first time government officials have done this kind of thing: In 2012 the then environment secretary Owen Paterson issued a 10-point list which included a ban on his department’s ...

You've heard of the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots, well say hello to the Cornish. (Not the pasty, the people. Cornwall has won recognition as a national minority. Flag - St Piran Language - Cornish Nationality - Cornish In the census of 2011, 84,000 people declaree themselves “Cornish”, but only 557 people claim that the Celtic dialect is their main language, although there are now dual-language street signs throughout the county. I don't think you can call yourself Cornish, if you can't speak Cornish. There should be a test.) Oh look!  There is! Can you tell the difference between Dothraki and Cornish? http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/dothraki-or-cornish-can-you-tell-the-difference

According to figures recently released by the Office for National Statistics, the use of Tasers by police in England and Wales has more than doubled; from 3,500 a year in 2009 to 7,250 in 2011. (In around 25% of cases, the taser is used as a pain compliance weapon, where the cartridge is removed and used to inflict pain, a kind of stun gun. In 2008 changes to the law allowed the weapons to be used by any police officer after just three days' training. They probably think they're Jedi warriors.)

The Queen has received a £5m pay rise from the British taxpayer. (Under a new payment system, called the sovereign grant, which replaces the old funding system of the civil list and grants-in-aid, the Queen now receives 15% of the profits from the Crown Estate. Between 2011 and 2012 the Crown Estate made a profit of £240.2m. Just remember - We're all in this together.)

According to the Department for Education in the UK, during 2010/11  5,080 children were permanently excluded from state-funded primary, state-funded secondary and all special schools in 2010/11. ( Th e permanent exclusion rate for boys was approximately 3 times higher than that for girls. The fixed period exclusion rate for boys was almost 3 times higher than that for girls. In addition  there were 271,980 fixed period exclusions from state-funded secondary schools, 37,790 fixed period exclusions from state-funded primary schools and 14,340 fixed period exclusions from special schools. I have nothing funny to say about this.  I've got my serious head on.) Source

Many aeroplane cockpits have cup holders. (Pilots are allowed to have beverages in the cockpit. Unfortunately this factlet came to light in 2011 when a pilot spilled coffee on the cockpit panel of a Boeing 777-200 headed from Chicago to Frankfurt, leading to a false hijack warning and culminating in the plane's emergency landing in Canada. I guess they've got to keep hydrated, but they should give them sippy cups.)

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

If you're an armchair explorer you can now explore the waterways, trails and villages along the Rio Negro in Brazil. (The pictures were taken in 2010 using camera-mounted three wheeled bicycles and have now been woven into Google Maps.)

According to a poll by consumer group Silver Poll, in 2011 6% of over-55s in the UK owned an e-book reader. (This compares with five per cent of those aged 18-24. Of course there is a simple explanation, over 55s can read.  Oh and you can make the print bigger.)

In 2011 43,069 cosmetic operations took place in Britain. (A 6% increase on 2010 figures of 38,274. I cannot even imagine going under the knife willingly, never mind actually paying for the privilege for cosmetic surgery with all the risks that carries.  How could anyone trust a medical professional who is willing to slice people open to give them bigger boobs?)

According to a report by Ofcom, half of all UK teenagers own smartphones. (Yes, the Communications Market 2011 report from Ofcom shows that that smartphone ownership is still on the rise and that teenagers are obsessed with their phones. The report findings show that teenagers are much more likely to own a smartphone than adults and are more obsessed with them. 48 per cent of teenagers own a smartphone compared to just 27 per cent of adults. 60% of teenagers who owned a smartphone described themselves as “highly addicted” to their handsets. Only 37 per cent of adults felt that way. I'm really glad I'm not a teenager any more.)