Interesting Facts

20th March International Day of Happiness

20th March 1956 - Tunisia gained independence from France. 1993 - Johnathan Ball, aged 3, died in a bomb attack in Warrington. He was in town with his babysitter buying a Mothering Sunday Card. Tim Parry, 12, was fatally injured and died five days later in hospital. 1997 - The Liggett Group, the fifth-largest U.S. tobacco company, admitted that smoking was addictive and caused health problems and that the tobacco industry had sought for years to sell its products to children as young as 14. 2003 - American launched missiles hit the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Civilian casualties were not counted.

20th March There will be a partial solar eclipse across the UK and Northern Europe. The longest period of darkness - nearly three minutes - will occur over a spot in the Arctic Ocean at 09:46 GMT In the past an eclipse was a big event too:- "The great eclipse of the sun in 1764, occasioned the very following ludicrous circumstance in Ireland: The Earl of H-----------; who, like some of our English Nobles, was much better skilled in driving four in hand than in astronomy, was met in Dublin by the facetious George Nangle on the morning of the eclipse: - 'Where so fast, my Lord?', cried George - 'To the College', answered the Peer, 'to see the eclipse' - 'Then you will be disappointed,' replied George, 'for it is absolutely put off till tomorrow!' His Lordship immediately turned his phaeton round and drove home, while George proclaimed the joke throughout the city, to the infinite mirth of the public, at his Lordship's expense." - Lon...