Interesting Facts

4th November 1783 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 36 was performed for the first time in Linz, Austria. 1839 – The Newport Rising took place, which is the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority on mainland Britain. 1847 – Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform. 1918 – Wilfred Owen, English soldier and poet died, 6 days before the end of the war. 1922 – British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men found the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. 1952 – The United States government established the National Security Agency, or NSA. 1999 - Wallace and Gromit's animated adventure A Grand Day Out was first shown. 2008 – Barack Obama became the first man of African-American descent to be elected President of the United States.

For everyone in today's drama session on Second Life:- Barack and Michelle Obama Bill and Melinda Gates Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie They all met at work. Jeff and Pat?  :)

Seemingly Barack Obama is only the fifth President of the US to be re-elected with over 50% of the vote. (Of course that's only about 25% of the actual population of the US, because in spite of over $6 billion being spent on campaigning only an estimated 126 million Americans actually bothered to vote. That's an overall turnout rate of about 57.5%. ) 

The most "followed" accounts on Twitter are:- 1. Lady Gaga @ladygaga – 26m 2. Justin Bieber @justinbieber – 24m 3. Katy Perry @katyperry – 22m 4. Rihanna @rihanna – 21m 5. Britney Spears @britneyspears – 18m 6. Barack Obama @BarackObama – 17m 7. Shakira @shakira – 16m 8. Taylor Swift @taylorswift13 – 15m 9. Kim Kardashian @KimKardashian – 15m 10. Youtube @YouTube – 14m  I wonder how many of them write their own tweets? PS -  I follow YouTube.  Source

According to the US Commerce Department a record 62 million foreigners visited the United States in 2011, an increase of 2.5 million from 2010. (Spending by domestic as well as international tourists grew 8.1 percent from 2010 to $1.2 trillion, supporting an additional 103,000 jobs for a total of 7.6 million, and spending $153 billion on travel and tourism-related services. President Barack Obama's administration has promised to support the tourism industry and make America more welcoming to visitors from all over the world. They could start at the airports and get security to smile a bit.)

Officials in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) have had all the coconuts round the city's Gandhi museum, removed. (Why? Well, US President Barack Obama is visiting, and they don't want the coconuts to fall on his head! According to George Burgess, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History, "Falling coconuts kill 150 people worldwide each year, 15 times the number of fatalities attributable to sharks." I wonder who compiled the stats?)

Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy are the same height. (At 5'5" (1.65m) they are both shorter than Napoleon, whose height has been recalculated as 5'6" (1.68m) up 4" from the 5'2" we were taught at school. Barack Obama is 6'1" (1.85m) and our current PM David Cameron is 6'0.5" (1.84m). Note the half inch, it makes all the difference you know.)

When photographing a group of heads of state, protocol decrees that the host should stand in the centre at the front and next to him should be the longest-serving leaders. (At the recent G20 summit, Gordon Brown, as host, stood front and centre, with the dignitaries radiating out from him in order of seniority and length of service, meaning the positions on either side of Brown were reserved for the heads of state who had been in harness the longest - President Luis "Lula" Ignacio de Silva of Brazil and Hu Jintao of China. As the new kid on the block, Barack Obama was shuffled slightly off centre.) Source - The Guardian

At the inauguration of Barack Obama around two million people packed into the Washington National Mall to see the ceremony. (I watched it on TV along with two billion other people.)

There are about 95 "Impeach George Bush" groups on Facebook. (Groups are now springing up along the lines of "Impeach Barack Obama", not because of taking his country to war, but because he wants to introduce social reform. Ah well, I guess they didn't want him to feel left out.)