Interesting Facts

21st August 1770 – James Cook formally claimed eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales. 1831 – Nat Turner led black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. 1879 – The Virgin Mary, along with St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist, reportedly appeared to the people of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland. Paving the way for lots of little plastic figurines. 1911 – The Mona Lisa was stolen by an employee at the Louvre in Paris. 1968 - Dozens of people were killed in a massive military clampdown in Czechoslovakia. 1983 - Benigno Aquino, the Philippines opposition leader, was murdered just minutes after returning home from exile. 1986 - 1,700 people died when a cloud of lethal gas escaped from a volcanic lake, Lake Nyos, in Cameroon.

8th July 1949 – Celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson were named in an FBI report as Communist Party members. 1953 – The United States Supreme Court ruled that Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons. 1965 - Ronald Biggs who was serving a 30-year prison sentence for his part in the Great Train Robbery escaped from Wandsworth prison. 1968 – James Earl Ray was arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. 1984 – Homosexuality was declared legal in the Australia state of New South Wales. 1996 - Three young children and four adults were attacked by a man with a machete at an infant school in Wolverhampton, England. 2001 – Mamoru Takuma stabbed 8 school pupils to death at Ikeda Elementary School. 2003 - Conjoined Iranian twins, Ladan Bijani and Laleh Bijani (in Persian: لادن و لاله بیژنی ), who had volunteered to go ahead with a major operation to separate the...

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.

The term flip-flop is an onomatopoeiac word based on the sound made by the sandals when walking in them. (Flip flops are no heel strap sandals, and although this style of sandal has been worn for centuries, the modern day flip flops have been worn in America and Britain since the 1970s. Sometimes the word is written flip-flops, and flipflops. They are called thongs in Australia, jandals (originally a trademarked name derived from "Japanese sandals") in New Zealand, slops in South Africa, and tsinelas in the Philippines.)

Australia has been invited to take part in the Eurovision song contest, as part of the competition’s 60th anniversary celebrations. (The Australian contestant, is yet to be chosen, but they will fight it out in the semi-final, and hopefully the final, which this year is being held in Vienna, Austria. It must be down to continental drift.)

Australia, Germany and Canada all allow women to take on close-combat ground roles in the armed forces. (It looks as if women will be allowed to take on combat roles for the first time in the UK soon.)

The minimum driving age in Australia varies between States and Territories. (It is 18 years in Victoria, 16 years and 6 months in the Northern Territory and 17 years in all the other states. I want to know what happens if a 16 year old drives from the Northern Territory to Victoria.)

Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott is going to spend a week living in the Outback with Aboriginal clans. (As part of his pre-election promise to engage with Aboriginal society, Mr Abbott will spend the week listening to the concerns of Aboriginal elders. I hope he doesn't get lost this time. )

25th April Today is Anzac Day in Australia. (It is traditional to wear a sprig of rosemary in remembrance. Rosemary is a herb associated with memory, and it grows wild on the Gallipoli peninsula.)

According to research from the Australian School of Business, the age you decide to retire at has no impact on life expectancy. (Did you notice the "you decide to retire" bit? Seemingly if you are forced into retirement because of redundancy or ill health, it can have a detrimental effect on your life expectancy. There are still reasons to keep working though, research carried out at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherché Médicale (INSERM) in France has shown that people who work for longer are less likely to develop dementia. They concluded that a person who retires at 65 is 15 per cent less likely to develop the condition than someone who retires at 60. It is believed that this is because intellectual stimulation and mental engagement are protective against dementia. I wonder if going to Bingo would have the same effect?)

Parts of the US and Australia have pet curfews where owners have to ensure that their cat or dog are indoors. (There are also no-go areas for cats and dogs, in an attempt to protect native wildlife. Some groups are calling for similar controls in the UK, where an estimated 200 million birds and small animals are killed by domestic cats every year. Laika is always in bed by 10pm.)

According to a report by by Caroline Saunders, Andrew Barber and Greg Taylor, lamb produced in New Zealand and shipped to Britain has a smaller carbon footprint than lamb produced locally in the UK. (To be exact, farmers in Britain use four times as much carbon per tonne of New Zealand lamb than farmers in New Zealander. How can shipping meat half way round the world create fewer "food miles" than locally rearing it? Well when you want to understand the real cost to the environment it's not enough to calculate "food miles" you have to look at other factors, and when it comes to raising lamb the UK uses more nitrogen fertiliser for pasture land by a factor of more than 13. I'm not sure who financed the study, for all I know it was the NZ meat marketing board, but maybe they have a point.) Information source

Where would you expect to find the world's largest herd of camels? The Sahara? Nope - it's in Australia. (Seemingly there are around 750,000 camels roaming wild in the outback, (between 2001 and 2008 it was estimated there were up to a million),    but they are not indiginous. Imported to Australia in the 19th century from Arabia, India and Afghanistan, for transport and heavy work in the outback, they now cause a lot of problems and are probably public enemy number 2, after the fecund rabbit. Camel stew anyone?) (We know a rhyme about camels , don't we children?)

Finland has been rated the best place in the world to be a mum in the annual Mothers' Index compiled by Save the Children. (Sweden and Norway, were also at the top, while Germany was 9th, Australia 10th, France 16th and Ireland 20th, Britain came 23rd, behind most of her European neighbours, and the United States was placed 30th in the ranking of 176 countries. Mums in the poorest countries are at most risk, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the world’s toughest place to be a mother.) Save the Children

Fizzy drinks are on average, 5,000 times more acidic than water, which has a neutral pH level. (This is having a disastrous affect on people's teeth. A normal sized can of pop contains approximately nine teaspoons of sugar, and regular consumption of these sugary drinks increases the risk of tooth decay by over 200%. According to dentists, who are at the front line of the battle against tooth decay, if you drink a lot of canned or bottled fizzy pop, you might as well stick your teeth in an acid bath. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 1969 Australians used to drink about 47 litres per person in a year, in 2012 it was estimated to be over 100 litres, and rising. That's almost 300 cans a year! Australian peridontist, Dr Amis Lidums, said "Teeth initially become quite sensitive and they'll start to become shorter as the protective enamel over the surface of the teeth disappears." Almost 60 per cent of children aged five to sixteen consume ...

According to Entomologist Mark Greco, the stingless bee (Trigona carbonaria) in Australia 'mummifies' any parasitic interloper that can damage its hives. (The bee wraps the live parasite in resin, wax and mud until it can't move and leaves it to starve. It sounds like some kind of weird diet / beauty treatment to me.)

It is estimated there are 35 "outlaw" motorcycle groups in Australia. (Together they have  3,500 "patched members" (official members). Since the 1980s there have been about 100 biker killings across the country and 1,000 shootings.   Because of the escalating violence, it is  illegal to wear certain biker "patches" or insignia in Kings Cross, Sydney. The reason for the escalating violence?  Drugs.  So, if you supply, grow, trade in, take or make money from narcotics, you are part of the problem,)

The word 'dollar' is usually associated with the name of the currency used in the USA. (There are other countries that use the word 'dollar' in their currency. The most well known are Canada and Australia, but there are 26 other countries that use the word dollar in their currency, these are:- Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Belize Brunei Dominica El Salvador Fiji Grenada Guyana Jamaica Kiribati Liberia Namibia Nauru New Zealand St Kitts and Nevis St Lucia St Vincent and the Grenadines Singapore Solomon Islands Surinam Taiwan Trinidad and Tobago Tuvalu Zimbabwe)

131 years after being executed, infamous Australian outlaw Ned Kelly has had his final wish granted. (Officials have agreed to release his remains so he can be buried with his family. He is likely to be laid to rest in a small cemetery near Glenrowan, where he was killed and where his mother Ellen, several of his brothers and sisters and other relatives are buried in unmarked graves. RIP Ned Kelly.) Ned Kelly by Johnny Cash In Australia a bandit or an outlaw was called a bushranger One of Australia's most infamous bushrangers was a man named Ned Kelly Ned Kelly was a wild young bushranger Out of Victoria he rode with his brother Dan He loved his people and he loved his freedom And he loved to ride the wide open land. Ned Kelly was a victim of the changes That came when his land was a sprout and seed And the wrongs he did were multiplied in legend With young Australia growing like a weed. Ned Kelly took the blame Ned Kelly won the fame Ned Kelly brought the...

According to a report published by the Green Party in Australia, 83% of Australia's mining industry is foreign-owned. (This means that over the next five years Aus$50 billion (US$53 billion) in profits from Australian mining operations will go abroad. Of course at some point someone sold these assets, I wonder who that was?)