Interesting Facts

18th November 1307 - Famed marksman William Tell put an apple on his son's head and shot it off.  (Call Social Services) 1928 - Mickey Mouse appeared in Steamboat Willie, his first cartoon to be distributed. 2004 - Britain outlawed fox hunting in England and Wales.

4th August  1914 - Germany declared war on Belgium 1914 - Britain declared war on Germany. 1914 - The US declared neutrality. A woman gives flowers to a German soldier leaving for the front, Berlin, August 1914  pic.twitter.com/AbpfIdFCN9 — History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics)  August 5, 2014 1944 - Anne Frank was arrested in Amsterdam by German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified.1964 - FBI agents uncovered the bodies of three missing civil rights workers at a dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

20th June 451 – Flavius Aetius' defeated Attila the Hun. 1214 – The University of Oxford received its charter. 1631 – The Irish village of Baltimore was attacked by Algerian pirates. 1685 – James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declared himself King of England at Bridgwater. 1756 – A British garrison was imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta. 1782 – The U.S. Congress adopted the Great Seal of the United States. 1791 – King Louis XVI of France and his immediate family began the Flight to Varennes during The French Revolution. 1837 – Queen Victoria succeeded to the British throne. 1840 – Samuel Morse received the patent for the telegraph. 1976 - Hundreds of Americans and Britons were moved from Beirut and taken to safety in Syria by the US military, following the murder of the US ambassador. 1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart was shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder was caught on tape and sparked inte...

10th June 1184 BC – The city of Troy was sacked and burned. 1509 – Henry VIII of England married Catherine of Aragon. 1692 - Salem Village. Bridget Bishop, the first colonist tried in the Salem witch trials, was hanged after being found guilty of the practice of witchcraft. (In 1956 the Massachusetts General Court passed an act exonerating her. Well that's alright then.) 1776 - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed to the Committee of Five to draft the American declaration of independence. 1788 – Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reached Alaska. 1955 – Eighty-three people were killed and at least 100 injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collided at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. 1959 - The Hovercraft, invented by Christopher Cockerell, was officially launched in Southampton. 1962 – Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin became the only prisoners to successfully escape from Alcatraz I...

9th June 62 – Claudia Octavia commited suicide. 68 - Roman Emperor Nero commited suicide. 1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen. 1958 – Queen Elizabeth II officially opened London Gatwick Airport, (LGW). 1975 - BBC radio broadcast the first live transmission from the House of Commons. 1978 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Mormons) opened its priesthood to "all worthy men", ending a 148-year-old policy excluding black men. 1985 – Thomas Sutherland was kidnapped in Lebanon (he was not released until 1991). 1999 – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) signed a peace treaty.

6th June 1944 - The Battle of Normandy began as thousands of Allied troops started landing on the beaches of Normandy in northern Franc: the beginning of D-Day, which was code named Operation Overlord, 1966 - James Meredith, the first black man to brave the colour bar at the University of Mississippi, was shot in the back and legs while on a civil rights march. 1975 - British voters backed the UK's continued membership of the EEC by two-to-one in a nationwide referendum. 1982 – The Lebanon War began. 1984 - Nearly 300 people were killed as Indian troops stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, which was being held by Sikh militants. 2004 – Tamil was established as a "classical language" by the President of India.

3rd June 1539 – Hernando De Soto, Spanish explorer and conquistador, claimed Florida for Spain. 1839 – Lin Tse-hsü destroyed 1.2 million kg of opium in Humen, confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a Casus belli to open hostilities with China, resulting in the First Opium War. 1924 – Franz Kafka died. 1937 – The Duke of Windsor married Wallis Simpson. 1940 – The Luftwaffe bombed Paris. 1946 - The first (modern) bikini bathing suit was displayed in Paris. Where else? 1956 – British Rail renamed 'Third Class' passenger facilities as 'Second Class'. Second Class facilities had been abolished in 1875, leaving just First Class and Third Class. (That's Britain for you.) 1989 – Troops attempted to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.

Roughly 1.1m people work in Britain’s gig economy, and according to a survey carried out by Ipsos Mori and the RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), 69 per cent of them are male. (In recent years, the word gig was used to refer to a live performance by or engagement for a musician or group , but “Gig economy” work is used to describe part-time self-employed work, often office work, short tasks and ‘click work’ done online.  In Britain that kind of work has tended to attract women in the past.  Nowadays there is a real gender imbalance in some sectors: For example men account for 95 per cent of Uber drivers and 94 per cent of Deliveroo couriers.)

28th March 1854 - Britain and France joined the Ottoman empire in the Crimean War against Russia, to halt Russian expansion. 1930 - Constantinople was renamed Istanbul as part of Kemal Atatürk's campaign to create a secular Turkey.

10th February 1763 - The Seven Years' War between Britain and Spain ended when The Treaty of Paris was signed. 2014 - Shirley Temple died.

June 15th Happy Beer Day Britain

A ferris wheel has been branded the "worst tourist attraction in Britain" because it offers panoramic views of - Dudley. (In a bid to put Dudley "back on the map", the 114 ft (35m) attraction has been erected in the centre of the Black Country town. Sponsored by local radio station Free Radio, it costs a mere £4.50 a ride. It was previously erected in Birmingham, but will only be in the town for one month. Organisers boast that it offers a birds-eye view of the regeneration of the town centre, including the zoo and castle, but people in the town and surrounding areas have criticised the move and fear it will make them a "laughing stock". Local resident Barney Fletcher said, "Who would want to spend £4.50 to go and get an elevated view of some old office buildings, an abandoned bingo hall and a shopping centre?",and it's already been nicknamed the "Dud-l'eye" (which is how the town is pronounced in a West Midlands ac...

A while ago we posted about the new class system in the UK.  Well they're at it again. This fits in nicely with Saturday's Business English session where we mentioned demographics. The LSE have worked out which class you belong to by Income, Education, Work, Likes, Address, and Who You Talk To. (The precariat, or precarious proletariat - Make up 15% of the country with an annual income of £8,253.  They have a low level education, are unemployed or work as cleaners / cashiers, with no cultural interests.  They live outside the South East of the country, and seemingly only talk to each other. The traditional working class -  Make up 14% of the country, with an annual income of  £13,305. Few have a degree of any kind, they work as secretaries, lorry drivers and electricians, and have a moderate interest in music and art. They live in Scotland and Wales, and talk to other traditional working class people. Emergents - Emergent service workers - Make up ...

At least £122 billion worth of property in England and Wales is owned by companies registered offshore. (The problem is that some of the world's most notorious criminals are buying Britain's luxury homes to launder crooked cash, and at the same time pushing up the price of property. Especially in the area of London. It all came to light in July 2015, when it emerged that the ownership of 221b Baker Street, home to the fictional super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes, was linked to a brutal former secret police chief accused of murder and money-laundering. What would Mrs Hudson say?) British Houses Source

The robin has been named Britain's national bird. By Lukas Esser (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons (The short list of 10 birds included:- The robin  The barn owl The kingfisher The wren The blue tit The mute swan The blackbird The puffin The red kite The hen harrier It's strange that the starling, the pigeon and the sparrow didn't make the short list.  Ornithologist David Lindo - who launched the campaign - said the robin was "entwined into our national psyche" as a "Christmas card pin-up". I wonder if it ever got centre-fold status.)

A poll, by decorating brand Harris, has revealed Britains favourite (and least favourite) smells. (The top 20 smells were:- Freshly baked bread Bacon Freshly cut grass Coffee Cakes baking in the oven The seaside Freshly washed clothes A Sunday roast  Fish and chips Fresh flowers A real Christmas tree Roses Vanilla Scented candles Log fires Lavender Lemon Chocolate Barbeques Cinnamon The most hated smells were: Bins Drains Body odour Sewage Vomit Rotten milk Rotting food Public toilets Nappies Old trainers Feet Manure Morning breath Burning plastic Garlic breath Exhaust fumes Sports changing rooms Blue cheese Bleach Fish What are yours?)

The poor old UK is suffering, Britain is officially colder than Siberia as temperatures plummet to a bone-chilling -12°. (It's actually too cold to grit the roads!) 

For three months, John McArthur has spent two hours each weekday morning parading outside LAMH Recycle in Motherwell, Scotland, wearing a placard reading: “Say no to slave labour”. (Why? Well, after the organisation "let him go" from a temporary job, he was ordered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to work for the same firm for six months without pay, in order to continue receiving unemployment benefit. Welcome to Britain 2014.)

According to the Road Safety Foundation, a 12-mile stretch of the A285 between Chichester and Petworth is UK's most dangerous road. (Seemingly the number of crashes has increased by 16% over the last 5 years. Road safety is a big problem in the UK; in the last five years serious crashes cost of £1.9 billion on motorways, £8.4 billion on primary A-roads and £5.9 billion on non-primary A-roads.)

According to research conducted by eHarmony.co.uk, Queen's English is Britain's favourite accent. (Yes, good old RP (received pronunciation) came top in nine out of ten positive character traits including: attractiveness, intelligence, honesty, charm, sophistication and reliability. 1. Received pronunciation (RP) 2. Edinburgh 3. Australian 4. Irish (Republic of Ireland) 5. Yorkshire 6. American 7. Geordie 8. Mancunian 9. Glaswegian 10. Welsh RO is still perceived as a little posh. That's me! LOL)