Interesting Facts

25th July 1943 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini stepped down as head of the armed forces and the government. 1969 - Senator Edward Kennedy plead guilty to leaving the scene of a crime following the Chappaquiddick car crash. 1978 - The first so called 'test tube baby' was born in Manchester, England. 1992 - The Olympic Games opened in Barcelona with all countries present for the first time in modern history. 2000 - 113 people died when Concorde crashed minutes after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris. Concorde was out of service for more than a year after the Paris crash, it struggled to attract enough passengers and was retired in October 2003 as it was no longer profitable.

12th July 55 - Julius Caesar was born. 1543 – King Henry VIII of England married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr at Hampton Court Palace. 1812 – The United States invaded Canada at Windsor, Ontario. 1961 – The Panshet and Khadakvasala dams in India burst destroying most of the older sections of the city of Pune. Half of the city was submerged. More than 100,000 families dislocated and the death tally exceeded 2,000. 1962 – The Rolling Stones performed their first ever concert, at the Marquee Club in London. 1998 - Three young brothers, Richard Quinn, 11, Mark Quinn, 9, and Jason Quinn, 7, were murdered in a loyalist arson attack as the stand-off between Orangemen and police at Drumcree in Ireland. 2006 - Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid; Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon in response.

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...

7th July 1543 – French troops invade Luxembourg. 1947 – The Roswell UFO incident took place. 1967 – The civil war in Biafra began. 1969 – In Canada, the Official Languages Act was adopted making the French language equal to the English language throughout the Federal government. 1978 – The Solomon Islands became independent from the United Kingdom. 2005 - Four bombs were set off on the London public transport system during the morning rush hour, killing 56 people, and injuring 700. It was the deadliest single act of terrorism in the UK since the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, which killed 270 people. A group called "Al Qaeda in Europe" claimed responsibility for the attacks. 2006 – The Western Black Rhinoceros, the rarest of the Black Rhino subspecies, was declared extinct by the World Conservation Union, due to poaching.

25th June 1678 – Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to be awarded a doctorate of philosophy. 1876 – Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer died at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 1947 – The Diary of Anne Frank was published. 1951 - The first colour TV broadcast took place on America's CBS Network. 1991 – Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. 1996 – The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. servicemen. 2006 – Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, was kidnapped in a cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip in Palestine. 2007 – Severe flooding hit England. Parts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire flooded including Louth, Horncastle and worst affected, Hull. 2009 - Michael Jackson died.

29th May 1660 – Charles II was restored to the throne of Great Britain. (It was his birthday too.) 1913 – Igor Stravinsky's ballet score; The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris, France, provoking a riot. 1914 – Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; 1,024 people died. 1919 – Einstein's theory of general relativity was tested (and later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington's observation of a total solar eclipse in Principe and by Andrew Crommelin in Sobral, Ceará, Brazil. 1942 – Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling Christmas single in history. 1953 – Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday. 1968 - Manchester Utd Football Club won the European Cup becoming the first English club to do so. 1972 – 26 people were killed...

19th May 1499 – Catherine of Aragon, was married by proxy to Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales. Catherine was just 13 and Arthur 12. 1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, was beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest. 1568 – Queen Elizabeth I of England ordered the arrest of Mary Queen of Scots. 1649 – An Act of Parliament declaring England a Commonwealth was passed by the Long Parliament. England would be a republic for the next eleven years. 1890 – Ho Chi Minh, the1st President of Vietnam was born. 1897 – Oscar Wilde was released from Reading Prison. 1943 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the cross-English Channel landing (D-Day). It would be delayed over a month due to bad weather. 1962 - Marilyn Monroe sang "that" birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, New York City. 1984 – Poet John Betjeman, who had been B...

14th May 1264 – Henry III of England was captured in France making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England. 1607 – Jamestown, Virginia was settled as an English colony. 1796 – Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination. 1889 – The children's charity the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) was launched in London. 1955 – The Communist states signed the Warsaw Pact. 1998 – Frank Sinatra died.

According to research carried out by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy and water filter company Brita UK, Brits are needlessly buying bottled water in restaurants and pubs because they feel too awkward to ask for free tap water. (Many people are unaware of the fact that, in England, Scotland and Wales, licensed premises such as bars, restaurants and theatres are required by law to provide free drinking water on request (although they can charge for the use of a glass). Of course there is nothing worse than an awkward Brit, and I fully understand our reluctance to dare to ask for something for nothing.)

1st April 1318 - Berwick-upon-Tweed was captured by the Scottish from the English. 1826 - Samuel Morey patented the internal combustion engine. 1867 - Singapore became a British crown colony. 1873 - The British steamer RMS Atlantic sank off Nova Scotia, 547 people died. 1891 - The Wrigley Company was founded in Chicago, Illinois. 1918 - The Royal Air Force was created by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. 1924 - Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in jail for his participation in the "Beer Hall Putsch". However, he spent only nine months in jail, during which time he wrote the book Mein Kampf. (Just shows you prison is no deterrent.) 1949 - The twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State became the Republic of Ireland. 1976 - Apple Computer was formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. 1979 - Iran became an Islamic Republic by a 98% vote, officially overthrowing the Shah. 1981 - Daylight saving time was introduced ...

19th February 1878 – Thomas Edison patented the phonograph. 1861 – Serfdom was abolished in Russia. 1674 – England and the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. A provision of the agreement transferred the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England, whereupon it was renamed New York.

12th January 1895 - The National Trust was founded in England. Within days it was given its first place - five acres of cliff top at Dinas Oleu in Wales.

26th November 1865 - Lewis Carrroll (Charles Dodgson) published the book Alice in Wonderland (aka Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). 1984 - US troops withdrew from the Lebanese capital, Beirut. 1987 - The Church of England's General Synod voted by a huge majority in favour of the ordination of women priests.

According to the British Coffee Association around 2,000,000,000 cups of coffee are consumed worldwide every day. (According to market researchers, Mintel, in the UK we drink over 70 million cups a day, but 3/4 (74%) of all UK adults drink instant coffee, compared to around 1/2 (48%) who drink fresh coffee. I stopped drinking instant when I left England, and I've never wanted to go back to the brown sludge.)

New guidelines for school pupils in England state that only phrases starting with "what" or "how" merit an exclamation mark! (This means that children who use punctuation marks in written tests will be penalised unless they adhere to strict rules. I mean, I know I ask people not to use them in every sentence, and to stick to one, but really, this is way too prescriptive. Irk the purists!)

National Offer Day (around the beginning of March) is when parents across England are told by their Local Authority whether their children will be offered a place in their first choice secondary school. (It is a fraught time for parents with children who are in their final year of primary school. In 2015 84.2% of children were offered a place at their first choice school, but that means quite a few missed out. Increasingly parents whose kids don't get their first choice are spending thousands of pounds to try and secure a place in their chosen school, in what is becoming an increasingly competitive environment.) Source

According to a report from the Department of Transport, the slowest road in England is the A306 Northbound at Richmond, which has a rush hour speed of just 3.5 mph. (We are slowing down: In the year ending to December 2015, average speeds on local ‘A’ roads in England during the weekday morning peak were a measly 23.4 mph. The actual speed limit on a dual carriageway can vary from 40mph and 70mph, but you'll be lucky to get the chance.  One theory is that roads are getting congested by all the online shopping deliveries. Outside of London Nottingham is home to the slowest road: The A6005 Eastbound with rush hour speeds of just 6.4 mph.  This shouldn't come as a surprise to Amatsu.)

Edwin Beard Budding, an engineer from Stroud, England, is credited with inventing the lawnmower. (It was a push mower, inspired by a machine he saw in a local cloth mill which used a cutting cylinder (or bladed reel) mounted on a bench to trim give wollen cloth a smooth finish. The mower was designed primarily to cut the grass on sports grounds and in extensive gardens, as a superior alternative to the scythe. He was granted the British patent on August 31, 1830. And thus the stripey English lawn was invented.)

7.6 billion plastic carrier bags are handed out in England every year. (That's 61,000 tonnes of plastic, and the equivalent of 140 bags per person. The government expects the English scheme to cut use of plastic carrier bags by up to 80% in supermarkets, and by 50% on the High Street. It is expected to save £60m in litter clean-up costs as well as generate £730m for good causes over the next decade. Let's hope we can learn to carry a reusable bag with us.)

October 5th Shoppers in England will have to pay 5p for a plastic bag from today.