Interesting Facts

14th June 1381 – Richard II met leaders of the Peasants' Revolt on Blackheath. 1381 - The Tower of London was stormed by rebels who entered without resistance. 1645 – Battle of Naseby – 12,000 Royalist forces were beaten by 15,000 Parliamentarian soldiers. 1648 – Margaret Jones was hanged in Boston for witchcraft. 1777 – The Stars and Stripes was adopted by Congress as the Flag of the United States. 1789 – Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reached Timor after a nearly 7,400 km (4,000-mile) journey in an open boat. 1789 – Whisky distilled from corn was first produced by American clergyman the Rev Elijah Craig. He called it Bourbon because he lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky. 1822 – Charles Babbage proposed a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled "Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables". 1839 – The village of Henley, on the River...

31st May 1578 – King Henry III* laid the first stone of the Pont Neuf (New Bridge), in Paris. It is now the oldest bridge there. 1669 – Citing poor eyesight, Samuel Pepys recorded the last event in his diary. 1946 - Heathrow International airport opened for civilian use. 1985 - The Football Association, supported by Margaret Thatcher, banned English football clubs from playing in Europe following the Heysel stadium tragedy. *Henry III of France of course. 

31st March 1918 - Daylight Saving Time was adopted as law in the US. 1948 - Congress passed the Marshall Aid Act, a plan to rehabilitate war-ravaged Europe. 1959 - The Dalai Lama fled Chinese-occupied Tibet and was granted political asylum in India. 1991 - The Warsaw Pact formally ended as Soviet commanders surrendered their powers in an agreement between pact members and the Soviet Union.

29th March 2017 - The UK is going to trigger Article 50 to begin negotiations to leave the European Union. 2017 - Germany is switching off its current terrestrial TV signals to allow the broadcast of HD signals. 

29th March 1971 - Lt. William Calley was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison for his part in the My Lai massacre. He served one day in prison, before President Richard Nixon ordered him transferred to house arrest at Fort Benning, pending appeal. He subsequently served only three and a half years of house arrest in his quarters at Fort Benning and was released on September 25, 1974, by federal judge J. Robert Elliott. I wonder if he's ever read the 5 people you meet in heaven. 2017 - The UK triggered Article 50 to begin negotiations to leave the European Union. 2017 - Germany switched over its terrestrial TV signals to allow the broadcast of HD signals. 

Marmite is quintessentially British, but did you know it wasn't invented by a Brit? It was invented by a German. (Justus von Liebig was looking for an inexpensive nutrition source for the poor of Europe, and his discovery that yeast could be concentrated and eaten, led to the manufacture of Marmite. I'm not sure if that should be celebrated, or not.)

According to research carried out by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, half of Western European men are descended from one Bronze Age ‘king’. (The unamed monarch, who lived around 4,000 years ago, sired a dynasty of elite nobles which spread throughout Europe. Previous genetic research has found that 16 million men across the world could be related to Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who died in 1227. So, who's your daddy?) Source

The European Space Agency has announced a New Year resolution.  It plans to build a ‘moon village’ within the next two decades from which it will explore the galaxy. (They plan to build a 3D-printed base on the moon from a naturally-occurring radiation-resistant moon material called regolith. The ‘village’ would most likely be built on the rim of a south pole crater called Shackleton, where it would receive almost limitless solar power. They first discussed plans to build a lunar base in 2013, but it has now developed a timetable for the plans and has set 2030 as its goal. I'm not sure if this blog will continue until then, but watch this space.)

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization over a billion tourists travelled abroad in 2014. (That's 51 million more than in 2013. The biggest growth destinations were the Americas, with 7% more tourists, followed by Asia and the Pacific at 5%, and Europe with 4% growth. The world is on the move!)

According to a survey run by GoEuro, women in France and Belgium ranked British men as the most desirable in Europe. (The European survey found that the typical British gentleman is now perceived to be the third most attractive nationality, ahead of the French (in fourth place). Go Euro said, the change in fortunes could be down to English now being the most widely-spoken language. I like to think I've done my bit for the men of Britain.)

According to a report by the WHO (World Health Organisation) 74% of men and 64% of women in the UK will be overweight by 2030. ( That's almost three-quarters of men and two-thirds of women in the UK are on their way to being overweight within 15 years. Medically speaking, b eing “overweight” is defined as having a BMI ( Body Mass Index ) of between 25 and 29.9.  Being  “obese” is defined by a BMI of 30 and above. Worryingly  other European countries are facing growing obesity problems including Greece, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic and even Sweden.   The only European country to escape is the Netherlands.  Must be all those bikes.) Source

According to figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council, in 2014, 1 in 4 British nurses had to be recruited from abroad. (Seemingly there aren't enough nurses coming out of training because of cuts in training budgets. The good news is that agencies are making a fortune, and hospital trusts get to go on recruitment trips around the world.)

In new legislation, restaurants and takeaways across Europe will be required by law to tell customers if their food contains ingredients known to trigger allergies. (The new rules also apply to meals served in bakeries, cafes, care homes and any packaged produce sold by supermarkets. Remember the nuts? Well it's not just nuts:- The list of ingredients includes:- celery - including any found in stock cubes and soup cereals containing gluten - including spelt, wheat, rye, barley crustaceans - e.g. crabs, lobster, prawns and shrimp paste eggs - including food glazed with egg fish lupin - can be found in some types of bread, pastries, pasta milk molluscs - mussels, land snails, squid, also found in oyster sauce mustard nuts - for example almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, macadamia peanuts - also found in groundnut oil sesame seeds - found in some bread, houmous, tahini soya - found in beancurd, edamame beans, tofu sulphur dioxide - used as a preservative in drie...

At 117 miles, the M25 or Lon­don Orbital Motor­way is the sec­ond longest city bypass in Europe. The longest is the Berliner Ring, which is 122 miles (196 km) long. (A Royal Com­mis­sion first sug­gested a ring road for Lon­don in 1905, but it didn't happen until the M25 opened on 29th October 1986. It took more than 11 years to actually build, and construction cost £1bn. It used more than two million tonnes of concrete and 3.5 million tonnes of asphalt.

The EU has already banned powerful vacuum cleaners, sparking a rush to buy the last remaining models with motors above the new EU limit of 1,600 watts, but now Europe has its sights on other domestic appliances. (Toasters, kettles and juicers will have their power consumption reduced. Other items under the spotlight include heated greenhouses, power tools, gym equipment, food mixers, rice cookers, blenders, deep fat fryers and believe it or not aquarium lights and filters. I guess that's what you call pulling the plug.)

According to the Talis 13 report issued by the OECD, England has the rowdiest classrooms in Europe. (6.5% of teachers in England face intimidation or verbal abuse. Brazil tops the league with 12.5%, followed by Estonia at 11% and Australia at 9.7%. You might be shocked, but I'm pleasantly surprised the figure for England is so low.)

Plovdiv in Bulgaria, is the oldest inhabited city in Europe. (The second-largest city in Bulgaria, records show Plovdiv as the earliest habitation of any European city; 4,000 BC. It was originally a Tracian settlement before becoming a major Roman city. Later ruled by the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, it eventually became part of Bulgaria. To put it into perspective, London was first inhabited about 50 AD. It's a spring chicken in comparison.) Thanks to Boris. 

According to a joint report published by Shelter and KPMG, within a generation, 50% of young Brits will be living with their parents beyond the age of 30. (The main reason is Britain's acute housing shortage, and the spiraling  price of property. 100,000 fewer homes are currently built each year than are needed.  Of course, there's always the tiny house movement, but as British houses are already the smallest in Europe, they couldn't get much smaller. The report also stated that if current trends continue,  the average house price in England could double to £446,000 in 10 years.  Now that really scares me.   I'll never be able to afford to go back to the UK at this rate!)

According to a report by traffic information firm Inrix, the average driver in the UK spends 30 hours stuck in traffic jams, every year. (That rises to almost 82 hours in London, which is the second most congested major city in Europe after Brussels. I'm so grateful that I don't have to commute any more, just get up and roll downstairs every morning. There's never a traffic jam, but I sometimes have to fight my way past Laika to turn the computer on.)

According to a poll carried out in Europe by the website GrowingUpMilkInfo.com,   British children are the fussiest eaters in Europe. (Seemingly 26% of British children reject their meals every day, and 69% of children under five in the UK sometimes refuse to eat what they are given. The league table for fussy eaters is:- 1st - United Kingdom - 69% 2nd - Netherlands - 63% 3rd - Germany - 58%  and  Sweden - 58% 4th - France - 54% 5th - Spain - 40% Italy doesn't appear, probably because 37% of mothers in Italy said they are 'not bothered' about what their children eat.) Source