Interesting Facts

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.

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.

Some councils in the UK are charging flood victims £7.50 per sandbag. (Residents in Christchurch, Dorset have been told by their council that they have to buy sandbags at £30 for a pack of four. If you think that's bad, it gets worse, people are turning up in vehicles to flood defences and nicking the sandbags, which are then sold on for a profit. You get the council you vote for folks, so come next election - don't let them forget why you are voting them out.) !Note - Even empty sandbags have gone up in price:-

Some of you might have seen the devastation surrounding the recent UK flooding, and heard that one of the problems is lack of investment in flood prevention.  What you might not know is that the Environment Agency can only spend money on flood defences if each pound spent will prevent  £ 8 of damage. (How much can you calculate the cost of the damage to the Environment Agency's reputation?) If you don't know how bad it is:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26071149 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26065858

According to a report from the Committee on Climate Change, around 12,000-16,000 homes in England are still built on floodplains each year. (I wonder what part of flood + plain, they don't understand.)

For every one millibar decrease in pressure the sea rises 1cm. (If the UK faces strong winds, extremely low pressure and a storm surge during the high tide, it could raise the sea level around eastern England by more than 2m. Which means that towns and villages in north Norfolk, plus King's Lynn in west Norfolk, are considered to be at risk from tidal flooding.)