Interesting Facts

The Theatre Royal, (home to the Bristol Old Vic) is the oldest continuously working theater in the English speaking world. (It first opened its doors on 30th May 1766, the same year that Bonnie Prince Charlie became a claimant to the throne of Great Britain.)

Jack, a Yorkshire Terrier, is the oldest living dog in Britain. (At 117 years old (in dog years), he still looks like a puppy.  He will be the eighth-oldest dog of all time if his age can be proven to Guinness World Records. There are different formulas for calculating dog years. Alot of people multiply by 7, but dogs are mature by the age of 2, so some calculate it by allowing 10.5 dog years per human year for the first 2 years, then 4 dog years per human year for each year after that. According to: http://www.onlineconversion.com/dogyears.htm, Laika is a mere 57, but according to http://www.pedigree.com/all-things-dog/dog-age-calculator/ she is 70 years old. Guess which one she prefers?) Source

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. 

Misao Okawa celebrates her 116th birthday.   Happy Birthday! She was born in Osaka, Japan, in the year 1898, when Queen Victoria was still on the British throne, the Spanish American War was raging and Horatio Kitchener triumphed in the Battle of Omdurman. Her advice is to eat three large meals a day and make sure you sleep eight hours a night. (It's not often that you get to use large ordinal numbers.)

The oldest Olympic medalist is Britain's John Copley. (A lot of people believe it was Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn, who won his last medal at age 72, but Mr Copley was 73 when he won a silver medal in the 1948 Olympics. Of course his medal was for "etching", but a medal is a medal.)

Tao Porchon-Lynch has been named the world's oldest yoga teacher. (She has been teaching yoga for 61 years, and still does.  I wonder if I will ever become the world's oldest English teacher?

The Metropolitan Police has been ordered to withdraw its claim to be “the oldest police service in the world” after the advertising watchdog ruled that the Glasgow force had been around longer. (Seemingly the City of Glasgow Police were set up in 1800 - 29 years before the Metropolitan Police force was formed under Sir Robert Peel. Yet another historic lie I was told in school!) Source: The Times