Interesting Facts

26th July 1745 – The first recorded women's cricket match took place near Guildford, England 1803 – The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opened in south London. 1847 – Liberia declared independence. 1944 – The first German V-2 rocket hit Great Britain. 1945 – The Potsdam Declaration was signed in Potsdam, Germany. 1945 - Clement Attlee became Britain's new prime minister after Labour won a sweeping victory. (It's always a bit surprising to think of this when you consider how popular Churchill was during the war. Maybe people just wanted to look to the future and forget the past.) 1952 - Eva Peron died. 1963 - Thousands were killed during an earthquake in the Yugoslavian city of Skopje. 1989 – A federal grand jury indicted Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm. He was the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

According to the pest control firm Rentokil, around two billion people around the world supplement their daily diet with creepy crawlies. (The most common insects eaten tend to be meal worms and locusts.  The thing is that common "pests" in the UK are wasps, mice, rats, bed bugs, cockroaches, fleas and pigeons. It sounds as if Rentokil are trying to get us to do their work for them.  However, for me, pigeon pie, maybe, but rat fricassee or bed bug gratin?  No, thank you.) We are talking about this issue on the forum.

According to the lovely people at QI, the weight of cows in any given field will always be less than the weight of the worms underneath it. (I presume they mean a British field, and not a field in Texas, but I'd love to know how they worked it out.)

Scientists have discovered a new species of flatworm in the UK. (Discovered by Brian Eversham, chief executive of the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, it's just 12mm long, so, what makes a flatworm interesting? Well this one has 60 eyes!   I hope it doesn't need glasses.) Source

According to a poll by high-tech lobby group BITKOM, 19 percent of computer users had not installed an anti-virus programme and 45 percent had no firewall to prevent unauthorised access. (With the growing armies of viruses, worms and Trojan out there, people need to be savvier when it comes to protecting their computer systems. After all you wouldn't leave your wallet unattended. The day of the nerdy kid unleashing a mischievous virus are over, these days hardened criminals are in on the act, and they are after your money.)

According to security firm Symantec, there are now over one million worms and trojans in circulation. (Viruses, Trojans and Worms, Oh my!)