ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 300 OF 2015
IN 1660, Charles II marked his restoration to the throne by riding over London Bridge with 300 gentlemen, brandishing swords and wearing ‘cloth-of-silver’ doublets. The Navajo are the largest Native American tribe in the United States with 300,000 members — that’s roughly the equivalent of the population of Wigan. The hollywood blockbuster 300, starring Gerard Butler, Dominic West and Michael Fassbender and based on the Battle of Thermopylae in 480BC, was panned for being, in the words of empire film magazine, as ‘shallow as a pygmy’s paddling pool’. even so, it still made £296 million at the global box office.
THERE ARE 65 DAYS LEFT
eLIZABeTh TAYLOr (pictured) had a record 65 costume changes playing the title role in the 1963 film Cleopatra, for which she was paid a recordbreaking $1 million. The movie was also where she met — and fell in love with — richard Burton. AT LeAST 65 countries have erected, or are currently constructing, border fences — four times as many as when the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989. GeOrGe OrWeLL’S Nineteen eighty-Four tops the list of classic novels that 65 per
cent of us have apparently lied about reading in order to impress other people.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JOhN CLeeSe, 76. The actor, best known for Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, claimed he had never experienced love before meeting his fourth wife, Jennifer Wade, a jewellery designer 32 years his junior. Cleese’s father changed the family surname from Cheese when he joined the Army in World War I. VANeSSA-MAe (pictured), 37. The British violinist — who skied for Thailand at last year’s Winter Olympics — became the wealthiest entertainer under the age of 30 in 2006. In 2011, she is said to have been paid $500,000 (£324,000) to play at a starstudded party for Chechen leader ramzan Kadyrov. SIMON Le BON, 57. The Duran Duran singer first appeared on TV aged five in a Persil washing powder advert. The band’s video for their 1981 hit single Girls On Film, which featured a female masseuse in stockings and suspenders, was banned by the BBC.
BORN ON THIS DAY
DYLAN ThOMAS (1914-1953). The harddrinking Welsh writer’s reputed last words — ‘I’ve had 18 straight whiskies, I think that’s the record’ — before his death in New York, are now thought to have been an exaggeration. WILLIAM ALeXANDer SMITh (18541914). The Scottish businessman formed the Boys Brigade, the first voluntary uniformed youth movement in the world. his funeral procession was lined by 150,000 people. SYLVIA PLATh (1932-1963). Boston-born poet married to fellow poet Ted hughes. She died after putting her head in a gas oven. hughes’s next partner, Assia Wevill, killed herself and their four- year- old daughter in a similar fashion six years later.
ON OCTOBER 27 . . .
IN 1911, after robbing a bank in Paris, the three criminals involved made the first-ever getaway in a motor car.
IN 1939, Kenneth Watson of Glasgow became the world’s first passenger to ride in a helicopter. The development of the aircraft — a Weir 6 — was halted soon afterwards because of World War II.
IN 1996, 15-year-old rowdy Blackwell set a world record by playing 256 tambourines in under 21 seconds.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Whoever said ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts’ probably lost.
Tennis star Martina Navratilova
JOKES OF THE DAY
I USeD to have a morbid fear of speed bumps, but I’m slowly getting over it.