ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 40 OF 2016
WHEN the bubonic plague gripped Europe during the Middle Ages, ships would be isolated in harbour for 40 days before passengers could go ashore. The Italian word for 40 is quaranta, hence quarantine. AROUND 40 per cent of astronauts get space sickness during their first few days in space — jokingly measured as a ‘Garn’, after Jake Garn, a U.S. senator who joined the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1985. He was so severely ill that a scale for sickness was created based on him, with ‘one Garn’ the highest possible level. IT TOOk chemists 40 attempts to develop the magical spray we know as WD-40 (full name: Water Displacement, 40th formula). THE longest title of a Uk Top 40 hit was Rod Stewart And The Faces’ 1974 hit You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings) with 115 letters. A WAlRUS’S whiskers are 40 times thicker than human hair.
THERE ARE 326 DAYS LEFT
THERE are around 326 Siberian (or Amur) tigers — among the largest cats on Earth — in captivity and as few as 400 in the wild. In the 1940s, hunting had driven it to the brink of extinction, with just 40 left in the wild. Poachers are the biggest threat to their survival. BEFORE his abdication, Edward VIII was king for 326 days, during which time he was never crowned.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JOE PESCI, 73. Fellow actor Robert De Niro broke Pesci’s rib by throwing him through a glass door while they were filming Raging Bull in 1980. Fifteen years later Pesci broke the same rib while he was filming with De Niro for Martin Scorsese’s Casino. CAROlE king, 74. The prolific New York born singer- songwriter and pianist has written or co-written more than 400 songs, including You Make Me Feel like A Natural Woman for Aretha Franklin. But the song Oh! Carol was written about her, by old high school boyfriend Neil Sedaka. MIA FARROW, 71 (right). The actress made 13 films, including Hannah And her Sisters and The Purple Rose Of Cairo, with her ex Woody Allen. When she married Frank Sinatra in 1966, he was 50 and she was 21 — five years younger than her new step-daughter, Nancy.
BORN ON THIS DAY
lENNARD PEARCE (1915-1986). Best known as Grandad Trotter in Only Fools And Horses, he was offered the role in 1980 when he was 65 and about to retire. Costars David Jason and Nicholas lyndhurst joked that they were his warm- up men: they’d spend 20 minutes doing the build-up — and then he’d have the killer punchline. JIM lAkER (1922-1986). The Yorkshireborn Surrey, Essex and England cricketer later became a BBC commentator. In 1956, at Old Trafford during an Ashes Test match, he took 19 Australian wickets for just 90 runs — a record that stands 60 years later.
ON FEBRUARY 9 . . .
IN 1539, the first recorded horserace meeting was held at Roodee Fields in Chester, making it the oldest racecourse still in use in the Uk. The mayor at the time was Henry Gee — thought to have inspired the term ‘gee gee’ for a racing horse.
IN 1942, World War II got a littler dirtier, when soap was rationed for the first time.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY do so many bakeries have a royal warrant?
Because a lot of royals are interbred.