ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 56 OF 2016
HeNRy FoRd, founder of the Ford Motor Company, didn’t have a driving licence until he was 56, when they were first introduced in his home state of Michigan in 1919. A STANdARd pencil has enough graphite to draw a line 56 kilometres long — the distance between Liverpool football club’s Anfield ground and Manchester City’s etihad Stadium. THeRe are 56 peaks in the UK higher than Snowdon, the tallest mountain in Wales, and all of them are in Scotland.
THERE ARE 310 DAYS LEFT
IN THe UK, there are 310 people of retirement age for every 1,000 people of working age. This figure is expected to rise to 370 in the next 25 years. IN 1994, a Russian International Airways Airbus A310, flying from Moscow to Hong Kong, crashed after the captain allowed his children in the cockpit. The aircraft rolled into a near-vertical dive from which the pilots were unable to regain control. All 63 passengers and 12 crew perished in the accident.
IT’S THEIR BIRTHDAY
Lee evANS, 52. The energetic comedian announced his retirement from standup in 2014 after the death of his manager, Addison Cresswell. He shares his birthday with another famous Lee evans; the American double olympic gold-winning 400m runner, 17 years his senior. NICHoLAS LeeSoN, 49. The Watford-born financial trader’s large-scale fraud led to the collapse of Barings Bank in the eighties. He was later jailed and his autobiography, Rogue Trader, was made into a film starring ewan McGregor. In 2013, Leeson took part in Celebrity Apprentice Ireland, and now works as an after-dinner speaker. ToM CoURTeNAy, 79. The Hull-born actor, who came to prominence in the Sixties in films The Loneliness of The Long distance Runner and doctor Zhivago, is still going strong, starring as Private Jones in the recent dad’s Army film. His hobbies are birdwatching and playing the flute.
BORN ON THIS DAY
GeoRGe HARRISoN (1943-2001). The youngest member of The Beatles, who wrote Here Comes The Sun, Something and Taxman, was the first to have a number one as part of a solo career with My Sweet Lord in 1970. When Monty Python were having problems financing their movie Life of Brian, he forked out the money because he ‘wanted to see the film’. ANTHoNy BURGeSS (1917-1993). The Manchester-born writer, best known for A Clockwork orange and the screenplay for the Seventies mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, was a book reviewer for the yorkshire Post and once reviewed a book he had written under the name Joseph Kell. His review was not kind. even so, when the truth came out, he was fired.
ON FEBRUARY 25TH...
IN 1939, the first Anderson air-raid shelter, which fitted into back gardens and could accommodate six people, was erected, in Islington, North London.
IN 1948, an 80-year-old woman by the name of ethel Attenborough bit her dog in court at Lewes, Sussex, to prove it wasn’t vicious.
IN 1965, Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s head was handed over to police — it had been stolen from Madame Tussaud’s.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) on rejoining the Conservatives 20 years
after leaving them for the Liberals.
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT’S a physicist’s favourite food? Fission chips.
COMPILED BY JAMES BLACK