ON THIS DAY
February 26, 2016
IT’S DAY 57 OF 2016
THERE were an estimated 57 millionaires travelling in the Titanic’s first class in 1912. ARNOLD SCHWARzENEGGER, Terminator actor and former governor of California, had a 57in (4ft 9in) chest when he first won the Mr Universe Contest in 1967 aged 20. IT TOOK 57 police officers to capture Australian folk hero and outlaw Ned Kelly in 1880. He was later hanged, his last words being ‘such is life’. THE lowest turnout in a UK General Election was 57 per cent in 1918, with the country, and population, devastated by war. In 2015, it was 66 per cent.
THERE ARE 309 DAYS LEFT
THE Peugeot 309 was the first Peugeot to be built in the UK, in 1985. It was originally called the Talbot Arizona, a replacement for the Horizon. The Peugeot family started out in France in the 1800s making steel stays for ladies’ crinoline gowns, and coffee grinders — later moving on to bicycles and cars.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
FATS DOMINO, 88. The New Orleans singer (right) best known for songs such as Blueberry Hill and Whole Lotta Loving. The fact he was such a great lyricist is even more impressive as his first language was Louisiana French creole. SHANE WILLIAMS, 39. The Swansea-born Welsh rugby union player and record try scorer for Wales. On holiday in 2005, he was mistakenly arrested in Cyprus by police looking for a man who had attacked a taxi driver. He spent 24 hours in a cell and had to wait ten days to get his passport back. MICHAEL BOLTON, 63. The American singer/songwriter is best known for songs such as How Can We Be Lovers and Missing You Now. When he sings the Otis Redding classic Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay, the whistling segment is normally removed — he doesn’t like to whistle.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ORDE WINGATE ( 19031944). The India-born British Army officer (right) became famous during World War II for leading his ‘Chindit’ force into a successful guerilla war against the Japanese behind enemy lines in Burma. An eccentric, he ate raw onions for health, used his sock as a tea bag and welcomed people to his camp while stark naked. He died in a plane crash. FANNY CRADOCK ( 1909- 1994). The London-born pioneering TV cook from the Fifties to the Seventies introduced more exotic tastes to the British diet — including little-known pizza and prawn cocktail. She was married four times, twice bigamously. Her first husband died in a plane crash, the next two marriages lasted less than a year and, finally, she wed Major John Cradock — her sidekick, ‘Johnnie’. JOHNNY CASH (1932-2003). The rebellious country music icon who sang I Walk The Line, A Boy Named Sue and Ring Of Fire. Famous for his drinking, drug habit and offstage antics, he once bought 500 baby chicks while on tour and released them, 100 at a time, on each of the five floors of a hotel he was staying at in Omaha, Nebraska.
ON FEBRUARY 26 . . .
IN 1797, the Bank of England issued its first pound note. It would be scrapped shortly after £1 coins were introduced in 1983.
IN 1839, the first Grand National at Aintree was won by a horse called Lottery.
IN 1955, American George Smith became the first pilot to eject from a plane at supersonic speed. He needed surgery on his intestines after the massive forces put on them and liver damage left him unable to drink alcohol.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
My life is an open book. With illustrations.
Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy
JOKE OF THE DAY
AN ONION just told me a joke. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.