ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 141 OF 2016
SNOOKER is thought to have been invented by soldier Sir neville Chamberlain 141 years ago. He was a British Army officer who came up with the game while serving in the 11th Devonshire Regiment in India. The name snooker comes from the nickname once given to first-year cadets studying at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. THE Bank of england pays 141 of its workers more money than the Prime Minister, a report last year discovered.
THERE ARE 225 DAYS LEFT
THE world’s three richest people, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Spanish fashion tycoon Amancio Ortega and investor Warren Buffett, have a combined age of 225 and an estimated wealth of $203 billion (£140 billion) — far more than, for instance, the £116 billion annual budget of the NHS. A GALACTIC year — the length of time it takes our Solar System to travel once around the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way — lasts 225 million years. THE world’s largest plane, the Antonov
An-225 Mriya (pictured), has a maximum take-off weight of 640 tonnes. Designed to carry the Soviet Union’s Buran space shuttle between launch and landing site, it has twice the wing area of a Boeing 747. Thousands turned out at Perth in Australia on Sunday to see the plane land. Its cargo, a power generator for a mine, took 12 hours to unload.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CHRIS FROOME, 31. The kenyan-born British cyclist has twice won the Tour de France, including last year, when he triumphed despite having urine thrown in his face by a spectator. LOUIS THEROUX, 46, the British documentary maker, was a school friend of former Deputy Prime Minister nick Clegg, and travelled with him on a road trip across the U.S. in their youth. GREG DYKE, 69, the media executive and now outgoing chairman of the Football Association, ‘ saved’ breakfast show TV-am in 1983 by bringing in the newsreading Roland Rat puppet (right). It was said only he would think of bringing a rat onto a sinking ship. CHER, 70. The Californian singer and actress, born Cherilyn Sarkisian, released her first single Ringo, I Love You, in 1964 under the name of Bonnie Jo Mason. It flopped.
BORN ON THIS DAY
REGINALD ‘R.J.’ MITCHELL (1895-1937). The Staffordshire-born engineer was chief designer of the Supermarine Spitfire, the ‘plane that won the Battle of Britain’ — a victory he didn’t see. Diagnosed with cancer, he worked until weeks before his death. JAMES STEWART (1908-97). The film star quit Hollywood in World War II to serve as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force, flying from British bases in raids over Germany. He stayed in the USAF Reserve and took part in at least one bombing mission during the Vietnam War.
ON MAY 20 . . .
IN 1873, businessman Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis acquired a patent on their blue jeans with copper rivets at the stress points. They priced them at $13.50 a dozen.
IN 1895, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that direct income tax was illegal — so the constitution was later changed to reverse this.