ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 167 of 2016 IT’S 167 years since the florin, which had a value of two shillings, was introduced in Britain. Nicknamed the ‘Godless florin’, it was the first coin in two centuries not to feature a reference to God. ON HEr 63rd birthday in 1901, Annie Edson Taylor, a former teacher from New York, was the first person to survive going over the 167ft drop at Niagara Falls in a barrel. DrAPEr Hugh Fraser teamed up with James Arthur to open a shop in Glasgow 167 years ago called Arthur & Fraser, now known as House of Fraser. THERE ARE 199 DAYS LEFT IT’S 199 years since an exotic woman, wearing bizarre clothes and speaking a mysterious language, turned up in Almondsbury, Gloucestershire, and was feted as a kidnapped princess from an Indian Ocean island called Javasu. She was eventually discovered to be Mary Willcocks, a cobbler’s daughter from Devon. THE Eleven Cities ice skating race in the Netherlands is 199km long and can only take place when the canals freeze over. The last race took place in 1997. HAPPY BIRTHDAY XI JINPING, 63, right. The President of China, nicknamed ‘Xi Dada’ or ‘Big Daddy Xi’. He is married to one of China’s best known folk singers and actresses, Peng Liyuan. revered for her fashion sense, she admitted that when she first met her future husband: ‘I found his dress outmoded and severely plain.’ NODDY HOLDEr, 70. The Walsall-born musician and former lead singer of Seventies glam rock band Slade. The 1973 song Merry Xmas Everybody, which he wrote with fellow band member Jim Lea, brings in a royalty cheque of around £250,000 a year each for the two writers. BORN ON THIS DAY DEMIS rOuSSOS (1946-2015). The kaftanwearing Egyptian-born Greek singer who sold more than 60 million albums around the world. In 1985, he and his wife, Pamela, were held hostage on a flight from Athens to rome for five days when it was hijacked by members of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. He turned 39 during the ordeal and, after his release, revealed his captors had given him a birthday cake. LISA GHErArDINI (1479-1542). The Florenceborn wife of cloth merchant Francesco de Giocondo is thought to be the subject of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. With 9.3 million people a year visiting the Louvre in Paris, where it hangs, the portrait is said to be the world’s most popular art work. ON JUNE 15...
IN 1667, French physician Jean-Baptiste Denys carried out the first blood transfusion, giving a 15-year-old boy 12 ounces — about two thirds of a pint — of sheep’s blood. The boy survived, but it took until 1902 and the discovery of our four blood groups for transfusions to be safe.
IN 1919, Manchester pilots John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, both former PoWs, completed the first non-stop transatlantic flight, taking 16 hours and 27 minutes to fly from St John’s, Newfoundland, to Galway in Ireland.
IN 1983, TV sitcom The Black Adder, starring rowan Atkinson and Brian Blessed as King richard IV, began on BBC1. It returned as Blackadder for another three seasons. QUOTE FOR TODAY Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world. Actress Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) JOKES OF THE DAY WHAT hotel does cheese stay at? The Stilton. COMPILED BY JAMES BLACK