Wrong route
RESEARCH spelling out the second-class state of Britain’s bus services shows the contempt Tories have for ordinary people.
Public transport binds our communities together and will ultimately help save the planet – yet Margaret Thatcher thought anyone over 26 on a bus must be a failure.
It’s clear from the funding cuts ruining our bus routes that her arrogance is still with us. Castro’s beard was part of his public persona and he wore it as a symbol of his triumph during the Cuban Revolution, which was finally victorious on January 1, 1959.
The CIA concocted numerous attempts at assassinations or discrediting him by attacking his image.
One plan was to dust his shoes with toxic thallium salts while he travelled overseas, making his beard fall out.
However, the trip was cancelled. Despite the CIA’s efforts, Castro’s beard lived to fight another day.
The Ancient Egyptians strangely preferred false beards to the real thing.
Pharaohs, both male and female, would don metallic beards in order to emulate Osiris.
The God of the Underworld and Judge of the Dead was often shown with a beard, and burial masks often had them.
In 2014, the beard on Tutankhamun’s mask broke and conservators reattached it hastily with glue, scratching the mask.
MORE and more men have beards, from the leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn to new dad Prince Harry.
There have been times when the bare-faced look was preferred, but history is not short of its hairy moments.
And they do not get hairier than this selection of face fuzztoting folk which History Revealed magazine has put together.
PT Barnum’s circus was full of curiosities, including bearded women. One of these was Annie Jones, who joined the show at just nine months old in 1866.
Billed as “The Infant Esau” – the biblical Esau being distinguished by his wealth of hair – Jones grew a full beard, moustache and sideburns.
This was probably due to hirsutism, a condition that causes excessive body hair.
As well as being one of the star attractions, Jones became a spokeswoman for the “freaks” in Barnum’s show and campaigned to rid the circus of the offensive term. As well as keeping your chin warm and for aesthetic appeal, sometimes beards can save your life.
Edward Maria Wingfield was one of the financial backers of the Virginia Company of London. The Tudor king’s beard – or lack of – nearly sent the country into war back in 1519.
Henry and Francis I of France were attempting to arrange a meeting.
Both kings had promised not to shave until they met one another.
But Henry’s wife, Catherine of Aragon, was not a fan of her husband’s rugged look and asked him to shave.
Francis’ mother took this as a slight against her son and some swift diplomatic flattery was required to restore the peace.
They established the colony of Jamestown in Virginia, with Wingfield becoming its first president. During a brutal Native American attack in 1607, Wingfield was shot with an arrow – but only through his beard. The rest of him escaped unscathed. US president Abraham Lincoln is easily recognisable with his full beard. During his early political career, however, he was clean shaven.
That was until he received a letter from 11-year-old Grace Bedell, a month before the 1860 presidential election: “If you will let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better.”
Lincoln replied to his young admirer, expressing concern that a beard would look silly. But within the month, he had grown a beard and won the election. The trophy for longest beard goes to Hans Langseth. A native of Norway, he emigrated to the US in 1867. He began growing his beard at 19 for a local competition and carried on. A farmer by profession, for a while he travelled in a “freak show”. At his death in 1927 it measured 17.5ft. The beard resides in Washington DC’s Smithsonian Institution.
The latest issue of History Revealed magazine is out now