Fancy That!

Facts to make you go“WOW!”

WOW! ◆ GOLF WAS INVENTED IN ST ANDREWS. THE EARLIEST RECORD OF THE GAME DATES FROM 1457, WHEN JAMES II BANNED IT BECAUSE IT INTERRUPTED HIS ARCHERY PRACTICE.

◆ Elephants have a specific alarm call that means “human”.

◆ WESTWARD HO! IN NORTH DEVON IS FAMOUS FOR BEING THE UK’S ONLY PLACE NAME WITH ITS OWN BUILT-IN EXCLAMATION MARK.

◆ The Star Spangled Banner, the American national anthem, was composed by an Englishman.

◆ August 1 is Lammas Day – which means “loaf mass” – and was harvest time in Britain.

◆ Jaipur in India is known as “Pink City” because of the number of buildings made with pink-tinged stone.

◆ IN OLD ENGLISH “PYGG” MEANT CLAY, AND PEOPLE KEPT THEIR COINS IN CLAY JARS, WHICH HAVE EVOLVED INTO “PIGGY BANKS”.

◆ The Hubble Telescope measured the distance to 19 galaxies beyond our Milky Way and found that the universe is expanding 5-9% faster than we thought.

◆ THE FIVE CELTIC NATIONS ARE THOSE WHOSE GAELIC LANGUAGES SURVIVED INTO THE MODERN AGE: SCOTLAND, WALES, BRETON, CORNWALL AND IRELAND.

◆ During a campaign in Egypt in July, 1799, a Napoleonic soldier found the Rosetta Stone.

◆ Henry VIII married Catherine Howard while Thomas Cromwell was being beheaded on Tower Hill on July 28, 1540.

◆ BASSENTHWAITE IS THE ONLY OFFICIAL LAKE IN THE LAKE DISTRICT NATIONAL PARK – ALL OF THE OTHERS ARE “MERES” OR “WATERS”.

WOW! THE FIRST TELEPHONE DIRECTORY PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND CONTAINED 25 NAMES!

◆ Loch Ness is the largest body of fresh water in the UK – even deeper than the North Sea – and it never freezes.

◆ THE FIRST FISH AND CHIP RESTAURANT WAS OPENED IN BRITAIN IN 1860 BY A JEWISH IMMIGRANT.

80,000 umbrellas are lostannually in the London Underground

The Beatles originally called themselves the Blackjacks, and then the Quarrymen

Scots whiskyisone of the UK’s topfiveexports, along with cars, computers, aircraft and oil

The Queen sent her first email in 1976