ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 269 OF 2015
THE Leaning Tower of Pisa has two spiral staircases but because of the way it tilts, one has 269 steps and the other 264. THE highest speed officially reached by a standard production car is 269mph — by the £1.2 million Bugatti Veyron SuperSport. It takes 2.5 seconds to go from 0-60mph. PARIS’S Opera House, the inspiration for the Phantom Of The Opera, measures 269ft — nearly twice as high as the Statue of Liberty — from Apollo’s Lyre on its dome to the underground lake, a tributary of the Seine, in the catacombs beneath the stage.
THERE ARE 96 DAYS LEFT
THE Berlin Wall, hastily thrown up by the Communist East German authorities in August 1961 to encircle West Berlin, was 96 miles long. It came down in 1989. CONTRARY to popular belief, no centipede has ever been found to have 100 legs. The closest, a species found in 1999, has 96 legs.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SERENA WILLIAMS, 34 (right). Regarded as the greatest-ever f e male tennis star with career earnings of £46 million and 21 Grand Slam titles, she was left fighting for her life in 2011 when she needed surgery after suffering a blood clot in her lung. ANNE ROBINSON, 71. TV’s ‘ Queen of Mean’ is estimated to be worth up to £30 million, even after giving her second husband, John Penrose, an estimated £20 million divorce settlement in 2008. OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN, 67. As Sandy in the musical Grease, the Australian singer — who came fourth (behind Abba’s winning entry Waterloo) in the 1974 Eurovision contest — had to be sewn into the tight black trousers she wore for the film’s finale after her zip broke. As a result, she spent the day’s filming unable to visit the lavatory.
BORN ON THIS DAY
SIR Barnes Wallis (pictured, 1887-1979). The scientist and engineer invented the ‘bouncing bomb’, used to great effect by the RAF against German dams in World War II. One of his less-heralded creations was the non-misting bathroom mirror, which is made from polyester, not glass. ERIC MORLEY (1918-2000). The entrepreneur was the brains behind three British institutions: Come Dancing (forerunner to Strictly), large- scale bingo halls and the Miss World beauty contest. T. S. ELIOT ( 1888- 1965). The Nobel Prize-winning poet was born in Missouri and was related to three U.S. Presidents: John Adams, John Quincy Adams and Rutherford B. Hayes.
ON SEPTEMBER 26 . . .
IN 1944, Operation Market Garden — which i nvolved 30,000 British and American troops and inspired the film A Bridge Too Far — ended after the Allies were beaten back by the Germans around the waterways of Arnhem. Its failure dashed hopes of winning World War II by Christmas. IN 1973, a French Concorde flew non-stop from Washington to Paris in three hours 32 minutes. Now Concorde has been decommissioned, the average flight for the same journey takes more than eight hours. IN 1983, the Soviet Union’s nuclear warning system showed missiles had been fired at the country from the U.S, but the officer in charge, Lt Col Stanislav Petrov, ignored protocol and delayed a nuclear response. It transpired early-warning satellites had actually spotted reflections of sunlight.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT route does a crazed murderer take on a bicycle? A psychopath.