ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 39 OF 2016
HORATIO NELSON was 39 when he lost his right arm after he was hit by a musket ball during fighting in the Canary Islands in 1797. According to HMS Theseus’s surgeon, Nelson was issuing orders to his men within 30 minutes of the amputation.
THE Martian day is 39 minutes longer than one on Earth. A Venus day lasts 116 Earth days and 18 hours.
IN Internet slang, ‘39’ can mean ‘thank you’. The habit spread from Japan, because in Japanese three is ‘san’ and nine is ‘kyu’.
THERE are 39 types of labour forbidden on the Jewish sabbath, including ploughing, reaping, making curtains, shearing wool and lighting a fire.
THERE ARE 327 DAYS LEFT
THERE were 327 days between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990.
IN 327BC, Alexander the Great brought sugar to Europe from India. Sugar’s name comes from the Sanskrit word ‘sharkara’, meaning material in a gritty form.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
NICK NOLTE, 75, star of Cape Fear and Lorenzo’s Oil. He once said: ‘When you start thinking about death more than sex, you know you are getting old,’ but had his second child, a daughter, with British girlfriend Clytie Lane when he was 66.
JOHN GRISHAM, 61. The lawyer and thriller writer, who has 300 million books in print, returned to the courtroom in 1996 to honour a promise to represent the family of a railway worker killed when pinned between carriages. After a five-year absence from the law, Grisham won his clients a jury award of $683,500, the ‘biggest verdict’ of his career.
BORN ON THIS DAY
HOLLYWOOD l egend Lana Turner (1921-95), was ‘discovered’ as a schoolgirl while she was skipping classes and sipping soda in a corner shop. A showbiz reporter took her round to see comedian/agent Zeppo Marx, who soon got her signed up for her first film, They Won’t Forget ( 1937). They certainly didn’t, as Turner (pictured) starred in hit movies through to the early Sixties.
JULES VERNE (1828-1905). The author of Around The World In Eighty Days wrote an unpublished novel in 1863 which was set in 1960 and fore saw cars, feminism, skyscrapers, high-speed trains, wind power and the replacement of poetry and art by business and technology.
ROGER LLOYD-PACK ( 1944- 2014, pictured). Despite roles i n The Vicar Of Dibley and Harry Potter, he will be forever the road-sweeper Trigger from Only Fools And Horses. He once told how he had jumped a red light on his bike and even the police officers who pulled him over were shouting ‘Trigger!’
ON FEBRUARY 8 . . .
IN 1963, The Beatles were asked to leave the Carlisle Golf Club dance because they were wearing leather jackets.
In 1972, a sell-out Frank Zappa concert at the royal Albert Hall was called off when officials heard the four-letter lyrics of some of his songs during rehearsals.
In 1978, BBC TV showed the first episode of the school drama series Grange Hill.
IN 1983, Derby winner Shergar was abducted from his stud in County Kildare, Ireland, by masked gunmen and never seen again.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
NOTHING is ugly as long as it is alive. Coco Chanel (1883-1971)
JOKE OF THE DAY
I HAVE been using a brilliant new machine at the gym and it’s got everything — KitKats, Mars bars, Snickers, Twixes . . .