ON THIS DAY
May 16, 2016
IT’S DAY 137 OF 2016
FOR every 1,000 music albums sold worldwide, 137 of them will be by British bands.
DR ALEXANDRE LION, from Nice, who devised the first incubator for premature babies in 1891, helped 137 babies to survive in the equipment’s first three years. To encourage interest in the technology, he also began displaying newborns in their incubators to the paying public. FOOTBALLER George Best scored 137 goals in his 361 games for Manchester United. He scored a solitary goal for his first club after United — Jewish Guild in South Africa, a club now known for lawn bowling.
THERE ARE 229 DAYS LEFT
IN 2002, five-year-old Shabaaz Iqbal was found 229 miles from his home, after becoming separated from his mum in Glasgow. Unbeknown to his frantic mother, he’d gone back to the station where he came into the city and boarded a train thinking it would take him the two miles to his house. He’d actually got on a London train and was discovered wandering in Macclesfield station.
TO buy a pack of McVities milk chocolate digestives using the points saved up on a Tesco clubcard, you will need to have already spent £229 on previous shops.
IT IS 229 years since the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the former governing body of the sport, was created. In its early years the wicket was ‘prepared’ before a match by allowing sheep to graze on the grass.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
PIERCE BROSNAN, 63. The Irish-born actor, pictured, best known for playing James Bond in GoldenEye and the World Is Not Enough. The first film he ever watched at the cinema was Goldfinger — the third in the Bond series, starring Sean Connery.
JANET JACKSON, 50. Singer, actress, and youngest of the ten children in the famous Jackson Family. She became the most searched for name and image in internet history, after Justin Timberlake tore her top, revealing her bare breast during their half-time performance at the American Superbowl in 2004.
BORN ON THIS DAY
HENRY FONDA (1905-1982). The Hollywood actor famous for roles in The Grapes Of Wrath and 12 Angry Men. In 1981, at the age of 76, he became the oldest person to win Best Actor at the Academy Awards for On Golden Pond.
LIBERACE (1919-1987). The American musical prodigy, pictured, who went on to become one of the most flamboyant entertainers the world has ever seen. A museum to his life, located in Las Vegas, was opened by the man himself in 1979, and housed his costumes, cars, jewellery and pianos, including one made from thousands of toothpicks.
ON MAY 16TH. . .
IN 1891, George A Hormel set up a butcher’s shop in Austin, Minnesota. His company’s most famous product was SPAM, which some say stood for SPiced hAM, introduced in 1937.
IN 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony took place, in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Hosted by Douglas Fairbanks, the actual handing out of the Oscars lasted just 15 minutes.
IN 1983, a Mercedes in Sloane Street became the first car in Central London to be clamped — the release fee was £19.50.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes! J M Barrie, creator of Peter Pan (1860-1937)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you get when you cross a parrot and a centipede? A walkie-talkie.