ON THIS DAY
July 26, 2016
IT’S DAY 208 OF 2016
MARGARET THATCHER holds the record for the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century at 11 years and 208 days. But she had nothing on Sir Robert Walpole — regarded as our first PM — who served for nearly 21 years, from 1721 to 1742.
BETWEEN AD208 and 211, the Roman Empire was ruled from York. That is because the Roman world was governed from wherever the emperor was located and, during this period, Emperor Septimius Severus came to Eboracum (Roman York) with the intention of conquering Caledonia (modern Scotland). His campaign was cut short when he fell ill and died, aged 65.
THERE ARE 158 DAYS LEFT
GARY TURNER, 45, from Lincolnshire, holds the world record for the stretchiest skin. He is able to stretch the skin of his belly to a length of 15.8cm (6.25in) due to an extreme form of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare disorder of the connective tissues.
THE Great Stink in London occurred 158 years ago in July/August 1858, caused by a combination of hot weather and untreated sewage and industrial effluent in the Thames. At the Houses of Parliament, curtains were soaked in chloride of lime to suppress the ‘noxious stench’ and the idea was mooted of moving MPs to Oxford or St Albans.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DAME HELEN MIRREN, 71. The Oscar-winning actress was born Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironov in Hammersmith, the granddaughter of a Russian nobleman who lost his fortune in the Revolution. Her great-grandfather on her mother’s side was a butcher to Queen Victoria. She quips: ‘I always say my bottom half is my Russian half. I’ve got those peasant legs.’
SIR MICK JAGGER, 73. The Rolling Stones frontman was long rumoured to have had an affair with David Bowie, but the Starman’s first wife, Angie, later clarified that she had just seen the pair asleep in bed together. Jagger once said: ‘I’d rather be dead than singing Satisfaction when I’m 45.’
KATE BECKINSALE, 43. The star of Pearl Harbor is the daughter of Porridge actor Richard Beckinsale, who died of a heart attack when she was five. She says that when she was a teenager, the family phone was tapped owing to her stepfather being TV director Roy Battersby, a political activist with the Workers’ Revolutionary Party.
BORN ON THIS DAY
STANLEY KUBRICK (1928-1999). The New York-born director of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Spartacus was so reclusive after moving to Hertfordshire in the 1960s that Englishman Alan Conway was able to impersonate him for months before being found out. He convinced figures in the entertainment industry he was the famed director, promising them roles in films and getting them to pay for meals.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950). The Dublin-born playwright is the only person to have won both a Nobel Prize (for literature) and an Oscar (for adapted screenplay for 1938’s Pygmalion). He died at 94 after falling while trying to prune a tree.
ON JULY 26TH...
IN 1945, Winston Churchill resigned after Clement Attlee’s Labour Party won a sweeping victory in the general election. IN 1952, Eva Peron, wife of the president of the Argentine Republic, died of cancer aged 33. Eight people were crushed to death among the crowds of mourners.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for. Reggae superstar Bob Marley (1945 -81)
JOKE OF THE DAY
I’M making a list of reasons to move to Switzerland. The flag is a big plus.