ON THIS DAY
February 27, 2016
IT’S DAY 58 OF 2016
FRANCE’S president at the time of the Dreyfus affair, Felix Faure, died in flagrante with his 30- year- old mistress, Mme Marguerite Steinheil, at the Elysee Palace when he was 58. One newspaper reported he was ‘sacrificed to Venus’. AFTER 58 years, the BBC’s Blue Peter is the longest-running children’s show in the history of British TV. Richard Bacon is its only presenter to have his contract terminated mid-season, after alleged drugtaking. He now lives in the U.S., where he is covering the presidential election. THE Manchester Ship Canal, which links the city to the River Mersey, is 58km (36¼ miles) long and opened in 1894. The canal meant landlocked Manchester was the third-busiest port in Britain at its peak in 1958.
THERE ARE 308 DAYS LEFT
THE Great Wheel, a Ferris wheel 308 ft high, was built for the Empire Of India Exhibition at Earls Court in London in 1895. It carried 2.5 million passengers before it was demolished in 1907. The 443 ft high London Eye was opened to the public 93 years later. IN 1971, pop group The New Seekers added extra verses and turned an advertising jingle for Coca-Cola into the UK’s singles chart’s 308th No 1 hit — I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony). REAL Madrid star Gareth Bale, 26, makes £10,000 every 308 seconds.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DERREN BROWN, 45 ( right). The illusionist played Russian roulette with a revolver on live TV and recently courted controversy when he appeared to persuade a woman to push a man to his ‘death’ from a roof. He is patron of the National Parrot Sanctuary in Skegness and has a pet parrot — his third — called Rasputin. TIMOTHY SPALL, 59. The actor, who came to fame in TV’s Auf Wiedersehen Pet in 1983, was named best actor at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014 for Mr Turner, which told the story of eccentric artist J. M.W. Turner, but was ignored by the Oscars and Baftas. While recovering from leukaemia in 1997, he toured Britain by narrowboat. PADDY ASHDOWN, 75, the former Liberal Democrat leader. As a young man, he spent two years learning Mandarin in Hong Kong. At a banquet with fellow students, he tried to make small talk with his female teacher, asking: ‘Have you ever flown in an aircraft?’ But he muddled his intonations and actually said: ‘Have you ever sat on a flying penis?’
BORN ON THIS DAY
ELIZABETH TAYLOR (19322011). The Cleopatra star (right) converted to Judaism in 1959, taking the Hebrew name Elisheba Rachel, a year after the death of her Jewish third husband, film producer Mike Todd. In 1976, she offered herself as a hostage to save more than 100 Air France passengers hijacked by terrorists in Uganda before Israeli forces rescued them. JOHN STEINBECK (1902-1968). While the American author was writing Of Mice And Men, his first draft was eaten by his dog.
ON FEBRUARY 27th . . .
IN 1557, the first Russian Embassy opened in London, during Ivan the Terrible’s reign.
IN 1900, the British Labour Party was formed at the Congregational Memorial Hall in North London, to ‘increase workingclass representation in Parliament’.
IN 1900, 11 members of the Munich Gymnastics Club set up the football club now known as FC Bayern Munich.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there’s so many books on how to do it?
Actress Bette Midler
JOKE OF THE DAY
YOU’VE cancelled the wedding? I thought you said he was Mr Right?
He was Mr Right. He just forgot to tell me his first name was ‘Always’.