ON THIS DAY
July 27, 2015
IT’S DAY 208 OF 2015
JAYNE BLEACKLEY from new zealand holds the record for the shortest interval between the birth of two children in separate confinements. Joseph and Annie were born 208 days apart (six and a half months). WHEN war-time food rationing began in January 1940, each adult was allowed 208 oz (5.9 kg) of bacon a year (4 oz a week). In 1871, Germany had an area of 208,000 square miles. After two World Wars, it is 70,000 square miles smaller — that’s the equivalent of losing 13 northern Irelands. THOMAS HICKS was the slowest ever recorded winner of the Summer Olympics men’s marathon. The American completed the course in 1904 in the 32c heat of St Louis in 208 minutes — taking an hour and 22 minutes longer than the Olympic record.
THERE ARE 157 DAYS LEFT
HARRY Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, the fourth film in the series starring Daniel radcliffe (pictured), is 157 minutes long. It’s the second longest, after The Chamber Of Secrets. SHE Loves You, the 157th chart no 1, was The beatles’ biggest UK hit, staying in the Top 50 for almost nine months. It was the best- selling single of the Sixties, shifting more than 1.3million copies in the UK. THE oldest known photograph of a british prime minister, Lord Palmerston, was taken 157 years ago. THE Wild West ‘Pony express’ mail service from Missouri to California had 157 stations, each providing a fresh horse for the riders, spaced ten miles apart along the route.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ACTOR Simon Jones, 65. Arthur Dent in The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. His grandparents were also the great-grandparents of James bond actor Daniel Craig. POLITICIAN baroness Williams of Crosby, 85 (pictured). The daughter of author Vera brittain, Shirley Williams’s early ambition was to be the first female PM. In 1976, as Labour education Secretary she pushed to abolish grammar schools. Having lost her seat in 1979, as a member of the Gang of Four, she helped create the SDP in 1981. AUTHOR Jack Higgins, 86. born Henry Patterson in newcastle, his first major book The eagle Has Landed, about a German plot to capture Churchill, sold over 50 million copies. CHRISTOPHER DeAn, 57. Former police officer whose sensual routine with Jayne Torvill won ice skating Olympic gold at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Games. He admitted they romantically ‘dabbled once’ as teenagers.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ANGLO-FRENCH historian Hilaire belloc (1870-1953). After meeting elodie Hogan in London, he sold everything, travelled across the Atlantic and walked across vast tracts of the U.S. to her Californian home — to ask her to marry him. She turned him down, but they wed four years later. AVIATOR and aircraft designer Captain Sir Geoffrey De Havilland (1882-1965). Famed for building the Mosquito combat aircraft in World War II, two of his three sons died in accidents as test pilots.
ON JULY 27th
In 1987, Stephane Peyron arrived in France after windsurfing across the Atlantic from new York. The journey took 46 days. In 1689, bayonets were first used by british soldiers, at the battle of Killiecrankie. In 1921, the lives of diabetics around the world were transformed when insulin production began at the University of Toronto.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
All men are cremated equal.
Spike Milligan
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call an elephant that doesn’t matter? Irrelephant.